VALLEY FORGE

BY HENRY ARMITT BROWN

From Centennial Address delivered at Valley Forge, June 19, 1878

The century that has gone by has changed the face of Nature, and wrought a revolution in the habits of mankind.  We to-day behold the dawn of an extraordinary age.  Man has advanced with such astounding speed, that, breathless, we have reached a moment when it seems as if distance had been annihilated, time made as nought, the invisible seen, the intangible felt, and the impossible accomplished.  Already we knock at the door of a new century, which promises to be infinitely brighter and more enlightened and happier than this.

We know that we are more fortunate than our fathers.  We believe that our children shall be happier than we.  We know that this century is more enlightened than the past.  We believe that the time to come will be better and more glorious than this.  We think, we believe, we hope, but we do not know.  Across that threshold we may not pass; behind that veil we may not penetrate.  It may be vouchsafed us to behold it, wonderingly, from afar, but never to enter in.  It matters not.  The age in which we live is but a link in the endless and eternal chain.  Our lives are like sands upon the shore; our voices, like the breath of this summer breeze that stirs the leaf for a moment, and is forgotten.  The last survivor of this mighty multitude shall stay but a little while.  The endless generations are advancing to take our places as we fall.  For them, as for us, shall the years march by in the sublime procession of the ages.

And here, in this place of sacrifice, in this vale of humiliation, in this valley of the shadow of death, out of which the life of America rose regenerate and free, let us believe, with an abiding faith, that to them union will seem as dear, and liberty as sweet, and progress as glorious, as they were to our fathers and are to you and me, and that the institutions which have made us happy, preserved by the virtue of our children, shall bless the remotest generation of the time to come.  And unto Him who holds in the hollow of His hand the fate of nations, and yet marks the sparrow’s fall, let us lift up our hearts this day, and unto His eternal care commend ourselves, our children, and our country.

* * * * *

WASHINGTON AT VALLEY FORGE

BY CANON R.G.  SUTHERLAND

  With his lean, ragged levies, undismayed,
    He crouched among the vigilant hills; a show
    To the disdainful, heaven-blinded foe. 
  Unlauded, unsupported, disobeyed,
  Thwarted, maligned, conspired against, betrayed—­
    Yet nothing could unheart him.  Wouldst thou know
    His secret?  There, in that thicket on the snow,
  Washington knelt before his God, and prayed.