Page:Southern Historical Society Papers volume 16.djvu/250

 244 Southern Historical Society Papers.

by God with all flesh to spare the earth from devastation by another flood. The Passover, so scrupulously observed every year by the children of Israel, by command of God, is a memorial of their great deliverance from Egyptian bondage. And the Lord's Supper, insti- tuted by Christ for the observance of His followers, is a memorial of His sufferings and death, to show them forth until He comes. And though your Memorial Day is designed to commemorate no cove- nant, nor deliverance, nor salvation, it is becoming the fair women of this land to observe with annually recurring punctuality a memo- rial of the privations, hardships, perils and deaths of the noble mar- tyrs to a cause they deemed right and loved unto death. Greater love can no man have for any cause than to be ready to die for it, and whether right or wrong we need not stop to inquire, for he is in truth a martyr who believes himself right and seals his faith with his life. Then let this Memorial Day be a permanent ordinance of Southern society, to be observed, with appropriate ceremonies, from generation to generation, as preservative of the memory of the heroic men who gave their lives for their country. And as the children of Israel when, annually commemorating the Passover, memorial of the greatest event in their national history, they were in after years asked by their children "What meaneth this?" recounted the sub- lime history of their great deliverance by the direct interposition of Jehovah, and thus kept fresh in the minds of every generation the wonderful event, as well as testified their grateful appreciation of it before those far removed from it in point of time ; so let us, as a people, with each returning spring, celebrate the day chosen as a reminder of our heroes, and thereby preserve the memory of their struggle and sacrifice, as well as testify our grateful remembrance and just appreciation of the cause for which they died. And when our children shall inquire, what mean these things? though we cannot with pride point to national deliverance, let us with fearless courage vindicate the memory of our dead from the aspersions of malignity, and narrate the true history of our Confederate struggle. Let us tell them that their fathers were impelled by an apprehension of dan- ger seriously threatening momentous interests, and a natural desire to avert it ; that they were aroused by a conviction of the neces- sity of action to avert calamity and obtain security to valuable rights; that their fathers of 1776 asserted independence of interference with their local interests and took up arms to sustain their course, and that the people of the South were more seriously threatened, and had far greater interests imperiled, and saw a government made for