Memorial service

“ THIS great and brilliant company has assembled for no funereal rites, for no obituary service. We are here to do honor to the memory of a great citizen, to exult in his exalted virtues, and to learn the lesson of patriotism from his long and honorable life. ”

“ Not the least interesting of the local or national festivals, are those held in memory of the soldiers slain in the service of their country on famous battle-fields. Besides holding annual memorial celebrations at these places, which fire the patriotism of the people, there are temples erected to soothe the spirits of the slain. ”

“ As we remember the selfless service of our fallen heroes, we pray for God's grace upon them. We also pray for all of our military personnel and veterans, their families, and all those who have lost loved ones in the defense of our freedom and safety. Today, as we commend their deeds, we also bear a heavy burden of responsibility to ensure that their sacrifices will not have been in vain. ”

“ On Memorial Day we honor the final resting places of the more than one million men and women who sacrificed their lives for our Nation, by decorating their graves with the stars and stripes, as generations have done since 1868. ”

“ In these sweet solitudes the morning passes quickly, and in the afternoon we go to the cemetery, which is about three miles from the town, to witness the decoration of the soldiers’ graves—for it is Memorial Day—the one day set apart in every year now and for all time for people to come to do honour to the dead who fell in the lost cause; nay, for the dead who fell on either side. Streams of people crowd the highways and byways, all flowing in one direction, and all mass together at the wide-open gates of the cemetery. ”

“ We keep Memorial Day.
They are sleeping in the valleys, they are sleeping neath the sea,
They are sleeping by the thousands till the royal reveille;
Let us know them, let us name them, let us honor one and all. ”

“ Peter, Minn., where interment took place this afternoon at three o’clock. The funeral services were held in the St. Peter Presbyterian Church, where Johnson sang in the choir when a boy. While the services were in progress at St. Peter’s, memorial services were held in all the churches in Minneapolis and St. Paul. The public schools are closed to-day, and the whole state is in mourning. ”

“ What I hope we shall do is to take careful thought where our memorials shall be set, so that they may be most constantly and plainly seen; and then how they may best fulfil their purpose, which is to remind us first, and next to kindle emotion and imagination. We have an ugly habit of combining, if we can, local utility with a memorial, as in the well-known story of the benevolent clergyman who read out the announcement of the death of a great statesman and added, ‘That is just what we wanted! ”

“ Let us stand ready with willing hearts and hands to render the comrades every assistance that they may require of us on Memorial Day — whether it be to weave the laurel and the pine into chaplets for our heroes dead or to make glad the day for our heroes living—let all be done quietly as befits a day hallowed by tender associations. ”

“ Years passed. City and cemetery were each grown vaster. It was again an afternoon when the people strolled among the graves and monuments. An old man had courteously attached himself to a group that stood around a crumbling memorial. He had reached a great age; but his figure was erect, his face animated by strong emotions, and his eyes burned beneath his brows.
"Sirs," said he, interposing in the conversation, which turned wholly on the monument, "you say nothing of him in whose honour it was erected."
"We say nothing because we know nothing." ”

“ As we look upon America's public memorials, we also remember the unseen tributes that dwell in homes and hearts across the country-the personal mementos and memories treasured by mothers who have lost a child in military service. ”

“ At the cemetery, the pick-and-spade bearers were divided into squads and companies, and under the direction of commanders, worked all day, raking off rubbish, rounding up graves, planting head-boards and otherwise bringing about order. Old men and little boys helped. Negroes faithful to the memory of dead friends and owners were there, busy as the whites in love’s labour. Several men in Federal uniform lent brotherly hands. When the sun went down the place was transformed. That first fair Memorial Day looked as though it were both Sabbath and Saints’ Day. ”

“ The competent departments for the work on veterans are responsible for the maintenance, protection and management of martyrs' memorial facilities.
⁠The state promotes the construction of military cemeteries. Eligible veterans, after death, may be buried in military cemeteries. ”

“ Jack is again away on business as he was a year ago, and I am alone, for Fanny and Carl and Katy, who are here, have gone with the young people to the town hall, which is filled with flowers and ferns and evergreens. It is Memorial Day, when, north and south, east and west, the graves of our soldiers will be decorated by the loving hands of many who were not born until after the war and to whom that time is only a dark page of history nearly blotted out. ”

“ A similar feeling of pride at the completion of a great career is expressed in the memorial lines which he composed to be placed under his bust after death,—“Let no one weep for me, or celebrate my funeral with mourning; for I still live, as I pass to and fro through the mouths of men.” ”

“ It has all been full of suggestive life and interest. We have kept all the Memorial Days, and followed out its principles and precepts.” At their Longfellow memorial the circle kindly opened their doors to their friends, hoping by this means to extend the field of C. L. S. C. work in the town. ”

“ And on this memorial day we shall fall short of our duty if we content ourselves with praising the dead or complimenting the living and fail to make preparations for those responsibilities which present times and present conditions impose upon us. ”

“ In many of our churches and public buildings are to be found numerous memorial brasses which possess undoubted interest for the collector of military curios. These memorials of the dead largely fall into two classes: those which are let into floors, and those which are fixed to walls. The former class, as a rule, are of some antiquity, are memorials to individuals rather than to groups of soldiers, and are to be found almost entirely in churches. ”

“ Article 64
⁠The state formulates overall plans for the construction of memorial facilities for martyrs, and promotes the spirit of heroes and martyrs by holding, among other activities, commemorative events for heroes and martyrs. ”

“ No words can ever bring back a loved one who has been lost. No ceremony can do justice to their memory. No honor will ever fill their absence. But on Memorial Day, we come together as Americans to let these families and veterans know that they are not alone. ”

“ He blesses you every day. Look around—you, too, have got your tokens set up as a memorial unto you for ever. Look at your houses, they are memorials to you of what God has brought you into. Look at your children, every one of them is a little mark-stone or memorial of God's goodness to you. Look at your health, your good strong arms. ”

“ It may be true that we mount on our dead selves to higher things, but it is well to hold little Memorial Days now and then, and on the graves of our dead, especially [251] of those who died young in the flower of innocence, to leave a peppermint, as the soldiers leave on the grave of Miss Emily a print flag and a basket of geraniums. A cemetery need not be a mournful place. ”

“ Memorial Day The finest tribute we can pay Unto our hero dead to-day, Is not a rose wreath, white and red, In memory of the blood they shed; It is to stand beside each mound, Each couch of consecrated ground, And pledge ourselves as warriors true Unto the work they died to do. ”

“ To ourselves as well as to the dead we owe the duty which we discharge here, for monuments and memorial days declare the patriotism of the living no less than the virtues of those whom they commemorate.
We would be blind indeed to our own interests and to the welfare of posterity if we were deaf to the just demands of the soldier and his dependents. We are grateful for the services rendered by our defenders, whether illustrious or nameless, and yet a nation's gratitude is not entirely unselfish, since by our regard for the dead we add to the security of the living ”

“ Each of those names in the table is the memorial—perhaps the only memorial—of a human heart that once lived and loved; a heart that kept its steady pulsations through some certain period of time, and then ceased to beat and mouldered into dust. Each of those names is the memorial of an individual human life that had its joys and sorrows, its cares and burthens, its affections and hopes, its conflicts and achievements, its opportunities wasted or improved, and its hour of death. ”

“ The interesting report of the Department Chaplain will show that this sacred day was appropriately and universally observed throughout the State. Our corps, moved by a common impulse, united with their respective posts, in paying homage to our fallen heroes. As year by year rolls by, Memorial Day brings to each of us a deeper and more lasting significance, not only to the survivors of the Civil War, but to every loyal citizen of this nation. ”

“ In presenting the impressive memorial to the United States, I said:
Six hundred survivors of the war which ended forty years ago, the commander-in-chief of the National Guard of Pennsylvania and his military staff, the major general commanding that Guard and his three brigadier generals have come a distance of one thousand miles to dedicate a memorial. What is its significance? “What mean ye by these stones?” It is true of nations, as it is of men, that they may rise on stepping stones of their dead selves to higher things. But the pathway is ever attended by indescribable sufferings. ”

“ Memorial, in Rock Creek Cemetery, Washington, D.C., has been described as “an idealization complete and absolute, the rendering of a simple, natural fact—a woman in grief—yet with such deep and embracing comprehension that the individual is magnified into a type.” ”

“ The halo which around you shines
Shall, as the years go by.
Add luster to the deeds which in
Our memories fondly lie.
We deck your graves with flowers today,
O comrades brave and true!
In token of the love we bear,
Our offerings round we strew. ”

“ What we may desire is that the memorial, whatever it is, of this great and heroic trial through which we are passing, should grow up out of the minds of the inhabitants of a city or a town, and should be made by the hands of inhabitants as well. ”

“ Lady Muriel, dressed in the deepest mourning, her face hidden by a long crape veil, was kneeling before a little marble cross, round which she was fastening a wreath of flowers.
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The cross stood on a piece of level turf, unbroken by any mound, and I knew that it was simply a memorial-cross, for one whose dust reposed elsewhere, even before reading the simple inscription:—
In loving Memory of
ARTHUR FORESTER, M.D.
whose mortal remains lie buried by the sea:
whose spirit has returned to God who gave it.
“Greater love hath no man than this, that
a man lay down his life for his friends.” ”

“ On this solemn occasion, Americans will observe a day of prayer and remembrance, and Laura and I will travel to New York City, Pennsylvania, and the Pentagon to take part in memorial ceremonies. Our Nation honors the memory of every person we lost on that day of terror, and we pray that the Almighty will continue to comfort the families who had so much taken away from them. ”

“ If we commemorate, let us commemorate by a memorial which arrests and attracts the eye, is long and gratefully remembered, and by an inscription which touches the heart, and does not merely merge a man among the possessors of all human gifts and virtues. ”

“ Public action is being taken by the citizens, and the expression of sorrow is universal. The town is draped in mourning, and a memorial meeting will be held. All business will be suspended, and every mark of love and respect will be shown the greatest soldier of the war who first saw the light of day in the village that now greatly reveres his memory. ”

“ That which takes place today at the National Cemetery in Arlington is a symbol, a mystery and a tribute. It is an entombment only in the physical sense. It is rather the enthronement of Duty and Honor. This man who died for his country is the symbol of these qualities; a far more perfect symbol than any man could be whose name and deeds we knew. He represents more, really, than the unidentified dead, for we can not separate them spiritually from the war heroes whose names are written on their gravestones. He—this spirit whom we honor —stands for the unselfishness of all. ”

“ The population flocked in from thirty miles round to attend the funeral. Five hundred men followed the crimson-draped car with palms and laurel branches; children clad in white bore crimson banners that fluttered in the breeze, while their voices rose in hymns of victory, giving glory to God and the Christian soldier; the voices of the multitude made response in chorus, and the waves, breaking in low thunder against the rocks, sounded their everlasting amens as the procession wound its way by the sea-shore to the cemetery. ”

“ The whitened locks of these men point to a day in the near future when the members of the association will hold their last banquet, when there will be no member left to decorate the graves of the departed, but around their memory long will cluster recollections of patriotic work and good citizenship, and those now upon life’s stage, and those yet to come, with pride will study their history and place upon their graves flowers, emblematic of love and veneration. ”