REMARKS OF I. N. STURTEVANT, D.D.
I HAVE an ambition to speak on this occasion. I wish to
make a statement in the line of what has
been said to-day,
which it may be bold for me to make, and
yet there is a
fire in my bones that will not let me
rest unless I make it.
I have looked to-day on the cemeteries
here; the burial
places of the Indians-nothing left of
these but the mon-
uments of their day; the cemetery where
sleep the dead,
the soldier heroes of four wars; and
somehow, filled as I
have been with reverence for those tombs
of the ancient
dead, and especially for those of the
glorious fathers of the
Northwest, it has come to me as a sort
of inspiration.
There is a reverence for the tombs of
the prophets, there
is a reverence for our fathers' tombs.
In Egypt tombs
were temples that carried the thoughts
upward. In Hin-
dostan were tombs and temples that
carried the thoughts
upward. In North America were tombs and
remains of
temples, a nation that built tombs; but
the story of the
race is past, and if you remember and
commemorate and
glorify only a dead race then your glory
is departed.
I noticed a sign here to-day, "The
well." I don't suppose
the well is here to-day; but it is the
place where the well of
the old Block-house was. I think there
is one thing that
lasts as long as tombs. That was put in
existence by the
well-digging race-a race that brought or
left a blessing for
the children that came afterwards.
It is said of one of the ancient Romans
that he rendered
such favors to Rome that they built a
monument and directed
that for five feet around his children
should have perpetual
inheritance, so that no matter how
hard-pressed they should
be, they should have some place to stand
close to their
ancestor.
Now, I take it, the men who formed the
Northwest Ter-
ritory should have something for a
representation, a per-
petual reminder, and that their children
under a monu-
138