Owingsville outlook. [volume] (Owingsville, Ky.) 1879-192?, 1896-10-01


had been pronounced a Ounce at school,
lived to thrill the world with his Chris
tian cloquencr: and of George Pea
body, who never owned a carriage and
denied himself all Injuries that he
might while living and after death,
through his last will and testament,
devote his uncOuntcd. millions to the
education of the poor people in Eng
land and America; and of bishop
James, who, in hoyhood, worked his
passage from ireland to America, AMI
became the joy of Mrthodism and a
blessing to the race. Go to the bio
graphical alcovc in city, state or ma
ti"nal library, and find at least every
other book an illustration of overcome
obstacle and Of carminc gate that had
tn bc forced open.
What Is true of individuals is true of
nations Was it mild spring morn
ing when the Pilgrim Fathers landed
ON Plymouth Rock, and did
they come in a gildcd yacht, gay
strcamrrs flying? No 1t was in cold
December. and from ship in which
one would not want to cross the Ilud-
son or Potomac river. Scalping knives
already To receive them, they landed,
WI. -. Red men on the beach. Red
T. the forest Red men on the
D., lin,. Red men in the valleys.
Living gates of red men. Gates of car
buclc.
Aboriginal hostility pushed back,
surely now our forcfathers will have
nothing to do hut to take easy possess
sion of the faircst continent under the
sun. The skies SO genial, the soil SO
fertile, the rivers 50 populous with
finny life, the acreage SO immense,
there will he nothing to do but eat,
drink and bc 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 Mon
mouth and Long Island battles, and
Valley Forge and Yorktown, and
starvation and widowhood and orphan
age, and the thirteen colonies went
through SufTcriugS which the historian
has attempted TO put upon paper and
the artist To put upon canvas, but all
in vain. Engravcr's knife, and report
er's skill, and Geographic wire,
and daily press, which have
made us acquainted with the horrors
of modern battlefield, had not yet be-
gun 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 Il terrific amount OF blood to main
tain it. 1t was an awful gate of OPP
position that the men and wonderland
the women as much as the men-push-
ed back. II was n gate of self-sacrifice.
1t was gate of blood. 1t was a gate
of carbunclc.
We are not indebted to history for
our knowledge of the greatest of ma
tional crisis. Many of us remember it,
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 tn say, "On such a page of such
book you can read that will they
rather be able to say, My father
told me So" My mother told me
So" Men and women who wildly r.
member 1861, and 1862, and 1868,
and 1864, be yourselves the historians
telling IL, not with pen, but with living
tongue and voice and gesture. That
is the great use of Memorial Decora-
ton day, for the Gala lilies on che
grave tops soon become breathless of
perfume, and in week turn to dust
like anto that which lies beneath them.
But the story # courage and self-sacrl-
ice aud T.tIi.'ism told or ~'Jtforns
and Va ~ r,.o-lrl : an g. .'. r..'' '~jAH
auG Ia q. '.r-hcs and - cemeteries, by
that annual recital will ne ~ ,,t fresh
in memory of generations as long as
our American institutions are worthy
of preservation. Long after you
are dead your children will be
able to say, with the psalmist,
1--WE have heard with our ears, o God,
our fathers have told us, what work
thou didst in their days, in the time of
old" But what time it wasl Four
years of inconsistencies. Four years of
brotherly and sisterly estrangementi
Four years of martyrdom! Four years
of massacre! Put them in n long line,
the conflagration of cities, and see
them light up n whole continent! Put
them in long rows, the hospitals, MAX
ing n vast metropolis of pain and par
oxysm! Gather them in one vast as
semblage. 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 whirl
winds. During the four years many
good and wise men at the north, and
the south saw nothing ahead but an
initiation, With such a national debt
we could never meet our obligations!
With such mortal antipathies northern
and southern men could never come
into amity! Representatives of Louisi-
ana and Georgia and the Carolinas
could never again sit sides by side with
1.-THE representatives of Maine, Massa-
chusetts and New York ut the national
capital Lord John Russell had de-
clarcd that we were "a bubble-burst-
ing nationality and it had come
true. The nations of Europe had
gathered with very resigned spirits at
the funeral of our American republic.
| They had tolled the bells on parlia-
ments 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 beer 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 already: Here lies the American
republic. Born at Philadelphia. 18th of
July, 1876. Killed at Bull Run July Il,
1861. Aged s. years and II days. Peace
to its ashes" But before the obsequies
had quite closed there was an inter-
ruption of the ceremonies, and our
dead nation rose from its mortuary
surroundings. God had made for it Il
special Resurrection Day, and cried:
Come forth, thou Republic of Wash
ington, and John Adams, and Thomas
jefferson, and Patrick Henry, and
John Hancock, and Daniel Webster,
and 5. =. Prentiss and Henry Clay.
Come forthr' and she came forth, to
be stronger than she had ever