of the American Nation overcame the evil, and put

the wrong thing away.

Abraham Lincoln knew that the American Nation had sinned and was sorry. And because he was wise and sincere, he said that the Nation must do what a person has to do when he has done wrong. The Nation must ask God's forgiveness.

The United States Senate passed a resolution asking the President to set apart a day for national prayer and penitence. Lincoln did this, and April 30, 1863, was made a day of fasting and prayer.

Almost everything that Abraham Lincoln wrote is very beautiful. This proclamation is so beautiful and true that we understand America better if we read and understand it. Let us ask mother or teacher to read these sentences out loud to us, and explain the hard words. This is only part of the proclamation:—

"It is the duty of nations as well as of men to own their dependence upon the overruling power of God; to confess their sins and transgressions in humble sorrow, yet with assured hope that genuine repentance will lead to mercy and pardon; and to recognize the sublime truth, announced in the Holy Scriptures and proven by all history, that those nations only are blessed whose God is the Lord....

"We have been the recipients of the choicest bounties of Heaven. We have been preserved, these many years,

in peace and prosperity. We have grown in numbers, wealth, and power as no other nation has ever grown; but we have forgotten God....

"It behooves us, then, to humble ourselves before the offended Power, to confess our national sins, and to pray for clemency and forgiveness..

...

The spirit of these words is the spirit of America, the spirit of real democracy.

A democracy is ruled by all the people together, the every-day people. The every-day people are not perfect, they make mistakes. But they are not so foolish as to think they are perfect. When they have made a mistake, they are willing to say so and to start again. When they find they have made a poor law, they are willing to change it. For the everyday people love goodness. They want things to be right.

This is one of the best things about a democracy. We can change the bad things, we can keep on improving our country. In history we find that a ruling class does not often repent, or try to change its mistakes. But a people does.

There are two big lessons for us to learn from America's Day of Prayer. First, we must be honest and wise about our Government. It may make mistakes and do things to be sorry for. All good citizens

must watch for these things, and no one must say

we are perfect.

Second, when we are grown up, it will be our duty and privilege to help the American Republic to grow steadily better, to become more nearly the perfect ideal of a free country.

Just as she is, we believe that America is the happiest country in the world. But we are glad with all our hearts that her people have the power to make her ever better.

T

XVIII

HE Stars and Stripes, the "flag of the free," were kept safe and clean in the Civil War, as we have seen, and a land of liberty was once more bought for us, by sacrifice.

In this second war for Liberty, the men who fought under the Star-Spangled Banner, and the women who worked and suffered for it, were not of English or Dutch blood alone. They were Americans of many races, French, German, Irish, Italian, Swedish,

and other races. For after the English and Dutch, had come families from all over Europe to settle in the United States of America.

Every family that came here came because it wanted to live in a country which had given its people the right to govern themselves. These German, Italian, French, and Scandinavian people came because of the Declaration of Independence, and because of the Revolutionary War.

The descendants of these families fought for the Union in the Civil War because they were true Americans. They knew what liberty was worth, and they knew that union was the only way to keep it.

The love of liberty is in the hearts of all men everywhere. Sometimes it is buried deep under fear, or love of ease, or love of gain, but it is always there.

We Americans are not the only people who have fought for it. The people of France and Switzerland fought for it and gained it. The people of Russia have fought again and again for it, and are fighting still to gain it. The people of Germany fought for liberty in the Revolution of 1848, and when they lost it many of them came to this country. Their descendants inherit the same love of freedom as our own