“If I live till sundown I will see her again, and I will rest my head at my old place on her knees, and weep away all memory of this desolate night.” And the Son of God, who had died for men, bending from the stars, put the hand that had been nailed to the cross on ebbing life and held on the staunch until the sun went down and the stars came out, and shone down in the brave man’s heart and blurred in his glistening eyes, and the lanterns of the surgeons came and he was taken from death to life.
The world is a battle-field strewn with the wrecks of government and institutions, of theories and of faiths that have gone down in the ravage of years. On this field lies the South, sown with her problems. Upon the field swings the lanterns of God. Amid the carnage walks the Great Physician. Over the South he bends. “If ye but live until to-morrow’s sundown ye shall endure, my countrymen.” Let us for her sake turn our faces to the east and watch as the soldier watched for the coming sun. Let us staunch her wounds and hold steadfast. The sun mounts the skies. As it descends to us, minister to her and stand constant at her side for the sake of our children, and of generations unborn that shall suffer if she fails. And when the sun has gone down and the day of her probation has ended, and the stars have rallied her heart, the lanterns shall be swung over the field and the Great Physician shall lead her up, from trouble into content, from suffering into peace, from death to life. Let every man here pledge himself in this high and ardent hour, as I pledge myself and the boy that shall follow me; every man himself and his son, hand to hand and heart to heart, that in death and earnest loyalty, in patient painstaking and care, he shall watch her interest, advance her fortune, defend her fame and guard her honor as long as life shall last. Every man in the sound of my voice, under the deeper consecration he offers to the Union, will consecrate himself to the South. Have no ambition but to be first at her feet and last at her service. No hope but, after a long life of devotion, to sink to sleep in her bosom, and as a little child sleeps at his mother’s breast and rests untroubled in the light of her smile.
With such consecrated service, what could we not accomplish; what riches we should gather for her; what glory and prosperity we should render to the Union; what blessings we should gather unto the universal harvest of humanity. As I think of it, a vision of surpassing beauty unfolds to my eyes. I see a South, the home of fifty millions of people, who rise up every day to call from blessed cities, vast hives of industry and of thrift; her country-sides the treasures from which their resources are drawn; her streams vocal with whirring spindles; her valleys tranquil in the white and gold of the harvest; her mountains showering down the music of bells, as her slow-moving flocks and herds go forth from their folds; her rulers honest and her people loving, and her homes happy and their hearthstones bright, and their waters still, and their pastures green, and her conscience clear; her wealth diffused and poor-houses empty, her churches earnest and all creeds lost in the gospel. Peace and sobriety walking hand in hand through her borders; honor in her homes; uprightness in her midst; plenty in her fields; straight and simple faith in the hearts of her sons and daughters; her two races walking together in peace and contentment; sunshine everywhere and all the time, and night falling on her generally as from the wings of the unseen dove.
All this, my country, and more can we do for you. As I look the vision grows, the splendor deepens, the horizon falls back, the skies open their everlasting gates, and the glory of the Almighty God streams through as He looks down on His people who have given themselves unto Him and leads them from one triumph to another until they have reached a glory unspeaking, and the whirling stars, as in their courses through Arcturus they run to the milky way, shall not look down on a better people or happier land.
AT THE AUGUSTA EXPOSITION.
IN November, 1887, at the Augusta Exposition, Mr. Grady delivered the following Address:
“When my eyes for the last time behold the sun in the heavens, may they rest upon the glorious ensign of this republic, still full high advanced, its arms and trophies streaming in original lustre, not a star obscured or a stripe effaced, but everywhere blazing in characters of living light all over its ample folds as they wave over land and sea, and in every wind under heaven, that sentiment dear to every American heart, liberty and union now and forever, one and inseparable!”
These words of Daniel Webster, whose brain was the temple of wisdom and whose soul the temple of liberty, inspire my heart as I speak to you to-day.