The American Soul
The American Soul
The Leftovers: Are You Giving God and Your Spouse the Scraps?
What comes first in your life? It's easy to claim our priorities - God, family, country - but do our daily habits tell a different story? In this thought-provoking episode, I challenge us all to honestly examine what we do before opening our Bibles or bowing our heads in prayer.
Marriage serves as a powerful metaphor throughout our discussion. Remember how you dressed up for dates, washed your car, and put your best foot forward while courting? Yet after the wedding, many of us give our spouses only the leftover scraps of our attention while reserving our best efforts for bosses and colleagues who don't even love us. One particularly moving story illustrates this perfectly: a husband who prioritized work comes home to find only crumbs of food left for him - a physical representation of the emotional leftovers his wife received daily.
The biblical prophet Joel calls us to "return to the Lord with all your heart" - not through empty gestures but through genuine spiritual renewal. This message resonates profoundly for America today. As Daniel Webster reminded us, our nation's founding succeeded because "the character of our countrymen was sober, moral and religious." Without these Christian principles as our foundation, liberty simply cannot survive.
"Christless conservatism" may be the greatest danger facing our nation - even more than leftism or socialism. When we separate God from state (not just church from state), we cut the anchor from our ship, leaving us adrift at the mercy of moral relativism and the whims of those in power. Recent political victories might be merely the beginning of a long journey back to spiritual health, not the end of our national struggles.
How do you commemorate those who sacrificed for America? Do we honor the principles of the Bunker Hill Monument, or have we replaced meaningful remembrance with celebrity worship? Let's recommit ourselves to the unchanging principles that made America great - not just in our words, but in how we spend our time and attention each day.
The American Soul Podcast
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Hey folks, this is Jesse Copes, back with another episode of the American Soul Podcast. Hope y'all are doing well, wherever y'all are, whatever part of the day you're in, I'm sure to appreciate y'all joining me, giving me a little bit of your time and attention, a little piece of your day. I'm grateful for it. And attention, a little piece of your day, I am grateful for it. I will try and use it wisely. Hopefully it will give us some tools for our toolbox and hopefully it will draw us all just a little closer to God and Jesus Christ and draw our country a little closer to God and Jesus Christ and draw our country a little closer to God and Jesus Christ too. For those of y'all who continue to share the podcast and to tell others about it, thank you so much, very, very grateful for that. For those of y'all that continue to pray for the podcast and for me, thank you so much. Very, very grateful for that. For those of y'all that continue to pray for the podcast and for me, thank you so much. Very, very grateful for that. And for those of y'all who are new I don't say that often enough, very often, but I'm glad that you're here and I hope that you enjoy it. Hope you'll come back and see us, father.
Speaker 1:Thank you for today. Thank you for you, father, and your Son, jesus Christ, and you for today. Thank you for you, father, and your Son, jesus Christ, and your Holy Spirit. Thank you for your love, mercy, grace, forgiveness of sin. Thank you for all your many blessings on us as individuals and as a nation, the ones we admit and the ones we don't, for whatever reason. Thank you for the rain, when you send it. Thank you for clear skies and sunny days when you send those. Thank you for the people who listen to the podcast, who are listening, father. Please be with them, surround them with your angels, protect them from evil of any kind. Draw us all close to you, father. Help us to do your will. Help us to follow the commands that your son gave us, to love him enough to follow them, to love you with our whole heart, mind, soul and strength, and to love our neighbors as ourselves. Help us to help those that have less than we do. Help us to help our country turn back to you. Be with those who lead us here in America and in whatever countries around the world. People are listening. Help us to elect leaders, to elect men who rule in fear of you. Father, help us to be doers of your word, not merely hearers. Be with those who are hurting, who are either sick with an illness or broken with injury, or brokenhearted while they're over some relationship in their life. Be with those who are alone, those who feel abandoned. Comfort them. And be with all those, father, around the world who are suffering because they follow the name of your Son, jesus Christ, whether in Syria or Nigeria, china or Iran or North Korea or other places. And, father, please be with those who are without a home, without a place to lay their heads. Help us to do a better job caring for them, and God, my word's here. Father, in your son's name, we pray Amen.
Speaker 1:Have you made time for God today? What all have you already done today besides read your Bible and pray? If it's listening to this podcast as grateful as I am for that, folks y'all need to turn it off and go spend some time with God. If that's all the spare time you've got today, or even if it's just not what you've done first, we'll still be here. I'd love to have you come back, but it's far, far more important that you spend time with God than with me and us here, even though I'm glad you're here. Well, what else have you done already today?
Speaker 1:You know we talk about marriage a lot on this podcast and I will again today, because, as Reagan said, marriage or family is the cornerstone of the nation and marriage is a cornerstone of the family. But it doesn't matter whether you were a kid in high school, junior high, college that's not married, or an adult that's not married, or an adult that is married. Right, what? What have you done today already? And if, if this is early, early in the morning for you, then what did you do yesterday? How much time did you give to your phone, to tv, to sport, to workouts? How many miles did you run? How long did that take? How many sets of whatever you do working out did you do? How long did you sit and watch basketball last night, or baseball or softball? How long did you scroll your phone on instagram or tiktok or x or Facebook? How many videos did you watch on YouTube? How long did you read that book?
Speaker 1:And then, if you're married folks, does your spouse know it? Do you act like it when they go to bed at night and lay their head on the pillow? Do they know, without a doubt, that they are your second priority each day, and if you don't act like it, folks, then you don't as far as they're concerned, as far as the world is concerned, god knows your heart. Maybe you grew up in a horrible household, with a horrible example for a marriage, horrible example for parents, horrible example for parents. Maybe every relationship around you, your whole life, has been bitter and twisted and torn, god knows, and if you need some help there, there's a lot of really good places to get help. If you need some help there, there's a lot of really good places to get help. There's some phenomenal marriage counseling out there.
Speaker 1:I think one of my favorite books over the years has been a book by a man named Chapman, I believe. I think it's been a while since I read it. It's called the Five Love Languages. You need a book. It's a great place to start. As far as getting more help, I would argue, though, that the best place is where we go back to every few months when we do those marriage podcasts, and that's Ephesians five, one Corinthians seven. Titus two, one Peter three. Hebrews 13, four.
Speaker 1:You want to know what your marriage is supposed to look like. You want to know, if the husband or wife, what your role is. That's it, and it's not gray folks. Don't. Don't believe anybody that tries to tell you that it's marriage Isn't hard because it's hard to understand. We make marriage hard because we're selfish. We got one more little analogy for the day and then we'll move on. My wife and I were actually just talking about this a few days ago, a week ago. I can't remember now how many of us. I'm going to be. Pretty well, I think this will be brutal enough.
Speaker 1:How many of us, after we got married, kind of let ourselves go to the go to pot, gain weight, get out of shape, right? We, whether we said it out loud or not, we got married and then we just quit trying. We didn't go on dates, we didn't really have fun with each other, we didn't, whatever it is. And how many of us quit dressing up for our spouse? Right? You know, before you get married, right, when you're dating, you go on a date. Man, you make sure that everything is right Shirt, belt, jeans, dress. If you're driving over to pick your girlfriend, then, upright, the car is washed, it's vacuumed, it's cleaned. Probably spent quite a bit of time on that, actually, at least a lot of the boys that I know Makeup hair right If you're a girl and boyfriend's coming over to pick you up for a date.
Speaker 1:We put all this time and effort into prior to the relationship, prior to the marriage. And then we get married and it's like, oh okay, I got them, now I can eat what I want, I can get as fat as I want, I can walk around and holy shorts and a holy t-shirt, it doesn't matter. Holy shorts and a holy t-shirt, it doesn't matter. Isn't it interesting that that one person out of 7 billion starts to get so little of our effort? And here's the kicker, folks, for those of y'all that say well, my husband doesn't care what I look like, or my girlfriend doesn't care, you know, she understands, I've got to work a full-time job, I don't have time to work out every day. Right, and I would still go back to what we talk about every day. We, we claim we have these priorities, but how do we actually spend our time? Right? But here's the deal how many of us still do those things now for other people? How many of us still get dressed up for our boss, still act a certain way for our employer and work really hard to do that, to keep that job, our employer, who doesn't love us? Right, notwithstanding that you work for, like your parents or something, and they really do love you, but even still, they're not your spouse. They're not one out of seven billion. We give our best to others. Then we give our spouse our leftovers and we expect them to be super excited and thrilled about it.
Speaker 1:I'll give you a little analogy. This came from a marriage book or seminar that I went to. It's been so many years I don't remember anymore book or seminar that I went to. It's been so many years I don't remember anymore Watched on video seminar accounts. I don't remember folks, but it was a.
Speaker 1:It was this story and, uh, this husband. There's a couple of great analogies, but this is the one I thought of. This husband was working. They got married, had a couple of young kids, maybe three at home and this husband was working longer, longer hours, and he wasn't cheating on his wife or anything. He was just working to make money for his family.
Speaker 1:But you know, if something happened at work that he really felt like he needed to do to improve his career, he would do it If he, if he needed to take time during the day to go play golf with a client or or take them out to lunch or dinner and wine and dine them. Maybe wine and dine them, but sometimes it feels a lot like whining. He would do that and this went on for a while and his wife really, it was bothering her, and then it got to the point where it was kind of affecting her health and so one night he got home late after doing something and he got into the kitchen and usually there was a meal there waiting on him and all there was at the table was one setting, one place setting, and there was a little Ziploc bag and it had some you know, a little bit of I don't know, maybe pork chop, just a bite or two, and then a spoonful of mashed potatoes and maybe a few green beans or something like that. And the guy was pretty bright, he knew something was wrong pretty quickly, right, so he didn't go in fuming or anything. He went and found his wife and the way I remember the story, she was sitting in one of those rockers that they sell today now A lot of times in stores for mothers with newborn kids, right, parents with newborn kids, one of these gliding rockers and she was just kind of sitting there. Kids were all in bed, all asleep, and he just sat down on the bed or the couch and he just looked at her for a minute bed or the couch, I mean. He just looked at her for a minute and I don't remember which one of them started to talk. But eventually the wife told him. She said you know, you can go to work every day and it's like you start off with this full meal every day and you give a little bit to your boss and you give a little bit to your boss and then you work all morning and maybe you go out to eat with your buddies at work or your client. You know something that you really feel like you need to do and you give a little bit more food to them. And then you come back in the afternoon to work and you give a little bit more away and then a lot of times there's some requirement at the end of the day. Maybe you have to go, you know, take a client to dinner or go to the bar and watch something with somebody. You know you give a little bit more and then you come home and if the kids are still awake, you have a little bit left to give them, and then at the very end of the day, you have some crumbs bit left to give them, and then at the very end of the day, you have some crumbs left over to give me.
Speaker 1:I didn't do a very good job telling that story, folks. I wish I was a better storyteller, but it was pretty heartbreaking when you read it or saw it. Uh, how many of us do that? How many of y'all are doing that right now? If you imagine, if we imagine ourselves starting with a full course you know, a full meal at the beginning of each day, how many of us are giving, most importantly God, but how many of us are giving our spouse the leftover crumbs at the end of the day? Okay, so I stumbled—that took longer than I thought. I stumbled into something recently in my daily readings and we're not going to read the whole thing, but well, maybe we will.
Speaker 1:This is out of Joel. This is one of the Old Testaments and I really just want to read this for a couple of verses. But I'm going to go ahead and take a break from Thessalonians and read this chapter. This is Joel, chapter 2, the terrible visitation. Blow a trumpet in Zion and sound an alarm on my holy mountain. Let all the inhabitants of the land tremble, for the day of the Lord is coming, surely it is near, a day of darkness and gloom, a day of clouds and thick darkness as the dawn is spread over the mountains.
Speaker 1:So there is a great and mighty people. There has never been anything like it, nor will there be again after it, to the years of many generations. A fire consumes before them and behind them a flame burns. The land is like the garden of Eden before them, but a desolate wilderness behind them, and nothing at all escapes them. Their appearance is like the appearance of horses and like warhorses. So they run With a noise as of chariots. They leap on the tops of mountains like the crackling of a flame or fire consuming the stubble, like a mighty people arranged for battle. Before them. The people are in anguish, all faces turn pale. They run like mighty men. They climb the walls like soldiers, and they each march in line. Nor do they deviate from their paths. They do not crowd each other. They march every one in his path. When they burst through the defenses, they do not break ranks. They rush on the city, they run on the wall, they climb into the houses, they enter through the windows like a thief. Before them, the earthquakes, the heavens tremble, the sun and the moon grow dark and the stars lose their brightness.
Speaker 1:The Lord utters his voice before his army. Surely his camp is very great, for strong is he who carries out his word. The day of the Lord is indeed great and very awesome. Who can endure it? Yet even now, declares the Lord, return to me with all your heart and with fasting, weeping, mourning, and rend your heart and not your garments. Now return to the Lord, your God, for he is gracious and compassionate. Slow to anger, slow to anger sorry, I'll just move my page. Abounding in loving, kindness and relenting of evil. Who knows whether he will not turn and relent and leave a blessing behind him, even a grain offering and a drink offering for the Lord, your God.
Speaker 1:Blow a trumpet in Zion. Consecrate a fast. Proclaim a solemn assembly. Gather the people, sanctify the congregation. Assemble the elders, gather the children and the nursing infants. Let the bridegroom come out of his room and the bride out of her bridal chamber.
Speaker 1:Let the priests, the Lord's ministers, weep between the porch and the altar. Let them say spare your people, o Lord, and do not make your inheritance a reproach, a byword among the nations. Why should they, among the peoples, say where is their God Deliverance promised? Then the Lord will be zealous for his land and will have pity on his people. The Lord will answer and say to his people behold, I am going to send you grain, new wine and oil, and you'll be satisfied and full with them, and I will never again make you a reproach among the nations.
Speaker 1:But I will remove the northern army, far from you, and I will drive it into a parched and desolate land and its vanguard into the eastern sea and its rearguard into the western sea, and its stench will arise and its foul smell will come up. For it has done great things. Do not fear, o land, rejoice and be glad, for the Lord has done great things. Do not fear beasts of the field, for the pastures of the wilderness have turned green, for the tree has borne its fruit and the fig tree and the vine have yielded in full. So rejoice, o sons of Zion, and be glad in the Lord, your God, for he has given you the early rain for your vindication and he has poured down for you the rain, the early and latter rain as before, the threshing floors will be full of grain and the vats will overflow with the new wine and oil.
Speaker 1:Then I will make up to you for the years that the swarming locust has eaten, the creeping locust, the stripping locust and the gnawing locust, my great army, which I sent among you. You will have plenty to eat and be satisfied and praise the name of the Lord, your God, who has dealt wondrously with you. Then my people will never be put to shame. Thus you will know that I am in the midst of Israel, that I am the Lord, your God, and there is no other, and my people will never be put to shame. It will come about after this that I will pour out my spirit on all mankind, and your sons and daughters will prophesy and your old men will dream dreams. Your young men will see visions, even on the male and female servants. I will pour out my spirit in those days, the day of the Lord. I will display wonders in the sky and on the earth blood, fire and columns of smoke. The sun will be turned into darkness and the moon into blood. The great and awesome day of the Lord comes, and it will come about that whoever calls on the name of the Lord will be delivered, for on Mount Zion and in Jerusalem there will be those who escape, as the Lord has said, even among the survivors whom the Lord calls.
Speaker 1:So what struck me as I was reading this the other day and the reason that we came back to it there's a lot of good stuff in here, as there always is to it. There's a lot of good stuff in here, as there always is. But the part that really immediately resonated with me was verses 11 through 15, really 11 through 14, and then 15 is one of the other verses that kind of hit right. So the second part of verse 11, the day of the Lord, is indeed great and very awesome, and who can endure it? Yet even now, declares the Lord return to me with all your heart and with fasting, weeping and mourning, and rend your heart and not your garments. Now return to the Lord, your God, for he is gracious and compassionate, slow to anger. So I wonder. A grain offering and a drink offering for the Lord, your God? So I wonder if I can find I like the NLT version a little bit better. This is what the Lord says Turn to me now, while there is time. Give me your hearts, come with fasting, weeping and mourning. Don't tear your clothing in your grief, but tear your hearts instead. Return to the Lord, your God, for he is merciful and compassionate, slow to get angry and filled with unfailing love. He is eager to relent and not punish. Who knows, perhaps he will give you a reprieve, sending you a blessing instead of this curse. Perhaps you will be able to offer grain and wine to the Lord, your God, as before.
Speaker 1:Maybe it strikes some of y'all this way I'm about to describe, maybe it doesn't, but I immediately thought of our nation here in America. How many of us give lip service to God? How many of us really turn to him speaking, guidance, even in the midst of some really great pains? Folks, how many of us look to him when we have someone we love, who's sick, really sick, when we have injury, really bad injury, when we have injury, really bad injury. When we look at the blessings, just when we're grateful, how often?
Speaker 1:And if you read the first chapter of Joel, it makes the situation even worse. How many of us, how much have we been blessed with in this nation? How many things has God given us as a nation? How many things has God given us as a nation and we just kind of turn away and look the other way or we act like we did it. As Lincoln said, in the vanity of our own hearts we think that we did it. And how many of us are truly rending our hearts and not just making a show of offering something?
Speaker 1:I'm not doing a very good job. I don't feel like getting that part across, folks. But if we don't really turn back to God as a nation and it may be too late already, we may be past the point. And, folks, I hate to say this. I mean I would love for it not to be true, I would love to be wrong here. But if you think that that last election, if you're counting on that as a sign that we've got everything fixed now and we're going to be okay, I think you're being deceived either by yourself or by others. It might have been a small victory, as in the Doolittle Raid in World War II, far more than Midway, or either of the atomic bombs in Japan. It was definitely not the end of the war, but just the beginning.
Speaker 1:All right, where are we going? We are going to Daniel Webster. If I can find Daniel Webster, there we go. Oh no, there it is Got to find the right part that I want to be in. So this is all of this.
Speaker 1:Stuff is coming out of Webster's the works of Daniel Webster, volume one. We've got a few things to read. If we have time for it, we'll just see how far we get. These are just some different excerpts. I think this part yeah, so this part that I'm going to read right now is out of a speech that he gave, or yeah, I think that was it for the bunker hill monument, and I think he gave a few things here. I'm not really sure about the timing.
Speaker 1:Folks, I wish that I was the great will of political revolution began to move in america. I wish that I was the great will of political revolution began to move in America. Here its rotation was guarded, regular and safe. Transferred to the other continent from unfortunate but natural causes, it received an irregular and violent impulse. It whirled along with a fearful serenity, till at length, like the chariot wheels in the races of antiquity. It took fire from the rapidity of its own motion and blazed onward, spreading conflagration and terror around. We learn from the result of this experiment how fortunate was our own condition and how admirably the character of our people was calculated for setting the great example of popular governments.
Speaker 1:The possession of power did not turn the heads of the American people, for they had long been in the habit of exercising a great degree of self-control, although the paramount authority of the parent state existed over them. Yet a large field of legislation had always been open to our colonial assemblies. They were accustomed to representative bodies and the forms of free government. They understood the doctrine of the division of power among different branches and the necessity of checks on each. The character of our countrymen, moreover, was sober, moral and religious, and there was little in the change to shock their feelings of justice and humanity or even to disturb an honest prejudice. We had no domestic throne to overturn, no privileged orders to cast down, no violent changes of property to encounter.
Speaker 1:In the American Revolution, no man sought or wished for more than to defend and enjoy his own. None hoped for the plunder or for the spoil. Rapacity was unknown to it. The axe was not among the instruments of its accomplishment, and we all know that it could not have lived a single day under any well-founded imputation of possessing a tendency adverse to the Christian religion. The bottom line here was the Christian religion folks.
Speaker 1:Without the principles of Christ, none of this stuff would have mattered. It's the same problem we have today. Right, there's a lot of really bright people in our Congress, in our government working today. There have been for decades, some of them good, some of them not so good, but pretty bright. But if you take right, this is why Christless conservatism is the greatest danger to our nation today, not even even more than leftism, communism, socialism.
Speaker 1:When you take Christ, those unchanging principles of God, out of the equation, then it just becomes, whatever the morality of that particular individual, who's in control or thinking of the solution, or crafts the bill right, or the people as a whole, even if you want to go that far, right, it's just the character of us as a whole and I hate to say it, and I would be shocked if many people who are being honest wouldn't agree the character of our nation as a whole, of our Congress as a whole, even of one side or the other as a whole. It's not real great folks one side or the other as a whole. It's not real great folks. And so when you take those unchanging principles out, then all of those great ideas, however great they are. Whether you're talking about financial domestic policy checks and balances, it doesn't matter. They only A, they only last as long as the person who's crafting them or the people who are crafting them thinks it's a good idea, right?
Speaker 1:That's the whole problem with the Constitution as a living document, right, that a lot of people want in the sense of living meaning. We can change it when we don't like what it says anymore. You only get there if you throw in the sense of living meaning. We can change it when we don't like what it says anymore. You only get there if you throw out the principles of Christianity. So you don't have that unchanging basis to start from. And that's what the left has managed to do. They managed to separate God and state, not separate church and state, but separate God and state. And then, when you do that, it's like cutting off the anchor of a ship and you're just kind of at the mercy of the sea, the sea being the whims of the people. A nation of the people by the people, for the people doesn't really matter if the people have no moral anchor. And you look back at Webster's comments here.
Speaker 1:The character of our countrymen was, moreover, was sober, moral and religious Christian. John Adams, our constitution was made only for a moral and religious people. It's wholly inadequate to any other. You cannot have our republic, you can't have liberty period without the principles of Christ. That's why you don't see it anywhere else in the world, or anywhere you do see it, it's directly tied to the amount of Christianity, the amount of people following the principles of Christ, the doctrine of scripture, not of denomination. You know, I think and I meant to go back, I didn't take time today, but in Joel it talked about that too, and so many. Each November, you know, we read through so many of those Thanksgiving Day proclamations, days of fasting and prayer, and one thing they talk about often is being sober. Joel, in the Bible today I think that was one of the words was sober. How many of us really get serious about our faith, our faith? How many of us really take serious the issues going on in our country within the lens of that faith? Right, you've got some people that take politics really seriously, and a lot of them are not really very good people, certainly not moral, right or religious. They have to go together, like Webster said here. The character of our countrymen, moreover, was sober, moral and religious. If you've got somebody that doesn't have that morality, that Christian basis, and they're not really serious about drawing closer to God and enacting those principles, you're not going to have liberty for very long. So they were talking, I believe, about this Bunker Hill hill monument. I think that's the the setting for these words of webster.
Speaker 1:Time and nature have had their course in diminishing the number of those whom we met here on the 17th of june 1825. Most of the revolutionary characters then present have since deceased and Lafayette sleeps in his native land. Yet the name and blood of Warren are with us. The kindred of Putnam are also here and near me. Universally beloved for his character and his virtues and now venerable for his years, sits the son of the noble-hearted and daring Prescott. Gideon Foster of Danvers, enos Reynolds of Boxford, phineas Johnson, robert Andrews of boxford, phineas johnson, robert andrews, elijah dresser, josiah cleveland, jesse smith, philip bagley, needham maynard, roger leisted, joseph stevens, nehemiah porter and james har, who bore arms for their country either at Concord and Lexington on the 19th of April or on Bunker Hill.
Speaker 1:All now far advanced in age, have come here today to look once more on the field where their valor was proved and to receive a hearty outpouring of our respect was proved and to receive a hearty outpouring of our respect. They have long outlived the troubles and dangers of the revolution. They have outlived the evils arising from the want of a united and efficient government. They have outlived the menace of imminent dangers to the public liberty. They have outlived nearly all their contemporaries, but they have not outlived, they cannot outlive, the affectionate gratitude of their country. Heaven has not allotted to this generation an opportunity of rendering high services and manifesting strong personal devotions such as they rendered and manifested, and in such a cause as that which roused the patriotic fires of their youthful breasts and nerved the strength of their arms. But we may praise what we cannot equal and celebrate actions which we were not born to perform.
Speaker 1:And yet again, for one of the hundredth times, I wish that I could read y'all the latin folks, but um, well, I'll give it a chance. Y'all can laugh at it, if nothing else. Lacrum est bene, farce Repubblicae etnam bene, decree, hand Odd Absurdum est, no idea, and that was probably horrible, but maybe. Maybe. No idea, and that was probably horrible, but maybe, maybe. Interesting thing that really struck me is comparing this to how we celebrate Pearl Harbor, still all these years later and the number of veterans declining each year that were part of that battle, and yet still going back to celebrate those men who lived through that, survived that horrible attack and them here, webster, naming off these men who were there, who bore arms for their country either at Concord and Lexington or on Bunker Hill Right, and saying that that they've outlived all of these different troubles that he listed. But they can't outlive our appreciation and gratitude At our men who have served. In the same way Do we look at them with that gratitude that them risking life and limb deserves. It was just kind of an interesting little tidbit and I liked his commentary. Heaven has not allotted to this generation an opportunity of rendering high services and manifesting strong personal devotion. But we can praise what we cannot equal and celebrate actions which we were not born to perform. Pearl Harbor, 9-11, so many battles in between. We can praise what we cannot equal and celebrate actions which we were not born to perform.
Speaker 1:The bunker hillument is finished. Here it stands, fortunate in the high natural eminence on which it is placed, higher, infinitely higher in its objects and purpose. It rises over the land and over the sea and visible at their homes to 300,000 of the people of Massachusetts. It stands a memorial of the last and of the past and a monitor to the present and to all succeeding generations. I have spoken of the loftiness of its purpose. If it had been without any other design than the creation of a work of art, the granite of which it is composed would have slept in its native bed. It has a purpose and that purpose gives it its character. That purpose enrobes it with dignity and moral grandeur. That well-known purpose. It is which causes us to look up to it with a feeling of awe. It is itself the orator of this occasion. It is not from my lips, it could not be from any human lips, that that strain of eloquence is, this day to flow, most competent to move and excite the vast multitudes around me.
Speaker 1:The powerful speaker stands motionless before us. It is the plain shaft. It bears no inscriptions, fronting to the rising sun from which the future antiquitary shall wipe the dust. Nor does the rising sun cause tones of music to issue from its summit. But at the rising of the sun and at the setting of the sun, in the blaze of noonday and beneath the milder effulgence of lunar light, it looks, it speaks, it acts, to the full comprehension of every American mind and the awakening of glowing enthusiasm in every American heart. It's silent but awful utterance, its deep pathos as it brings to our contemplation the 17th of June 1775, and the consequences which have resulted to us, to our country and to the world from the events of that day and which we know must continue to reign influence on the destinies of mankind to the end of time. The elevation with which it raises us, high above the ordinary feelings of life, surpass all that the study of the closet or even the inspiration of genius can produce. Today it speaks to us. Its future auditories will be the successive generations of men as they rise up before it and gather around it. Its speech will be of patriotism and courage, of civil and religious liberty, of free government, of the moral improvement and elevation of mankind and of the immortal memory of those who, with heroic devotion, have sacrificed their lives for their country.
Speaker 1:In the older world, numerous fabrics still exist, reared by human hands but whose object has been lost in the darkness of ages. They are now monuments of nothing but the labor and skill which constructed them. A mighty pyramid, itself half buried in the sands of Africa, has nothing to bring down or report to us, but the power of kings and the servitude of the people. If it had any purpose beyond that of a mausoleum, such purpose has perished from history and from tradition. If asked for its moral object, its admonition, its sentiment, its instruction to mankind or any high end in its erection, it is silent, silent as the millions which lie in the dust at its base and in the catacombs which surround it. Without a just moral object therefore made known to man, though raised against the skies, it excites only conviction of power mixed with strange wonder. But if the civilization of the present race, of none, founded as it is in solid science, the true knowledge of nature and vast discoveries in art, knowledge of nature and vast discoveries in art, and which is elevated and purified by moral sentiment and by the truths of Christianity, be not destined to destruction before the final termination of human existence on earth, the object and purpose of this edifice will be known. Till that hour shall come. And even if civilization should be subverted and the truth of the Christian religion obscured by a new deluge of barbarism, the memory of Bunker Hill and the American Revolution will still be elements and parts of the knowledge, that last part. But if the civilization of the present race of men, founded as it is in solid science, the true knowledge of nature and vast discoveries in art, and which is elevated and purified by moral sentiment and by the truths of Christianity, be not destined to destruction before the final termination of human existence on earth, the object and the purpose of this edifice will be known. Till that hour shall come, and even if civilization should be subverted and the truths of the Christian religion obscured by a new deluge of barbarism, the memory of Bunker Hill in the American Revolution will still be elements and parts of the knowledge which shall be possessed by the last man to whom the light of civilization and christianity they'll be extended.
Speaker 1:How many of us folks, how many of us treat the pearl harbor memorial in hawaii that way? How many of us treat the bunker hill memorial, the monument, that way? How many of us treat the Bunker Hill Memorial, the monument, that way? How many of us, till the very last of light of civilization and Christianity exists in this world? How many of us will remember the sacrifice of those who have given so much? How many of us talk more about the men who have given their lives than we do the NFL tight end or quarterback, or the pop singer or the basketball star or the actor or actress that we like so much?
Speaker 1:How many of us folks? How how can we possibly and I'm guilty of this, I'm talking to myself, but how can we possibly sit here and know so much about people who have given so little to our nation and have zero clue about who we are or could care less, and how can we know so little? And how can we know so little and how can we teach our children so little and cram their heads of so much other nonsense than about the people who have given so much for our nation? How many schools around the nation go through and read through, in the course of 12 years of education? Every single Medal of Honor winner, and if you don't like that, pick somebody else. But how many of us go through? How many of our students that graduate remember the Bunker Hill Monument? I might, vaguely so.
Speaker 1:How many of us, as adults, do we go back and remember these things? When we take trips, we like to go for entertainment, right, right. How many of us go on a trip for vacation or for whatever else, just purely for entertainment? How many of us manage to look not just at Disneyland or Disney World or Universal Studios or a football game or basketball game or even the grandeur of nature. How many of us look at these monuments when we go places that represent those who have given so much to our country and what they stand for right? You've got to look at what Webster said here, like he's talking about Christianity constantly through that. That is the undergirding. That's the foundation of our nation. That's the foundation of these events are those unchanging principles of God and Jesus Christ. This is Daniel Webster, one of our all-time greatest orators in the history of our nation, who served this country for years and years and years.
Speaker 1:God bless y'all. God bless your families. God bless your marriages. God bless y'all. God bless your families. God bless your marriages. God bless America. God bless your nation, wherever you are around the world. Listen, folks. We'll talk to y'all again real soon. Looking forward to it.