Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1963-03-10
SPIRES OF THE SPIRIT
H-You Can Keep 1t
BY DIR. FREDERICK BROWN HARRIS
Chaplain Of the United States Senate

1t was mine, on the day
after Washington's Birthday,
to join the Sons of the
American Revolution at that
hallowed national shrine, In
dependence Hall, Philadel-
phia. Each year that ardently
patriotic organization, which
keeps blazing the flame Of
the revolution on the altar
of their own hearts, gathers
within those sacred walls to
feel their spiritual kinship
with that immortal group
who dared being hanged as
rebels rather than submit to
the slavish exactions Of
George III. In this inspiring
setting the Sons Of the
American Revolution witness
to the brand of old-fashioned
patriotism Of which Americas
Astronaut John Glenn is the
incarnation.
The pealing Of the bell,
and the passing Of the Dec
laration, had fulfilled the
fiery prophecy of Patrick
Henry that the high-handed
assumption that a monarch
may treat subjects as lackeys,
had cost one King Of Eng
land his crown, another his
head, and might cost a third
his most flourishing colonies.
1t had done Just that. And,
now the war with all its risks
and costs and suffering had
been won against terrific
odds. The colonies were free
from the apron strings Of
the mother country. Back to
the same building in PENIS
City of Brotherly Love came
the representatives of the Is
Colonies to fashion a Consti-
tuition that would bind to-
gether the States now intoxi-
Gated with the implica-
tons of their new bought
free dom and desperately
needing bridges across the
CULTS which separated them.
In spite of the fears and
doubts and protests which
greeted the proposed instru-
ment Of union, the Consti-
tuition proved so effective
that Gladstone declared long
afterward that it was the
greatest piece of human en-
actment ever to be passed by
humans at one time.
It was more than 70 years
after that Constitution, like
a rainbow arching the sky of
the gallant former colonies,
that Abraham Lincoln came
to the birthplace of freedom
and stood reverently in the
council chamber from which
the Constitution had gone
forth conquering and to con-
quer. He was on his way to
his own Inauguration under
that Constitution as Presi-
dent of the United States. The
black trials waiting for him
at the White House proved
a four-year garden Of Geth-
semane where he trod the
winepress alone. Less thar
half a decade later, as {
martyred chief, his body la!
in state in that same hall
How beautifully appropriate
that at the beginning ant
the ending of this nationa
stewardship he should conn
to Independence Hall. Tha
entry in the tragic record o
this man Of sorrows is sym.
bolic of the American Revo
luton. That event is 10 time
more important on the scroll
of history than the socalleC
Russian Revolution. The in
spring emblem of the com
mon man, as he comes to hi
kingdom, is not Lenin bu
Lincolnl
Who can find his way Il
the stored Hall on any dat,
without meeting Benjamin
Franklin? DR.. Franklin haC
gone through all the weary
ing deliberations of the Con
gress. He knew all the thing
which had been uttered IL
their down-sittings and up
risings as day after day the!
had argued over conception
and sentences and phrases