us, but the lungs must open and expand to
receive it. The food is before us, but the mouth must open, and the
hands convey it thither, or it is of no service. Light flows from the
sun, but the eye must open to enjoy it. And so with the blessings which
we enjoy in the Union; we must use our active powers to profit by them;
and at this crisis we must not only act to enjoy them, but must strain
every nerve to preserve them. The nation is now on its trial, to be
tested, as to whether it adequately values the divine gift of the Union.
If it does thus value it, it will use diligently and carefully all the
abundant resources which lie around it and within it, like an
atmosphere--wealth, population, energy, intelligence, mechanical
ingenuity, scientific skill, and all the needed _materiel_ of warfare.
It is rich in all this, far more so than the South. All this, Providence
lays at the feet of the nation. It can do no more. The nation, as one
man, must now do _its_ part, or continue to do as it has done; it must
cooeperate, must put forth a determined _will_--a will tenfold more
resolute, more fixed and immovable to preserve the Union, than is that
of its enemies to destroy it. This will cannot exist without a clear,
intellectual appreciation of the worth of the Union; of its value as an
agent, which, if rightly employed, will continue to develop increasing
power to humanize and Christianize men, and to elevate, to broaden, and
intensify human life and happiness more than any form of political
institution that the world has ever witnessed.

Full of this conviction, we shall then, individually and collectively,
be resolved that this noble continent, stretching three thousand miles
from ocean to ocean, and opened like a new world to man, just at an
epoch when religious and political liberty, starting into life in
Europe, might be transplanted into this virgin soil, where thus far they
have developed into this fair republic--we shall then be resolved that
this broad, rich territory shall be forever devoted

To man's development--not to his
debasement.

To liberty and free order--not despotism
and forced order.

To an ever-advancing civilization--not
to a retrograding barbarism.

To popular self-government--not to
the rule of a slave-holding oligarchy.

To religion, education, and morality--not
to irreligion, ignorance, and
licentiousness.

To educated and dignified labor--not
to b