The semi-weekly messenger. [volume] (Wilmington, N.C.) 1897-1908, 1901-03-08

"06Ao 0aPP0oCA LICK SyCo W0dlo
need reinforcement. Here and there is
q short grave in her pathway, this head
; stone bearing the name Of this child and
another beadstone bearing the name OF
another child. Hardly one bereavement
lifts its shadow than another bereave-
ment drops one After 80 years of wife
hood and motherhood the path turns to-
ward the setting sun. She cannot walk
20 far as she used to. Colds caught hang
on longer than formerly. Some of the
children are in the heavenly world, for
which they were well prepared through
maternal fidelity, and others are out in
this world doing honor to a Christian
ancestry.
When her life closes and the neigh.
bors gather for her obseQuies, the ~oficiat-
ing clergyman nay find appropriate
words in the last chapter Of Proverbs:
"Her price is far above rubies. The
heart Of her husband doth safely trust
in her, 50 that he shall nav no need of
spoil. She will do him good, and not
evil, all the days of her life. She stretch
eth out her hand to the poor. She is not
afraid of the snow for her household: for
all her household are clothed with scar
let. Her husband is known in the gates,
when he stitch among the elders in the
land. Her children arise up and call her
blessed; her husband also, and he prais-
eth her. Many daughters have done vir-
tuously, but thou ~excellest them ALL"
Then after the Scripture lesson is read
let all come up and before the casket is
closed look for the last time at the scars
Of her earthly endurance. She never
heard the roll of a gun carriage or saw a
banner hoisted upon a parapet, but she
has in all the features of that dear old
face the marks of many a confict-scars
Of toll, scars Of maternity, scars Of self
sacrifice, scars of bereavement. She is q
heroine whose name has never been
heard of ten miles from the old home
stead, but her name is inscribed high up
among the enthroned immortals.
Martyrs All Around Us.
People think they must look for mar
tyrs on battle6elds or 60 through a his
tory to find ~burnings at the stake and
t~ortures ON racks when there are martyrs
all about us. At this time in this capital
city there are scores Of men wearing
themselves out in the public service. In
ten years they will not have a healthy
nerve left in their body. In committee
rooms, in consultations that involve the
welfare of the nation, under the weight
of great responsibilities, their vitality
is being subtracted. In almost every
village of the country you find some bro
ken down state or national official. After
exhausting himself in the public service,
rough American politics kicks him out of
congress or cabinet or legislative hall,
and he goes into comparative obscurity
and comparative want, for he has been
long enough AWAY from home to lose his
professional opportunities. No man that
was ever put to death by sword or instru-
ment of torture was more of a martyr
than that man who has been wrung to
death by the demands of official position.
The scars may not be visible, for these
are scars ON the brain and scars on the
nerve and scars on the heart, but never
theless are they scars, and God counts
them and their reward will be abundant.
1t is easy for some Washington CORE
~spondents, writing home to their city or
village newspapers, to m~isrepresent our
public men and represent them as living
in idleness and luxury, but I tell you
from my own observation that many Of
the representatives in congress, and SEN
ators of the United States, and justices
of the supreme court, and secretaries in
presidential cabinets work as hard as, if
not harder than, any day laborer breaking
cobblestones on a New Jersey turnpike
or a driver Of mules on a towpath for a
Pennsylvania canalboat. What with the
solicitations for appointments by constit-
uents who swarm around state and ma
tional capital, and the social exhaustions,
and the irritating Interruptions, and the
unreasonable demands of all kinds, high
official position is not a sinecure. Their
~indigestions and neuralgias and prema-
ture old age are scars that God will hon.
or, though the world may never appreci-
ate.
The heroes and the heroines of any war
are not always at the front, are not al
way epauleted, are not always acquaint-
ed with military tactics, and some Of
them would not know how to present
arms or ground arms or stack arms.
Some of them rendered their service in
hospitals, some by doing harder work on
the farm while the breadwinner was at
Gettysburg. We all know thenames of the
distinguished northern and southern wo-
men who bound up the wounds Of the
battlefelds, but there were 10000 women
| just as brave who never left the farm
house or cotton plantation and who were
so worn out in taking care Of their bereft
homes that when the soldier came home
they had only strength left to die. And
the places where they sleep the last sleep
are not marked with so much as a plain
slab, while those who suffered not half
SO much are in sculptured mausoleum.
The Unseen Scars.
In all lands there are veterans of war
who may not have had their face scraped
with one bullet or their foot famed by
one bursting shell and who could not roll
up their sleeve and show you one mark
suggestive of battle, yet carry with them
weaknesses got in exposures to disease
along malarial swamps or from many
miles Of marching, and ever and anon
they feel a twinge of pain, each recur-
renee of which is sharper or more lasting,
until after awhile they will be captured
for the tomb by disorders which started
20 or 30 or 40 years before. And their
scars ERE all unseen by human eyes. But
those people are as certainly the victims
Of war as though they had been blown
up in an undermined fortress or thrust
through with a cavalryman's lance. What
l want to make out is hat there are
Il SaorS which ora navar oounfod ovoopf 90