Volume 18 , Issue 26

Oration For July 4, 1888 - Lillian E. W. Holmes

Another year, teeming with evidences of our country's prosperity, has slowly rolled away, and once more on this, her "natal day," acclamations of joy swell the breeze, and grateful thoughts rise like incense from every heart when we remember those staunch patriots by whose efforts our valiant ship of state was first launched on the ocean of destiny. Truly, they were sturdy workmen sho wrought her ribs of steel.

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Who made each mast, and sail and rope, and their mantles have descended upon others as wide and brave as they, who have guided our Union safely through all the revolutions and vicissitudes which these one hundred and twelve years have brought.

Today few clouds dim the brightness of our country's horizon. Men call her the most prosperous of nations and pronounce her government the strongest in the world. Her borders have widened until The proud Pacific chafes her strand,
She hears the dark Atlantic road;

And over all this extent are stretched broad, rolling prairies, vast forests, fertile valleys drained by swiftly flowing rivers; while buried deep beneath this smiling exterior are rich veins of mineral wealth. Plenty reign from the sunny slopes of Florida to where the cedars of Maine are dwarfed by the north winds.

But though we have all natural resources, though our government is firm and strong, and though freedom's holy light illumines our land, let us not forget that the true glory of a nation depends upon the virtue of its inhabitants. Without that all our wealth would avail little; all our boasted strength would prove utter weakness, and instead of light would come darkness and desolation.

The chains of tyranny that bound us have all been broken, so that no conflict such as our fathers fought calls us to battle, but a sterner warfare is ours - a mortal combat with immorality and crime and the unrighteous principles that are insinuating themselves upon us. On this, the day of our nation's birth, let us, the children of those old-time patriots, become the signers of a new Declaration of Independence - a protest against the rule of vice; and, in God's might finding ourselves for the strife, let us fight manfully against unholy powers, until "all that defileth" is put away from us, and virtue reigns forevermore.

Then need we no longer shudder at the words of this prophets who tell us "our horoscope is cast" and a few more years will find our glorious Republic in ruins. Then need we no longer fear, "though the rains descend and the floods come," for we shall "fall not." The integrity of our people will be the rock of our foundation. Then, when evil is vanquished, shall we go on from strength to strength, until all nations shall "take knowledge of us" and read, "in characters of living light," upon the banner that floats over us, the thought that freedom and virtue are the true sources of a nation's greatness and happiness.
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