“Renown stands mute beside the graves With which the land is scarred; Unheralded, our splendid braves Went forth unto the Lord; No poet hoards their humble names In his immortal scrolls, But none the less the darkness flames With their clear-shining souls. “Beneath the outward havoc, they The inward mercy saw; High intuitions of Duty lay Upon them, strong as law; Athwart the bloody horizon They marked God’s blazing sword, And heard His dreadful thunder’s run When but the cannon roared. “Shield-bearers of the Sovran Truth! We count your costly deeds Devoutly as a maiden doth Her consecrated beads. You thrill us with the calms which flow In Eucharistic wine; And by your straight tall lives we know That life is still divine.” BROTHERHOOD OF LOCOMOTIVE FIREMEN. Address of welcome, delivered at Atchison, Kansas, July 1st, 1886, at a meeting of the “Brotherhood of Locomotive Firemen.” MR. CHAIRMAN: Within the past half-century, the employments of men have multiplied enormously. Thousands of people are now eagerly toiling, with hand and brain, at occupations that, within the life-time of many living men, were not dreamed of. The telegraph and the telephone, now furnishing a vast multitude of men and women with employment, are among the most recent contributions to the world’s industry, convenience and happiness. And within the present century that marvelous machine with which you are so familiar, the locomotive, took form and shape in the inventive brain of Robert Stephenson. It is doubtful whether any invention of any age—with the possible exception of that great motive power of all modern life, the printing-press—has wrought such changes in the life, work and thought of mankind as has the locomotive. It has annihilated distances; it has wedded the oceans flowing on either side of great continents; it has crowded the most remote and inaccessible regions with busy and prosperous life; it has transformed all the methods and systems of human labor and activity; it has so assimilated different peoples by the speedy and direct communication it has afforded them, that the world is becoming cosmopolitan; and it has created a new employment, engaging a vast army of trained and skilled workmen.