I went to Washington the other day, and I stood on the Capitol Hill; my heart

beat quick as I looked at the towering marble of my country's Capitol and the

mist gathered in my eyes as I thought of its tremendous significance, and the

armies and the treasury, and the judges and the President, and the Congress and

the courts, and all that was gathered there. And I felt that the sun in all its

course could not look down on a better sight than that majestic home of a

republic that had taught the world its best lessons of liberty. And I felt that

if honor and wisdom and justice abided therein, the world would at last owe to

that great house in which the ark of the covenant of my country is lodged, its

final uplifting and its regeneration.

 

Two days afterward, I went to visit a friend in the country, a modest man, with

a quiet country home. It was just a simple, unpretentious house, set about with

big trees, encircled in meadow and field rich with the promise of harvest. The

fragrance of the pink and hollyhock in the front yard was mingled with the aroma

of the orchard and of the gardens, and resonant with the cluck of poultry and

the hum of bees.

 

Inside was quiet, cleanliness, thrift, and comfort. There was the old clock that

had welcomed, in steady measure, every newcomer to the family, that had ticked

the solemn requiem of the dead, and had kept company with the watcher at the

bedside. There were the big, restful beds and the old, open fireplace, and the

old family Bible, thumbed with the fingers of hands long since still, and wet

with the tears of eyes long since closed, holding the simple annals of the

family and the heart and the conscience of the home.