The leader., 1903-07-08

anew the foundations of social, commercial,
industrial and educational greatness, hast
with consistent voice called back the I'm
ion to its better self And unto thee, from
the great deep of the eternities, comes the
voice of thy king, saying
whereas, thou hast been forsaken and
hated, so that no man went through thee,
/ will make thee an eternal excellency, a
JOY of many generations. For brass will
bring gold, and for iron will bring sill
yer, and for wood BRASS and for stones
iron; l will also make thine officers peace
and thine exactors righteousness. Violence
shall no more be heard in thy land, vast
ing nor destruction within thy borders but
thou shalt call thy walls Salvation, and
thy gates Praise.
Thy sun shall no more go down, neither
shall thy moon withdraw itself, for the
Lord shall be thine everlasting light, and
the days of thy mourning shall be ended"
VIII our country heed the truth that there
Is no dispensation of grace for nations {?
That God saves not nations but the indi-
vidual; that He guides the upward ascent
of the race to himself, raising or crushing
nations as their righteousness advances
or their wickedness retards it's spiral line
of advance over all opposition? That man
answers at His bar hereafter, nations here
In their reform, or their ruin, as they heed
or despise His discipline?
Who shall say that He has not meant the
North to learn that a proud and self re-
specting people are not to be scourged, but
loved into the concord of indissoluble un-
ion; to be reconstructed, not by enactments
born of the frenZied passions of war and
framed lin the eclipse of reason" but re-
constructed by the healing process of divine
Justice which chastens not to humiliate.
and disciplines only to save-reconstructed,
my countrymen, by the legislation of the
skies
Who shall say He has not subjected the
South to the awful experiences through
which she has struggled to this day of hope,
integrating into the fiber moral and intel
leetual of her people the loyalty of justice,
the fealty to truth, the conservation to I'M
changing right, which, under Him, are to
call back the republic to its ancient faith
and honor, and ground it, anew, in that al
legiance to God which may indeed make it
endure
It'll wrapt in flames the realms of ether
glow
And heavens last thunders shake the
world below
Soldiers. 1t may be-who shall say? p
that the bloody discipline of four years of
common suffering was meant to weld the
South into that solidarity which has out
worn the bitterness sprung from the mis-
conceptions and demonstrations of the
past four decades, and which constitutes
today the sheet anchor of the republic
You were the boys and the young men of
so. From 25 to IS years of age, you have
composed the mature citizenship of the
South. Soon you pass over the river to
rest under the shade of the trees" with
Lee and Jackson and Johnston and Davis,
and the glorious company of the immortals.
Before you go, we wish to melt all hearts
into one voice, and give that voice utter
ance that shall roll upward to the Ger
arching canopy of these Southern heavens,
pledging you that your sacrifices in war
your heroic constancy in peace, shall never
be forgotten till the apocalyptic angel
stands one foot on sea and one foot on
shore to proclaim that time shall be nc
more. Your fame shall light with splendol
the pages of the Macaulay and Gibson, the
Scott and Byron of the future, who shall
ascribe to you the double glory-the death,
less distinction of having not only saved
the civilization of your native South, but
also of having presented the last-and God
grant it may be a successful-barrier to
the extinction of a republic regulated BY
law, In a despotism directed by an all
grasping Imperialism. There can be no i'm
mortality of nation apart from the i'm
mortality of the virtues of its citizens
The virtues and the sins of a nation are
the virtues and the sins of each of its citi
Zens on a larger scale and written in gigan
tic letters"
Nothing has survived to us from the ma
lions that have persisted save the deeds OF
virtue and heroism wrought by it's good and
great. In silence and pathetic duty tc
their towers and temples and palaces lie
erumbled and entombed, the Fictitious splen
doris of vicious materialism faded into
eternal night but over their entombed ruins
God arches armament of beauty, In which
He sets to shine as stars forever all tina;
the spirit wrought all that the soul of its
great and good accomplished for the bet
terment of the race.
What constitutes State?
Not high-raised battlement or laboreC
mound,
Thick wall or moated gate;
Not cities proud, with spires and turrets
crowned;
Not bays and broad-armed ports,
Where, laughing at the storm rich navie.
ride;
Not starred and spangled courts
Where low-browed baseness watts perfum,
to pride. xs,sd
No: Men, high minded men,
Men who their duties know,
But know their rights, and knowing, dare
maintain;
Prevent the long aimed blow
ana crush the tyrant while they rend thu
These constitute State"
We all may we all do-most heartily
join the greatest of all our orators the I'M
mortal Webster, in his depreciation
God forbid that that happy constella
tion under which we have risen to so much
or greatness and renown should be shat
tered to fragments and be seen sinking star
after star into obscurity and night"
But II that prayer is to receive certain
answer 1t must be accompanied by a life OF
national morality in keeping with the lofty
IL the horrors of the French revolution
are not to be re-enacted here on a dire
| scale, the law must know in its enforcement
NO caste. no rank. no race. Ii the mani
fest injustice and inequalities marrinl
Its present administration are to be cor
rected through peaceful agencies and not by
an American Cromwell, sword in hand; il
| the time Is never to come when Macau
| lays New Zealander" shall lin the mids
Of vast solitude" stand on broken arch
of city gone forever, the abuses threaten
Ing the life of the republic must be re
formed altogether These reflections my
countrymen, are not meant to intimate
doubt, but to incite to duty. Let no man
| say we despair of the union. We love it
| We love its glorious flag. We love best OF
all Its matchless constitution We tax,
from Webster the motto of the future "Oul
country-our whole country-and nothing
| but our country
Let US leave for posterity some prooi
| that we hold the blessings transmitted from
our fathers in just estimation; some proc
| of our attachment to the cause of good gov
1 eminent and of civil and religious liberty
some proof of a sincere and ardent desir,
| to promote everything which may enlarg
| of men. We realize that we stand in thu
dawn Of the twentieth century. We catcl
upon the horizon the crepuscular dawn O
a transcendent day whose light, like an
| other morn. risen ON mid noon, shall iii
/ tho pfh Onn mvIaf stand upfth l4rial q,