Visiting the country of Ivory Coast, its capital Abidjan, my guide and I were walking on the beach early on a beautiful morning. A young, personable, handsome black man came up to us and wanted to make our acquaintance because he recognized us being tourists. As is so often the case, they want to exercise their language. He spoke very good English and was very excited that a blind man would be visiting his country, particularly a blind man who knew something of history and could talk with him about American history. He made a statement which I have been trying to answer and perhaps I will be able to answer before my demise. He said, “In President George Washington's farewell address, in the last sentence he said, 'America will cease to be great if America loses its religion and morality.'” He said, “From the American movies I see, from the American publications I read, it seems to me that America has lost most of its religion, which is the basis of its morality.”
The celebration of the signing of the Declaration of Independence, July 4, 1776 was used as a day of celebration almost from the beginning with cannon firings in 1777 and even a double serving of rum by General Washington to his troops. President Washington, served this nation for 45 years as a general and as its first president. He was without dispute, the wealthiest man in America and probably the wealthiest president ever, but he once said, “I had rather be on my farm, than be emperor of the world.” Most presidents have been men of great character and tremendous wealth. Even though the third president, Thomas Jefferson, used the famous “Jefferson Bible” which he had cut out many things with which he did not agree, he still said, “I tremble about the thought of God's justice.”
The debate concerning the separation of Church and State, attributed to a letter sent by Jefferson to a Baptist group, centers only in the definite desire that this country never have a State Church, which our forefathers had escaped in England. Why bring back to the anvil time and time again things that have already been hammered? In patriotism, as in Christian giving, we can give without loving, but we can not love without giving. Our giving of our wealth to the church (God loves a cheerful giver) is the same as our willingness to support our government by our taxes, our talent, and even our lives.
Andrew Jackson, our seventh president said, “The Bible is the rock on which America rests.” It is significant that 39 of the 56 signers of the Declaration of Independence were Seminary graduates. President Truman was probably the last president of character and very much unlike the others; poor before the presidency and poor after the presidency. It is reported that he borrowed money to move back to Missouri from Washington and then had to sell his farm at Grand View, Missouri in order to live until the congress under Lyndon Johnson finally gave a $25,000 a year retirement to ex-presidents. Until then, the next president received no compensation at all and no secret service.
Truman, was a man of character which ALWAYS determines destiny. The diamond sets the standard for hardness. Truman, a Veteran of combat in WWI, like so many of my family, set the standard which I have tried to follow. Only love for God, Family and Country is the test for those who are willing to guard it. President Truman and his wife made a trip to the east for a speaking engagement in Philadelphia and he drove his car and they stayed at a hotel in New York without charge. I have said this, to point out, that there was a time when Americans, even presidents, served this nation for the patriotic duty and love of country and service. When Alexis de Tocqueville came to America from France in 1831 and traveled until 1835 returning to France to write his book Democracy in America he had many good things to say about this young, democratic republic. One thing we should never forget, he said, “America is great because she is good. If America ceases to be good, America will cease to be great.”
Abraham Lincoln, our sixteenth president, and perhaps in most respects, our greatest president, once said, “Sir, my concern is not whether God is on our side; my greatest concern is to be on God's side, for God is always right.” This totally blind 100% disabled, service-connected, medical officer veteran can stipulate without apology, we have been a blessed nation, but God will judge us for accepting the perversions of homosexuality, pornography and abortion. We can be sure that God will judge this nation as a whole, we will all suffer because of the sins of many, but rejoice in the consolation that sins of the individual are judged for eternity.
Study the news, an arch is only as strong as the individual stones that support it. The supporting stones are being removed because of corruption and infidelity. Like putting holes into a ship, slowly the ship will sink. Before the Titanic left its berth in England, where it had been constructed, its engineer said, “Nothing will sink this ship.” On its maiden voyage, the ship is on the bottom of the ocean. We had thought we were too great to fail, many are changing their mind.
On this July fourth, as every July fourth, we honor the estimated 5 million Americans who have died defending this county. 126,000 Americans lie buried on foreign soil. I was at the 25th anniversary of the Normandy Invasion where 9,700 are buried and I have stood in that great military cemetery in the Philippines where nearly 18,000 are buried or Arlington where 256,000 are buried, including many of my relatives. You do not realize the sacrifice until you see all those white crosses in those cemeteries.
My mother never stopped talking about my grandfather's brother. Just a small time country boy reared in the same house in which my mother was born and raised, who rose in the Army to military officer's rank and served with President Theodore Roosevelt, as one of his assistants, in the Spanish-American War. He died soon after his return home. Though the Army spent little on officer's funerals at that time, he was brought to the country church which my parents, grandparents, and great grandparents had all attended, and my mother talked incessantly about the number of horses and buggies lined up and down the roads, the crowds, the guns firing to honor this one young man whose body was then put on a train and taken to Arlington. God, family, country was important to our ancestors.
The world's largest mass migration to the North American shores, a DESTINY from the religious tyranny and excessive taxation of Europe, was a Godsend to our founding forefathers who only wanted opportunity. They had risked everything in the revolution promise by freedom. One of my forebearers, Dr. Daniel Wiles of Northamptonshire, England, who arrived on the Good Ship Heist in 1677 and his first wife Elizabeth were the parents of my great, great, grandfather who later migrated to eastern North Carolina. (Attached, charcoal portraits of this great-grandfather and his wife) Until my parents died, they talked of two things which battered and thrilled their lives more than anything else. One, Hurricane Hazel which hit the coast in 1954 while I was away in the military; and the other, the annual Independence Day picnic which centered at the three-room school which both of my parents attended. This was the largest social occasion of the year for these country folks.
One of my uncles would take a wagon and team of mules to a nearby town, 10 miles away, and buy large blocks of ice which was used at the picnic for iced tea, milkshakes and even homemade ice cream. This was the only time in the entire year that these people had ice. There was a large athletic field behind the school, and there were ball games all day. The women of the community, under the great shade trees prepared large picnics as well as keeping up with all the family activities of the year. Often, the men were entertained by county and state politicians who would come making speeches and seeking votes.
The Independence Day picnic in this isolated country community was a time when even practices of segregation were forgotten. Various denominations (Baptist, Quaker, AME) and even those of different skin color would all come together for this celebration of patriotism. I can still remember, as a child, the divider down the middle of the church when the women would sit on one side, the men on the other and, each church, had a balcony in which the blacks would sit. Other than the Independence Day picnic, the only time all sat together was at a funeral. Perhaps from this we can learn much about church state relationships and how people can come together in times of sorrow as well as times of celebration.
In the Old Testament, as the shackled Joseph, sold to the Ishmaelites, on his way to Egypt, could look toward Hebron and see the lights of the city which was near his father Jacob's home. Many of us, have known the price of freedom. How well I remember, imagining the croaking of the frogs which always sang a symphony in the great cow pasture, the home where I was reared. In far away places, then, as all over the world, (I have traveled through 157 countries and been around the world 8 times) the lasting sounds and sights that mean most and that I still carry with me are my father's beautiful cows in the pasture, the sound of my father singing each morning as he did his chores around the farm before my mother got us up for breakfast, the always present Collie dogs barking as they thrilled to a new day. The price was paid by uncles, who had never been away from home, militarily sent to the far corners of the world, where they were so homesick and, on this Independence Day, think of the thousands who died thinking of home. I never knew one wounded, in a military hospital, who did not talk about home and mother. THIS IS THE PRICE OF FREEDOM.
The LORD will fulfill his purpose for me;
your love, O LORD, endures forever—
do not abandon the works of your hands.
Psalm 138:8
Please, dear God, do not abandon those who believe in your mercy.
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