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Declaration. The fetters that bound her to the earth are burst asunder. The rags that degraded her beauty are cast aside. Like the enchanted princess in the legend, clad in spotless raiment and wearing a crown of living light, she steps in the perfection of her maturity upon the scene of this the latest and proudest of her victories to bid a welcome to the world!

Need I pursue the theme? This vast assemblage speaks with a resonance and meaning which words can never reach. There is no geography in American manhood. There are no sections to American fraternity. The South claims Lincoln, the immortal, for its own; the North has no right to reject Stonewall Jackson, the one typical Puritan soldier of the war, for its own! Nor will it! The time is coming, is almost here, when hanging above many a mantel-board in fair New England-glorifying many a cottage in the sunny Southshall be seen bound together in everlasting love and honor two cross-swords carried to battle respectively by the grandfather who wore the blue and the grandfather who wore the gray. God bless our country's flag! And God be with us, now and ever, God in the rooftree's shade and God on the highway, God in the winds and waves, and God in all our hearts!

A VISION OF WAR

ROBERT G. INGERSOLL

This extract is taken from Colonel Ingersoll's address at the Memorial Celebration of the Grand Army of the Republic, held at the Metropolitan Opera House, New York City, May 30, 1888. The entire address is printed in "ProsePoems" copyright by C. P. Farrell, New York. printed by permission.

Re

Again

We are

The past rises before me like a dream. we are in the great struggle for national life. with the soldiers when they enlist in the great army of freedom. We see them part with those they love. Some are walking for the last time in quiet, woody places, with the maidens they adore. Others are bending over cradles, kissing babes that are asleep. Some are receiving the blessings of old men. Some are parting with mothers who hold them and press them to their hearts again and again, and say nothing. And some are talking with wives, and endeavoring with brave words, spoken in the old tones, to drive from their hearts the awful fear. We see them part. We see the wife standing in the door with the babe in her arms-standing in the sunlight sobbing. At the turn of the road a hand waves; she answers by holding high in her loving arms the child. He is gone, and forever.

We see them all as they march proudly away under the flaunting flags, keeping time to the grand, wild music of war-through the towns and across the prairies-down to the fields of glory, to do and to die for the eternal right.

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We go with them, one and all. We are by their side on all the gory fields-in all the hospitals of pain -on all the weary marches. We stand guard with them in the wild storm and under the quiet stars. We are with them in ravines running with blood, in the furrows of old fields. We are with them between contending hosts, unable to move, wild with thirst, the life ebbing slowly away among the withered leaves. We see them pierced by balls and torn with shells, in the trenches, by forts, and in the whirlwind of the charge, where men become iron, with nerves of steel.

We are at home when the news comes that they are dead. We see the maiden in the shadow of her first sorrow. We see the silvered head of the old man bowed with the last grief. These heroes are dead.

They died for liberty; they died for us. They are at rest. They sleep in the land they made free, under the flag they rendered stainless. Earth may run red with other wars; they are at peace. In the midst of battle, in the roar of conflict, they found the serenity of death. I have one sentiment for soldiers, living and dead-cheers for the living, tears for the dead.

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THE INSPIRATION OF SACRIFICE

JAMES A. GARFIELD

An extract from a Memorial Day address delivered in the National Cemetery at Arlington, Va., May 30, 1868.

I love to believe that no heroic sacrifice is ever lost; that the characters of men are molded and inspired by what their fathers have done; that treasured up in American souls, are all the unconscious influences of the great deeds of the Anglo-Saxon race, from Agincourt to Bunker Hill. It was such an influence which led a young Greek, two thousand years ago, when he heard the news of Marathon, to exclaim, "The trophies of Miltiades will not let me sleep. Could these men be silent in 1861-these, whose ancestors had felt the inspiration of battle on every field where civilization had fought in the last thousand years? Read their answer in this green turf.

With such inspiration, failure was impossible. The struggle consecrated, in some degree, every man who bore a worthy part. I can never forget an incident, illustrative of this thought, which it was my fortune to witness near sunset of the second day at Chickamauga, when the beleaguered but unbroken left wing of our army had again and again repelled the assaults of more than double their number, and when each soldier felt that to his individual hands were committed the life of the army and the honor of his country. It was just after a division had fired its last cartridge, and had repelled a charge at the point

AN EXAMPLE OF MODERN HEROISM 101

of the bayonet, that the great-hearted commander took the hand of an humble soldier and thanked him for his steadfast courage. The soldier stood silent for

a moment, and then said, "George H. Thomas has taken this hand in his. I'll knock down any mean man that offers to take it hereafter.'

This rough sentence was full of meaning. He felt that something had happened to his hand which consecrated it. Could a hand bear our banner in battle and not be forever consecrated to honor and virtue? But doubly consecrated were those who received into their own hearts the fatal shafts, aimed at the life of their country. Fortunate men! Your country lives because you died! Your fame is placed where the breath of calumny can never reach it; where the mistakes of a weary life can never dim its brightComing generations will rise up to call you

ness.

blessed.

AN EXAMPLE OF MODERN HEROISM

New York Tribune, 1893.

There comes at this time from the Dark Continent a plain tale of plain men in this latest year of the era of commonplace, as thrilling as any saga of Odin and his heroes.

It was in Matabeleland, in Captain Wilson's fatal pursuit of the wily monster, Lobengula. The principal facts of that gallant but disastrous ride have already been made known. But an officer of one of the Matabele regiments, who himself led in the attack upon the