I never approach a Pennsylvania Soldiers grave that my heart is not stirred with an emotion that comes probably to but few. I was an humble part of the machinery of government that called these honored sleepers from their peaceful homes and organized them for national service. I was a personal witness to the unfaltering patriotism with which they pledged honor and life to their country. These hallowed mounds upon which we have just dropped our tears, and laid our offerings of beauty and sweetness testify with what heroic fidelity they paid their vows

Had the entire world been searched, affection could not have found a more tender offering than that which we have just laid upon the graves of our countrys dead. Amid the ravages that followed disobedience in the garden, God seems to have shielded the flowers that they might remain to earth, an emblem of the purity of heaven.

Though the broken flower is the symbol of fleeting life and early death, Yet is has been loves joyous offering at the Alter and her last sad and tenderest tribute at the tomb. The type of unforgetting affection, what more expressive to lay upon the graves of those whose memories we would keep bright and beautiful forever. Their early death like the crushed flower leaves a fragrance that we should aim to make immortal.

But all that gratitude and affection prompts our hands and hearts to bring here, is but an offering of mockery to the dead unless in coming we seek and treasure, the lessons that the example of their self sacrificing patriotism teaches. Just as we fail to be impressed with the spirit of their lives and the heroism of their death we fail in honor to them. Living they were our brethren, dying we inherited their honor, it belongs to us and to our children forever but to keep it untarnished, we must take up their work just where with their lives they laid it down they committed to us the keeping pure that form of government for which they died In unselfish devotion to this trust we pay them highest honor

The ceremonies all over the land this day are but an empty bauble unless the mute eloquences of the graves we visit impresses us that highest gratitude to those who have died for a purpose is to make grand and glorious the object for which they died of their death

I know that even to the unthinking there is a mournful pleasure in coming here with words of praise on our lips and garlands of beauty in our hands as offering to the dead but how fleeting are these The visitor that comes here tomorrow will find a silence even more impressing than speech. The tears that now shine out from these floral offerings like so many pearls will have dried, and only withered faded remnants of the beauty of to day will remain tomorrow even these marble headstones will in time crumble into dust. It is right that we should offer all these, but we must not forget that if we would rightly honor deeds that are immortal, the tribute we bring must partake of the nature of that which we would commemorate, we must have in some measure have in our bosoms, the sublime devotion to country that led them to lay their lives upon its alter before we can rightly appreciate their sacrifice and feel our full, obligation to vindicate their death by erecting to them an imperishable monument by making great and good the country for which they died

Love and devotion to country is the great lesson we should learn from these surroundings. The quiet sleepers whom we have met to honor had all the natural affections that we have. They loved home They cherished friends, They felt the tender ties of relationship but all these were held subordinate to duty to owing an imperilled country. So long as love of country remains a virtue with us, as second only to love of God our citadel of freedom will ever have gallant defenders

It is honorable to die for ones country. Next to that honor is living for it We must not forget that peace, like war, has her battles and her victories, one like a tornado uproots and levels the forest, the other cultivates sows and reaps. The one impelled by a firery patriotic impulse. The other by thoughtful prudence that blesses what war has the other saved conflict saved. These Sleeping heroes met nobly the demands of war we are only worthy fellowship of honor with them if we as unselfishly [?] meet the demands of peace. Theirs was a dispensation of sacrifice ours is one of privilege. It was theirs to be grand in the triumphs of battle war. It is ours to be good, in deeds of peace. It was theirs to die for their country it is ours to make the country worthy of their deaths. To this let us devote ourselves, our all.

The land is full of Croakers about our new Countrys dismal future These prophets of evil must be silenced. Only unfaltering faith in the nations grand destiny can bring forth efforts requisite to greatness, deeds are never grander than the impulses that give them birth. Men ever worship the rising not the setting sun. Our dim vision may not penetrate the future but in looking back we see the golden foot prints of God in all our history, and may Courageiously trust, that if we by Gods help will do our duty the future will be more glorious than has been the past.

Now what are some of the elements that enter into national growth and stability. In our form of government it is foundamental that manhood in man be developed. Next after the recognition of God as supreme ruler comes our trust and dependance on man, and after God there is no power equal The man that has with with his moral sensibilities quickened and his intelectual capacities enlarged is in this country next in supremicy to God. The individual must be lifted up, that he may be inspired to deeds worthy of his exaltation, noble achievements come only from the consciousness of noble capacities.

We seem to be drifting away from this foundamental theory of our Government, the present tendency is to combine power, to sink the individual in association. The result is individual enterprise is overshadowed and personal responsibility weakened. It is assumed that we may do innocently in combined action what would be sinful in individual action The pernicious teaching that because bodies politic have no souls God deals with them in this life, has led to the conclusion that acts pertaining to them are but things of the present. The truth is God deals not deal[?] with the body politic as such but with the individual members composing it. He will unravel and fix the measure of responsibility of each individual member and will with most exact justice punish or reward accordingly I have no faith in anything that tends to sink the individual, that makes him such an undefined part in a great whole as belittles in personal judgment and fritters away any his full personal responsibility whatever weakens the motive for personal excellence is a crime against manhood

The citizenship that promises most to the state is governed by enlightened reason and not by unquestioning obedience to party. The study of politics is a duty of citizenship. I would have all men politicians but I would have politics a thing of reason and not of blind predjudice. We can only hope to maintain the purity and force of freedom by the exercise of personal judgement and conscience this right we must demand maintain for our selves and in justice and charity concede it to our neighbors

We hear a great deal about reform in government. The only type of reform worth an effort is that which begins at the source of power, the people. Make the people virtuous instil in them a high sense of honor, let integrity be demanded in all the avocations of life and rulers will not be slow to conform to the standard of action to that which the people have raised for themselves. Rule in this country is as sensitive to popular feeling as is the the[r]mometer to heat and cold

For a full decade there was a riot of individual profligacy in expenditure. The public rule of that period partook of the extravagance that then pervaded mansion and hut throughout the land. Then recently power was born from a smitten and impoverished people and at once caught the pervading sentiment of private economy[?] sentiment and without change of party, rulers vie with each other in effort for retrenchment and economy reform[?]. There is and ever has been just as much virtue in public administration as is and was the private standard of integrity at the period. That this government is a government by the people is not a mere sentiment but an overwhelming fact. This fact vests power in every man, and brings with[?] responsibility equal to his power, seeing that the Citizen is clothed with an omnipotence that moulds the nation how important that he should have the inteligence and morality to rule rightiously. Our public public schools the great source of popular public intelligence must at every hazzard be saved from those two sisters of evil demogogism in politics and fanaticism in religion. We may well question the patriotism or the piety of the man that would seek to make a foot ball of an interest so vital to national well being rule to be safe must be inteligent and it must be an inteligence sanctified by religion and any religion that recognizes God is better than a boasted rationalism. I would not build up a system of intolerant fanaticisms but Christs religion of good will to men. If I claim my religion as better than that of my neighbor I have a right to show its superiority by showing its better fruit; no man has a right to invoke popular predjudice. to strike down his fellow religionist we know how easy it is to arrouse intolerance and how blind and mad and intolerant it becomes the men whose memory we have assembled to honor were not all of one sect in religion or of one party in politics but in a common brotherhood they mingled their blood to perpetuate the largest civil and religious liberty.

What a lesson to lift us above intolerance in religion and hate in politics. It will be a sad day when men shall for partisan success drag our schools, our pulpits, our bibles and our holy Christianity into the vortex of politics making worse than merchandise of Gods best gifts to man If we would preserve religious freedom for ourselves we must in largest charity concede it to others.