OCR Text |
Show ME.UUK.LAJL DAY. , , Kjt what eartuly or unearthly use can it bo to strew! flowers upon the graves of tho dead? -- J -: Ttie graves hold nothing but mouldering moul-dering forms. Tlio floflcra will soon wither. The unconscious dust beneath cannot note tho tribute of honor or patriotism or affection, and the sod itself will scarcely be graced by the do-crying do-crying leaves. If tho roses are left glowing where they grow, they will diffuse dif-fuse f'ragranco and gladness for days. Why pluck them to perish, a needless sacrifice to death ? Why remember tho dead? What can wo do for them, or they for us ? Who has found the link that joins the comparatively few living to the tribes that slumber in the dust? They that tread the earth can heed cur greeting can understand gifts of flowers. But what 6cienceor art or earth-based philosophy phil-osophy is thero to assuro us that our sympathy for the dead ia not wasted ? Yet the parent will lay lilies on tho breast of the dead child. The bereaved will lovingly trcasuro tho mementoes and deck the tombs of the departed. You will not chide tho mother for planting flowers over the grave of her lost. The memories of somo dead are more alive than many who arc living. Few but have known somo mortal of whom they havo said, "This one can-1 can-1 not all die." Who has not at somo timo felt, with tho ancient heathen, "Aon omni's morittr !" If we strike from tho world all that religion and poetry have dono for it, tho rest will be barrenness. Life would be but a naked rock if all imagination imag-ination and sentiment were swept from it. There would bo no patriotism, no noblo endeavor, no generous emotion. The bloom and the rousio of Nature would be but for blindness and deafness. deaf-ness. .Men's and women's souls would bo gono, und all love and beauty bo cnUod. The country is at length passing out from the pcuumbra of the shadow of civil war. In all truo hearts the animosities ani-mosities of that time arc deal. A few years ago, it was iu joy fur a saved land, aud iu gratitudo to the heroes whofcC sacrifice had saved it, that wo strewed flowers upon iboir grave.1?. The Southern poo pi -j ai nifurally paid floral flo-ral mtutcs at the graves of the host that had suffered aod fallen for them. Tho people of the North and the people of the South would havo been unworthy of each other if they had not thus, respectively, respective-ly, cherished with fondness the memories memo-ries of their soldiers. Tho people of both sections havo now a new motivo for tho observaneo of this beautiful 1 rite. It has a richer siioificancy when Unionists and eJ.-Confcderatcs join in honoring alike tho devotion and valor of all thefiHen, und io seeing in their graves the end of strife. Tho pence with which the spirits of tho.e who woro the blue or the r:1. y nr now mingling descends, and t to folly of bitterness is revealed. Therefore, more than ever Lclbro, 'et tho kindly influences of Memorial Day be fostered. Among the f-tiil grave, far from the din -of proliino lif', in the sicrcd presence pres-ence of Nature, take her wondciful symbols the flowers, and lay iIilui ou tho costly a'tar of a common peace and a common couotry. St. Louis Globe, |