The Princeton union. [volume] (Princeton, Minn.) 1876-1976, 1909-06-03

3 3, 1909.
to the noble dead of a noble cause.
and gladly would I give way to some
one qualified by nature and by train
ing for the honorable task.
But who can regard the request of
these noble survivors of a noble cause
as other than a command? And
though I have no apples of gold, and
can present them in no pictures of
silver, yet such as I have I freely
give.
Half hundred years ago. when the
nations very existence was in peril,
there came call for aid. It was
answered by men such as are now be-
fore us. There was no hesitancy; no
excuse was made; they did not say
some one else can do it better.''
They made no claim to great military
genius; nor did they name tho lack of
it as a reason why they should not
respond. But like some great force
OF nature-some great flood, they,
and thousands and hundreds of
thousands of them, swept on in their
might, until the country's dangers
and impending disasters were over
whelmed-the union was saved, and
the people were at peace.
It is passing strange that a nation
such as ours should be called upon to
endure war for such cause. Con-
ceived in liberty, and dedicated to the
equality of men, the war was fought
to determine whether nation so con-
ceived could long endure. The seeds
of the strife were early sown and, al
though of slow growth, were of great
vitality.
It is said that the war was fought to
save the union, not to destroy
slavery. But it was slavery that dis
rupted the union, threatened it's COM
plete destruction, and compelled the
saving and restoring war.
It is hardly possible for the young
er generation to realize the existence
CT a condition under which certain
persons we're kept as the absolute
property of others; that human beings
could ever have been held as chattels,
as much SO as the beasts of the field.
The present attitude of mind and
heart toward such a thing but illus
trates the tremendous advance of civ
ilization-the great moral uplift of the
comparatively recent years.
Slavery is of the greatest antiquity,
and was once regarded as the accept
ed order of creation, to which no
wrong attached. It s@was4apparen
sanctioned by all the great religions.
Even the early christian church did
nothing 20 suppress it, and slavery
| and the slave trade continued to exist
for a thousand years in christian
Europe.
We have often heard the words
''irrepressible conflict" Since first
pronounced they have been quoted in
application to a great variety of
situations. There is an 'irrepressible
conhict"-an eternal struggle between
the principles of right and wrong, be-
tween the forces of light and the forces
of darkness, the powers that make
for evil and the powers that make for
good-that has existed throughout the
world from the beginning of time.
Sometimes, to our limited vision,
the one seems to be in the ascendancy,
and sometimes the other. But we
have faith to believe that there is a
Great Guiding Providence, who in the
end always overrules the evil and
exalts the good.
1t may even be, as some declare,
that there is no evil-that what we are
accustomed to regard as such is but
the appearance of evil, permitted by
Inscrutable Wisdom for purpose,
and necessary to the development of
divine plan.
God moves in mysterious way
His wonders to perform;
\
Behind frowning providence
He hides smiling face
The history of slavery, to which
allusion has been made, even in our
own country eyhihits on ine+onoo ~
this great conflict, and the final
triumph of the right over wrong.
At the time the British colonies
were established in America slavery
of white people had almost ceased in
christian Europe. In England the
only recognition of human chattels
was in those rare instances of negroes
or Asiatics owned by wealthy men,