Orleans County monitor. [volume] (Barton, Vt.) 1872-1953, 1901-06-03
DECORATION DAY ADDRESS BY
REV. w. c. JOHNSON.

the G.. A. r. are before me; they have
IN come on this anniversary to honor
Mtheir dead and our dead. For in
large sense beyond expression, those
who give US a country are our dead.
when the years are decimating your
n4 Numbers the observance of this day
grows more and more to be public
duty. The roll starred names are
more and more numerous, names
sacred, for they have given their lives
for the republic. What can be more
biting than that we inquire what are
the obligations we owe those who
have given their lives to save
our land, and to deliver from bond
4age. We should give them their
w due share in the victory and the
honors of the victory. 1t is to our
honor and in accordance with revela-
ton that we count our departed SOL
diers and sailors on the roll of vic
tory. Living you have returned to en-
JOY our exultation; your great leaders
whom the country has delighted to
honor have received ovations but we
nave ndu d ndDlU vi rhO
dead with feeling close akin to pity
but may they not share with US these
ceremonies and may they not inspire
us while we realize that they have
overcome for country and flag. Some
times the story of their falling we
tell with bated breath and shadow
rests upon our hearts but [ think this
gives them only sorrow for they are
the true victors and beyond earthly
strife have entered better rest. The
thousands that offered themselves to
" die, theirs not the loss the victory
Nj was theirs. We rejoice that so many
were permitted to return when the
cruel war was over and the country
is stronger in patriotism because you
have been in earnest that credit and
reverence should be given the dead.
Christ taught that without the she'd
ding of blood there was no remission.
1t seems to be universal principal
that nothing truly great can be ex-
pected without loss of that we hold
most precions. Blood must flow out
on fit occasions to consecrate what
ever it touches. Sentiments that are
born of power which are the children
of thunder must be born of blood.
They have done for us work of
such inestimable value that it is all
their own for they have died for US.
Their sacrifice of blood has opened a
new chapter of life. We have had be-
fore the possibilities of great inspira-
tions now we have the fact. What
have we gained, what have we gotten
by the blood of our slain? In the
flowing of this blood unity is cemented
and forever sanctfied. We look back
to the revolution and we realize that
4 in that struggle against fearful odds
there was much gained by the bleed
N ing of the colonies, for by this they
were blended in a common cause.
That common cause gave US the con-
stitution that should be indissoluble.
We had not pled enough to merge our
colonial distinctions, to give to US the
strong and enduring cement of a ma
ton. The logic of the constitution
was decisive on states rights doc
N trines; it refuted them under right
eous definition a thousand times over,
but such things will not go by argu-
ment. Blood on one side and blood
on the other could alone change dis
cords into unity. Since the days of
our civil conflict we have had other
foes in which our country has
- I,a Of
From north and south they have
marched side by side and our battles
have been on a scale to mass our feel
#ings, to gulf all discussions; the great
Hchasm has been nearly filed.
The relations since the Spanish
Grated progress, for they are more
cordial than they ever could have |
been before. The bond of our COM
mon life God has touched with blood, |
so we have been bleeding and blend
ing together in the Philippines, in all |
sorts of warfare, wars civil, wars |
abroad, gaining all sorts of victories,
suffering all kinds of defeat. A great |
crisis is the creator of great senti-
ments; they go when they are not dis
missed, and when there is no call for
great sacrifice, and they will come
only when the demand is made for the
giving up of the things most precious.
You cannot keep them by much talk,
nor because we have heard them, to
have lofty public consciousness things
must be loftily and nobly done. We
have to be Irallied to a cause and in
8+bot oouoo find oraat inSnirotioro ord