Page 165 - The model orator, or, Young folks' speaker : containing the choicest recitations and readings from the best authors for schools, public entertainments, social gatherings, Sunday schools, etc. : including recitals in prose and verse ...

What docs he do--this hero in gray with a heart of gold— does
ho sit down in Sidlermess find despair? Not tor a day. Surely, God,
w ho lias scourged him in his prosperity, inspired him in his adversity !
A s ruin was never before so oven vh elm in g never was restoration
swifter.
The sofdiers stepped from tilt: trenches into the farrow ; the horses
that had churned upon General Sherman's line marched before the
plow, and fields tha? run red with inn nan blood in April were green
with the harvest in Juno, From the ashes left us in 1864, we Lave
rai.sed a brave and beautiful city ; somehow or other we ha.ve caught
the sunshine in the bricks and mortar of our homes and have builded
tile rein not one single ignoble prejudice or memory.
This message, Mr, President, comes to you from consecrated
ground. What answer has New England to this message ? Wili she
permit the prejudices of war to remain in the hearts of the conquer­
ors when it has died in the hearts of the conquered ? Will she
transmit this prejudice to the next generation, that in hearts which
never felt the generous ardor of conflict it may perpetuate itself?
Will she withhold, save in strained courtesy, the ha!id which straight
from his soldier's heart Grant offered to Lee at Appomattox ? Will
she make the vision of a restored and happy people, ‘.s Iiie^i gathered
about the couch of your dying captain, filling his heart with peace,
touching his lips with praise, and gioritying his path lo the grave—
will she make this vision, on wnich liie lant sign oi his expiring soul
breathed a benedhion, a cheat and a delusion? If she does, the South,
nevei abject in asking for comradeship, must accept with dignity its
refusal.
Bet if she does not refj.se to accept in frankness and sincerity this
message of good-will and friendship, then will the prophecy of Webster,
delivered forty years ago amid tremendous appkiuse, be verified in
its fullest and final sense, when he said : "Standing hand to hand and
clasping hands, we shon’.d remain united as we have been for sixty
years, citizen^ of Uie same country, members of the same government,
united, ail uni Led now and united forever.”— H . W. Grady,