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ADDRESS 
 
 AT THE FUNERAL OF 
 
 COL. GEORGE DUNCAN WELLS, 
 
 OCTOBER Jai, 18G-4, 
 
 UNITARIAN CHURCH, GREENFIELD, 
 
 BY REV. JOHN F. MOORS. 
 
 Printed, for Ir»rivate Circulation. 
 
 BOSTON: 
 
 ALFRED MUDGE & SON, rRINTEKS, 34 SCHOOL STREET. 
 
 1864. 
 

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ADDRESS. 
 
 What can we do for our country ? What have 
 we that we can give her ? She is our mother. 
 We owe her much. She has nourished and brought 
 us up. She has given us shelter and protection. 
 While holding the reins of a lawful and proper 
 restraint, she has given us a large and generous 
 liberty. She has been a kind, indulgent mother. 
 She has given freely, and asked but little in 
 return. But trouble has come upon her. Her 
 ungi'ateful children have rebelled against her, have 
 cast off her authority, have spurned her claims to 
 honor and respect ; and, as the result, there is 
 war — there is wailing and sorrow in the land. 
 
 What can we do for our country ? What give 
 to her ? It is the question which presses upon 
 us now every hour. It absorbs and swallows up 
 all other questions. All other interests are selfish 
 and tame beside this. One has hardly a right 
 
to press any other question home to his conscience 
 than this ; this he should not fail to press home 
 with all the earnestness of his being. 
 
 ■ What shall we give our country ? Shall we 
 give anything ? Or shall we stand idly by with 
 folded hands, and say, — "This is no concern of 
 mine, " — while the greatest struggle in which 
 humanity has ever been engaged is going on ? 
 Shall we do anything, or shall we join with those 
 who seek her ruin ? Shall we give complaints 
 and faultfindings and despair ? Shall we laugh 
 at her misfortunes, and glory in her disasters ? 
 Poor gifts these to render, where so much is 
 due. 
 
 What shall we give our country ? In calmer 
 times than these, when the white-robed angel of 
 Peace was hovering over us, I would have said, — 
 give generous and noble manhood and womanhood. 
 Good men make good citizens. They serve the 
 state who quicken in themselves and others that 
 divine sense which compels us to make a con- 
 science of all things. It is when young men and 
 maidens have high and heroic aims, when God is 
 loved and worshipped, that the state is prosperous. 
 
Ill calmer days than tliis I would appeal to you 
 to give to your country tlic unobserved but efficient 
 service of pure and holy lives. But the hour 
 demands another answer. What shall we give to 
 our country ? We owe her our best, — the best 
 of mind and heart, — our highest and freest 
 thouglits, our most unselfish aspirations, the strug- 
 gle of our inmost spirit in prayer to God for 
 his blessing. We owe to her our heartiest sym- 
 pathy and cooperation ; we owe it to her to put 
 forth all the power there is within us to make 
 the institutions and laws and enterprises of the 
 state at one with the Divine will, as revealed in 
 the gospel of Christ. We should not carry our 
 politics into religion, but we should put our reli- 
 gion deeply and earnestly into our politics ; we 
 should carry them up to God, and do what we 
 can to make this world the kingdom of our Lord 
 Jesus Christ. We can give no less. 
 
 But what shall we give our country? Ask the 
 living soul which a few days ago animated the now 
 lifeless form of the friend before us, — ask him what 
 shall be given, and the reply comes cheerfully, man- 
 fully, — '- Give the best you have to give, give all 
 1* 
 
6 
 
 you liavc to give. " So lie said, practically, when lie 
 went forth to this service. He knew what he 
 undertook. He was no stranger to the contest 
 which prepared the way for the deadly strife of 
 arms. It had been the study of his life. He 
 had seen and read the signs of the coming storm 
 when the sky was apparently clear. He saw at the 
 outset what was at stake, — that everything that 
 was dear and valuable in human life and in human 
 society on these shores was at stake. When the call 
 first came, — What will you give to your country ? — 
 he at once, with the generosity of a noble nature, 
 and with the unselfish enthusiasm of patriotism, 
 replied, — I give myself, my all. He would have 
 said it, could he have foreseen the honorable name 
 he was to win for himself; and he would have said 
 it none the less if he could have foreseen that ere 
 the conflict was over he should be counted among 
 the un returning brave who have wet the soil with 
 their l)lood. He would have said the same just as 
 promptly and cheerfully if he could have read tli^ 
 record of the future up to this return to the old 
 familiar scenes, — to this temple where in youth he 
 worshipped, to the troops of friends avIio loved liini 
 
so well, and to the cemetery on the hill in which 
 he took so deep an interest. He gave his all. He 
 saw in this contest more than a strife of parties for 
 place and favor. He saw the highest human inter- 
 ests of a great people in conflict with the selfish 
 interests of a despotic class. He saw that the 
 contest was inevitable. Events had, for years, been 
 preparing the way for it. He saw the guiding hand 
 of God, who has always led men up to higher 
 planes of living, to nobler thoughts and aspirations, 
 tlu'ough conflict and strife. "Without shedding of 
 blood is no remission." The Cross is the consecrated 
 symbol of the world's redemption; no cross, no 
 crown. 
 
 The crisis-hour had come; the contest had raged 
 long ; words failed to reach the mark. Political com- 
 binations to maintain peace failed. Room was left 
 only for the stern mediation ot war. The hour had 
 come, and men were wanted who felt and understood 
 the crisis; and George Duncan Wells stood forward 
 among the first and foremost to meet the occasion. 
 He gave his all. And he had much to give. He had 
 youth, and talent, and culture ; he had hosts of friends 
 and endeared relatives who leaned upon him ; he had 
 
8 
 
 bright prospects of an honorable career in his chosen 
 profession. He has given them all, and who shall say 
 that they have been given in vain ? Who shall venture 
 to commiserate him to-day? Might he not rather 
 commiserate some of us ? Who shall pity him for 
 these three years of privation and exposure? Devo- 
 tion in a worthy enterprise, as the history of all 
 martyrdom shows, exalts men, so that they smile at 
 hardship, and privation, and danger. And what think 
 they of life ? They throw that in. We do not un- 
 derstand the patriot soldier, if we deal out our pity 
 at his hardships and privations. By his heroic devo- 
 tion he grows in manliness. Has he lost limb or 
 life, he has gained nobleness of soul. We do not 
 commiserate him; we rather rejoice that he had so 
 much to give to his country, and gave it so cheer- 
 fully. We mourn our own loss. We claimed him 
 as one of ourselves. We watched with interest 
 every step in his honorable career, and felt that 
 somewhat of his glory Avas reflected back to the place 
 of his birth and the friends of his childhood and 
 youth. We mourn that his country, for whicli he 
 had sacrificed so much, nuist lose, from a high i)lace 
 
of trust and responsibility^ one so able and faithful 
 as lie has always proved. 
 
 He has given his all to his country, and in this 
 giving has enriched himself. The wealth of a man's 
 heart consists in its power of giving. He that makes 
 the largest sacrifices is the richest. It makes the giver 
 opulent with spiritual power. He claims and receives 
 to-day our respect and admiration for what he has 
 given, and in a thousand fold greater degree than he 
 could claim, or would receive, had he remained at 
 home, and grown rich at the expense of the country. 
 
 The heroic grandeur of these times, which we but 
 faintly appreciate, because we live too near to see it 
 in its true proportions, — the heroic grandeur of 
 these times consists in this generous, unselfish giving. 
 The mother gives her only son, in anguish of heart 
 indeed, but gives him as an offering upon God's altar. 
 The maiden gives her lover, the wife her husband. 
 The young men, whose spring-time is just putting 
 forth the fresh blossoms of hope, the strong men, 
 bearing their full share of life's labors and burdens, 
 give all as our friend has given. Talk of taxes and 
 an impoverished country, — the country never was so 
 rich in spiritual possessions as now. Never had it 
 
10 
 
 such self-denial, never such heroic manliness, never 
 such noble self-forgetfulness, never such hallowed 
 memorials. As a people, we have grown mature. 
 We are furnishing themes for bard and epic as 
 grand as ever Homer or Milton had. 
 
 Heretofore we have travelled to foreign lands to 
 gaze upon sacred memorials of past heroism and 
 self-sacrifice, now we find them on every side. 
 Almost every home has some sacred relic that tells 
 its touching story of bravery and daring, or of hard- 
 ship and suffering. The Shenandoah and the Chick- 
 ahominy, the James and the Appomattox, have all 
 become classic streams to us. And all through the 
 land, from the Potomac to the Gulf, there are the 
 little unmarked mounds where repose the unreturning 
 brave, for whom no burial was prepared, save such 
 rude Ijurial as the soldier can render his conu-ade. 
 Every village burial place has its record of the 
 devastation of the war. And when the fitting time 
 shall come, — let it be at the end of the war, which 
 God in his mercy grant may be near — let each 
 town erect a fitting and lasting memorial to those of 
 its brave sons who have met a soldier's death. 
 And let us not be behind; but in a place which 
 
11 
 
 shall be a shrine at which patriotism shall be nour- 
 ished, let us erect a monument which sliall bear the 
 names of our honored dead, — Captain Day and 
 Major Walker; not forgetting those who had no offi- 
 cial position, — Burnham, a noble, high-minded boy, 
 who has recently fallen, a member of the regiment 
 which Colonel Wells commanded. Let it stand for 
 ages to tell to those who shall live when we are 
 forgotten, of the heroes of the day, — and let the 
 name heading the list be — George Duncan Wells. 
 
I 
 
LIBRARY OF CONGRESS 
 
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