when they reecho its whisperings; orators are
most potent when they thrill its chords to music.

Pagan nations were wrong when they made gods of their noblest patriots.
But the error was the excess of a great truth, that heaven unites with
earth in approving and blessing patriotism; that patriotism is one of
earth's highest virtues, worthy to have come down from the atmosphere of
the skies.

The exalted patriotism of the exiled Hebrew exhaled itself in a canticle
of religion which Jehovah inspired, and which has been transmitted, as
the inheritance of God's people to the Christian Church:

"Upon the rivers of Babylon there we sat and wept, when we
remembered Sion.--If I forget thee, O Jerusalem, let my right hand
be forgotten. Let my tongue cleave to my jaws, if I do not remember
thee, if I do not make Jerusalem the beginning of my joy."

The human race pays homage to patriotism because of its supreme value.
The value of patriotism to a people is above gold and precious stones,
above commerce and industry, above citadels and warships. Patriotism is
the vital spark of national honor; it is the fount of the nation's
prosperity, the shield of the nation's safety. Take patriotism away, the
nation's soul has fled, bloom and beauty have vanished from the nation's
countenance.

The human race pays homage to patriotism because of its supreme
loveliness. Patriotism goes out to what is among earth's possessions the
most precious, the first and best and dearest--country--and its effusion
is the fragrant flowering of the purest and noblest sentiments of the
heart.

Patriotism is innate in all men; the absence of it betokens a perversion
of human nature; but it grows its full growth only where thoughts are
elevated and heart-beatings are generous.

Next to God is country, and next to religion is patriotism. No praise
goes beyond its deserts. It is sublime in its heroic oblation upon the
field of battle. "Oh glorious is he," exclaims in Homer the Trojan
warrior, "who for his country falls!" It is sublime in the oft-repeated
toil of dutiful citizenship. "Of all human doings," writes Cicero, "none
is more honorable and more estimable than to merit well of the
commonwealth."

Countries are of divine appointment. The Most High "divided the nations,
separated the sons of Adam, and appointed the bounds of peoples." The
physical and moral necessities of God's creatures are revelations of his
will and laws. Man