The Newtown bee., 1895-06-21

ever share in the glory and honor of the cause for which they laid their lives down. A righteous cause and it's de- lenoers are links of one and the same cham; they are welded together in the hearts Of grateful people by
 AN INDEsTRUCTIBLE BOND.
 Ar1ss II ever cause, by reason of it's nohieness, could add undying honor to the names of those who upheld and maintained it when the death-dagger was thrust at it's heart, it is the cause for which the boys in blue suffered, whose sainted memory we hallow and revere this day. Call them not unknown graves, those little hillocks and deep trenches scat eered here and there throughout the Savanahs of the Sunny South. They are not unknown; they all bear a con- mon name, the name we love to- write aooVe their dust-they are saints. they ar e heroes, every one.
 "on Fame's eternal camping ground
 Their silent tents are spread,
 And Glory guards with solemn round
 The b1vouac of the dead"
 The novelist, Sir Walter Scott- has written in his most graphic way of the pious enthusiast whom we comno nly know as "Old Morality" who made his round year by year to the graves of the heroic Covenanters, .scraping the moss from the gray stones and renewing with his chisel the fading Inscriptions, de- laced by the hand of Time. "He con- sidered himself, "says Scott, ''as fulfilling sacred duty, while renewing 10 the eyes of posterity the decaying emblems Of the zeal and sufferings of their fore fathers, and thereby trimming, as it were, !the beacon light which was to warn future generations to defend their religion even unto blood.' And that is what we are doing to-day, my friends. We are trimming the beacon light of liberty upon the headlands of this na- tion's history; for we are resolved that this generation at least, though it took no part in the war, though the scenes of the war come to it not even as 6 memory. but only as story that is handed down, shall not show itself ungrateful for the priceless privileges it has through the sacrifice and tolls in the days of '6l.
 Only ia few years ago I stood from early morning till late afternoon on the curb oE Fifth Avenue, New York, iostled by the multitude and elbowed by the throag, watching the magnificent cor tege that filed by with solemn step and matfied drum, as it
 MARCHED TO THE GREEN HILLoCK
 m Riverside Park, where it was to lay tc rest ''the silent captain by the river, 2 the greatest soldier of them all, the one who took our armies when they were defeated and disordered, when the North was trembling and the South was boosting, and brought them to Appomat. tox and to victory. In that solemn pro cession marched the survivors of a vol unteer regiment from New York witt their tattered flag, and at it's rear the survivors of an ex-CoDfederate regiment from the State of Virginia-boys in blue and boys in gray, the one keeping ster to the tune of "Yankee Doodle" and the other keeping step to the tune of ssWay Down South in Dixie'', and tumultuous cheering coming from the crowded side walks for them all. I long watched the moving column and then I fell to study. ing the throng that lined the streets What promiscuous experimentation ii was The boot-black was there-he had climbed half way up the telegra ph pole; the boy in his early school days was there, and the girl not yet out of her short frocks, certainly not yet in her teens; the Lrishman was there, stand ing near me, by his plain brogue and mystified air showing clearly that he had but just come from the green isle across the seas; the German was there with his pipe, and the Italian who but an hour ago had ceased his quest for old rags. There was one sentiment which read in the moving line: "un- ion, united sisterhood of States we honor to day; America, the home of the free and the country that we 1ove:', and there was another sentiment which l clearly read on the faces and in the expressions of the idiy-gazing crowd "Iou soldiers honor the greatest gen. eral America ever had, but she IS country and hers are. institutions that we as yet know very little about.n
 What contrast! II thought. Those gray-haired. veterans, ,these battle-scarred warriors, these limping, halting men, what sad pageant this is to them How they honor the hero who lies sleeping on that majestic .catafalque, honor him whether score of years ago they were friend or foe! How vivid the scenes they recall as they think of the flying bullet and hissing she'll
 HOW DEAR TO THEM
 is their country. and how precious is the Union they exposed their lives to save! But, this crowd that lines the streets, how little do many of them know of America and the genius of her institutions, and the principles at stake in this war, and whatit all cost, and the legacy these soldiers, so soon to pass to the great majority, would bequeath to mankind!
 That is the meaning and the object of Memorial Day. It is now, after the lapse of thirty years, not so much to speak noble things of the heroic dead and the heroes who still live to share in the privileges which their valor won their names are enshrined forever in the grateful hearts of the people, and there is not much danger that their achieve ments will soon be forgotten or the story of their arduous labors soon d. lowed to remain untold but the duty of the present is to instruct the living, es- pecially those who have lately come to 0ur ahnres thosa into WhOsn handc xrD