And State Papers 47 



aspiration. Without it the life of this country 

 would have been a life of inconceivably hard and 

 barren materialism. Because of it, because of the 

 spirit that lay under those missionaries' work, deep 

 beneath and through the national character runs 

 that power of firm adherence to a lofty ideal upon 

 which the safety of the nation will ultimately de 

 pend. 



Honor, thrice honor to those who for three gen 

 erations, during the period of this people's great ex 

 pansion, have seen that the force of the living truth 

 expanded as the nation expanded! They bore the 

 burden and heat of the day, they toiled obscurely and 

 died unknown, that we might come into a glorious 

 heritage. Let us prove the sincerity of our homage 

 to their faith and their works by the way in which 

 we manfully carry toward completion the work they 

 so well began. 



Friends, I made up my mind coming up here .that 

 I would speak to you of something that has taken 

 place to-day and of something else that has taken 

 place within the last ten days. First of the action of 

 this nation which has culminated on this Tuesday, 

 the twentieth of May, nineteen hundred and two, in 

 starting a free Republic on its course. That repre 

 sented four years' work. There were blunders and 

 shortcomings in the work, of course ; and there were 

 men of little faith who could only see the blunders 

 and shortcomings. But it represents work tri 

 umphantly done. And I think that we as citizens of 

 this Republic have a right to feel proud that we 



