The news and herald. (Winnsboro, S.C.) 1877-1900, 1895-05-14
WINNSBORO, S. c.

Tuesday. May IA. :: 1880
MEMORIAL DAY.
Touching Address, Beautiful Songs,
Appropriate Ode. Tender Hands Gar
land the Graves.
Winnsboro has always kept alive
the memory Of the dead PARROTS who
laid down their lives in their country's
cause. In keeping with the occasion the
court house was tastily decorated by
the fine women of cur town ard i'm
pressive ceremonies were observed.
Rev. e E Mcdonald opened the exer-
cises with prayer, and the song, "He
is gone" was feelingly rendered by
Misses Lila Beatty, Ella Doty, Mary
Wi,herow, Alice Witherow, Mamie
Thompson ann Laura Gerig and Mrs.
NJ. W. Doty. The ladies were ably
supported by Messrs. seigler and
Chandler withthejr cornets and Messrs,
JIM. Beatty, W. A. Beatty, Jno. L.
Beatty, Charley Stevenson, j. e..
I MeCants and Prof. Witherow. Mr.
". D. Douglass presiding over the
exercises stated in few we'll chosen
remarks the purpose of the occasion.
Mr.. G. McCants then delivered the
following touching and appropriate
address:
ADDRESS.
Ladies and Gentlemen: I utter no
words of vain and stereotyped excuse
and apology, when I say to you that
have neither the ability OF experience
for this occasion. To report the cause,
Alright of which you are assembled in
eonmemoration requires historical re-
search and paintaking gathering of
facts, for which / have not had the
time, and for which am not naturally
adapted. And chief of all, I was not
IN that terrible struggle, which sfook
this continent with the meeting Of
armed men, which made widows and
orphans all over this Southland, and
which even to this Gay has left the
empty sleeve and the crutch as sad re-
minders of the conflict. The sanctuary
of peoples sorrow-who can touch
properly2 who can comfort when a
whole people are sad? Goethe in his
school of life, when he brings his pupil
to Calvary and the crucifxion, shuts
the door, and refuses to parade the
divine depths OF sorrow. Silence is
worship; silence is sympathy.
However much I am Impressed with
the foregoing considerations, I am
called upon to perform civic duty,
aud 7 shall discha. g.. it, knowing that
your hearts and sad experience will
fill ont any imperfect detail, and that
your taste of the bitterness of that
struggle will lend eloquence to the
most simple narration of facts.
have often demurred in my own
mind against the term ''The Lost
Cause" and have only tolerated it IN
my form of speaking of the war be-
cause I thought that perhaps the adjec-
tive 'slost' gave kind Of coronet to
the sorrow which lay in the cause,
and because I knew more immortal
ity clung to the memorials of sorrow
than to anything else in this world.
Disguise it as we may, my friends,
ssprinctples are rained in blood"
Somehow, moral elevation is indisso-
Iubly connected with physical suffering.
He who really Wonld push his fellow
men up to higher spiritual or moral
elevation must oftentimes make his
dead body highway over which his
fellowmen may walk. To be IN
earnest, men require bio .dy sweat
the Gethsemanes and Calvarys. Men
cry out for the blood of their bene-
factors IS mark Of their earnestness.
SO if the Southern cause was really
cause for right and liberty, if the
world needed it, if it was worth its
place in the destiny Of human affairs,
it was necessary that men should bleed
for it; it was necessary III the moral
economy of things that its worth
should be preserved by suffering.
It is not a lost cause; if so, why are
yon here this evening. why are you
women standing at its sepulchre, why
are Won strewing the graves of its
heroes with the most beautiful emb!ems
of love and beauty God has given us?
You are not waiting by its tomb, with
8 hope of lis political resurrection, you
are not thinking of the Southern Cross
being placed among the flags of the
nations. No; your faith is greater,
,eur hope reaches q more splrlinal
height: YOU are determined that .'ut
Of that sepulchre no foe to truth shall
carry the glory of righ', no stranger
shall hide it away that you may not
find it. You believe in the immortality
of suffering for the right as your people
saw it: YOU believe in the perennial
life of virtue and valor as much as
YOU believe that spring will again
come sfter winter, and that for these
dead heroes, in the Providence Of God
and in the judgment of man, an ex-
ceeding weight Of glory awaits them
In nv opinion, and I remark that
T have not time t. develop the i'd a,
nor is this the occasion to discuss It,
ths+ the cause Of the South was the |
cause of local self-goveInm"n'. Ot
course it had other accessories, out
they were only accessories. The min"
that refuses 10 see the clear distlhc:loi',
that slavery was the occasion and not
, fnc