America for Americans! | Page 3

this country around their religious altars to offer their gratitude and praise to Him from whom cometh all these blessings; for in His hand are the resources of national wealth. With him are the ministers of good and the ministers of evil. He can marshal the insect. He can excite the malaria. He can call forth the tornado. He can put down his foot and wreck the earth with earthquake throes. The ministers of evil are with Him, and stand with closed eyes and folded wings around His throne, but not with deaf ears, waiting to hear His summons, "Go forth." So also around His throne stand the angels of plenty, in whose footfalls rise the golden harvest; who quicken human genius on the land, on the ocean, the artificer, the artisan, the scholar, the philanthropist, and the patriot. It is by these resources of good and evil, forever the ministers of the great God, we learn our dependence on Him; it is with the utmost propriety that this Christian nation recognize Him as God over all and blessed forevermore.
It is eminently proper on a national day like this, standing in the presence of these phenomenal mercies, these crowning plenties, that we differentiate ourselves from the nations of our own continent and from the most favored nations beyond the sea.
It is proper for us to inquire the divine purpose in placing us among the nations of the earth, and what is our great mission. There are certain facts which prophesy--for facts are as eloquent in prophetic announcement as are the lips of prophet or seer. We should remember that our location is everything to us as a national power, of intelligence and wealth, and that this location is in the wake of national prosperity and greatness. It may have escaped your notice that around this globe is a narrow zone, between the thirtieth and sixtieth parallels of north latitude, and within that narrow zone is our home. Within 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 believe in the mission of nations for the elevation of mankind to a better future.
And, my countrymen, it is equally significant that we stand above all nations in our origin. We started where other nations left off.