Rensselaer Union, Volume 2, Number 38, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 16 June 1870 — Decoration-day. [ARTICLE]

Decoration-day.

Decoration-day is becoming one of the most beautiful of our festivals. It occurs at the lovliest season of the year, when the earth is brilliant with flowers and musical with birds, and when every thought of the dead is naturally most tender and most hopeful. Surely It i* little to ask that, in the midst of our prosperity and freedom, one day shall beconsecrated to memory of the men who secured them by their lives. The current of events is so deep and swift that even the war is fading a little from our memories. There is already a certain forgetfulness of the immense services of the soldiers and sailors; and there was a touching and lofty pride in the words of General Sherman, that he had earned the money that was paid him. IF Decoration-day served no other purpose than to refresh in the public mind the sense of the claims of the soldiers, it would be a wise and most serviceable occasion. But it does more. It renews the remembrance of the great cause in which they fell; and this is as serviceable as to celebrate the Fourth of July, and to recall the principles as well as the devotion of the Revolution.

It has been sometimes felt that the tendency of Decoration day must be to preserve the memory of hostilities that shonld be forgotten. But this is not a necessity. There is no ihore vindictiveness in, the remembrance of the struggle than there was in the spirit with which it was maintained. The dead soldiers are not honored because they were brave, and died—for their enemies were brave, and they also died—but it is the cause for which they fell that consecrates their memory; and that cause is as much that of their opponents as of themselves It is not a private tribute of affection that is paid on Decoration day; it is the expression of a national feeling of gratitude and joy. Just as independence was really the cause of the whole country, although the Tories did not believe it, so the perpetuity of the Union, as the security of the liberty and equal fights of every .citizen, is the cause of the whole' Nation. If it were merely the celebration of the victory of the North over the South, nothing could be more unwise than such a festival. But obviously, and consciously upon the part of every one who shares in it, it is no more the celebration of a victory, in the limited personal sense, than our national anniversary. Therefore we see no reason to doubt that it will gradually become a general and national festival. It may be otherwise observed than now, although it is not easy to imagine any observance more appropriate and beautiiul. One of the most significant feasts of the Romish Church in Italy is All-souls’ Day. Then the friends and relations of the dead visit their graves, and the Church militant and the Church triumShant mingle. Let this be our All-sauls’ »ay. Let it spnd us meditatively to the graves of our heroes, and there, as we recall them and renew in memory our common hopes and joys and pains, let us also renew our vows to live for the great cause for which they died. The longer the day is celebrated the tenderer the feeliDg will become) ana when this generation, which saw the war and felt its sharp wounds, has passed, away, nothing bat the cause and the hefrilsOi wil r'remai a for admiration and for undying honor.— Harper's Weekly,