News and citizen. [volume] (Morrisville, Vt. ;) 1881-current, 1901-06-05
MEMORIAL SERMON,
Delivered by Rev. 6. N. Kellogg May IS, to
the G. A. R. and Kindred Societies.

UndU you, gentleman oil Uue w. a. ~,
as part of the memorial services,
should present yourselves in a body
in the house of God, thus gratefully re-
cognizing his hand in the preservation
of your lives, your country and your
liberty. | esteem it a privilege and
an honor to bear a humble part in
this tribute to the memory of our
patriot dead. You we're citizen soldiers
and were actUated by patriotism
as pure and exalted as that of the
Greeks at ThemOpolar, the Swiss at
Margarton, the praying warriors OF
Cromwell at Marston, or of our
God fearing fathers on Bunker Hill.
When Demosthenes would find
q fitting word with which to Charac
terize to the houOrs of Marathon he
could choose but one, from the rich
and unladiuus Greek that he dared
use, and so standing by the pillar
erected at Athens to perpetuate the
memory of their dead, and inscribed
with their names, he called them brave
men, but while heartily re-echO that
name | ask myself, have the centuries
since with their rich fruitage of know
ledge, their amhundant enrichment
of life, their development of a loftier
type of manhood, better social con-
ditions, truer conceptions of freedom
and more perfect realization of Dem
ocratic government, with their sur
prising expansion of peaceful indus
tries. extension of commerce and
multiplication of the comforts of life
and the rednements of home. thus
vastly augmentiDg the value of life
and the importance of stable govern
ment; have they taught us to find no
more pregnant word than brave with
which to characterize your sleeping
comrades? Yea, from that same rich
and unadious Greek, | am able to
select a word which, for us, means
infinitely more than "brave" and
which never in the history of the
world had a more perfect plitica-
ton then in the conduct OfOur citizen
soldering. That word is "PatriOs J"
they were patriots.
We have read with wondering ad-
miration the story of the seige and
capture of Troy, the valOr OF Aga
memnon and Menelaus of Ajax and
Priamus, recOunted in the Illiad of
Homer, have listened while Virgil re-
hearsed in graceful verse the perls
and adventures of Aeneas and the
fortunes of the Latin war, have been
delighted with the Legendary tales
of VIM. Tell. HaveIead with enthusi-
astic ardor of how Herman and his
Saxon comrades in the 9th year Of
the sixth era anihilated the Roman
Legions OF Verus at Winfield and
secured Germany for the Germans,
England for the English, and in course
of time New England for the Puritans
Have read with a flush of pride OF
Concord and Lexington, OF Valley
Forge and Yorktown, of the heroic
valor and unparalleled suffering of our
ancestors; but we never dreamed
that the grand tragedy Of patriotic
devotion would be thousand times
repeated in our own day and land
that those old heroes and demIgods
who thundered in Greek, lightened in
Latin, and flashed and famed il
Ancient history, should stand aside
while common men of plain English
speech upon whose shoulders we haC
laid our hands, whose toll hardened
palms we had grasped in friendly
greeting, set and kept in motion the
machinery of the grandest epic o
the world. But so it has been, W,
have seen classic American history
unfold itself, our companions, fathers
brothers, husbands, SONS, neighborl
have been the heroes of many hard
fought battle, soldiers who have ne
need to blush in the presence OF those
of any land or age, soldiers whose
valour, sufferings, deeds and deatt
on the fugitive lines of that sublim,
epic which some American Home
will collect into stately and immorta
verse.
There is something grand, solemn
and eminently appropriate in thi
spectacle of an entire nation pausin&
to do honor to the memory of thos
"from whose offered lives humanit,
breathes larger liberty" The worlC
looks on in silent approval. Greco
and Rome gave to the successful
government barbOnic triumph bu
commonly overlooked the privat
soldiers. Other nations have in vari
GUS ways preserved the memory ant
celebrated the praises of their civil
military heroes. France has severa
times decorated the graves of he
father soldiers, but we alone of ma
lions make yearly pilgrimages to tn
graves of our patriot dead. Other
chiefly memorable thegreat, the illus
trious; but we, in true Democrat
spirit, celebrate the praises OF all: tn
slain private is a fallen patriot, tn
officer sleeping by his side is no more
heroes both, who fought under tn
same flag, in the same sacred cause
This memorial, these solemn an
impressive ceremonies, this bearin
sorrow, is expressive of our. apprec
alton of the blessings ofgood govern
ment and is pledge to preserve an
transmit them, if need be, by lik
sacrifice, and is calculated to produC
most salutary impression upon tn
minds of the young, tofoster in ther