The Mount Holly news. [volume] (Mount Holly, Burlington Co., N.J.) 1891-1942, 1901-06-04

more pleasant places than Jersey, and
crossed the river to find an abiding place.
People who put the lives of limo cent
children in jeopardy because their own
minds are not properly balanced should be
made to answer for the act
Our Civic Inheritance.
The above is the subject of an address
delivered at Lumberton, on Memorial
day, by Rev. G. 81. Pendleton. He said:
To-day as we pause in reverent mem
DRY beside the grassy mounds beneath
which mingle the sacred, Wondering
dust of men who gave all they had, their
lives, in heroic struggle, and as upon
holy affairs to place the floral tribute,
symbol of an undying gratitude, our
thoughts take impressive dignity and re-
ligious solemnity when we recall that the
freest, happiest, mightiest people yon sun
looks down upon-a people the hardest
working. the most progressive and indus
trious, bids the hands of toll to rest, the
whirling wheels of myriad machineries to
stand still, the loud roar OF the vastest
commerce in the world to hush while the
gigantic sovereignty of seventy six mil
lions free men and women turn to keep a
holiday beside the graves of men who
risked their lives to bequeath to their
successors an inheritance the most pre-
cious that ever befell people.
This occasion, SO fraught with inspir
ing memories of devotion to an unspeak-
ably great ideal, seems to demand that we
should attempt to interpret to ourselves
something of the sublime meaning of that
ideal. The story of that sanguinary
struggle, whose measureless sacrifices
fhic occasion ic nI1nr
many of you here. 1t is an old story now,
but it has never been told and it will
never end. 1t will be repeated from gen
Grafton to generation and eyes unborn will
blaze, hearts not yet created will throb
with ever Frightening gratitude as the
light of history falls in brighter, clearer
beam to reveal the larger and Superior
worth of the dreadful daring service of
the men who stood amid the fiery swirl of
Bull Run, the fevers of the blood-stained
Peninsula, the .erimsoned snow of Don
aldson, the swiftly shifting death storm of
Antietam, the lurid awfulness of Gettys
burg blocking the breech in the national
bulwark with %, 900 precious lives, the
slow agony of Vicksburg, that the Father
of Waters might flow unvexed to the sea.
This is not the time nor the place to tell
of Chickamauga's ensanguined gloom,
nor of Chattanooga spectacular dread
full glory, nor of the appalling terrible
ness of the Wilderness campaign, where
the mightiest soldier of modern time led
the way in almost incredible marches and
battles, in heat and cold. After a mil
lion bleeding victims the end came in the
coronal of App omattox. What did it all
mean? Oh, you younger ones, what does
it mean to your
THAT blood of sacrifice stained with a
"a 4 Al. l.. Il
as of the throne of Christ to the stripes of
the starry banner that waves over a free,
glorious country and lifts among the ma
tions of the earth the symbol of the lofty
and inalienable rights of human freedom
the puissant signal to the world of the |
denial of the divine right of an hereditary
aristocracy to Cypress and curtail the |
rights OF the common people.
sit is not strange that the United States |
has been looked upon by European ma
lions with suspicion,-her faults exag- |
gerated, her institutions perversely mis- |
understood, her acts misrepresented, her |
freedom scoffed as license, |
democracy was looked upon as danger |
GUS social undertow which dredges and |
mines the foundations of thrones and |
palaces, ecclesiastical order and tribunals. |
The attempt to trust government to the |
hands of the people was looked upon in
Europe as wild fanaticism that was
bound to go up in an awful social cata-
clasm. When the civil war came, the |
wise heads of European craftsmanship |
rubbed their hands with delicious delight, |
and said, We told you So But at the out
come, more than million men laid down |
their arms and turned to the peaceful |
pursuits of private citizens-the exhibit |
ton startled the world. 1t was seen that
the mightiest war of modern Time was |
waged, not for conquest, not for the ag-
grandizement of royal ruler, nor for
the income of revenue, but for a moral |
principle standing out in the light of |
history as the one and the only war since |
Beth Horon where men fought and died
to make men free, men not of their own |
blood, but men of an alien race and in |
servitude. 1t is the sublimest war in |
history 1t wiped the only blemish from
our banner. 1t told the world that the |
stars and stripes should henceforth float
over freemen. Thirty years of peace
brought the balm to heal the wounds of |
war Again the down-trodden and OPP |
pressed lifted helpless hands in appeal to
this nation, and lovers of human free
dom from north and south raced to the |
rescue-the only rivalry now between the
men from the north and south was who
line. To-day that flag flashes over the
world the starry signal OF the lordliest
achievements of human freedom, the
highest pledge that it is safe to leave men
with all the rights with which God en-
dowed them-the symbol of the divine
right of the people to govern themselves.
1t is the banner that waves in the van of
the most advanced civilization, the
anxiety and amazement of the nations of
the earth 1t is the brightest portent of
the Goth century.
''You citizens of Lumberton do well to
cherish the memory of the men who died
to make that flag what it is In the ca
thedrals and abbeys of Europe are seen
the recumbent statues of those knightly
mobiles who risked and gave their lives to
rescue the tomb of Christ from the hand
of the inidel, and there is no prouder
pedigree than is traced back to them.
''But here stands among you citizen,
esteemed by you for what he is. who, as a
boy of sixteen went to the defence of the
flag as a drummer; the sacred ashes of his
fifer rest in the genial repose of the earth
of his native hamlet-the ranks are thin
ning-o by one they are falling.
Joseph Worth, so esteemed for his
good and kindly heart, has but recently
answered the last roll-call. for him has
5Ouuutu tHc ldtbOO, uRAIS Out. pOOn
the story will have no witness to tell it,
You do well to cherish the memory of
these men. The draft never reached your
village-out of your meagre numbers
more than hundred went to defend and
redeem the flag. 1t is glorious record,
a superb legacy, which time and larger
light heighten until it shall be seen in the
white glory of truth. There can be no
prouder pedigree than that your kith and
kin, bone of your bone, flesh of your
flesh, had part in the war which wiped
from the flag its only stain and washed it
white in the blood that redeemed and
sanctified this nation to march in the fore
front of the world, the puissant and in
vincible champion of human freedom.