The citizen. (Honesdale, Pa.) 1908-1914, 1912-05-31

| taken part in that great crossing
and were doubtless nearly all of
! them there that day would lie in the
| dust, and there would be nought
but those stones to tell the story.
Friends, at that service Sunday
night and here in this acre of God
! to-day, we had and we have now
some of those brave men who cross
ed the bloody flood of a crisis in our
country's history. The great lead
! ers have gone. Long years ago all
who were old enough to WELD a
commanding influence in that mo-
mentous struggle have passed on
over a darker flood into a brighter
promised land. With us STILL thank
God for the inspiration of the sight,
! are some of those who bore the
! brunt and burden of that toilsome
march from slavery to freedom, from
| darkness into light. But the time
will soon come when the last wan
| face will have lain upon its final
earthly pillow, receiving the last low
! ing tender cares, the last sad
! breathings of farewell will have
been said, and the very last mem
| ber of the Grand Army of the Re-
public will have joined the Grand
! Army beyond. Then there will be
! left only these stones and their sa-
cred memories. And the memories
will remain only as we. the children
of that older generation, shall obey
| the solemn command to preserve
! them by handing them down to our
children, as we shall interpret the
record and message of these dumb
but eloquent bits of marble to our
| children and they to their posterity.
Friends, that is our fond and
! reverent thought to-day-the record
of these stones which mark heroes
| graves. What a precious gift of
| God to men-the naked stone upon
which may be written the story of
the past that it may be read with
grateful hearts by the men of the
| distant future. Thus have come
down to us the priceless tablets of
empires that have long since per-
| ished Underneath the soil where
they were cast upon the destruction
of mighty temples and palaces have
they lain for uncounted centuries.
Covered with the uncouth charac-
ters of tongues unremembered and
unknown, which the eager and un-
daunted spirits of men who wished
| to learn their story have by an in
genuity almost divine deciphered,
the fascinating story has been re-
vealed of forgotten deeds of valor,
of battles long ago, upon which too
there hinged the decision of human
rights and the fate of nations. Rev.
erently have these monuments of the
hoary past been placed in our
| museums of history, that the story
that each has to tell may not be
lost, but handed down to the re-
motest future time In the pres7S,ce
of such stones telling of the san
culinary struggles of ancient races
of men, who can be so sluggish in
the imagination of his soul as not to
have a heart filled with kindly feel.
ing for his brothers of other days
and from a genuine and real emo
tion to drop a tear of sympathy with
their noble endeavors, their splendid
achievements or their brave fall
ures.
But friends, of all the struggles
at arms of which the great long pas
knows, so far as | have read his
tory, there has never been one with
nobler motive than that in which
|, these men with us here to-day tool
part, whose story it is the eterna
mission of these stones in this beau
tiful resting place to tell. Where
on the monuments of antiquity dut
, from the heart of the earth do VIZ
find that three million men fought fol
the freedom of an alien race anC
: half a million gave up their lives II
: bloody sacrifice, Where do we dis
, cover that the men of a higher rae,
| have fought for the men of lowe
race? Where that white men wer,
{ willing to bleed for black men? d.
| you not discover on the bloody fac,
of that struggle the lineaments of tn,
face of Christ? And where II
those ancient times do we find mel
fighting for political freedom witt
any such conception of the mean
ing of that sacred word as wa
craven on the hearts of the soldier
of these United States from 1861 t
1865?
: The victory that was won for tn
black man causes us sometimes L
o forget the greater achievement TO
! the race of men as a whole, for me-
as men, irrespective of race, color
9 or previous condition of servitude
y The patience of Washington ha
won the opportunity for our father
, to embark upon the most liberal eX
. pertinent in popular government eve
attempted on a large scale. HOY
! many Of us have stopped to thin
+ how near was the peoples ship o
i state to being wrecked upon tn
rocks that threatened it upon
merciless shore? or upon the low
. lying icebergs of mems selishnes
: and devotion to private interests
I How severe blow to freedom woul
> have been struck, had not the boy
u of the towns and villages, the citie
and the farms responded to the ca
: of Abraham Lincoln for men, 10
men to fight in a battle for the righ
for human liberty and justice un
i yersal!
; repeat 1t, on the pages of huma
: history / have not found struggl
i that has meant so much for the rae
a of men, that has been motived
IS such Christlike devotion to the d.
II fenseless and the disinherited, an
l. that has so contributed to the viii
d ming of precious liberty of conscienC