University of Virginia Library

A PROPHECY OF AMERICA

By Henry van Dyke, D.D., LL.D., D.C.L.

And their nobles shall be of themselves, and their Governor shall proceed
from the midst of them. Jer. 30: 21.

This prophecy of a divine charter for democracy has been strikingly
fulfilled in the history of the United States of America. Twenty-eight
Presidents have led the republic, all good men, and several of them great
men,—a better record than any royal house can show for the same period.

This proves that the so-called divine authority of kings is certainly not
superior to the providential guidance of the people's choice in producing
worthy rulers. Doubters of democracy, take note! Popular election is not
an infallible method. But for the highest office it works better than the
mechanism of princely marriages.

Another thing about the Presidents of the United States is significant
and not generally known. Every one of them, with a single exception, has
come from pre-revolutionary American stock,—those plain people who
crossed the ocean when a voyage meant more than a mild adventure in seasickness,
to face the perils of a vast wilderness, and to win liberty and
living for themselves and their children.

This proves that though our country may have become to some extent
a "melting-pot," the American hand and spirit still direct the process of
fusion. So may it be until by common education and united work the last
hyphen is melted out, and a mighty people emerges owing an undivided
allegiance to America and to God!

Of all our Presidents not one was more emphatically American than
Thomas Jefferson. He has been called the "Father of Democracy." He
would have preferred, I think, to be called its son. Born of its blood and

Academic Procession to Vespers, First Day of Centennial

nursed upon its milk, he was a lover and a leader, a truster and a defender
of the plain people of his land.

True, he also loved France. But from 1776 to 1921, a grateful love of
France has been one of the qualities of real Americanism.

True, he was an educated man, familiar with the philosophy of liberty,
and well-read in its ancient and modern literature. But it was not from
books that he drew his faith. It was from the soil whence he sprang and the
folks among whom he was bred and brought up. Contact with them enlightened
him, convinced him, inspired him. He knew that they were trustworthy,
fit to rule themselves, and he was determined that they should do so.
For their liberties he was willing to fight, in time of war, against foreign
oppression. For their rights he was willing to contend and work in time of
peace, against domestic oligarchy and the domination of the money power.

It was on this issue that he came to the presidential chair, and for this
he was mistrusted and abused by those who were not liberal enough to
understand that, in a free country, the only conservative force is an equalhanded
justice. Popular government; no class privileges; personal liberty
within the bounds of common order; home rule for all the States, not separate
but indissolubly united; a nation strong by virtue of the strength of its
component parts; sound finance instead of kiting; trade not stifled by artificial
barriers; and peace, so far as in us lies, with all mankind,—these were
Jefferson's ideas. By them he led the young Republic for eight years, and
gave to her future course a direction which, pray God, will never be permanently
altered.

He was an idealist, of course. All our great Presidents have been that,
and all of them have been reproached for it. But somehow or other these
idealists, men of the tribe of that dreamer Joseph, have had the faculty of
making many of their dreams come true. And if by reason of the jealousy
of their brethren they do not realize at once all their lofty ideals, they have at
least the knowledge that heavenly lights have shone upon them:

Without the vision the people perish. Our true leaders have not been controlled
by narrow considerations of self-interest, but by the loftier view of a
"People guided by an exalted justice and benevolence," by the larger hope
of "America first," not only in wealth and power, but also in the councils
of the nations for the peace of the world. This has been the star of our
Presidents from Washington to Wilson. This we trust will be the leading
light of our present honored Chief Magistrate.

The positive and practical achievements of Thomas Jefferson are not

always remembered. Careless of his own fortune to the point of negligence,
he had an ideal of financial integrity and solvency for his country by virtue
of which he was able to pay off thirty-three million dollars of public debt,—
a sum as large for those days and conditions as thirty-three billion would
be for the United States of to-day. He had a vision of what he called "an
Empire for Liberty," and by the peaceful means of purchase he expanded
our national territory from the Alleghanies to the Rocky Mountains, from
the Great Lakes to the Gulf of Mexico. He was the first to propose a League
of Nations to enforce peace in the Mediterranean, and, though his scheme
did not go through as planned, he was also the first to send an American fleet
into foreign waters to put down the pirates of North Africa. He said truly,
"Peace is our passion," and therefore he was willing to fight in its defense.
He was opposed to "entangling alliances," because he wanted something
larger,—a coöperation of all nations for the good of the world and the
progress of mankind.

Such were the ideals and aspirations of this eager and enthusiastic man.
If he sometimes made mistakes in working them out, that was only human.
It is better to be sometimes mistaken than to be all the time dead.

Let us turn now for a moment to consider the three things by which he
desired to be remembered: that he wrote the Declaration of Independence,
and the Statute of Virginia for Religious Freedom, and that he was the Father
of the University of Virginia.

Mark you, these are in a way very simple things. They are not glittering
political or military victories; they are triumphs in the realm of the spirit;
they are pure offerings on the altar of Liberty.

Mark also, and mark it well, they are not disconnected and haphazard
things. They are closely and inevitably woven together in the unity of the
spirit and the bond of peace. They are made of one stuff and dedicated to
one purpose.

The Declaration of Independence is a profoundly religious document;
a gospel of human rights as conferred by God, and therefore inalienable, and
a definition of human government as deriving its divine authority from the
protection of those God-given rights.

But how shall men understand their rights and learn how to use them
wisely in harmony with the rights of others, unless they are taught to see
clearly, to reason rightly, and to will nobly? Popular education is the first
and greatest need of a republic. Without wisdom and discretion the sovereign
people are but as a flock of sheep or a drove of wild asses. Therefore
he that supports schools and establishes colleges is a strengthener of the
foundations of democracy.

But that will not be so if education is controlled and dominated by external
authority, by the enactments of political senates or the decrees of

ecclesiastical councils. The mind of man must be free to seek, to find, to
embrace and to follow the truth, by observation in science, by reasoning in
philosophy and government, and by conscience in religion. There is no
other way, nor is there need of any other. An opinion enforced is a foreign
body in the mind and never becomes part of it. A creed imposed is a treason
to faith, a mockery of piety, and an offense to God. He has seen fit, in His
great school of life, to make religion an optional course and worship a voluntary
exercise. Therefore religious liberty is essential to the doctrine of
Christ, who said, "if any man will come after me let him deny himself, and
take up his cross, and follow me." Jesus would have only willing disciples,
and to them He promises, "Ye shall know the truth and the truth shall
make you free."

My brethren, the fundamental convictions of Jefferson are in harmony
with the spirit of Christianity, which is a democracy of souls under the
sovereignty of God and the leadership of Christ. In these latter days we
have special need to revive these convictions and hold them fast, for the
safety of the republic and the welfare of religion.

Secret and dangerous heresies are at work in our times. We are in peril
of forgetting that the main object of government is not the imposition of
national uniformity, but the protection of the individual in his rights of life,
liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. We are in peril of forgetting the
supreme importance of common education in a democratic state. With our
lips we do reverence to it, but in our deeds we are apostates. We are spending
more for fleets and armies than for schools and colleges. We are paying
our plumbers and carpenters more than our teachers. We are blindly allowing
a generation, white and colored, to grow up on our land, ten per cent. of
whom can neither read nor write, and forty per cent. of whom have no real
conception of the fundamental rights and duties of freemen. The republic
is not safe under such conditions. To breed ignorance is to beget disaster.
We must reverse our course. We must devote more of our wealth and effort
to the education of our people than to any other national purpose. We must
cultivate "preparedness" not only for the exceptional emergency of war, but
also and more resolutely for the permanent and normal demands of peace.
We must build our national defenses in the character and intelligence of our
young manhood and womanhood. The pestilent diseases of Bergdollism and
Brindellism must be extirpated. Not only our schools and universities but
also our homes must be places of training for the serious responsibilities of
American citizenship. Fathers and mothers, as well as teachers must take
their part in the building of those living, spiritual bulwarks of enlightenment
and patriotism by which alone our country can be safeguarded from the
ruinous revolts of ignorance, the bold assaults of demagogues, and the insidious
usurpations of gilded arrogance.

And what of religion, that sustaining and restraining power, that sense
of a personal relationship between man and God which ennobles every daily
duty and inspires every noble sacrifice? Never has our country needed it,—
pure, potent, undefiled,—more than she needs it to-day. Materialism,—
wealth—worship in the form of pride or in the form of envy,—ungodly
devotion to the things that perish in the using is the vice of the age and the
enemy of the republic. Without religion democracy is doomed.

But how shall we revive religion, how sustain and spread it? By
authority and power, by pains and penalties for unbelief, by stricter censorship
of opinions and conduct, by compulsory worship and blue law Sundays?
Nay, beloved, never was faith fostered, nor church prospered, by such
means. "Conscience is God's province." With the first table of the Ten
Commandments civil government has nothing to do; only with the second
table is it concerned. What man does to his fellowman law may regulate;
how he stands with God is his own affair. Sunday is a beautiful park wherein
the state keeps order that the people may find rest: the Sabbath is a holy
Temple in the park, wherein those who will may enter to find the joy of
worship.

My friends, what we need is not less devotion to Christianity, but more
confidence in it. It is not a weakling demanding shelter, nourishment,
propaganda from the state. It is a vigorous, God-reliant religion, manly in
its strength, womanly in its tenderness, sure that Christ is the love of God
and the power of God unto salvation. It was born in the open air; it was
taught on the lake-shore and the mountain-side; it travelled the dusty road
on foot and clasped hands with every seeker after God; its supreme, triumphant
sacrifice was offered on a green hill, beneath the blue sky, among
sinners and for their sake. Get back to that, tell men that, live by that, and
Christianity will revive to bless democracy and make it safe for the world.