The closing sentences of the latter address
were as follows:---
"We must preserve the results of the past. But this is not our whole
duty. The work of our fathers is not completed. Our honor and safety is
in still further achievements of public justice and orderly freedom, and
to the advancement of the common welfare. Our mission is a continuous
and steady development of conscientiousness, a moral and religious
growth, keeping pace with advancing intelligence, science and liberty.
We attain to it by those common virtues which our fathers exercised:
honesty, frugality, integrity and unfaltering devotion to duty. We need
but follow the old plain paths, and, undazzled by the superficial
glitter and pretentious show of ambitious self-seekers, march steadily
forward to the attainments of a trained and vigorous virtue, to purity,
strength and solidity. Thus will we keep unsoiled our inheritance, and
transmit it, beautified and glorified, to those who come after us.
"We have seen the forest fall before the strong arm of the pioneer; we
have seen the shores lined with masts, and the waters white with sails;
we have seen the triumphs of restless, cunning labor; but not in
physical power nor in populous cities, not in factories nor palaces, nor
richly laden fleets, are the elements of natural greatness, nor its
safety, but in the courage, integrity, self-denial and temperance of the
people, and the spirit of mental enterprise and moral freedom which
inspires them.
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