Long years ago Abraham Lincoln said that ". . . our fathers brought forth on this continent, a new nation, conceived in liberty, and dedicated to the proposition that all men are created equal. Now," said he, "we are engaged in a great Civil War, testing whether that nation or any nation so conceived and so dedicated can long endure. . . ."

TO ENDURE FOREVER

Today we are engaged in a greater war, a war that covers the whole earth. We are fighting on battlefields around the world for the sacred purpose of demonstrating that, God being our helper, not only one nation, our nation, but that any and all nations ". . . conceived in liberty, and dedicated to the proposition that all men are created equal . . ." shall not only endure long, but shall endure forever. That is the great cause and blessing for which we are fighting today. And using again the language of the immortal Lincoln, we have resolved that those heroes of the other world war who gave their lives and those of this war who make the supreme sacrifice ". . . shall not have died in vain. . . ." We have resolved that "under God" the whole world ". . . shall have a new birth of freedom. and that government of the people, by the people, for the people, shall not perish from the earth. . . ."

        BETTER DEAD THAN A SLAVE

Henry Van Dyke says:

Oh, better to be dead
With a face turned toward the sky,
Than live beneath a slavish dread
And serve a giant lie.

Stand up, stand up, my heart, and strive
For the things most dear to thee!
Why should we care to be alive
Unless the world is free?

GIANT ROBBER'S WORLD-WIDE WAR

What he wrote then concerning the other world war and our flag applies to this world war and to our flag with even greater accuracy and force:

O fiercer than all wars before
That raged on land or sea,
The Giant Robber's world-wide war
For the things that shall not be!
Thy sister banners hold the line;
To thee, dear flag, they call;
And thou hast joined them with the sign—
The heavenly sign, the victor sign—
Of the stars that never fall.

All hail to thee, New Glory!
We follow thee unfurled
To write the larger story
Of the Freedom of the World.

THE WHOLE WORLD FREE

On the very day the other war was ended, November 11, 1918, he wrote:

Oh, welcome home in Heaven's peace, dear spirits of the dead!
And welcome home ye living sons America hath bred!
The lords of war are beaten down, your glorious task is done;
You fought to make the whole world free, and the victory is won.

How unfortunate that that thrilling and glorious achievement, thus so dearly and so dramatically stated, did not actually become a reality.

A TEMPLE AND THE CENTER OF PEACE

When President Grant was in Europe a few years ago, the mayor of Geneva, Switzerland, took him and as many others of his party as the mayor's car would carry (seven as I remember it) and showed the members of that party the flowers, the parks, the mountain scenery, the loveliness of Lake Geneva, and many other of the attractions in and about that famous city, that great center of peace. President Grant the next day expressed the thought that somewhere among the hills surrounding that city, in that land of freedom and democracy, it would be fitting indeed for the Church of Jesus Christ to build a temple.

OUR ALL UPON THE ALTAR

The mayor later also took the party through the historic municipal and national buildings of Geneva and showed to us, the members of the party, the many and impressive historic documents and other treasures which the people of Switzerland hold dear as we hold dear the original copies of the Constitution of the United States and our Declaration of Independence. Some twenty-one or twenty-two nations are held together in Switzerland by their love of independence and liberty much as our forty-eight states are held together. The elimination of war, that is, the preservation and maintenance of peace, is the principal aim of the officials and people of that great city and that little but great republic, Switzerland. They are endeavoring to secure for mankind in all the world that great blessing of peace and good will which Christ came so long ago to bring, that blessing for which all good Christian people around the whole world are so fervently praying during these terrible and trying times. It is for this great cause that the United Nations including our own beloved country are now unselfishly putting their all upon the altar of war. By force we have had thrust upon us this great conflict and, spurred on by our love of liberty, we, the United Nations, are making gigantic efforts to win.

WILL WIN COURAGEOUSLY

The motto of our country is "In God we trust," and throughout our land we sing—

Long may our land be bright with freedom's holy light; Protect us by Thy might, Great God, our King.

With faith in God the Eternal Father to whom nothing is impossible, we have carried into this mighty and unparalleled struggle "the only flag in all the world that has never known defeat." God helping us we shall not only win, but however great the cost in tears, in blood, in human life, or in economic treasure, we shall win courageously.

And when peace finally comes and the war is ended, the following words of Van Dyke found in his poem entitled "Golden Stars," will apply as appropriately no doubt as they did when they were read for the first time at the Memorial Service held at Princeton University, December 15, 1918, just four days after the Armistice was signed. He said:

But many a lad we hold
Dear in our heart of hearts
Is missing from the home-returning host.
Ah, say not they are lost,
For they have found and given their life
In sacrificial strife:
Their service stars have changed from blue to gold!

ONE TEAR, ONE WORD OF GRIEF

Listen to his expressions concerning the courage, the determination, and the daring of the mothers of these whose stars have changed from blue to gold:

O happy warriors, forgive the tear
Falling from eyes that miss you;
Forgive the word of grief from mother-lips
That ne'er on earth shall kiss you;
Hear only what our hearts would have you hear—
Glory and praise and gratitude and pride
From the dear country in whose cause you died.
Now you have run your race and won your prize,
Old age shall never burden you, the fears
And conflicts that beset our lingering years
Shall never vex your souls in Paradise.
Immortal, young, and crowned with victory,
From life's long battle you have found release.
And He who died for all on Calvary
Has welcomed you, brave soldiers of the cross,
      Into eternal peace.

Come, let us gird our loins and lift our load,
Companions who are left on life's rough road,
And bravely take the way that we must tread
To keep true faith with our beloved dead.
To conquer war they dared their lives to give,
To safeguard peace our hearts must learn to live.
Help us, dear God, our forward faith to hold!
We want a better world than that of old.
Lead us on paths of high endeavor,
Toiling upward, climbing ever,
Ready to suffer for the right,
Until at last we gain a loftier height,
More worthy to behold
Our guiding stars, our hero-stars of gold.

TO THEE NOTHING IMPOSSIBLE

This struggle is like that great war of long ago which was fought in heaven. And the cause for which we fight is the same, that is, liberty and freedom, the right of choice, for all the sons and all the daughters of God. However great the cost, this struggle must go on until we are victorious. These are trying days, terrible times. The agony on the part of the mothers and of the young wives of those soldiers who may be called upon to give their lives on the field of honor is not unlike the agony of the Master Himself in the garden of Gethsemane. It was under the trying conditions then surrounding Him that He exclaimed, ". . . Father, all things are possible unto thee; take away this cup from me"  Mark 14:36 Three times He repeated this the most earnest, prayerful appeal that ever fell from His divine lips. The situation was so serious that ". . . his sweat was as it were great drops of blood falling down to the ground." The load He had to bear was so heavy that ". . . there appeared an angel unto him from heaven, strengthening him"  Luke 22:43-44

PRAYER OF JESUS NOT ANSWERED

And was this His most earnest prayer answered? It was not. Then came the sublimest moment of His most remarkable life when He added, ". . . nevertheless, not my will, but thine, be done"  Luke 22:42 Thus, by enduring that great agony, the Savior took upon Himself the sins of all men that all men on condition of repentance might come unto Him.

FATHER, THY WILL BE DONE

And so with us. We, the United Nations, have put our hands to the plow  Luke 9:62 and this contest, on a world of battlefields, unparalleled as it is in magnitude and extent, we will win, however great the cost. And being followers of Jesus, the Son of God, and members of His Church, the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, let us do as He did at the time of His great agony, that is, appeal to our Heavenly Father in great earnestness and humility for the lives of our loved ones to be spared and for their bodies to be unharmed. But back of these earnest and humble prayerful appeals, let us, as best we can, be courageous and Christ-like. Back of all these appeals may we have, in some degree, that spirit Christ so gloriously exhibited during that sublimest moment of His life when to His most earnest prayerful appeal He added, ". . . nevertheless, not my will, but thine, be done"  Luke 22:42 Thus courageously and Christ-like, may we plunge with all our might into this greatest of all world wars, and by the power of God may we deserve to win, and by that same power may victory be ours with the least possible loss of blood, and the fewest possible number of tears, and of heartaches, I humbly pray.