The Owosso times. (Owosso, Mich.) 1897-1926, 1907-05-31

From the days when Joshua, at the
crossing of the Jordan, erected &
monument as memorial to Israe
forever of the dividing of the
| waters for their passage into the
promised land; when Alexander the
Great erected that beautiful monu-
ment as a.. memorial of his friend
Hephaestion; when Shah Jehan
built that world renowned monu-
ment, the Tai Mabel, at cost of
$40, 0,0Q0,000.00 to the memory of
his loved and lost Mootaza; yea,
from the days of the Egyptian pyra-
| mid builders to the numerous camp
fires and reunions of our time, men
have always gloried in memorials
and memorial days.
This Memorial Day calls before
our minds one of the greatest of hu-
man conflicts, which issued in one
| of the grandest achievements Of his
tory. A war fought for great prin-
ciple. One of the costliest and most
momentous of all conflicts at arms
the world has ever witnessed; for
the issue depending upon it was
whether the grandest Republic of
history, founded by some of the
wisest statesmen that ever lived,
and cemented with the blood of
| some of the noblest patriots that
ever died, should perish or endure.
Ours it is to rejoice, and to laud and
praise the God of Battles, for the
| triumphant termination of that
strife.
Now, review of our Civil
War and its issues suggests to us,
and most vividly illustrates the
great principle of all human devel-
opment and progress, viz, that con-
f1ict is inevitable to it. The history
of the evolution of our race is the
history Of war. 1t is written in
blood. Said our honored President,
in one of his famous speeches: 1T
is only through work and strife
that nation or an individual moves
on to greatness. The conflicts of
the ages are neither spurposeless
nor inexplicable. On the contrary,
their wise and beneficent designs are
perfectly legible in the light of the
history and experience which they
have made possible and actual.
'In order to Judge intelligently
of life, a knowledge of it in it's en-
tirety is indispensable. Lies cir
Gle is not broken, but complete. I'll
is like a web woven without a seam
throughout, completed and beauti-
6nd Inv hn dc nf iot-
ing purposes, the woof of sorrow
crossing and oft recrossing the warp
of joy. But whatever our view point
if we only look upon it as a contin-
uous and connected whole, then will
the bloodiest conflicts and the dark ]
est events in human history rise in
awful grandeur in the worlds back
ground, and give to life's picture its
proper setting.
when, as from some exalted
point in space, one in imagination
takes a broad, clear view of human
history as whole, what a scene of
sublime, soul-stirring interest our
little planet becomes. We behold
men and nations in their endless /,
trials and struggles . Monarchs,
thrones, and scepters pass before us
in dazzling splendor. Dynasties and
rulers, at the sound of whose names
the world once trembled, appear and
disappear like the footprints on the
sands of the sea shore. Before us in
panoramic view, pass all the historic
fields of sanguinary conflict. From
the overthrow of the Persian power
by the trained soldiers of Macedo- |
MIA, the first great battle of human
record, down to our own civil war,
the last and greatest internecine
conflict of civilized nation. We see
the wave of barbaric conquest
sweeping from Asia across the
Aegean Sea, until met, crushed, and
driven back by the allied forces OF
Greece armed in the sacred cause OF
liberty. The fields of Marathon,
Salamis, Plataea, and Chalons; Of
Hastings and Waterloo; of Bunker
Hill, Shiloh, Gettysburg, Lookout
Mountain, and Richmond unfold to
our mortified gaze their blood traced
story.
3 when the heart grows sick of !
scenes of carnage and we shift the
point of vision to view man in other
aspects, alas! we behold him still
as being of ceaseless conflict and
trial. Everywhere and in everything |
he is at war, both with himself and
his surroundings. In the industrial
and in the religious realms it has
been struggle from time immemorial
The creeds of the world are written