The Princeton union. [volume] (Princeton, Minn.) 1876-1976, 1896-06-11

ance what was the name given them
in baptism Of water. In the holier and
mightier baptism Of blood we know
them, and yesterday the nation put
both arms around them and Rugged
them to her heart, crying, mime for
eYery'
Again, by this national ceremony we
mean the future defense of this nation
ByEevery wreath Of flowers on the SOL
diers' graves we say, Those who die
for the country shall not be forgotten, :"
and that will give enthusiasm to our
young men in case our nation should
in the future need to defend itself in
battle. We shall never have another
war between North and South. The
old decayed bone Of contention, Ameri-
can slavery, has been cast out, al
though here and there depraved poll
tician takes it up to see if he can't
gnaw something off it. We are float
ing aft farther and farther from the
possibility Of sectional strife.
No possibility Of civil war. But
about foreign invasion am not so GER.
tain. When I spoke against war I
said nothing against self-defense. An,
inventor told me that he had invented
a style Of weapon which could be used
in self-defense but not in aggressive
warfare. I said, when you get the
nations to adopt that weapon you have
introduced the millennium" I have no
right to go on my neighbours premises
and assault him, but if some ruffian
break into my house for the assassina-
ton Of my family, and [ can borrow
a gun and load it in time and aim it
straight enough, will shoot him.
There is 70 room on this continent
for any other nation-eXcept Canada,
and a better neighbor no one ever had.
If you don't think so, go to Montreal
and Toronto, and see how well they
will treat you. Other than that there
is absolutely no room for any other ma
ton. 1 have been across the continent
again and again, and know that we
| have not a half-inch of ground for
the equity foot of foreign despotism to
stand on. But l am not so sure that
some of the arrogant nations of Europe
may not some day challenge us. l do
! not know that those forts around New
York bay are to sleep all through the
next century, I do not know that Bar
negat lighthouse will not yet look off
upon hostile navy. 1 do not know
but that half dozen nations, envious
Of our prosperity, may want to give us
wrestle. During our civil war there
were two or three nations that could
hardly keep their hands.off us. 1t is
very, easy to pick national quarrels,
and if our nation escapes much longer
it will be the exception. 49,: -
If foreign foe should come we want
men like those of 1912 and like those
of 1862 to meet them. We want them
all up and down the coast, Pulaski
and Fort Sumter in the same chorus
Of thunder as Fort Lafayette and Fort
Hamilton. Men who will not only
know how to fight, but how to die.
| When such a time comes, if it ever
come, the generation on the stage Of
action will say, "My country will care
for my family as they did in the sol
diers' asylum for the orphans in the
| civil war, and my country will honor
! my dust as it honored those who pre-
coded me in patriotic sacrifice, and
| once year at any rate, on Decoration
| day, I shall be resurrected into the re-
| membrance Of those for whom I died.
Here | go for God and my country!
Huzzahv'
If foreign foe should come the old
sectional animosities would have no
power Here go our regiments into the
| battlefield: Fifteenth New York vol
| unteers, Tenth Ala bama cavalry, Four
| teenth Pennsylvania rif1emen, Tenth
Massachusetts artillery, Seventh South
Carolina SharpShOOters. l do not know
but it may require the attack of some
| foreign foe to make us forget our alb
surd sectional wrangling. I have no
| faith in the cry, 'No North, no South,
r ~
tons keep their peculiarities and their
and not interfering with each other
each Of the four carrying it's part in
| the great harmony-the bass, the alto,
the tenor, the soprano-in the grand
march of Union. -,
Once more, this great national cere-
mony means the Identification Of the
| tombs, whether of those who fell in
| battle or accident, or who have ex-
| pired in their beds, or in our arms, or
on our laps. I suppose you have no.
| ticed that many Of the families take
| this season as the time for the adorn-
ment of their family plots. This ma
tional observance has secured the ar
horticulture and Horticulture of the
| cemeteries, the Strengthening up of
many a slab planted thirty or forty
years ago, and has swung the scythe
through the long grass and has brought
| the stonecutter to call out the half-ob-
liberated epitaph: This day is the ben
| ediction Of the resting place Of father
mother, son, daughter, brother, sister
1t is all that we can do for them
now. Make their resting places at
| tractive, not absurd with costly out
! lay, but in quiet remembrance. You
know how. If you can afford only one
| flower, that will do. 1t shows what
| you would do if you could One bios
som from you may mean more than
the duke of Wellington's catafalque
Oh, we cannot afford to forget them
They were so lovely to us. We miss
them so much. We will never get
over t.,,Blessed Lord Jesus, comfort
| our broken hearts. From every bank
Of flowers breathes promise of resur-
| rection.
In olden times the Hebrews, return
| ing from their burial place, used to
pluck the grass from the field three or
four times, len throw it over their
heads, suggestive of the resurrection
We pick not the grass, but the flowers