The commercial. (Union City, Tenn.) 190?-193?, 1904-01-22

the bloom of the blossom, ant
whose heart was aglow with th,
light of love and whose soul wai
as pure as the lilies of her garder
kissed her soldier boy as they
parted in the ivory moonlight thai
laved the throbbing troubled land.
and whispered go, and for my
sake and the sake of the love we
cherish prove the spirit of your
manhood and courage of your
souls" All, craven indeed had
been the hearts that faltered when
both love and duty urged it on,
and they went, and the daughters
gave their prayers, the sons their
lives The Southern Confedracy
was cemented with the tears of
its womanhood and the blood of
its manhood, and tell me not that
a fabric hall0wed by such ibation
was unholy or unclean
| But vain were the prayers and
vain were the tears and the strug-
gle and strife were in VAIN. The
blood stained banner was forced to
the dust and over the dreams and
the hopes of the passionate years
there settled the desolation of de
spair. And back to the mansion
that stood on the hill top and back
to the humble bone IN the valley
came the broken band that had
sorrowed, and suffered--and lost.
But the mansion was in ruin and
the cabin was gone; the weeds
choked the field, the fences were
down, the cattle were astray; here
and there heaps of ashes told
where beautiful cities had stood.
Oh, those were sad, sad days! The
streams still laughed over the
golden pebbles, but to the broken
heart the gurgle OF waters is a
dirge of despair;the birds still sang
in the silent, solemn forests, but
their song was as a requiem over
the buried hopes Of the buried
years; the flower still blossomed,
but they blossomed on the graves
Of the dead. And saddest of all
it must have been when the re
turning soldier entered the home
and looked into the eyes that loved
him, and stammered, his voice
trembling with the emotion of an
guish, 1--WE have failed" But,
ahl he might have spared his fears,
for whenever the sons of the
Southland have wept the daugh-
ters have wiped away their tears,
and in that desolate hour loving
arms were thrown about a weary
form and a tired head was drawn
to throbbing bosom, and a voice
thrilling with a music as rapturous
and ravishing as ere broke on the
air of Eden whispered, "Ah, no,
you have not failedl You have
failed indeed to hang a new flag in
the heavens, to establish new
government among men, but you
have been true to the right as you
saw the right and have fought
with a mans best efforts. You
may not wear the medals of a
grateful nation, but from our
bosoms we will unpin the white
rose Of the Southland and pin il
upon you as symbol of chivalry
and the insignia of your knight
hood, and then hand in b d
we will turn rom the
dead hopes of the dead years to
the living ambitions of the living
future, and you will labor and we
will pray and labor, for the hopes
you cherished indeed are dead, but
the spirit of your manhood liveth
forever and forever!
Ladies and Gentlemen, unto us
hath not been given the power to
divine the things that are to
be. We may not gaze at the sun
and see; we can only look at the
stars and hope. |, for one, have
faith in my country's
destiny. The man has not yet
been born whose children's chill
dren will see the fioodtide of our
national life. No republic has
been Of long duration It's true, but
no other republic has been builded
by Anglo Saxon hands, based up
On Anglo, Saxon hearts and sealed
with Anglo Saxon blood The
peris may come and the dark
clouds may lower, but out of the
stormy past comes Inspiration to !
meet them. From Shiloh and /;
Charlottesville and Gettysburg
from the thousand battlefields and
the numberless graves here
sleeps the dust which makes sacred
forever the soil, from the simple
tomb at Lexington where Stone
wall jackson lies, there comes to
North and South alike this senti-
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