Cherish the Veterans

A word, and I am done.  Let us cherish the life and services of our private soldiers; let us recognize the sacrifices they have made, and love all the more the institutions which under God they have saved.  Let us keep unspotted and unsullied the principles and government which they defended for us.

And to the soldiers who left their homes to fight for and maintain their country's honor and are now resting with the silent dead, peace be unto you.

We decorate your graves today. We would make them bloom as the rose; we would shed a tear in your memory; we would raise a monument to your honor, to your work.  We would not rear it of granite, but of nature's simplest flowers, the early spring products of your own country.  On it we would inscribe, not in letters of gold nor touched with diamond point, but with flowers wrought in the simplest design, words fitting to your life and death - God, America, and Humanity.

Soldier, sleep in peace.  We bid you farewell, till the great day when Nations shall be judged before the great white throne.  And our prayer is, that you may not only as patriots, but as Christians, meet your God, to go out no more forever.

--Rev. Wm. Stearas, at Eastport, Me cica 1897

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