turn thanks." But our great need
now is more religion in every-day life.

Still, take it all in all, I think the descendants of the Pilgrim
Fathers are as good as their ancestors, and in many ways better.
Children are apt to be an echo of their ancestors. We are apt to put a
halo around the Forefathers, but I suspect that at our age they were
very much like ourselves. People are not wise when they long for the
good old days.

But though your Forefathers may not have been much, if any, better than
yourselves, let us extol them for the fact that they started this
country in the right direction. They laid the foundation for American
manhood. The foundation must be more solid and firm and unyielding than
any other part of the structure. On that Puritanic foundation we can
safely build all nationalities. Let us remember that the coming American
is to be an admixture of all foreign bloods. In about twenty-five or
fifty years the model American will step forth. He will have the strong
brain of the German, the polished manners of the French, the artistic
taste of the Italian, the stanch heart of the English, the steadfast
piety of the Scotch, the lightning wit of the Irish, and when he steps
forth, bone, muscle, nerve, brain entwined with the fibers of all
nationalities, the nations will break out in the cry: "Behold the
American!"

I never realized what this country was and is as on the day when I first
saw some of these gentlemen of the Army and Navy. It was when at the
close of the War our armies came back and marched in review before the
president's stand at Washington. I do not care whether a man was a
Republican or a Democrat, a Northern man or a Southern man, if he had
any emotion of nature, he could not look upon it without weeping. God
knew that the day was stupendous, and He cleared the heaven of cloud and
mist and chill, and sprung the blue sky as the triumphal arch for the
returning warriors to pass under. From Arlington Heights the spring
foliage shook out its welcome, as the hosts came over the hills, and the
sparkling waters of the Potomac tossed their gold to the feet of the
battalions as they came to the Long Bridge and in almost interminable
line passed over. The capitol never seemed so majestic as that morning:
snowy white, looking down upon the tides of men that came surging down,
billow after billow. Passing in silence, yet I heard in every step the
thunder of conflicts through which they had waded, and