ad, and we
must build upon a different foundation if we would avoid their fate.

Carlyle, in the closing chapters of his "French Revolution," says that
thought is stronger than artillery parks and at last moulds the world
like soft clay, and then he adds that back of thought is love. Carlyle
is right. Love is the greatest power in the world. The nations that are
dead boasted that people bowed before their flag; let us not be content
until our flag represents sentiments so high and holy that the oppressed
of every land will turn their faces toward that flag and thank God that
it stands for self-government and for the rights of man.

The enlightened conscience of our nation should proclaim as the
country's creed that "righteousness exalteth a nation" and that justice
is a nation's surest defense. If there ever was a nation it is ours--if
there ever was a time it is now--to put God's truth to a test. With an
ocean rolling on either side and a mountain range along either coast
that all the armies of the world could never climb we ought not to be
afraid to trust in "the wisdom of doing right."

Our government, conceived in liberty and purchased with blood, can be
preserved only by constant vigilance. May we guard it as our children's
richest legacy, for what shall it profit our nation if it shall gain the
whole world and lose "the spirit that prizes liberty as the heritage of
all men in all lands everywhere"?

VII

THREE PRICELESS GIFTS

The Bible differs from all other books in that it never wears out. Other
books are read and laid aside, but the Bible is a constant companion. No
matter how often we read it or how familiar we become with it, some new
truth is likely to spring out at us from its pages whenever we open
it, or some old truth will impress us as it never did before. Every
Christian can give illustrations of this. Permit me to refer briefly
to four. My first religious address, "The Prince of Peace," was the
outgrowth of a chance rereading of a passage in Isaiah. This I have
referred to in my lecture entitled "His Government and Peace."

The argument presented in my lecture on the Bible, in which I defend
the inspiration of the Book of Books, was the outgrowth of a chance
rereading of Elijah's prayer test. I was preparing an address for the
celebration of the Tercentenary of the King James' Translation when, on
the train, I turned by chance to Elijah's challenge to the prophets of
Baal. It suggeste