OUR NATIONAL FLAG

There is a national flag. He must be cold indeed who can look upon its
folds rippling in the breeze without pride of country. If he be in a
foreign land, the flag is companionship and country itself with all its
endearments. Who, as he sees it, can think of a state merely? Whose
eyes, once fastened upon it, can fail to recognize the image of the
whole nation? It has been called a "floating piece of poetry."

Its highest beauty is in what it symbolizes. It is because it
represents all, that all gaze at it with delight and reverence. It is
a piece of bunting lifted in the air, but it speaks sublimely, and
every part has a voice. Its stripes of alternate red and white
proclaim the original union of thirteen states. Its stars of white on
a field of blue proclaim the union of the states. A new star is added
with every new state. The very colors have a language, which was
understood by our fathers.

White is for purity, red for valor, blue for justice. Thus the
bunting, stripes and stars together, make the flag of our
country--loved by all our hearts and upheld by all our hands.




SELECTION II

THE SHIP OF STATE