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Show INDEPENDENCE DAY Of all the holidays of the year there, is not one to compare with the glorious fourth day of July. On that day the heart beats wilder and faster, and something causes our souls to hap for joy; tie whole world seems bright and gay, and every breath of air carries a message to us a message mes-sage of the liberty and independence gained iiy those great and noble men who thought, who fouuht, who risked their lives that we might live a free and independent people. If we could for a n.omen". compare . the freedom we enjoy to that bondage of those who lived two hundred years ; ago when all sorts of crime and sin was committed m the name of the Deity and sovereign king, -"-when the common ' people had no rights, but w re enslaved, beheaded and persecuted in every manner that would make the souls of just such men as those who took -part j in gaining for us our freedom a..d independence inde-pendence revolt against such inhum..n : actions. It was out of this bondage of : tryranny and restriction of thought that grew in the hearts of these men i that free-born thought of independence, kindled by that fire of honor a:id justice jus-tice to ail that burned in their great souls and urged them on; and if toey could but speak to us todav I be e e their words would be, "Let the noise, and the riot, the canon and the revelry, oi the Fourth of July pass into oblivion ! j Make-of our Independence day a h li-day li-day of patriotism, such J patriotism i that will bring into the souls of all I mankind the spirit iha1-. was predom:-j predom:-j nant at the time the declaration of independence in-dependence was originated; make of that day a hoi. day for the inv'enUjn of ; thought, ;.nJ broaden mankind, j There is not a flag that is loved like our national flag, the stars and stripes, ' and its every part Oespeaks the splendor splen-dor and magnificence of our nation. . We love our national hymns and we : love the me mory of cur fore-fathers I whose every th ught was tne wellfare ' of our nation. "Out ut the past their kind facts are bearnintr, "Out of the past their bright deeds are streaming, . "Brighter ;and brighter these deeds shall grow, "When all our nation their worth shall know. " How nuich more will we see in our I idependence day when we learn to glorify that bright sceptre of thought ' as did the men of' wii im we sp ak. Mrs. Vilate Meeks Howard |