Readers; Speeches, addresses, etc., American; United States
Now, what answer has New England to this message? Will she permit the
prejudices of war to remain in the hearts of the conquerors, when it has
died in the hearts of the conquered? ("No! No!") Will she transmit this
prejudice to the next generation, that in their hearts, which never felt
the generous ardor of conflict, it may perpetuate itself? ("No! No!")
Will she withhold, save in strained courtesy, the hand which straight
from his soldier's heart Grant offered to Lee at Appomattox? Will she
make the vision of a restored and happy people, which gathered above the
couch of your dying captain, filling his heart with grace, touching his
lips with praise and glorifying his path to the grave; will she make
this vision on which the last sigh of his expiring soul breathed a
benediction, a cheat and a delusion? If she does, the South, never
abject in asking for comradeship, must accept with dignity its refusal;
but if she does not; if she accepts in frankness and sincerity this
message of goodwill and friendship, then will the prophecy of Webster,
delivered in this very Society forty years ago amid tremendous applause,
be verified in its fullest and final sense, when he said: "Standing hand
to hand and clasping hands, we should remain united as we have been for
sixty years, citizens of the same country, members of the same
government, united, all united now and united forever. There have been
difficulties, contentions, and controversies, but I tell you that in my
judgment
"'Those opposed eyes,
Which like the meteors of a troubled heaven,
All of one nature, of one substance bred,
Did lately meet in th' intestine shock,
Shall now, in mutual well-beseeming ranks,
March all one way.'"
THE DUTY AND VALUE OF PATRIOTISM
John Ireland, Archbishop of Saint Paul, was born at Burnchurch,
County Kilkenny, Ireland, September 11, 1838. As a boy he came to
Saint Paul, Minnesota, in 1849, and there obtained his secular
education at the Cathedral School. He studied theology in France,
in the seminaries of Meximieux and Hyeres. During the Civil War he
was chaplain of the Fifth Minnesota Regiment. In 1875 he was
consecrated bishop of Saint Paul. In 1869 he founded the first
total-abstinence society in Minnesota and has lectured much on
temperance in the United States and Great Britain. The following
extracts, used by special permission, are from his lecture
delivered before the New York Commandery of the Loyal Legion, New
York, April 4, 1894.
Patriotism is love of country, and loyalty to its life and weal--love
tender and strong, tender as the love of son for mother, strong as the
pillars of death; loyalty generous and disinterested, shrinking from no
sacrifice, seeking no reward save country's honor and country's triumph.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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