The Birmingham age-herald., 1902-06-08
Dr. T'almage's Sermon.


 not refrain from rendering to you the consolation that may be found in the thanks of the republic they died to save. l pray that our Heavenly Father may assuage the anguish of your bereave- ment and leave you only the cherished memory of the loved and the lost the solemn pride that must be yours to have laid so costly sacrifice upon the altar Of freedom. Yours very sincerely and respectfully,
 ABRAHAM LINCOLN"
 But though the noble women of the north and south may have suffered greatly. yet hy their very sufferings God was able to heal the wounds. the bleed ing wounds, of this nation. The breaking hearts of the north reached out toward the breaking hearts of the south, and they found that in their troubles they were sisters. Some of the bereft mothers had sons fighting in both armies. As such a mother Sat In her family plot between the two grayes-between the grave of her boy in blue and that of her boy in graY-she prayed that the past civil strife might be forever buried She pleaded with earnest prayer because her boys who died had come from the same cradle and had looked up into the same eyes of the same mother.
 When Bunker monument was being de- dicated, the crowd was so great that by the pressing and pushing a panic was threatened. The presiding officer tried in vain to still the tumult. Then the or ator of the day arose, and Daniel Web ster's deep voice called out Stand back!' Some of the people cried, Tt Is impossible to stand backP' Then Web ster's flashing eye swept over the null titude as he answered: Don't use that word impossible in a place like this. Nothing is impossible at Bunker Hill. !" Some pessimists said that the bitterness of the civil war would never end. But. as Daniel Webster said in reference to Bunker Hill, so nothing was impossible in the suffering presence of broken hearted American womanhood. Their common griefs and sorrows forever for bade men to revive the horrors of our civil strife.
 Our Consecrated Homes
 The dead of our American battlefields are intensely alive today because they have proved that the strength of this country is to be found in the multitudes of It's consecrated homes and not in the size of its standing armies. When the civil war broke out, there were not en- rolled upon the muster of the war de. partment more than 25,000 men. The traveller could go up and down the length and bredth of the land without seeing an American soldier in uniform except in a few forts built for protection against the Indians and in places like Governors Is land and Fort Sumter. All Europe was shaking under the tramp of the martial hosts which were marshaled upon every frontier; yet in America there were not enOnQb Gn16iarq fO Ctal h Ia looking national awkward squad. But no sooner did the bugle blast of war sound than the volunteers came from every where. They came from the pine woods of Main and the Louisiana plantations from among the California flowers and the Alabama cottonfelds, from the Da- kota prairies and the Mississippi flat boats, from the Pennsylvania mines and the South Carolina Tobacco factories They came by the tens of thousands. They came by the hundreds of thou sands. They came by the million. They came to prove for all time that for this country, at least, there is no need of a great standing army.
 When war breaks out, a nation has to use the ships which it has constructed in times of peace. It takes years to build a floating fighting machine. But what I have said is true in reference to a stand ill6 hiS. HIS COuIllt WHICH III d lGM months could produce well disciplined armies, as the army of the south and the army of the north, does not need, save in times of war, to call the keenest brains, the strongest arms and the braw- niest bodies from the avocations of peace and have the nation grooming under the weight of useless taxation. It does not need to have fewer merchants, fewer schoolteachers, fewer lawyers and minis 1 fT,-, der to have more privates and lieuten- ants and captains and majors and col onels and generals. If We have the right kind of homes there will be officers and privates ready to protect the country from foreign foe whenever they are needed.
 And what kind of fighting men did these volunteers make? The very best the world has ever seen! When the American civil war opened, the European monarchies looked upon 1t as war of mobs. These foreign nations supposed 1t to be a disorganized mass. But when the civil war was over and Count von Moltke, the great German Strategist, the general who brought to a successful is sue the Austro-P Prussian war in 1866 and the Franco-German war of 1871, studied the campaign in the south he said "The American war was not a collection Of struggling pygmies. It was a war of giantsr'
 Deeds of Heroism.
 An American never fights as well as when he is a civilian, taken out of the ordinary walks of life, to fight for the defense of his own home and native land. Where In all the pages of history can you find greater deeds of heroism than those exhibited in the southern army? The reason I use this as an illustration Is because the southern army, being the defeated army, had to suffer more. That army fought until 1t could fight no more. The Confederate soldiers fought until they had no more shoes upon their feet; they fought when they had no food in their stomachs; they fought until their clothes were In tatters, and the southern ladies had to tear up their dresses to up their wounds; they fought until the slightest wound on account of their depleted physical system, would cause death by gangrene; they fought until they died.
 Where can you find a greater example of heroism than that exhibited by the colonel of a Pennsylvania regiment? As he was leading In Q charge he looked down and saw the upturned face of his own boy. All that he did was to kneel q and kiss his child. saying, "Goodby, my darling; goodby?' Then he turned and waved his sword, crying: "Come on, boys Come on! Charge and follow mel Where can you find great