The Sauk Centre herald. (Sauk Centre, Stearns County, Minn.) 1886-current, 1906-05-31

duties which require time and money
or which put us to inconvenience.
But duty place US at our post and
demands fidelity to our trust.
Gen. Aiger tells that in the winter
of '62 it was his duty one night as
officer in charge to visit the different
picketposts. 1t was an intensely cold
night and on one of his rounds a few
hours before daylight, he approached
a post where a solitary soldier stood on
guard. AS he neared the post he was
greatly surprised that the soldier did
to halt him and demand the count
ensign. The soldier was lean
ing against a tree, and the officer
thought he had found one of
his men asleep on duty. Walk
ing up to the man he took him by the
arm to arouse him and order his i'm
mediate arrest, when what was his hor
ror to find him dead. Frozen, literally
frozen, was this faithful picket, but
still standing at his post, frozen and
rigid, where his commander had
placed him. Fidelity to our duty as
citizens is another lesson of Memorial
day.
But one more truth ought this oc-
casion to impress upon u.s.. self
sacrifice. What did not this great
war cost in men and money! Into
how many homes sorrow entered be-
cause husbands and sons who went
down south never returned! Fields
were left uncultivated; factories stood
silent; taxes accumulated, under the
burden of which the nation suffered
long.
No one can ever estimate the sacri-
flee which it cost to preserve the union
and free the slaves. But the most
precious things are always bought at
the price of sacrifice. And to pre-
serve for our children what the "Boys
in Blue" gained demands sacrifice of
us today.
In Scotland there is battlefield on
| which the natives and their Saxon
foes met in terrible encounter. No
monument marks the spot, but a
singular little blue flower grows there
and there alone. They call it the
GLOVER of Culloden" because it
springs from soil in which the bodies
of patriots were buried. The seeds
were there of course but it needed the
baptism of blood to make them grow.
And now every blue flower on Culloden
field, as it bends its head to the sum-
mer breeze, is a tender memorial of
the brave spirits who dyed that sod
with their hearts blood.
Do you know dear friends, that the
choicest flowers of civilization are
always "Culloden fowers?" They
spring from soil that has been watered
by sacrifice. The men of '76 watered
the land with their blood, from which
have sprung the flowers Of our freedom
and prosperity. The soldiers of the
Civil war, by their sacrifice, caused to
flourish anew those flowers which
seemed ready TO perish.
Religious liberty is "Culloden
flower" which the sacrifice of many
good man CAUSED to grow, and the
beauty of which we today enjoy. Even
Christianity itself sprung from the
blood-dewed ground at the foot of the
cross of Christ.
And so to preserve as we'll as to gain
any precious thing we must learn the
necessity of sacrifice. This old world
cannot grow better; our beloved
country can not continue to prosper
and be blessing to mankind, unless
we learn the great lesson that to save
our life we must be willing to lose it,
that if we would indeed be great we
must learn to serve and to sacrifice
Amen.