The record-union. [volume] (Sacramento, Calif.) 1891-1903, 1898-05-22
PRESEAT-DAY THOUGHTS.

BY IN emo"

Come now, what particular reason
have we for decorating the graves of
the dead? Let not our reason be that
we are followers of custom! That par
takes of the unrefectiveness of the
savage who merely initiates when he
adds another stone to the cairn that he
passes. 1t is ours rather to realize that
this season of decoration has meaning;
that it's chief actors are people who
think and use flowers and ceremonies
merely as surface indications of deep
heart feeling
Do these acts of ours even interest
the dead? Who can tell? But one would
think that if, in conscious life beyond
the signing of earth, they are able to
estimate deeds at their right valuation,
the greatest and the bravest of them
are regretful that they were not able
to accomplish a hundred-fold more
than they did either in living or in dy
ing for their idea. Your little token Of
appreciation and mine may perchance
please them, but it cannot do for them
1.-THE of what the showing Of that ap-
probation can do for u.s.
der regard for the dead, of the vollies
we fire, of the flowers we strew. of the
flags we wave, of the consecrated words
we utter. The value and the gain are
to us-ward who live and move in
glorious era of united feeling which
those sleeping eyes would have flash
ed joyously to see. 1t is we who are
benefited by these exercises.
+ ~
Animals look on the dead-even those
of their own kind-and soon forget or
scarcely notice. But we sentient beings
return after the silent glidings of many
years, of centuries even, to look on the
places of the dead and to honor them.
Why? Because the death of the doer
of deeds among men stops his doing,
but does not stop the effects of the
deeds he did. The truth of this is ap-
parent in a moment, if we reflect as we
glance downward to the turf covered
mounds at our feet, that because these
men had beliefs and lived. them out we
are able to stand around them united
in one great national whole. The bodies
lying there have rest from their labors.
but the labor remains, and greater
things than they did shall we do be-
because we live to carry on what dy-
ing hands have dropped. Human prog
ress is like the growth of the printing
press from the slow simplicity of the
lever and screw up to the complicated
mastodons that thunder out human
thought more swiftly than the eye can
follow. The machine is, made up Of in
finitely small improvements by an in
Hy1it ohn11 ~ rSa1,
adding something to the work of con-
struction that had already been effect
ed. Thus is it with our national life
Our revolutionary heroes died to make
a nation. Time passed and showed
that strength was in union. Our heroes
of The late war died to keep the nation
inseparable forever and forever. Again
the years rolled on over a period of ex-
pansion uneXampled in the history OF
the world. Now is the time when we
inheritors of the labors Of these mo-
tionless bones at our feet go one step
further and declare that a nation born
in noble strife baptized later in its own
precious blood, has risen to the stature
of man and breaches to great sell
fish world d new eyangel-that ma
ton great in it's own development, great
prosperity. is not too great to be deaf to
a wall of woe from its weak neighbor,
and is not too proud to cast its own
Offering on the altar of ancther's lib
erty, though that offering cost dear in
the money of its men and the sons of
it's mothers.
1 have only a word for those cavaliers
who would discredit all sorts of small
motives to the speechless dead Grant
ing the truth Of every pettiness that
can be pointed out yet we are never
theless in q position to say of each of
them, HE wrought better than he
knew" We do not say because the
feet are unconscious of where the viii
directs them, no credit is due them for
running an errand OF mercy. Shall we
beiittle the eye that guides the hand
to a righteous act, just because both
are mere servants of the self within.
and because both eye and hand could
under ether circumstances be partakers
CT eyil2 No, And Furthermore who
among US can dare to sit in Judgment
on motives. A look within and fair
analysis of our most holy acts viii re-
veal mixture Of good and evil inten-
ton. selfishness and self -efacement
that would he positively bewilderins
were il not so truly human. We all
are day by day releasing forces Of In