The Penn's Grove record., 1908-08-14
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A SERMON AEG3
81 TAE REV. AxSSM
IRAMHENDEScNW
Subjects Foes Of the Flag.

Brooklyn, N. Y.-Preaching at
the Irving Square Presbyterian
Church, Hamburg avenue and Weir
field street, the Rev. Ira Wemmell
Henderson, pastor, took as his text
Psalms 20:5: "In the name Of
God we will set up our banners"
He said:
The flag of America Is the symbol
Of her conception and Of her pro-
gress. It's stars and stripes and
field of blue bear eloquent though
silent testimony to the method of
her making, the character of her
sons and the influences that have
initiated for all that is best in her
national life. Whether we be de-
scended from the long line of the
forefathers who laid the foundations
Of America deep and broad and
strong in the everlasting rock Of the
truth of the living God or are but
lately naturalized citizens OF the
land we love, the f1utter of the ma
tons ensign finds responsive pulse
within our hearts. For the flag
typefies the soul of the people, the
hope of the nation, the sacrifice of
the host who, living and dead, have
| poured out upon the altar OF a true
devotion to this land of promise a
need of service, for the welfare of
the country and the glory of AL
! mighty God.
No true patriot is he who can
| gaze upon the beauty of "Old Glory"
without pride and a warming heart.
For every star has a history and tells
n p,iohfu cf0ru. ,,,lIy, ctrs~o
is dyed in the running fountain Of
a loyalty and willing sacrifice the
like of which history cannot sur
pass; every bar of white reveals the
purity of the limpid, true ideals that
run. though often hidden, at the ore
and centre Of our nations life. Blue
as the arching heavens her star
strewn field is redolent with a hope
as vast as the p~rofundity of zenithal
skies. Bathed in a nations suffer-
ings and dedicated to a nations lib
erty, the flag Of our country has
gained its power and will WELD a
future strength because it was set
up in the name of God and will be
upheld by the efficiency Of His
mightiness. Ever remembering the
conservation for which 1T stands, the
services of which it speaks, the suf-
fering to which it bears mute tribute,
the hope eternal which its proud folds
counsel, we shall never stray afar or
trail its beauty in the dirt of indi-
vidual impurity or of national dis
honor.
But glorious as is the history of
the flag and magnificent as is the
progress and achievement over
which it waves, it must be sedulously
guarded from subtle dangers if we
are to preserve faultless for the well
fare of posterity the heritage which
we have received. No nation has
q greater, a more suspicious, q more
logically magnificent future than
America. The deeds of yesterday
bespeak larger capacities and oppor-
tunities as yet unused. The sun of
u national greatness is just aris-
ing, the glory of our flag has but
begun. What the limits of the flu
ture may be no man may mark. We
are entering the sublime age of HUI
man history. And America stands in
the vanguard of progression. OF our
coming eminence we may but dream.
No prophecy is to be ignored, for
no prophecy can tell the half of the
glory God will reveal in and through
America in the coming days if we
guard our hearts from evil, IL
minds from wilful error, and our
flag from shame.
The dangers to national great
ness and to the spotless integrity of
our flag as the embodiment of our
national life and aspiration are sub.
tie dangers. They are not SO much
overt as abstract, not so much ma
terial as intellectual and spiritual,
not so much objective as subjective,
not so much outward as internal.
No sane man would underestimate
the Nervousness of the material sin
which threatens our flag to-day, no
one has any delusions as to the size
and the determination of the organ
lied and defiant forces for evil which
afiict this land. But, after all, the
forces for evil that are allied and
aggressive and overt, that are de-
termined to rule or ruin, to gain
their ends by foul means or fair,
are not half SO dangerous to the pub
lie welfare and to the destiny of
America, as the more subtle and alb
stract dangers that are resident in
the hearts and minds of people who
want to maintain the glory Of the
flag, the integrity of the nation and
the glory of Jehovah in our midst.
When all is said and done there are
more people whose faces are set for
heaven than toward hell. The great
host of the people want the right;
they do love God, they long to see
the beauty of His glory in the land
of the living. And the danger is
that these good people, seeing the
size of the enemy and taking the
measure of his power, may too
often and too long accept evil con-
ditions as necessary simply because
they are ancient or fixed; that they
shall be too careless and Indifferent
concerning the value of a stern fight
for the right in the face of in
trenched iniquity; that they shall be
slovenly and inexact and dishonest in
their thinking; and needless of the
claims of the spirit of the living God
in the individual and national life.
The flag of America, as the ban
ners of the psalmist, is set up in the
name and to the glory of Almighty
God. We may leave it off our coins
or place it ~thereupon, it matters
little, but in our heart of hearts "In
God we put our trust" Over against
hat flag and opposed to the laws of
Deity We have in our midst to-day
organized and aggressive dangers
hat threaten the vitality of the ma
ton. They are strong, they are
armed, they are entrenched, they do
not care to die. Butthey are not final,
their length of days may be great but
they are not eternal. They make for
death and not for life. And they
will go, as they must. The danger
lies not so much in the fact that they
are desperate and determined as in
the disposition of good men and
true, who love the land as they love
their God, to despair and todoubt and
to dispense. A greater danger to the
flag than all the sins that assail it
Is the weak-heartedness of the peo-
pie of God. A bad thing is of no
effect for long against the efforts of
the organized militant armies of God
Almighty, If they will take heart and
keep it, and keep the fight everlast-