Fourscore and Seven Years Ago…

On November 19, 1863 an immortal American uttered an immortal message. Abraham Lincoln gave his Gettysburg Address. We are thankful that America has had such men; we are thankful for the faith and for the freedom on which this nation was founded, and for the patriots who have placed principle above power and position. We are thankful for “the brave men, living and dead,” who have consecrated their comfort, their convenience, their careers⎯their lives⎯to this country and its cause. This nation since 1776 has existed only the length of two lifetimes⎯eighty-seven years before Gettysburg and a little more than about a century since. This isn’t long as history goes. But because of faith and freedom this country has done remarkably much for many millions of men. As to material blessings: no nation could reasonably petition Providence for more. We are thankful for our farms and fields, for our factories, for our food, for our families and friends; and we are thankful for the freedom we have to enjoy the fruits of freedom. We are thankful for the right to make or to modify public policy, to choose people for public position, to live where we want, to worship as we want; to come, to go, to work, to quit, to think, to speak, and to be about what we want to be, to the best of our ability. These are rare and wonderful rights. True, we have had our difficulties and discouragements, our problems and perplexities, our better years and our worse years, but the worst of our worst years have been better than the best of the best years where the formula of freedom has not been followed. We have a kind of heaven on earth, and while we sometimes abuse what we have, still we have more cause for gratitude in this great and goodly land than all of us in all our days could be sufficiently thankful for. And we are grateful that twice fourscore and seven years ago “our fathers brought forth upon this continent a new nation, conceived in liberty,” and we are thankful for the faith we have “that this nation, under God, shall have a new birth of freedom, and… shall not perish from the earth”⎯if we keep the commandments and walk in the ways of Him who made us all we are and gave us all we have, for which we are thankful