The L'Anse sentinel. (L'Anse, L.S., Mich.) 18??-current, 1896-10-10

to make "A living. That time will nevel
come. 1t never has been easy to make
living. The men who have il cas-,
now went through hardships and self
dcnials TO which most young mcr
would never consent. Unless they got
ii by inheritance, you can not men
tion 20 men who have come tC
honorable fortune that did moi
fight their way inch by inch, and
against fearful odds that again and
again almost destroyed them. For
some good reason God has arranged il
for all the centuries that the only way
for most people TO get livelihood foi
themselves and their families is with
both hands and all the allied forces OF
the body. mind ana soul to push back
and push open the red gate, the gate
Of carbuuclc. For tho benefit of all
young men, if had the time, would
call the roll of those who ovcrcame OBJ
staclc. How many of the mighty men
who went one way ON Pennsylvania
avenue and reached the United States
senate, or walked the other way on
! Pennsylvania avenue and reached the
J White House, did not have to climb
over political obloquy? Not one. How
much scorn and scott, and brutal at
! tack did Horace Mann endure between
the time when he first began to fight
| for better common school system in
| Massachusetts,, and the day when a
statue in honor of him was placed on
the steps of the state house overlook
ing "Thc COmmons?"
What is true Of individuals If true of
nations. Was it a mild spring morn
ing when the pilgrim fathers landed
on Plymouth Rock, and did they come
in n gilded yacht, gay streamers fly
ing? No. 1t was in cold December.
and from ship in which one would
not want to cross the Hudson or the
Potomac river. Scalping knives al!
ready to receive them, they landed,
their only welcome, the Indian war;
whoop, RGd men on the beach. Red
men in <the forest. Red men on the
mountains. Red men in the valleys.
Living gates of red men. Gates of
carbuncle!
Aboriginal hostility pushed back,
surely now our forefathcrs will have
nothing to do but to take easy posses
sion of the fairest continent under the
sun. The skies SO genial, the soil so
fertile. the rivers SO populous with
tinney life, the acreage SO immense,
there will be merry. No. The most
powerful nation, by army and
navy, sounded it's protest across
1900 miles of water. Then came
Lexington, and Bunker Hi, and Mon
mouth, aud Long Island battles, and
and Valley Forge, and Yorktown, and
sta"vation, and widowhood, and or
phanage, and the thirteen colonies
went through sufferings which the his
torian has attempted 10 put upon caI-
vas, but all in vain. Engraver's knife,
and reporters skill, and telegraphic
wire, and daily press, which have
made us acquainted with the hor-
rors of modern battlefield, had not
yet begun their vigilance, and the
story of the American revolution has
never been told, and never will be
told. 1t did not take much ink to sign
the Declaration of Independence, but
it took terrific amount of blood 20
maintain it. 1t was an awful gate of
opposition that the men and women
and the women as much as the men
pushed back. 1t was gate of self
sacrifice. 1t was gate of blood. 1t
was gate of carbuncle.
We are not indebted to history for
our knowledge Of the create of ma
tional crises. Many of us remember
1t, and fathers 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 page of such
book you can read that" will they
rather be a Bile to say: my father told
me sol" my mother told me sol" Men
and women who wildly remember 1851,
and 1862, and 1859. and 1864, be your
selves the historians, telling 1t, not
voice and gesture. That is the great
use of Memorial Decoration day, for
the cally lilies on the grave tops soon
become breathless of perfume, aud
| in a week turn to- dust like
unto that which lies beneath
them. But the story of courage and
self-sacriflcc 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 gener
atoms as long as our American insti-
tutions are worthy Of preservation.
beg after you are dead your children
will be able to say, with the Psalmist:
ave 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
a time it was! Four years OF
homesiclsness! Four years OF brotherly
and sisterly enlargement! Four years
of martyrdom! Four years of massa.
ere! Put them in long line, the con-
flagration of cities, and see them light
up n whole continent! Put them in
long rows, the hospitals, making a
vast metropolis of pain and paroxysml
Gather them in one vast assem- blage,
the millions Of bercft 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
| wars mnnv rood and wise men Mt the