The weekly times-record. (Valley City, N.D.) 1912-1922, 1919-05-22

,:of brains for our Sunday thinking that
have served us for the other six days
in the week. He wrote the declaration
of mental and spiritual freedom.
Abraham Lincoln's eliminating act
of political evolution was to give ply
=sical freedom to three millions of men.
But this was only one consistent act
of long career-a great career. His
passion was to bring to pass in reality
the dreams of equality and justice Of
the French and American Revolution
lists, to draw the Declaration of indie
pendence down from the rhetorical
4: clouds and put it beside the hearths
and into the hearts of COM
mon man such as he was
himself. And Roosevelt! Roose-
welt, whom we wish we could sincere
ly believe to be only the typical
American is like hin-large minded,
vigorous, impulsive, right-spirited!
Roosevelt has gone from us when our
country needs him most. He was
typical of what the world believes the
American to be-the unselfish, strong
listed, youthful, big brother of the
needy nations of our day. Would that
there were twenty millions of men like
him in America in this perilous hour.
For believe me this hour is perilous.
To rise to a great occasion is COM
paratively easy under the banners of
war when ruthless foe is visibly at
the door of ones country. We can
then find it in our hearts to give our
money, oux lives, our ALL, to protect
vur own from the onset Of the beast.
Nay, we can do better than that. We
can send our best in millions across
the seas to protect other homes than
ours, other nationalities, from the
Beasts assaults. This America has
done. Let her have all the praise due
to one who unselfshly does great
service for another. e.-.- =
But now the inspiration of war is
gone. ~5.[ s'.
"The tumult and the shouting dies;
The captains and the kings depart.
Far-called, our navies melt away;
On dune and headland sinks the fire;
Lo, all our pomp of yesterday
Is one with Nineveh and Tyre!" -,
And we are left to face new and mo-
mentous occasions, calling for sacri-
fees as great, heroism as undaunted,
unselfshness as boundless as were de-
manded at any moment in the midst
of war. These new occasions we are
compelled to face in cold blood. The
artificial stimulation of war and bat
tie no longer fires our enthusiasm.
AS in the terrible transformation
scene in Macbeth, Duty, that "Stern
Daughter of the Voice of God," Duty,
stands at the door of America in the
cold, gray dawn of the new era and
with an imperious knocking at the
gate calls America, calls us, back
from the world of horror and death,
and bids us take up the new obliga-
tions Of tomorrow with the same will
ingness, the same unselfishness, and
the same clearheadedness with which
we bore those of warning yesterday.
If the great men Of Americas past,
those whom we name and honor on
our great days were still with us, the
living, it would not be Of the past that
they would be thinking. They would
face the problems of reconstruction.
We must do the same. New occas-
ions bring new duties; and we mature
men and women of this generation,
and you, the prospective leaders Of the
coming generation, must courageously
face these new duties. The nations
expect the schools to develop leaders.
all but your own physical comfort,
then you have missed the greater part
Of what the schools should have given
you. The school may have given you
a stock Of facts; but it has failed to
breathe into you the breath of an in
tellectual and spiritual life; it has
failed to make you a living soul.
If you live only for yourself
your own desires, your own physical
comfort, you would be better off to be
only an angle worm or an oyster. TIL
is literally crime for a young man
or woman today to be wasting time
and money dallying at the gateway Of
education. You ought to be doing your
level best as student, or else out