Los Angeles herald., 1909-05-31
COUNTRY OWES
GREAT DEBT TO
FALLEN HEROES
REV. C. C. PIERCE PAYS HON
ORS TO SOLDIER DEAD
SAYS ALL SHOULD RECALL MAR
TYRs' DEEDS OF VALoR
Declares Memorial Day Should Be OBJ
served as One of Sacred Thanks
giving for Those Who Fell
in Battle

| Rev. C. C. Pierce, pastor Of Memorial
Baptist church, yesterday delivered
Memorial day sermon, speaking of
! those of his own church who have died.
and of all departed friends. He said in
part:
There is an ineradicable instinct
within the human heart which leads all
men to desire to be remembered after
| they have passed from the scenes of
their visible life. Even Christ seems
to have shared this feeling when he
said to his Disciples, DO this in re-
gncmbrance of Me- 1t is therefore a
most fitting custom for al people.
whatever their religious convictions
may be, to meet once a year and recall
the names and faces of those who have
served their day and generation and
passed away.
1--WE honor the soldiers who fell in the
great war for the Union, that mighty
conflict on whose sanguinary battle
fields fell some of the brightest and
best men this nation has ever pro-
duced. Those whose memories reach
back to the days of that awful con-
fiict shudder still at the tremendous
cost. There are aching hearts still
which will never cease to ache until
they cease to beat. How fresh still is
the picture of the manly young face
and the boyish figure that went cheerily
but which never again crossed the
threshold, dying as the precious offer
ing to a noble cause on some cruel
battlefield of the South!
Nations Debt to Heroes
ut is we'll for us on this Memorial
day to recall the inestimable debt of
gratitude which this nation owes to
these heroes, and we ought to remem-
Der that while we have profited by their
sacrifice, they call loudly to us from
the past to also devote our lives to the
cause of our nation and to the advance
ment of the race. The man who sits
down selfishly enjoying the advantages
that have been purchased for him by
the life blood of some one else, and
seeks to escape making himself con-
tribution to the cause of humanity, is
an ungrateful, dishonest and ungener-
Gus burden upon human society.
"Those men who heroically fell that
this nation might live, give us the onE
true program of life and nobility, and
this is that every life should to the
full extent of it's influence and power
become sacrifice to the cause of the
race.
ION Memorial day we ought not only
to recall those who fell in the great
civil strife of forty-odd years ago, but
all the noble ones who on any battle
| field of this country or on any battle
field of all the past have given their
lives on the altar of human progress.
And not only those who have died on
battle-fields, but those who have strug-
gled and served and toiled and died, and
fought along other lines, devoting their
lives as a noble contribution to the
service of humanity. ought to be re-
membered and revered on occasions like
this.
1.-THE day should be kept as one of
solemn thanksgiving, of joyous re-
membrance, of devout appreciation, and
in an earnest desire to so live and
guide the forces of our own lives that
we may not only share in the advan-
tages which others have procured for
us. but share with them because we.
too, are making a contribution to the
cause of humanity. 1t is a glorious
thing to feel at one, at home with the
noble and the good and the brave and
the true of every nation and every age,N
and to feel that even in a slight way
we are doing our part in the noble
cause for which they lived and died"