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and the Constitution, how it was worth all the blood or treasure 

 we could pay for it. They voted their money, — little enough they 

 had, and hard earned, — voted it freely as water. They called on 

 their young men to take up arms. Old men cheered their sons, 

 as they walked up to sign the roll. In more than a single in- 

 stance I saw an old farmer, bent with years and toil, with weep- 

 ing and trembling speech, bid his only son God speed, though it 

 was his all, his only stay and staff, needful enough to him in the 

 hard winter of his age and his poverty. 



I tell you, I knew then, if I had heard it doubted, or had felt 

 a doubt before, that the mind of the farming class is still capable 

 of the highest vigor and elevation. If it has been growing stag- 

 nant and torpid, or seeming so, there is deep, strong life beneath 

 the surface, and if there was any tendency to declension, it has 

 been stayed by this dread calamity, that exhibits at once the se- 

 verity and the goodness of God. 



And this reviving and reinvigorating influence will not pass 

 away with the trials that produced it. When God educates, it is 

 not for a day, but for generations. When He quickens a new hfe 

 in the soul of a people, it is a life that lasts. When He touches 

 the human harp with his own mighty, but tender hand, the sound 

 remains in the strings for an age, and for ages. 



Long after this Avar shall have closed, and its distresses passed 

 away, its moral and intellectual compensations will remain. Every 

 village will have its war-worn veterans to tell the story of Antie- 

 tam, and Gettysburg, and Port Hudson, and many another field 

 of daring achievement. Almost every farm-house in the land 

 will have its sacred and inspiring memories of a father, son or 

 brother, who fought for his country, whom they, and their pos- 

 terity after them, must henceforth love and take thought for as 

 their very mother. 



And every village graveyard will have its green mounds, that 

 shall need no storied monuments to clothe them with a peculiar 

 consecration, — graves that hold the dust of heroes, — graves that 

 all men will approach with reverent steps, — graves out of whose 

 solemn silence shall whisper inspiring voices, telling the young 

 from generation to generation, how great is their country's worth 

 and cost, and how beautiful and noble it was to die for it. 



