Jasper County Democrat, Volume 22, Number 16, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 24 May 1919 — THE FLAG OF OUR COUNTRY [ARTICLE]

THE FLAG OF OUR COUNTRY

Henry Ward Beecher’s Eloquent Tribute to the Majesty of the Stars and Stripes. o * A thoughtful mind, when it sees a nation's flag, sees not the Hug only, but the nation itself, and, whatever may be its symbols, its insignia, it reads chiefly in the flag the government, tfie principles, the truths, the history which belong to the nation that sets It forth. ' This nation has a banner, and wherever It streamed abroad men saw daybreak bursting on their eyes, for the American flag has been the symbol of liberty, and men rejoiced in it. Not another flag on the globe has such an errand or went forth upon the sea carrying everywhere the world around such hope for the captive and sucli glorious tidings. The stars upon it were to the pining nations like the morning stars of God, and the stripes upon it were the beams of morning light. And wherever the flag comes and men behold It they see In its sacred blazonry no rampant lion and tierce eagle, but only light, and every fold significant of liberty. Let us then twine each thread of the glorious tissue/Of our country's flag about our heartstrings, and, looking upon our homes and catching the spirit that breathes upon us-from the battlefields of our fathers, let us resolve, come weaTDr woe, we will in life and death stand by the Stars and Stripes. —Henry Ward Beecher.