The Continental Monthly, Vol. 4, No. 6, December 1863 | Page 8

for. The Nation is one.
They will die for the land where their fathers sleep. They will fling
fortune, hope, peace, family bliss, life itself, all into the gulf, to save its
hearths from shame, its roof trees from dishonor. They will follow the
tattered rag they have made the symbol of its right, through bursting
shells and hissing hail of rifle shot, and serried ranks of gleaming
bayonets, 'into the jaws of death, into the mouth of Hell,' when they are
called. They will do this in thousands, the poorest better than the richest
often, the humblest just as heroically as the leaders of the people. And
therefore, we say, thank God for the elevating power of Patriotism, for
national Pride, for national prejudice, if you will, that can, by this great
love of country, so conquer selfishness, meanness, cowardice, and all
lower loves, and make the very lowest by its power a hero, while the
mortal man dies for the immortal Nation! Let a man commit himself
boldly to the tendencies and influences of his race then. Let him work
with them, not against them. He cannot be too much an American, too
thoroughly penetrated with the convictions and the spirit of his country.
And he need fear no contracting narrowness. The Nation's aims are
wiser far and loftier far than the wisest and the loftiest of any one man,
or any one generation.
We have faintly shadowed out here something of the meaning of THE
NATION. If we are right, we can pay no price that shall come near its
value. For ourselves, for our children, for the ages coming, it is verily
the Ark of the Covenant. We have seen that we are here to build it.
Because GOD needed these United States, He kept a continent till the
time was ripe, and then sent His workmen to the work. We are all, in
our degree, builders on those walls. We are building fast, these days.

Some rotten stones have entered into the structure, and it is hard work
to get them out, but we shall succeed. We shall see that no more of that
kind get in. Let us build on the broad foundation of the fathers a stately
palace, of marble, pure and white, whose towers shall flash back in
glory the sunlight of centuries, towers of refuge against falsehood and
wrong and cruelty forevermore.
We are all builders, we say. The humblest does his share. There's fear
in that thought, but more of hope. Nothing perishes. The private, who
falls, bravely fighting, does his part like the general. The ploughman's
honest life gives its contribution to the Nation's greatness as the life of
Webster does. All is telling in 'the long results of time,' helping to
decide what style of manhood shall be fashioned in America for
generations.
For the great Nation grows slowly upward to its perfect proportions, as
the parent and teacher of men. And all things and all men in it help to
decide and develop that capacity. Not dazzling battle-bursts alone, not
alone victorious charges on the trampled plain, not splendid triumphs,
when laurelled legions march home from conquered provinces and
humbled lands, not the mighty deeds of mighty men in camps, nor the
mighty words of mighty men in senates, though all these do their part,
and a grand part too--not these alone give the great land its character
and might. These come from a thousand little things, we seldom think
of. By the workman's axe that fells the forest as by the soldier's bayonet,
by the gleaming ploughshare in the furrow as by the black Columbiad
couchant on the rampart, by the schoolhouse in the valley as by the
grim battery on the bay, by the church spire rising from the grove, by
the humble cottage in the glen, by the Bible on the stand at eve, by the
prayer from the peaceful hearth, by the bell that calls to worship
through the hallowed air; by the merchant at his desk, and by the
farmer in the harvest field, by the judge upon the bench, and the
workman in his shop, by the student in his silent room, and by the
sailor on the voiceful sea, by the honest speaker's tongue, by the honest
writer's pen, and by the free press that gives the words of both a
thousand pair of eagles' wings over land and sea, by every just and
kindly word and work, by every honest, humble industry, by every due

reward to manliness and right and loyalty, and by every shackle forged
and every gallows built for villany and scoundrelhood; by a thousand
things like these about us daily, working unnoticed year by year, is the
great river swelled, of thought and feeling and conviction, that