Author: John Howard Pough / Year: 1827-1905 / Genre: July 4th It is one of the uses of history to teach us what are the noblest uses of life; what deeds live longest in the memories of men; what motives give greatest strength and nobility to character; what fruition follows godlike sacrifices for truth and duty; what ideas and principles, embodied in life, lift men above the common level and crown them with immortal honours. It is one of the uses of a day like this to turn us back to higher sources of inspiration, that we may be the more manfully fitted for the duties of our time, that we may learn the cost of liberty, and the worth of patriotism, and the sacredness of principle, and the holiness of duty. It is one of the uses of a day like this to teach us that our selfish aims and interests and motives, our lives of luxury and frivolity, Of leisure-loving and wealth-seeking, all sink to a level of lowest significance, when contrasted with great heroic virtues such as bore our fathers through the storm and struggle of the Revolution.
