In my town the little “God’s Acre” in which the pioneers snuggled to sleep under the protecting shadow of their first rough church has grown over hill and dale to a score of acres. The church long since moved out of its own yard, as if to give the pioneers room, yet lingers gently within a stone’s throw, as a mother waits within sound of her children. Where once the rough oak timbers stood squarely upon their field-stone foundations century-old graves stretch restfully side by side, and gray lichens cling so close to the blue slate of headstones that the twain become one, and the very names of the sleepers beneath are hidden and forgotten. Shoulder to shoulder these old stones stand and lean friendlily one on another, as brothers to whom the kindly elder years have brought surcease of all differences. The early settlers were bold in their beliefs and battled sturdily for them while it was time to fight. The ancient records and traditions will tell you of stern warfare waged between man and man and clan and clan. Then, the battles well fought, they laid themselves down side by side in a forgiving neighborliness that is the most lasting inscription on the plain stones that mark their rest. Peace is most secure between those who have fought best, and the Memorial Day spirit is no mere growth of our later years. It was born in the scheme of all good, just as battles were. Nature voices for us only kindly memories. Whatever the chisel may have graven on these rude slate stones, the kindly sun and rain and the slow sobbing of the earth’s bosom under frost and thaw have taught them “de mortuis nil nisi bonum” till they voice it in phrases which none who pass may fail to read. The lichens have written it and the actions of the slate speak louder than the words of the inscriptions. We in our Memorial Day offerings tell for a brief hour only what the good gray earth has been saying the year through, and we say it best, as she does, in flowers and tears. Nature’s Memorial Days began with the first grave and have continued ever since. Ours, which began with our mourning for dead heroes of the Civil War, has extended since to those of all wars and moves yearly nearer to Nature’s all-forgiving, all-loving teaching. Our lesson will be complete when we understand that all who have lived are heroes and that toward all who are dead we should bear constant loving remembrance. The sun and the rain lead the gentler things of earth to this all through the old cemetery where, since the pioneers of the town, have come the heroes of the Revolution, of 1812, the Civil War, and of countless un-uniformed battles of daily life before and since.