The morning news. [volume] (Savannah, Ga.) 1887-1900, 1896-09-28


! Baptist preacher, who, though he had
! been pronounced Ounce a school, lived
[ TO thrill the world with his Christian elo-
/ Qucnce; and of George Peabody who
never owned a carriage, and denied him.
/ self all luXuries, that he might while liv-
/ ing and after death. through last viii
/ and testament devote his uncounted mill
! ions to the education Of the poor people
/ in England and America; and of BShop
/ James, who in bOyhood worked his pas
/ sage from Ireland to America and be
! came the joy of MethOdsm and blessing
10 the race. Go to the biographical al
cove in city, state or national library and
find at least every other book an illus
tration Of overcome obstacle, and of car
mine gate that had to be forced open.
What is true of individuals is true Of
nations Was it a mild spring morning
when the Pilgrim Fathers landed on Ply
mouth Rock and did they come in
gildCd yacht, gay streameTs flying? NO.
il was in cold December, and from a
snip in which one would not want to cross
the Hudson or the Potomac river. Scalp
ing-knives all ready to receive them, they
landed. their only welcome the Indian
War-whoOp. Red men on the beach. Red
men in the forest. Red men on the noun
tains. Red men in the valleys Living
gates of red men. Gates of carbuncle!
Aboriginal hostility pushed back, surely
now our forefathers will have nothing to
ANs71'N.'-'ASAA
fairest continent under the sun. The
skies so genial, the soil so fertile, the
rivers so populous with fnny life, the
acreage so immense, there will be nothing
to do but eat drink and be merry. No.
The most powerful nation by army and
navy, sounded its protest across 5000
miles of water. Then came Lexington,
and Bunker Hill. and Monmouth, and
Long Island battles, and Valley Forge,
and Yorktown, and starvation, and
widow1ood, and orphanage, and thirteen
colonies went through sufferings which
the historian has attempted to put upon
paper and artist to put upon canvas, but
all in vain Engraver's knife and re-
porters skill, and Geographic wire, and
daily press which have made us ac-
quainted with the horrors of modern bat
tle-feld, had not yet begun their vigil
lance, and the story of the American
revolution has never been told, and never
will be told. i. 1t did not take much ink to
sign the Declaration of Independence,
but it took a terrific amount of blood to
maintain it. 1t was an awful gate of op
position that the men and wonderland
the women as much as the men-pushed
back. 1t was gate of self-sacri1ce. 1t
was a gate of blood. 1t was a gate of
carbuncIe.
We are not indebted to history for our
knowledge of the greatest of national
crises Many of us remember it, and IA
theirs and mothers now living had better
keep telling that story to their children,
so that instead of their being dependent
upon cold type and obliged to say, ION
such a page of such a book you can read
that" will they rather be able to say,
My father told me sou My mother told
me SOL Men and women who Vividly re-
member 1861, and 1862. and 1858, and 1864,
be yourselves the historians, telling 1t, not
with pen, but with living tongue and voice
a md &c a ~ Of
memorial decoration day, for the Gala
lilies on the grave-tops soon become
GREATNESS Of perfume, and in a week turn
to dust like unto that which lies beneath
them But the story of courage and self
sacrifice and patriotism told on platforms
and in households and by the roadside
and in churches and in cemeteries, by that
annual recital will be kept fresh in the
memory of generations as long as our
American institutions are worthy of pre-
servation. Long after you are dead your
children will be able to say, with the
Psalmist I'VE have heard with our ears,
o God our fathers have told us, what work
thou didst in their days, in the times of
old" But what time it was! Four years
Of homesicknessl -Four years of brotherly
and sisterly arrangement Four years of
martyrdom! Four years of massacre! Put
them in a long line, the confiagration of
cities, and see them hight up a whole con-
pitfalls. making a vast metropolis of pain
and paroxysmi Gather them in one vast
assemblage, the millions of bereft from the
st. Lawrence to the Gulf and from the
Atlantic to the Pacific beaches! Put the
tears into lakes, and the blood
into rivers, and the shrieks into
whirlwinds During those four years
many good and wise men at the north
and the south saw nothing ahead but an
Inhalation. With such a national debt we
could never meet our obligations! With
such mortal antipathies northern ana
southern men could never come into ami
ty! Representatives of Louisiana and
Georgia, and the Caroinas could never
again sit side by side with the Represent
tatives of Maine, Massachusetts, and
New York at the national capital Lord
John Russell had declared that we were
"a bubble-bursting nationality" and II
had come true. The nations of Europe
had gathered with very resigned spirit At
the funeral of our American republic.
| They had tolled the bells on Parliaments
and Reichstags and lowered their flags
at half-mast, and even the lion on the
other side of the sea had whined for the
! dead eagle on this side. The deep grave
! had been dug, and beside Babylon, and
| Thebes and Tyre, and other dead nations
| of the past our dead republic was to be
| buried The epitaph was all ready.
! Here lies the American republic. Born
N
/ at Bull Run July 81, 1861. Aged eighty.
! five years and seventeen days. Peace %
its ashes" But before the obsequies had
! quite closed there was an interruption OF
! the ceremonies, and our dead nation rose
/ from its mortuary surroundings. God had
made for ii a special resurrection day.
! and cried, Come forth, thou republic Of
! Washington, and John Adams. and Thorn
/ as Jefferson, and Patrick Henry, and John
/ Hancock, and Daniel Webster, and s. S.
Prentiss. and Henry Clay. Come forth!'
And she came FORTH to be stronger than
| she had ever been. Her mightiest pros
! perities have come since that time. Who
would want to push back this country
to what il was in 1860 or 1850? But, ONT
what high gate, what a strong gate she
! had to push back before she could make
| one step in advance! Gate Of flannel See
| Norfolk navy yard, and Columbia, and
! Chambersburg, and Charleston on fret
| Gate of bayonets See glittering rifles and
carbines' fash from the Susquehanna, and
| the James, to the Mississippi, and the
Arkansas! Gate of heavy artillery, maxi
| ing the mountains Of Tennessee and Ken
! lucky and Virginia tremble as though the
earth itself were struggling in its last