Oration: The American Mind

C. W. Lyons S. J.
BY REV. CHARLES W. LYONS, S. J.
DELIVERED BEFORE THE CITY GOVERNMENT AND CITIZENS OF BOSTON IN FANEUIL HALL, ON THE ONE HUNDRED AND FORTY-SEVENTH ANNIVERSARY OF THE DECLARATION OF INDEPENDENCE OF THESE UNITED STATES, JULY 4, 1923
CITY OF BOSTON PRINTING DEPARTMENT 1923

Fourth of July Oration, 1923.
By Rev. Charles W. Lyons, S. J.
In the evolution of any life, whether it be that of an individual or of that corporate moral union we know as society, there are times when it seems fitting and proper to pause from the whirl of incessant activities, turn aside from accustomed line of thought, and let the mind run sweetly and lovingly over a treasured past.
And today our beloved country, in the fulness of her achievement, with the memories of one hundred and forty-seven years, one hundred and forty-seven golden years, lived only that her children might grow, as from eternity the Creator had destined them to grow, in the full security of rights that are inalienable.
Today our beloved country turns to us children of a later generation and pleads that we follow this generous impulse of nature, and tarry for the moment, while she lives over again the thoughts and emotions and heroic sacrifices that gave her birth.
They were not new thoughts or unknown emotions. As John Quincy Adams so well remarked in his scholarly discourse on the Jubilee of the Constitution: “The Declaration of Independence and the Constitution of the United States are parts of one constant whole, founded upon one and the same theory of government, then new not as a theory, for it had been working itself into the mind of man for many ages, but it had never before been adopted by a great nation.”
Moses, as narrated in Deuteronomy, had charged the judges in Israel: “There shall be no difference of persons; you shall hear the little as well as the great; neither shall you respect any man’s person, because it is the judgment of God.”