The Forest Republican. [volume] (Tionesta, Pa.) 1869-1952, 1906-06-06
The Memorial Sermon.

X. were present in a body TO hear the
memorial address given by the pastor of
the Tionesta Presbyterian church, Rev.
Paul j. Slonaker, Phi. d. BY request the
address is given Tor publication. DR..
Slonaker took for his text Heb. ll:4
"Being dead, yet speakeih," and spoke
as follows:
We are assembled today to pay our
tribute of res spect, honor and love to the
heroes who served this country, who
gave us this glorious present and hope of
a still more glorious future. The memory
of the men who really made us free, who
secured the blessings of liberty, not only
TO us, but to millions yet unborn, fingers
with us like sweet perfume. Next
Wednesday is memoly's day. In sorrow
profoundly sincere our village and COM
munijy will turn with one accord to the
sacl ed spot where lies the gentle soldier.
Next Wednesday silence will fall upon
this land with all its thunde, of industry.
In reverent silence the nation will roll
call the soldier dead aud go forth to cover
their graves with sweet and silent tokens
of our love and grief. Full forty years
have passed since these loved and loving
fathers, sons, brothers, friends did march
away, soon to return again, they said,
when we have freed Gods children and
made our country one. But their good
Father, God, planned better forlhem than
they knew. Theirs the martyrs death;
theirs the PATRIOTS crown. Seeking to
make their country one. God brought
them to II is eternal city, for they fought
"A tight good and true. Though lost to
sight, they still to memory are dear. To-
day the magic wand OF memory hath
brought their names and faces back to
us. Not.oue has been forgotten, though
no man knows where some OF them do
lie. Under scorching skies, overcome by
heat, some fell; naked and starving, some
died in prisons damp and deadly; but
under smoking, sulphurous skies, that
rained upon their devoted heads the hiss
ing shot and shell, most fell on bloody
battle fields, now billowy with their
graves; and some their final resting place
we know not of. But who shall say that
He who clothes the lilies doth not wreathe
His soldiers graves. In Gods deep
gleus and forest shades they lie. Each
Memorial Day sees their graves fresh
strewn with grasses green; His seasons
scatter flowers gray; each purpling sum
mer day the clinging vines fall over them.
And when the frost bath splashed the
leaves with blood and sunset gold the
forest trees then drop their wrealhs of
softest leaves upon their billowy graves;
while to the music of Gods winds the
weeping vines, the sobbing pines, the
mournlul elns pour forth their solemn
funeral hymn. There let them lie till
that last trump shall sound.
How vast is this cemetery of the dead.
1t reaches all over the Republic. Each
country churchyard has its corner sacred
to the dead soldier. Each large town,
each city has its multitude of little white
stones in the grass and its monuments to
hold aloft the names of the fallen and the
fields where they fell. This land where
so many living citizens walk so heSrtless-
ly, disgracing the nation that surpasses
al in goodness. is all over dotted with
grassy hillocks of those who died in the
name OF better humanity. AT last those
tombs will triumph. The men who trlfle
and sin over them are full of weakness,
while the graves are full of power. How
vast is this cemetery OF the soldiers.
There are six burying grounds within
sight of the National Capitol. Any Con-
gressman who is now trying to sell his
nation for gain might by short walk or
ride come to some holy spot where the
silence and pathOs of the scene would
tell him to think more deeply and act
more wisely. What voice would come
from the military asylum, with its six
thousand graves. What a voice from
Arlington, with its 10000 dead. What a
voice from that one spot where lie the
bones of2,000 men whose names were not
known. Around the Capital of our coun.
try lie twenty-five thousand who for their
country's welfare offered up all the
sweets of this life.
But while we thus mediate and stand
with our hands full of memorial wreaths,
the scene expands, the holy ground
widens from state to state, from mountain
to prairie, and from ocean to lake and
river, until at last the heart bows down
in grief over the silent forms of 300, 900
men. They gave up life that we might
live more nObly. OF this number not
many fell in instant death. Nearly all
went out by The gateway of long agony,
asking help that could not come, and
thinking of loved ones they could never
see again. But l need not tell you the
story of the suffering of the heroes of the
war. 1t has been told you many times.
1t is known to every intelligent man and
woman in the world. Everybody knows
how blood was shed. Every body knows
the story of the great, the heroic struggle,
and everybody knows that at last victory
came to our side and how the last sword
of the rebellion was handed to General
Grant. There is no need to tell that story
again. But l want to tell you that all this
suffering and all this dying was for us
who today are speaking the language and
taking the footsteps and seeing all the
scenes and joys in the sunshine of life.
Memorial bay ought TO come back as long
as our mind can study political princi-
Piles, and as long as our heart can appre-
ciate tho selt-denial of soldier. By obs.
serving it we are made better men and
better citizens and our great government
made stronger and more enduring.
Especially should the pulpit and the
church scatter flowers on the graves of
the Union dead, for those awful battles
and the awful carnage were planned by
the blindness and weakness of religion.
Christians in England opened a traffic in
human bodies and souls. The pulpit was
too weak or too ignorant to oppose slavery
in the beginning. This false lead of
England and Europe and the church fol-
lowed and gave us the spectacle of a great
crime reposing upon the form of Christ
wonderful picture painted by the church
Christ a. slave driver. But such was
the picture. and the church sat down and
admired it until our nation saw fourteen
states deeply injured by slavery and the
whole republic dishonored. But the
church should bless the soldiers for hay
ing by their blood atoned for the coward
ice of the sanctuary. The pulpit should
adorn tie battle fields that brought to
them the unsullied Christ of Nazareth
and Cavalry. In the procession of next
Wednesday the church should march as
a penitent full ofreg cts, that wearing the
name of Jesusit made such poor esti-
mate of the rights of man. Had the
church done its moral duty IN the seven
teenth and eighteenth centuries the nine
teenth would have escaped the awful war