Stand by the President LET me say a word about our great President, for he is entitled at every step to the applause and support of every American citizen, man, woman, and child, and I believe he has it. Some of us in the past have criticized the President. Some of us long hesitated and doubted; some of us thought that watchful waiting would never cease. But now we see what the President was waiting for and how wisely he waited. He was waiting to see how fast and how far the American people would keep pace with him and stand up to any action that he proposed. From the day the President appeared before Congress and made that wonderful address of his-one of the greatest state papers in the affairs of the United States since the formation of the Government—from that moment all doubt, all hesitation, all unwillingness was banished from the minds of all the people, and he is now our chosen leader for this great contest. By no possibility can we have any other or think of any other. And we must uphold him through thick and thin from now until the end of the war. Battle Hymn of the Republic MINE eyes have seen the glory of the coming of the Lord: He is trampling out the vintage where the grapes of wrath are stored; He hath loosed the fateful lightning of his terrible swift sword; His truth is marching on. I have seen Him in the watch fires of a hundred circling camps: They have builded Him an altar in the evening dews and damps; I can see His righteous sentence by the dim and flaring lamps: His day is marching on. I have read a fiery gospel, writ in burnished rows of steel: "As ye deal with My contemners, so with you My grace shall deal; Let the Hero, born of woman, crush the serpent with his heel, Since God is marching on." He hath sounded forth the trumpet that shall never call retreat; He is sifting out the hearts of men before His judgment seat; Oh! be swift, my soul, to answer Him! be jubilant, my feet! Our God is marching on. In the beauty of the lilies Christ was born across the sea, JULIA WARD HOWE. (24) Beat! Beat! Drums! BEAT! beat! drums!-blow! bugles! blow! Through the windows-through doors-burst like a ruthless force, Into the solemn church, and scatter the congregation, Into the school where the scholar is studying; Leave not the bridegroom quiet-no happiness must he have now with his bride, Nor the peaceful farmer any peace, ploughing his field or gathering his grain, So fierce you whir and pound you drums-so shrill you bugles blow. Beat! beat! drums!-blow! bugles! blow! Over the traffic of cities-over the rumble of wheels in the streets; Are beds prepared for sleepers at night in the houses? No sleepers must sleep in those beds, No bargainers' bargain by day-no brokers or speculatorswould they continue? Would the talkers be talking? Would the singer attempt to sing? Would the lawyer rise in the court to state his case before the judge? Then rattle quicker, heavier, drums-you bugles wilder blow. Beat! beat! drums!-blow! bugles! blow! Make no parley-stop for no expostulation, Mind not the timid-mind not the weeper or prayer, Mind not the old man beseeching the young man, Let not the child's voice be heard, nor the mother's entreaties. * * * * * So strong you thump, oh terrible drums-so loud you bugles blow. WALT WHITMAN. The Bugle Call YEARS ago, in a foreign city, long after midnight, a bugle rang out clear and penetrating in the darkness that comes before dawn. It pierced the deepest recesses of sleep and sounded the great note of action and adventure. To what duty it summoned and whither it led they only knew to whom it was a command; but a great company of those who came out of their dreams to hear it were shaken by its imperative call, and must remember it as an impersonal symbol of that divine voice which from time to time rings in the innermost courts of a man's soul with the music of great deeds on noble fields. Hosts of men are paralyzed because they hear no voices save those that weaken and betray them-the voices of their weariness, indecision, skepticism, weakness. They sleep on their arms as if no fight was to be won, no soul to be saved from its baser passions, its cowardly moods. If they rouse themselves it is to take account of their discomfort; to note that the night is dark, the air cold, the ground hard. They lie bound hand and foot in a stupor of uncertainty and discouragement. They complain of their hardships, repine at their inaction, waste their courage and strength in hollow excuses and evasions. So intent are they on their deprivations that they forget the cause which they set out to serve and curse the leaders whom they no longer follow. Again and again the bugle rings out on the night, but they sleep on and take their rest even while the Master is betrayed into the hands of his enemies. There are times when a man must say to his own spirit, "Up, thou sluggard, and away; the bugle calls; the day of battle dawns." Let no man be deceived; the fortunes of his soul are in his own hands. He may beguile himself for a time with the dream of fatalism, but even while he dreams he knows in his heart that he is deceiving himself. He may talk of his limitations, his difficulties, his conditions, his temperament; but in his heart he knows that these are mere subterfuges; that he has bound himself with imaginary fetters, and that if he will arise and stand erect these illusive bonds will fall from him. He may not be able to do the work of some other man, but he can do his own work, and that is all that is required: Every man has the strength to do his duty if he chooses to put it forth, to be a man and not a dumb, driven creature, the mere shape of a man driven like a cloud of dust across the field of life by the wind of destiny. He may go to suffering, hardness, and death; but these things are mere incidents; the great thing is that he shall strive and not sleep. The prodigal slept long, but he heard the call at last, awoke, and became a man once more when he turned from the beasts and said, "I will go to my father." HAMILTON WRIGHT MABIE. |