The news & observer. [volume] (Raleigh, N.C.) 1894-current, 1900-05-10


the burden which they would impose upon
our strength, and surely the love of our
reunited country has not yet flooded their
hearts with its tender beauty and power.
1t is true that the qualification OF our
hopes seems almost a dream touched
with the radiance of the glory of that
Blessed Land where alone the sunshine
is brighter and the day more translucent
than that which illumines and glorifies
our own South. 1t is true that with
robe radiant and gorgeous with the way
ing grain, the fragrant hemp, the snowy
! cotton and the ripened grape, we have
clothed the nakedness of the dear old
land. We have filled the desolate places
with laughter and happiness and plenty
and with the sweet alchemy of the passing
years as our gentle handmaiden, have
poured the healing nepenthe upon the
broken heart. Amid the fairness of our
fields and beside our rivers whose wa
tiers. like the minor strains of sad music.
necessarily voice hallowed associations
and whose shores are redClent with the
memories of sorrows endured and trial
overcome, we are again erecting a ma
jestic civilization. Yet, Notwithstanding
this glory of our labor. do we not need
all of the tender sympathy and loving
interest and wise counsel which our
brother of the North holds out to us with
an open hand and generous heart? This
is the question in the economy Of our gov
ernmental life which cannot be local Its
settlement concerns all OF the coun
try, North and South alike.
well remembering what in our naked
ness and emptiness we have accomplished
in the settlement of the race question,
yet l make obeisance TO those of the
North who by their assistance have rem
dered it possible for the South to have
accomplished so much With all my
soul | plead that with us no narrow
spirit CT sufficiency CT suspicion of unto
ward interference on the part Of the
North should prevent the entertaining
of our lives and our energies in the
unraveling of the complexities of situ-
alton which more vitality affects modern
civilization than any question of the pres
ent day. For us to do so was for The
seus to refuse the sword of Ariadne,
and TO cast aside the skein proifered by
the loving hand of the daughter of Minos.
ION one of the carnage-strcken fields
of old Virginia an officer Of a Massa
chusetts regiment lay wounded to death.
His regiment had passed on. leaving him
alone with the fading light and amid
the quickly coming shadows He was
lying in the line of the march of the
Southern troops. and as a Southern SOL
der hurried by he called and asked him
to pray with him. oh. am sorry can
not he said; 1 have never learned TO
pray for myself Yet with soft hands
and tender sympathy he placed the dying
officer under the grateful shade, pillowed
his head, and cooling his fevered lips
with water from his canteen, he left him
with words of cheer and hurried away.
to the battlefield Soon the ears almost
in hearing Of the majestic music of that
better land and rendered doubly acute
by it's near approach, again heard coming
footsteps, and as another Southern SOL
der passed by the pleading lips called
out, i beg you to come and pray with
me- Seeing the dimming eyes and the
broken form. the Southern soldier knelt
down beside his erstwhle foeman and
poured over that le-stricken field his
prayer for the guidance of one about en-
tering the encircling shadows, and for
the sweet and divine consolation of those
dear ones he had left at home. As the
man Of the South prayed there came to
the wistful fast-clOsing eyes a vision OF
the homestead in the North, with the
old mother looking down the flower
bordered lane and listening for foot
STEPS too long in their returning: the
WELL with it's sweet water. under tic
shadow of the waving elms; the sweet
meadow, with its fragrance of newly cut
grass and flowers; the children at their
little play the evening table and the
vacant chair, and the SWcet-faced wait
ing wife with the little one in her arms.
and with each supplication and sw"9t re-
minder Of life and loved ones and OF
the nearer and other life the weakening
arms clothed in their uniform OF blue,
wrapped themselves around the gray-clad
soldier. Nearer and nearer crept the
wounded form in blue, and as the ten
der supplication went out to the Throna
from the lips of the Southerner, the
spirit Of the soldier of the North wen.
on its journey and left it's mortality.
holding in close embrace the gray-clad
soldier of the South.
And here, my cOuntrymen. in ths
splendid presence, | invoke, as a tClch-
stone TO our lives and a guide 10 our
feet, often wandering, that spirit Of
unity Of love and action which touched
the battlefields with the tenderness of
unseen hands and gave amidst the lonely
pines of old Virginia a foretastc o. the
spirit of better days yet to come"