Daily independent. [volume] (Elko, Nev.) 188?-1915, 1895-06-01

Dayexercises:
Friends and Brothers,
Love casts garland on the grave,
That may not blossom more
We have met to-day to honor the
memory OF the dead by placing upon
their graves, with teverent hands, gar
ands of the early spring time.
These exercises are not meaning
less-not mere empty, gaudy show to
be looked upon in idle pleasure and
curiosity for an hour, and forgotten
tomorrow; but they come to us as an
imperative duty, laden with the posi-
biity OF ennobling our lives, our Or
der and mankind. This memorial of
the dead should become our instruct
or in the duties and responsibilities
OF life; should impress upon our
minds such lessons of unselfish friend
ship, pure love and imperial truth,
that unforgotten in the coming years
and remembered in the hour Of death.
as will enable each to look back upon
the past success and failure, pleasure
and pain, happiness and sorrow with
out one regret, conscious that through
those lessons an honest effort has
been made to improve and elevate
self and thereby the race.
This memorial day is for the dead
We crown their graves with flowers,
painted by the hand of God, as en-.
blems of life and Immortality.
The grave--the fowers! Death
and immortality! How we have
welded in our simple and solemn
rites of remembrance, the grave, from
the thought of which our souls recoil
in fear and anguish, and the flowers
that bloom only in the sunlight, max
ing the air fragrant with their per-
fume.
The grave. that cruel, dark, silent
and repulsive prison. has closed its
portals forever over the forms of those
we loved.
Cruel, fol. no ministerlng hand can
ever there. be felt; dark, for no ray of
sunshine ever has or ever can pene-
trate its gloom; silent, for no word
OF hope was ever heard within it's sad
walls; repulsive, for its lone inmate,
our friend, is doomed to rot and moul-
der away in the companionship of the
feasting worms. The flowers bright
fiowers-that blossom upon every hill
side and III every vale--the first sweet
tokens of Spring harbingers of joy
GUS summer time shed their beauty
and fragrance as benediction upon
all mankind
Death and Immortality! Strange
contrasts woven into our thoughts as
we prepare to place our tributes Of re
spect and love upon those mounds in
yonder graveyard.
Death--intangible, immutable and
memorable -robs the eye of it's luster;
chills the heart to icy stiffness and
forever bushes the voice of friend.
ship.
Intangible, ID stalks with the vic
tors smile by the side Of each, unfelt
and unseen. In the home, by the
fire-side, in the store, shop and Office,
in The. field, mine and Workshop, Il
follows everywherej creeping along in
our shadows ganboling by our side in
woeful glee secure OF it's prey. It
stands by our bed side in tho night
time, watching and waiting; closer
than friend or lover, il 10 our anwel.
come companion from tho cradle 10
the grave.
Immutable, it's work OF destruction
has been the same, since tho parents
of the race in tho glorious dawn Of
creation ate Of the forbidden fruit in
the Garden of Eden; it has marked
it's trail with tears and lamentations,
with blasted hopes and ruined lives
and sought it's only Joy in decay.
memorable, for no prayer that ever
arose from the human heart, stepped
in anpuiah and misery. racked with