th," as in no sense disparaging to the Old. Dear to
me, sir, is the home of my childhood and the traditions of my people. I
would not, if I could, dim the glory they won in peace and war, or by
word or deed take aught from the splendor and grace of their
civilization--never equaled and, perhaps, never to be equaled in its
chivalric strength and grace. There is a New South, not through protest
against the Old, but because of new conditions, new adjustments and, if
you please, new ideas and aspirations. It is to this that I address
myself, and to the consideration of which I hasten lest it become the
Old South before I get to it. Age does not endow all things with
strength and virtue, nor are all new things to be despised. The
shoemaker who put over his door "John Smith's shop. Founded in 1760,"
was more than matched by his young rival across the street who hung out
this sign: "Bill Jones. Established 1886. No old stock kept in this
shop."

Dr. Talmage has drawn for you, with a master's hand, the picture of your
returning armies. He has told you how, in the pomp and circumstance of
war, they came back to you, marching with proud and victorious tread,
reading their glory in a nation's eyes! Will you bear with me while I
tell you of another army that sought its home at the close of the late
war--an army that marched home in defeat and not in victory--in pathos
and not in splendor, but in glory that equalled yours, and to hearts as
loving as ever welcomed heroes home. Let me picture to you the footsore
Confederate soldier, as, buttoning up in his faded gray jacket the
parole which was to bear testimony to his children of his fidelity and
faith, he turned his face southward from Appomattox in April, 1865.
Think of him as ragged, half-starved, heavy-hearted, enfeebled by want
and wounds; having fought to exhaustion, he surrenders his gun, wrings
the hands of his comrades in silence, and lifting his tear-stained and
pallid face for the last time to the graves that dot the old Virginia
hills, pulls his gray cap over his brow and begins the slow and painful
journey. What does he find--let me ask you, who went to your homes eager
to find in the welcome you had justly earned, full payment for four
years' sacrifice--what does he find when, having followed the
battle-stained cross against overwhelming odds, dreading death not half
so much as surrender, he reaches the home he left so prosperous and
beautiful? He finds his house in rui