nd used this property of the
visible and tangible symbol to enforce the claims of the abstract idea.

We revere the cross, not because there is anything in its shape or
substance to make us venerate it, but because it is the symbol of the
Christian religion--of all that it has done for the world in the past and
all that it may do in the future. That is why we love and honor the
flag--not because it is a piece of cloth bearing certain figures and
colors, but because it is to us the symbol of all that our country has
meant to our fathers; all it means to us and all that it may mean to our
children, generation after generation.

A nation's flag did not always mean all this to those who gazed upon it.
In very old times the flag was for the soldier alone and had no more
meaning for the ordinary citizen than a helmet or a spear. When the
soldier saw it uplifted in the thick of the battle he rallied to it. Then
the flag became the personal emblem of a king or a prince, whether in
battle or not; then it was used to mark what belonged to the government of
a country. It is still so used in many parts of Europe, where the display
of a flag on a building marks it as government property, as our flag does
when it is used on a post office or a custom-house. Nowhere but in our own
country is the flag used as the general symbol of patriotic feeling and
displayed alike by soldier and citizen, by Government office and private
dwelling. So it comes about that the stars and stripes means to us all
that his eagles did to the Roman soldier; all that the great Oriflamme did
to the medieval Frenchman; all that the Union Jack now means to the Briton
or the tri-color to the Frenchman--and more, very much more, beside.

What ideas, then, does the flag stand for? First, it stands for union. It
was conceived in union, it was dipped in blood to preserve union, and for
union it still stands. Its thirteen stripes remind us of that gallant
little strip of united colonies along the Atlantic shore that threw down
the gage of battle to Britain a century and a half ago. Its stars are
symbols of the wider union that now is. Both may be held to signify the
great truth that in singleness of purpose among many there is effective
strength that no one by himself can hope to achieve. Our union of States
was formed in fear of foreign aggression; we have need of it still though
our foes be of our own household. If we are ever to govern our cities
properly, hold the