position to-day. We must not forget that no nation has ever survived
the loss of its religion. The year which saw Washington inaugurated
president, saw in the fair land of Lafayette the beginnings of that
holocaust of murder which turned France into a hell. "The fear of the
Lord is the beginning of wisdom." No high-sounding words about freedom,
no Godless philosophy, no infidel creed, which robs men of homes here
and heaven hereafter, can save this nation. "Not unto us, but unto Thy
name be the praise," must be our song, as it was the song of our
fathers.


There are clouds and darkness on the horizon for the future. I see it
in the impatience of law, in the jealousies between class and class, in
the selfishness of the rich, and in the misery of the poor, in bribery
and corruption in high places, and in the turbulence of mobs. I see it
in the foul monster of intemperance and impurity which stalk unabashed
through the land. But I see the greatest danger in that insidious
teaching which robs humanity of an eternal standard of right, which
makes morality prudence or imprudence, which limits man's horizon by the
grave, and takes from hearts and homes God and Christ and heaven. Yet,
I reverently believe that God has set us in the forefront of the nations
to be, as our text says, "a beacon on the mountain-top," to lead on in
His work in the last time. It may be that for our sins we shall walk
again into the furnace, as we have walked and come out of it purified
and fitted for the Master's use. I sometimes lose faith in men, but I
will not lose faith in God. It is ours to work and bide our time; so
did our fathers, and so will God give the harvest. I should wrong my
heart and yours to-day, if I forgot the daughters of the Revolution. We
might have had no Washington but for the lessons he learned at that
mother's knee, that his duty to God was to believe in Him, to fear Him