The Indianapolis journal. [volume] (Indianapolis [Ind.]) 1867-1904, 1898-05-30
THOMAS POST.
Memorial. Services at Meridian-Street
Church.


The George H. Thomas Post. G.. A. r.,
and the Woman's Relief Corps attended me-
mortal service at the Meridian-street M. E.
Church yesterday morning. The interior
of the church was decorated with flags, and
at the close of the service the choir and
congregation joined in singing America"
DIR. Sims shook hands with each veteran
as he passed by him. The collection was
devoted TO the Woman's Relief Corps. DR..
Simss text was from Exodus, 12-14: This
day shall be unto you for memorial" He
said, in part:
God desires man to remember His great
dealings with them, and to this end He has
established memorial services and command
ed their perpetual observance. Neglect and
forgetfulness of the great lessons of expe-
rience is 4 bunder and a crime. Kipling's
great hymn voices a. wise and timely prayer,
with tie continual refrain, Lest we forget;
lest we forget
I'VE have two great national anniversa-
ries, and we keep the birthdays of two
transcendant men who, were central figures
in their time. The Nations birthday-July
4-comes to us with swelling, martial music
and burning eloquence, with a theme made
ever greater by the growing greatness of
the country, and it will never cease to be
regarded. The birthday anniversary of
Washington presents to us also stately
character growing in honor and influence to
it's splendid elimination. Untouched by bull
let's through the long war for independence,
master spirit in the creation of the Consti-
tuition and the Nation, twice President, then
retiring to the joy of private life, loved and
honored until the end came.
Decoration day is memorial of deliverance
from great peril wrought out by great
cost and suffering. Its music is in the minor
key; its marches are with reversed arms,
and its tribute is wreath of fading flowers
upon a grass-covered grave. The hero, in
separable from 1t and whose birthday ami
versary we are learning to observe, presents
to us tragedy in keeping with the great
agony of his time. Going to. his Inaugural
ton in disguise, that he might foil the as
saSsin, inaugurated under the protection of
armed soldiers, living through the four long
years of the strife, only to fall by the hand
of the assassin when he was beginning to
see riffs in the clouds and bits of blue sky
beyond, and borne back at last to his home
on his bier. Well might this Nation initiate
the custom of the Peruvians, who put the
name of their first admiral first on the roll
call of the army and navy. and have an Off
Ger to step forward with lifted hat and fin
ger pointing heaVenWard to answer Absent,
but accounted for. He is with the heroes
"Our civil war answered and settled two
perpex4lnfg qqestiqns b notn oaer tna ine
had been the subject of strife from the be-
ginning, touching as it did questions of
property, the basis of congressional repre-
sentation, territorial extension And along
with it was the question of state or national
supremacy of authority. When the war
was over these questions were answered for
all time. the shock and the fact of war
We're terrible beyond description When the
men had gone to the front the streets were
lonely and women took up the work their
husbands and brothers had laid down. Only
God could estimate the loss and waste and
suffering of the war.
-Four hundred thousand men!
The good, the brave, the true,
They died for you and me, good friend;
They died for me and you.
1.-THE fruits of the war were commensu-
rate with the cost The elimination of dis
turbing questions, the maintenance of terri
torial and governmental integrity, the be-
ginning of a new career that needs an Isaiah
to prophesy it's coming glory.
Tomorrow we will place flowers on the
graves of those who fell To-day, let us
honor the surviving veterans who laid their
lives upon the altar of their country"