rugged people flows unpolluted from the spring of nature--two
vine-covered mounds, nestling in the solemn silence of a country
churchyard, suggest the text of my response to the sentiment to which I
am to speak to-night. A serious text, Mr. Toastmaster, for an occasion
like this, and yet out of it there is life and peace and hope and
prosperity, for in the solemn sacrifice of the voiceless grave can the
chiefest lesson of the Republic be learned, and the destiny of its real
mission be unfolded. So bear with me while I lead you to the
rust-stained slab, which for a third of a century--since
Chickamauga--has been kissed by the sun as it peeped over the Blue
Ridge, melting the tears with which the mourning night had bedewed the
inscription:--

"Here lies a Confederate soldier.
He died for his country."

The September day which brought the body of this mountain hero to that
home among the hills which had smiled upon his infancy, been gladdened
by his youth, and strengthened by his manhood, was an ever memorable one
with the sorrowing concourse of friends and neighbors who followed his
shot-riddled body to the grave. And of that number no man gainsaid the
honor of his death, lacked full loyalty to the flag for which he fought,
or doubted the justice of the cause for which he gave his life.

Thirty-five years have passed; another war has called its roll of
martyrs; again the old bell tolls from the crude latticed tower of the
settlement church; another great pouring of sympathetic humanity, and
this time the body of a son, wrapped in the stars and stripes, is
lowered to its everlasting rest beside that of the father who sleeps in
the stars and bars.

There were those there who stood by the grave of the Confederate hero
years before, and the children of those were there, and of those present
no one gainsaid the honor of the death of this hero of El Caney, and
none were there but loved, as patriots alone can love, the glorious flag
that enshrines the people of a common country as it enshrouds the form
that will sleep forever in its blessed folds. And on this tomb will be
written:--

"Here lies the son of a Confederate soldier.
He died for his country."

And so it is that between the making of these two graves human hands and
human hearts have reached a solution of the vexed problem that has
baffled human will and human thought for three decades. Sturdy sons of
the South have said to their brothers of the