The Newtown bee., 1905-06-09

upon Italy's ensign we see not the cloth, but resurrected Italy. When we see that other three-colored flag we see not the cloth, but the struggles,
 the hopes, the tears that have made
 Hungary free. When the combined crosses of St Andrew and St George appear upon fiery background, we see
 not the cloth, but the ideas that have
 made possible that little island and mighty empire upon which the sun never sets.
 Whatever tue symbols, whatever the insignia, placed upon our flag, there IS
 but one message which it reads out to
 the world, and that is
 THE MESSAGE OF LIBERTY.
 No flag was ever sent upon such an er-
 rand, no flag ever had such mission of mercy to the world. To the galley slave at his grinding labor it has meant liberty; to the oppressed conscript it's
 folds, shaking out to the wind, have said liberty; to the creature hardly claiming for himself the right to own
 his soul our flag has given an emanci-
 patton proclamation. It has been everywhere it has gone the very prom ise and prediction of God who sent his Son to redeem an enslaved race. It has meant just what Lexington meant. It has meant just what Concord meant.
 Beginning way back with the time of the colonies it traced its pathway of freedom through the Revolutionary
 War. It seems to me nothing less than the rising of valiant young peo- pie against a foreign tyranny. That war established the imperishable fact that men have right to their own selves and to their liberties. Our flag carries with it American ideas. Amer ican feelings, American history. Its one motto has ever been the divine right of men to liberty; and that liber- ty has been liberty under law, not la wlesSnesS; constitutional liberty, lib- erty through law, and laws made for liberty. Every star upon it's field of blue, every beam and stripe of light, rings out the clarion notes of liberty
 When men have sought to make op- pression nestle under its folds, it's bright bands have streamed forth their lightning flashes like arrows shot from the bow of God. We are proud of Old Glory, for it has ever been unstained by disfgurement or disgrace. Advanced full against the morning.light,g gathering in its folds the growing and glowing day, it shall take in it's rich embrace the last ruddy beams of the night, and shall sweep with triumphant note clear across this beautiful:land from the Atlantic to the Pacific, and from regions where the lift up their rugged forms in icy solitariness to the warm waters of the Gulf, ever proclaiming that
 IT IS THE BANNER OF THE FREE.
 Our states grew up under this flag. When the imperious Englishmen sought to intrude their search war rants upon American decks our flag shook out from it folds the words, Have you forgotten the gallant fleet on Lake Erie, and how it's guns pealed out their roar under the broad folds of our flag? l am glad that the old ship is alive to-day. Once traitorous men to destroy her. They might as well have tried to destroy our con- stitutiOn. They could not burn her; they could not sink her. Bless the name, bless the memory, bless the men who fought so we'll. Bless the flag. May such grandeur of spirit as was theirs be ours in unbroken line until this nation ceases to be. Our flag was born Tn liberty, was made for liberty, and dear to liberty it shall ever be.
 A oPSoh oA UdO 10uu UQdU IS SCdTI0U, still scared, though four decades have rolled away since the war was over. I look into the faces of men who came scared out Of the fray. A cOmrade of the days of '61 is riding with a con- panion near the Creek Antietam. It is beautiful May morning. The birds singing 'lnid the tree-tOps, the flowers throwing up themselves in fra grant clusters from the tangled grass, the f1eecy clouds sailing like airy ships across the sky, all serve to take away from the mind all thought of that terrible day when men waded ankle deep in blood. Suddenly the horses noof strikes against a skull, what is eft to tell the story of some poor fellow who fell in the heat of the charge, vestige of past we wish to for 1 get. Trooping through the soldiers | cenes of horror-the ranks moved | town, the victory gained at awful cost. The soldier sees the scar. Why to-day, l n the house of God, do we commem- ,rate such bloody deeds? It is not | he part of those who
 FOLLOW THE PRINCE OF PEACE
 o delight in war. All over the world here are battlefelds. Ten thousand eeds of valor have been forgotten. Why should we recall these deeds of
 eroes to-day? We recall battlefelds 7ith honor only because of blessings hat come from the sod. You do not are for the black muck from which he lily grows, but you do care for the early Whlteness of the flower. You o not esteem the furnace heated seven lmes hot; but you do prize the pure old that comes from it's flaming 1Outh. Oh, no, we do not glory in 'ar, we say with General Grant that 7ar is Hell; but we think to-day with ratitude of the harvest of blessing hat came out of the war. What were hese blessings?
 There was the blessing of Self-reSpect. 'Ou cannot accomplish anything in fe without this. The father who as no respect for his son, the boy who as lost respect for his mother, cannot ope to achieve any success in life. he Russians made the big mistake of that because they had big 1 ountry they were dealing with an ln- gn1ficant foe, that it would be only D te-breakfast piece of work to { lean the little JapS out. They are 1 nding out at bitter cost how biz a listake they made. We simply had go over to the Philippines and show ne people over there that we were not ke their former masters, the ( paniards. We simply had to teach