The Newtown bee., 1905-06-09

from bis conquered foe, said: "Give
 them back their horses; they will need
 them for their crops."
 Two Memorial days have we? Yes; but they both belong to this one land;
 no other na tion has in them any part.
 A Memorial day for the boys who wore
 the blue and Memorial day for the
 boys who wore the gray; but for some years it has been the beautiful custom for the Northern men to decorate the
 Southern graves and for the men below Mason and Dixon's line to return the
 compliment as generously. May this
 custom increasingly grow
 UNTIL THE LAST DEAR COMPANION DROPS slIILINGLY AWAY.
 | May Heavens sun shine sweetly on
 both these Memorial days, and may
 every cloud of bitterness soon diSap-
 pear from our Nations sky! Last Fwinter Congress had the courage to do
 what, several years ago, it lacked the
 courage to do; it sent back to the
 South the battle-fags that had been
 captured in the war. This act drove
 from our National legislative halls,
 the last remaining vestige of sectional udGe, uOW lOuS Sudll lG US DeloIe all
 rancOr disappears from every corner of our land? When the men from the
 South and the men from the North,
 side by side and shoulder to shoulder,
 took part in the battles that made lit- l tie Cuba, the fair gem of the Antilles, l free, did they stop to argue, before l they fired a gun, that they, or their 1 fathers, had once fought under differ
 ent flags, or that 1t would be quite i'm proper for them to try to recOhcile diff
 ferences in that way? Oh, there is no ! healer for all wounds quite so effective ! as time, no emollient for griefs quite
 so curative as few years in which
 one has time to think. A few tardy years, and we shall see what it nov
 seems to some perhaps impossible that
 we shall ever see: we shall see monu-
 mentS of brass enduring accorded l throughout the North to Lee and Jackson and Johnston with as gener- I OuS honor as we now accord them to I Grant and Sheridan and Meade. Are I they not Americans all? Who wishes that any other nation should have a
 portion of the eourtly honor that we ] pay to such brave men?
 In Gods house to-day we are com
 memorating not bloody war; we are | commemorating brave men. They
 were heroes, those men who responded to their country's call. The world l never saw grander army than our ] Grand Army of the Republic. They ] left shop and forge and hanmer and plough when treason's vulgar form I shook the ground; and back they came to the shop and forge and hammer and | plough when their work was over and they had done it we'll. To the ever
 lasting glory of these men be it said | ho al they fought for nation, for a cause, for flag. Theirs was an unselfish l warfare Never was their agony de- bauched to the level of the politicians stripe. Never did their rich blood soak the ground that they might get
 to themselves gain. That, and that alone, lifts war from the level of the | slugging match and the cooking main
 when men strike heavy blows for the
 defence Of the eternal right. In de- fence of pure girl whose chastity was aSSalled, strong man might deal telling blows: and every blow would be as spotiess as an infants cheek and as holy as a mothers caress. EeS, it is better, it is better in life to e&ecute one holy commission than to have the
 mines or doleonda for our treasure
 house and to indulge in years of crllni-
 nal ease.
 Over in scotland there is a battle field unmarked by monument or any device to show how famous it has
 been-an old stone fence runs across
 the field. But on that spot where once the native Scots fought in savage contest with their Saxon foes there grows little flower, little blue flow CT that grows nowhere else in all the 1 world. Of course the seeds of this dover I were there before the battle camei but i the warm blood of the brave men that 1 fell nCuriShed the seeds and brought | them forth into gloom. They call this : flower the flower of CqllQden Field. l Of course there was patriotism, of course there were brave hearts, of course there was adherence to the : everlasting right of course there were ihow little in this sermon l have said in reference to the great part women played in that war, of course there were all these things before the shot whizzed across Charleston Harbor and before iort Sumter fell; but it took the call to arms and the threatened disruption of our Union to bring these noble I. qualities into flower and bloom. This is big land, 8 very big land; the American eagle now screams his wild notes round half the world. We have big rivers, Jig cataractS, big lakes, big mOnopolieS, big corruption funds, big scandals and big mines: but when we have only bigness in material things and forget to enter up in our Nations inventory the bigness of soul that won victory at Gettysburg and charged up the steeps of Missionary Ridge, then, and not till then, does our eagle lower his proud note and one great, inerasi- ble scar get into the wool of our flag.