Here at thine altar our vows we renew, Hope of the world! thou hast broken its chains- Freedom! sweet freedom! our voices resound, Queen by God's blessing, unsceptered, uncrowned! Freedom! sweet freedom! our pulses repeat, Warm with her life-blood, as long as they beat! Fold the broad banner-stripes over her breast, Oliver Wendell Holmes. FOUNDATION STONES OF LIFE HONESTY An honest heart possesses a kingdom. - Seneca. Honesty is a warrant of far more safety than fame. - Feltham. "Honesty is the best policy," but he who acts on that principle is not an honest man. — Whately. If we be honest with ourselves we shall be honest with each other. George MacDonald. Be true and thou shalt fetter time with everlasting chain. Schiller. I hope I shall always possess firmness and virtue enough to maintain what I consider the most enviable of all titles, the character of an honest man. George Washington. Honest and courageous people have very little to say about either their courage or their honesty. The sun has no need to boast of his brightness nor the moon of her effulgence. -Hosea Ballou. Nothing really succeeds which is not based on reality; sham in a large sense is never successful. Whipple. Put it out of the power of truth to give you an ill character; and if anybody reports you not to be an honest man, let your practice give him the lie. -Marcus Antoninus. Honor is the moral conscience of the great. -Davenant. Honor and shame from no condition rise; act well your part, there all the honor lies. Pope. An honest man's the noblest work of God. - Pope. There is no terror, Cassius, in your threats, for I am armed so strong in honesty that they pass by me as an dle wind which I respect not. - Shakespeare. No legacy is so rich as honesty. - Shakespeare. Good and honorable character is a safe provision for every event and every turn of fortune. — - Menander. The difference there is betwixt honor and honesty seems to be chiefly the motive; the merely honest man does that from duty, which the man of honor does for the sake of character. Shenstone. COURAGE Be courageous but not rash. - Penn. I dare do all that may become a man, Shakespeare. Courage is the armor of the mind. - Elmér. Courage enlarges, cowardice diminishes resources. Bouvee. In desperate straits the fear of the timid aggravates the danger that imperils the brave. - Bouvee. To bear our fate is to conquer it. Campbell. Any coward can fight a battle when he is sure of winning; but give me the man who has pluck to fight when he is sure of losing. -Selected. Courage from hearts and not from numbers grow. Dryden. Courage is that quality which enables men to encounter danger and difficulty with firmness or without any fear or depression of spirit. Webster. Conscience in the soul is the root of all true courage. -Clarke. If a man would be brave let him learn to obey his conscience. - Clarke. I would have you regard courage as nearly the supreme quality of character. One cannot live a full and noble life without it. - Munger. The greater part of the courage that is needed in the world is not of a heroic kind. Smith. We need the common courage to be honest, the courage to resist temptation, the courage to speak the truth, the courage to live honestly within our means. Smiles. To fear to do base, unworthy things is valour; if they are done to us, to suffer them is valour too. Jonson. Courage consists not in blindly overlooking danger but in seeing it and conquering it. — Richter. Courage is adversity's lamp. - Selected. There is no courage but in an honest thought. Sothern. Unbounded courage and compassion joined, Addison. The gods looked with favor on superior courage. For courage mounteth with occasion. Tacitus. Shakespeare. Screw your courage to the sticking-place and he'll The schoolboy with his satchel in his hand Whistling aloud to bear his courage up. Blair. THE BOY AND THE FLAG Do you know the story of it? Do you sense the glory of it With a pulsing rapture that thrills you through and through? When you see it gleaming there, When you see it streaming there, Do you grasp the meaning of those Stars and Stripes to you? You can see the beauty there — Can you read your duty there When you see it flutter against the sky to-day? Does it stir the soul of you, Does it fill the whole of you The flag that flies above you and half a world away? Think of those who wrought for it! Honor those who fought for it Who gave their lives to save it in the darksome days of old! Not a blot is staining there! Every star remaining there! All the hopes of millions its rippling stripes enfold! Show yourself a man for it! Do the most you can for it! Remember that you owe it the best you have to give! Duty's voice may call to you, The post of honor fall to you, O then to die beneath it were sweeter than to live! |