"God of our fathers, known of old Lord of our far-flung battle line— Beneath whose awful Hand we hold Dominion over palm and pineLord God of Hosts, be with us yet, Lest we forget-lest we forget. "The tumult and the shouting dies The captains and the kings departStill stands Thine ancient Sacrifice, An humble and a contrite heart. Lord God of Hosts be with us yet, Lest we forget, lest we forget! "Far-called our navies melt away— On dune and headland sinks the fire Lo, all our pomp of yesterday Is one with Nineveh and Tyre! Judge of the nations spare us yet, Lest we forget-lest we forget!" II. COLONIAL EXPANSION.* LAST May I spoke before my people at home on the subject of Imperialism. I took my title, as I take now my text, from Kipling's "Recessional," the noblest hymn of our century: "Lest we forget." For it seemed to me then, just after the battle of Manila, that we might forget who we are and for what we stand. In the sudden intoxication of far-off victory, with the consciousness of power and courage, with the feeling that all the world is talking of us, our great stern mother patting us on the back, and all the lesser peoples looking on in fear or envy, we might lose our heads. But greater glory than this has been ours before. For more than a century our nation has stood for something higher and nobler than success in war, something not enhanced by a victory at sea, or a wild bold charge over a hill lined with masked batteries. We have stood for civic ideals, and the greatest of these, that government should make men by giving them freedom to make themselves. The glory of the American * Address before the Congress of Religions at Omaha in October, 1898, published in the "New World" for December, 1898, under the title of "Imperial Democracy." |