The Barre daily times. (Barre, Vt.) 1897-1959, 1913-05-31
HOMAGE DEEP
AND REVERENT
Continued from srst page.)

an unknown wilderness on far away
shores new state, whose chief tenet
should be the high privilege to wor
ship God in accordance with the dictate,
OF their conscience. This had been de
MED them. Death and Imprisonment
had been the lot of many. Outlawry the
lot of all, 1t was with stern and set
soul they turned their faces westward
and over the trackless deep sailed forth
to land unknown, where even nature
was hostile. They were the first OF
New England's pioneers. Their sacrifice
was of the highest; their service to God
and man measureess, and their reward
has been rich beyond the compass of
man to determine, as high as heaven.
as broad and deep as the universe, as
lasting as eternity.
when, in the progress of time, a new
nation leaped from the womb of this
high ideal and holy zeal, it blazoned
upon its banners the everlasting prin-
cples of justice, freedom and equality
for all men, and through blood and
death and limitless sacrifice it gained
and held its place as star of the first
magnitude in the GALAXY OF nations. The
devotion of our Revolutionary sons to
their lofty ideal was great; the fires
OF their patriotism were undying; their
zeal was fervent There came a time in
the winter of HI when Congress was
a fugitive, and our capital city in the
possession OF the enemy, when Wash
ington withdrew his troops from White
Plains to their quarters at Valley Forge,
that shoeless and stockingless our hero
fathers marched upon the rough and
frozen ground, marking their way by the
oozing blood from their lacerated feet.
AT quarters they passed a woeful win
ter in hunger, in cold, half clad, little
warmed, scantily fed and poorly shell
tered, sustained only by their love of
country ard their faith in God, while
from privation and disease scores and
hundreds lay down and died.
1T was martyrdom. 1t was holy.
The ground was hallowed where they
lay, and consecrated- was their burial
place. 1t has been said, and with truth, |
that The blood OF the martyrs is the |
seed of the church. so the blood of these |
soldiers strewn upon the weary jagged |
way to Valley Forge, so the sufferings !
of these heroes through that awful win /,
ter were the seed of mighty nation, |
Which, MAS ilsplfeu tue loNefs VI HDeIlg |
and led the van of freedoms forces the /
wide world over, thence on to this very
day.
Whenever the weary and the worn
have abandoned in their own land the
struggle for the rights of man; wher-
ever poverty or oppression has bowed /
men to the earth with burdens too griey
Gus to be longer borne, there have come
hope and faith from this nation to the
westward of the seas, and as to a bea
con brightly burning they have turned
their wrapt and wistful eyes, and sad /,
~ but resouteIy they have forsaken
md forsworn the land OF their birth to (
oartake Of the richer life that is found i
beneath the shelterng folds of the stars s
md stripes. /
The sacrifice is not small or mean /
ne makes who removes permanently from j
he land of his nativity He must leave v
behind him quite too often the dear o
mother who bore him, nursed him and Y
owed him, the father who has fed, e
lethed and sustained him; the dear |,
ompanions of his youth; the loved
Genes of his boyhood days; every rock a
nd rill and opening flower; every nook g
nd nesting corner; every shading tree. \