[13] The President.
[14] The Senate.
[15] The Representatives of the United States.
LESSONS FROM THE WASHINGTON CENTENNIAL [ToC]
BY GEORGE A. GORDON
Picture to yourselves the joy and expectation of that day which saw the establishment of our Government a century ago. As the patriots of that day in the midst of festivity and joy look back upon famine and nakedness and peril and sword, upon battlefields and garments rolled in blood, as they think of their emergence from the long struggle weary and exhausted, as they recall their precarious existence as a nation under the articles of confederation, as they behold the blessing of God upon their faith and courage and energy, can we not hear those voices, hushed so long ago, speaking to us and assuring us that they that sow in tears shall reap in joy?
We think of the founding of our Government and we recall at this moment the representatives of three generations of statesmen, Washington and Hamilton, Clay and Webster, Lincoln and Sumner. Our attention will be concentrated on the unique and commanding figure of the first President. Through the renewed study and statement of his public career many lessons, familiar indeed, but of fresh importance, will be read into the hearts of our country.
We cannot doubt in the case of Washington the fact of a divine call. Joshua was not more evidently called to command the armies of Israel than Washington to lead the forces of the united colonies. David was not more signally summoned from the sheep-folds to the throne of his people than Washington from his quiet home on the Potomac to the seat of supreme power over his countrymen. There was not a single believer in the Divine Being in the Constitutional Congress who did not hear in the voice of John Adams, when he moved the appointment of George Washington as Commander-in-Chief of all the forces raised or to be raised, the creation and appointment of God.