SEMI-CENTENNIAL CELEBRATION 17 



necessity to them, and having been once acquired are available 

 in other and higher affairs. 



b) Next are the domestic virtues — love of kin, fidelity to 

 home and friends and neighbors, the respect of the sexes for each 

 other, and the sanctity of marriage. Not only are these virtues 

 in themselves, but they safeguard all other virtues. One who 

 keeps himself in close touch with father and mother and sister, 

 who feels that everywhere kind eyes and kind hearts are follow- 

 ing him, and that to bring gladness to those dear eyes and 

 hearts would be the greatest joy to him, will never go far astray 

 and may even for their sake do things beyond himself. 



c) Again, the patriotic virtues. We have seen in this country 

 — and have read the same story over and over again in the history 

 of other countries — how strong a force in the development of 

 character is the principle of patriotism — how it sobers, steadies, 

 and enlarges manhood, and womanhood too — how, when the 

 emergency comes which rouses patriotic feeling, it suddenly, 

 in a single day, changes a boy into a man; a girl into a woman — 

 how it pushes aside with a Dante-like contempt those who can 

 only carp and jeer while others do the fighting and the work, 

 and steps out into the arena of strife ready to dare all and do 

 all for some just and holy cause. 



d) And, crowning all, the religious virtues, those which have 

 their source in religion, and especially in what the Scriptures 

 call the fear of God, which does not mean dread of God, terror 

 in the thought of God — and yet is not the same as the love of 

 God which is a high attainment, the outcome of experience and 

 reflection and prayer — but that primary right feeling toward 

 God which is made up of awe and reverence and devoutness — 

 the feeling toward God which men have who get their religion 

 from nature and much personal thought and the spirit of God, 

 rather than from books and human teachings. Other environ- 

 ments are favorable to other types of religion — beautiful types 

 some of them, the ascetic, the contemplative, the mystic — but 



