AMEN 



225 



AMERICA 



nearly always surgeons accompany them. 

 They respond . promptly to calls for help, and 

 as they are driven through the crowded streets 

 a gong is kept ringing to warn other vehicles 

 of their approach, for an ambulance has the 

 right of way over all other vehicles except 

 those of the police and fire departments. Each 

 large city in all enlightened countries has its 

 own system of ambulance service, controlled 

 by the police, the hospitals or the city gov- 

 ernment. 



Nearly all countries at the present time use 

 the military ambulance service that was per- 

 fected in the United States during the War 

 of Secession. In some European countries 

 ambulances consist of entire railway trains 

 fitted up as hospitals. The term is also applied 

 to moving field hospitals that in war are car- 

 ried about from place to place with the troops. 

 Since the founding of the Red Cross Societies 

 ambulance service on the field of battle has 

 made striking progress. See RED CROSS SOCIE- 

 TIES. 



AMEN, amen', a Hebrew word meaning it 

 is trustworthy, or be it so, which was brought 

 over without change of form into Greek and 

 thence into Latin and the modern languages. 

 It is used most commonly at the end of a 

 prayer or hymn as a sort of summing up, a 

 repeated wish that everything asked for may 

 be granted, everything stated may be true. 

 The "verily, verily" used in the New Testa- 

 ment frequently at the beginning of a state- 

 ment is a translation of the word amen. Pro- 

 nounced quite frequently ay men in ordinary 

 speech, it is invariably ah men in singing and 

 usually in poetry, as in the Lost Chord, where 

 occurs the line, "Like the sound of a great 

 Amen." 



AMENDMENT, amend' mcnt, a term ap- 

 plied in legislative procedure to the alteration 

 or modification of an existing law by the addi- 

 tion of a new enactment relating to it. When 

 an amendment has been adopted it becomes 

 a part of the original. In parliamentary 

 bodies amendments may be made to bills, reso- 

 lutions or motions under consideration by the 

 house. The rule followed everywhere is that 

 an amendment to a resolution or bill may be 

 amended, but that the amendment to the 

 amendment cannot be further amended. 



In the Congress of the United States one 

 may amend a bill which has passed tin- 

 other house, but such hill, \viih tin- un 

 nunt, must be returned to the first body for 

 approval. If further amended it must be re- 

 15 



turned to the other house; if no agreement 

 is reached the bill is sent to a joint commit- 

 tee. The United States Constitution provides 

 for its own amendment in these words 

 (Art. V) : 



"The Congress, whenever two-thirds of both 

 houses shall deem it necessary, shall propose 

 amendments to this Constitution ; or, on the 

 application of the legislature of two-thirds of 

 the several states, shall call a convention for 

 proposing amendments, which, in either case, 

 shall be valid to all intents and purposes, aa 

 part of this constitution, when ratified by the 

 legislatures of three-fourths of the several states, 

 or by conventions in three-fourths thereof, as 

 the one or the other mode of ratification may be 

 proposed by the Congress ; provided 

 that no state, without its consent, shall be 

 deprived of its equal suffrage in the Senate." 



AMERICA, amer' ika, a great land mass 

 which exceeds in its north-to-south extent any 

 other land area on the globe, and which di- 

 vides throughout its entire length the Atlan- 

 tic and Pacific oceans. Stretching as it does 

 through 128 of latitude, from 72 N. to 56 

 S., it is 9,000 miles in length, and is washed at 

 one extremity by the Arctic, at the other by 

 the Antarctic, Ocean. Its greatest breadth, 

 from ' the easternmost point of Brazil to the 

 westernmost point of Peru, is over 3,000 miles, 

 while its narrowest part, on the Isthmus of 

 Panama, is little more than twenty-eight miles. 

 The two great divisions, North America and 

 South America, which make up the continent, 

 are more or less similar in shape, since each 

 is roughly triangular, with its greatest breadth 

 toward the north. 



Despite the fact that Columbus was the 

 first European to take to Europe definite 

 knowledge of the New World, Americus Ves- 

 pucius received the honor of having his name 

 given to it. Because Vespucius had explored 

 and described the coast of Brazil, a map- 

 miiker in 1507 suggested that that part o the 

 newly-discovered hemisphere be called by his 

 name, and the new title was gradually ex- 

 tended to cover all of South America. Still 

 later, when the close connection between tin 

 two grand divisions was discovered, the one 

 name was made to do duty for both. See 

 NORTH AMERICA; SOUTH AMERICA; VESPUCIUS, 

 AMERICUS; COLUMBUS, CHRISTOPHER. 



AMERICA, the national hymn of the United 

 States, beginning with tin- words, "My coun- 

 try 'tis of thee." The words were written by 

 the Reverend Samuel Smith (which sec), and 

 were first used in 1832 at a children's I-V 

 of July celebration in Boston. Years after- 



