The book contains many fascinating stories and memorable quotes. In honor of President's day coming up, I would like to cite a quote about General Washington that impressed me. It comes from a letter written to Washington by Congress, making him a virtual dictator where the army was concerned. "Happy it is for this country," it read in part, "that the general of their forces can safely be entrusted with the most unlimited power, and neither personal security, liberty, nor property be in the least degree endangered thereby." It reminds me of the description of Captain Moroni in Alma 48:16-17.
The book quotes Thomas Paine's paper, The American Crisis, which he wrote in early December, 1776, when it seemed that all could easily be lost. These words might well be read today in defense of our Constitution and the freedoms that seem so fragile now:
These are the times that try men's souls: The summer soldier and the sunshine patriot will, in this crisis, shrink from the service of his country; but he that stands it now, deserves the love and thanks of man and woman. Tyranny, like hell, is not easily conquered; yet we have this consolation with us, tht the harder the conflict, the more glorious the triumph. What we obtain too cheap, we esteem too lightly:--'Tis dearness only that gives every thing its value. Heaven knows how to set a proper price upon its goods; and it would be strange indeed, if so celestial an article as FREEDOM should not be highly rated...
And finally...on Lincoln's birthday, February 12th, it would be well for all of us to remember his immortal words given at Gettysburg:
Fourscore and seven years ago, our Fathers brought forth on this continent, a new nation, conceived in liberty, and dedicated to the proposition that all men are created equal. Now we are engaged in a great civil war, testing whether that nation, or any nation so conceived and so dedicated can long endure. We are met on a great battlefield of that war. We have come to dedicate a portion of that field as a final resting place for those who here gave their lives that that nation might live. It is altogether fitting and proper that we should do this, but in a larger sense we cannot dedicate, we cannot consecrate, we cannot hallow this ground. The brave men, living and dead, have consecrated it far above our poor power to add or detract. The world will little note, nor long remember, what we say here, but it can never forget what they did here. It is for us, the living, rather, to be here dedicated to the unfinished work which they who fought here have thus far so nobly advanced. It is for us rather to be here dedicated to the great task remaining before us, that from these honored dead we take increased devotion to that cause for which they gave the last full measure of devotion; that we here highly resolve that these dead shall not have died in vain; that this nation, under God, shall have a new birth of freedom, and that government of the people, by the people, and for the people shall not perish from the earth. Nov. 19, 1863--Abraham Lincoln
By the way, I love having those words in my head, to recall at any time! I've discovered in the last year that I love to memorize passages that have significance to me. Some other time I'll post some of the things I'm memorizing.
