ithin that belt of power have existed all the great nations
of the past, and in it exist all the great nations of the present.
What is there in this charmed circle, in this favored zone, that
brings national power? We may contract this zone by ten degrees and
the same thing is true. It is true that north of this zone there have
been nations of wealth, of luxury, and of influence. South of this
zone are Egypt and Arabia and India, and other nations that have lived
in splendor. But the peoples that have given direction to the thought
of mankind, that have created the philosophy for the race, that have
given jurisprudence and history and oratory, and poetry and art and
science, and government, to mankind, have been crowded, as it were,
within this zone of supremacy, within this magical belt of national
prosperity. Examine your globe, and there is Greece, that gave letters
to the world; Rome, that gave jurisprudence to mankind; Palestine,
that gave religion to our race. And to-day there is Germany, that gave
a Luther to the church and a Gutenberg to science, and there is
England swaying her mighty sceptre over land and sea. Our location is
in this wake of power--within this magical zone. Surely there must be
a destiny foretold by this great fact, and it is but wise for us as
intelligent freemen on this national day to consider the significance
of the prophecy. Our national home is not amid the polar snows of
Northern Russia nor the burning sands of Central Africa, but sweeping
over the lovely regions of the temperate zone, it lies too far south
to be bound in perpetual chains of frost, and too far north to sink
under the enervating influences of a tropical sun. Although on the
side of the equator destined to be the great receptacle of human life,
yet it is too far from the belligerent powers of the old world to fall
a victim to their corruption or to the weight of their combined
forces. With a shore line equalling the circuit of the globe, and with
a river navigation duplicating that vast measurement, our
national domain is only one-sixth less than that of the sixty
states--republics, kingdoms, and empires--of Europe. Indeed, it is
equal to old Rome's vast domain, which extended from the river
Euphrates to the Western ocean and from the walls of Antoninus to the
Mountains of the Moon.

Our location is for a purpose. For if you and I believe in the mission
of individuals who accomplish the purposes of Providence, we must
be