s made of good material, and
PROVIDED, also, that someone holds tightly to the other end of the
string. But if the string breaks, down comes the kite! Why? Because
the very thing which holds it down is the same thing which holds it
up!

"You may never have thought of it, but each of us boys and girls and
each one of us men and women is a good deal like a kite. When the
winds of trouble and worry blow against us they may cause us to rise
higher or they may blow us down. Today, I want to tell you how George
Washington acted when troubles came to him, and if any man in the
world's history was loaded down with soul-trying troubles it was 'the
Father of His Country.' Listen while I read for you a few sentences
from private letters which he wrote during the Revolutionary war. [It
will be well to have these and other extracts written so you may read
them verbatim.] 'I am wearied almost to death with the retrograde
motion of things, and I solemnly protest that a pecuniary reward of
twenty thousand pounds a year would not induce me to undergo what I
do, and, after all, perhaps, lose my character.' Again: 'Our affairs
are in a more distressed, ruinous, and deplorable condition than they
have been since the commencement of the war,' and he adds that unless
congress comes valiantly to his assistance at once the country will
sink into irretrievable ruin. Again he writes: 'Every idea you can
form of our distresses will fall short of the reality. I have almost
ceased to hope.' These were dark days, and the winds of adversity were
beating mercilessly against the man into whose hands had been placed
the cares of the great struggle for national existence. He was like
the kite bravely battling against the wind. But he was made of good
stuff, and there was a strong hand holding the string, for we read
again from his letters:

"'How it will all end, God in his great goodness, will direct. I am
thankful for His protection to this time. I have a consolation within
that no earthly effort can deprive me of, and that is that neither
ambitions nor interested motives have influenced my conduct. The
arrows of malevolence, therefore, however barbed and well pointed, can
never reach the most vulnerable part of me; though, while I am set up
as a mark they will be continually aimed.'

"His trust was in God, and so shocked was he when he learned that the
habit of swearing was growing in the army that he issued a general
order calling upon officers t