…as I look across the world today, I search in vain, for such a group as walked together across the stage of history when this nation was born. Charles Malik, secretary general of the unites states, once said on this campus, “I respect all men, and it is from this respect for none, that I say there are no great leaders in the world today, in fact, greatness itself is laughed to scorn, you should not be great today, you should sink yourself into the heard, you should not be distinguished from the crowd, you should simply be one of the many,” he continued, “the commanding voice is lacking, the voice which speaks little, but which when it speaks, speaks with compelling moral authority, this kind of voice is not congenial to this age, the age flattens and levels down every distinction into drab uniformity, respect for the high the noble the great the rare, the specimen that appears one every hundred or every thousand years, is gone respect at all is gone, if you ask people whom and what people do respect, the answer is literally nobody and nothing, this is simply an un-respecting age, it is the age of utter mediocrity, to become a leader today, even a mediocre leader, is a most uphill struggle, you are constantly in every way and from every side, pulled down, one wonders, who of those living today, will be remembered a thousand years from now, the way we remember with profound respect, Plato and Aristotle, Christ and Paul and Augustine and Aquinas,” he concluded, “if you believe in prayer, my friends, and I know that you do, then pray that God send great leaders, especially great leaders of the spirit,” End of quote. Just think of a moment of George Washington, of Franklin of Madison, of the Adams’s, of Thomas Jefferson, and their associates who signed the declaration of independence Or participated in the constitutional Convention where in all the world today can even one or two such men be found, let alone the great aggregation who participated in the birth of America. Can anyone deny that they were raised up unto this very purpose? That working together they brought forth on this continent an independent nation at the risk of their lives, their fortunes, and their sacred honor? It is my conviction that while we’ve had a few great leaders since then, there has not been before or since so large a group of talented able and dedicated men as those whom we call the founding fathers of this nation. For as long as they lived they acknowledged the hand of the almighty in the affairs of this republic. We have on our coinage and our currency a national motto, it simply says ‘In god we trust,’ I know of no other nation with such a motto, other nations use the phrase ‘By the grace of god,’ but none other categorically states, ‘In god we trust,’ this is the foundation upon which this nation was established, an unequivocal trust in the power of the almighty to guide and defend us. The hand of god was manifest when the United States of America came into being it was evident even before then. Before disembarking from the mayflower our Pilgrim Fathers drafted and signed the compact, which was to become the instrument of their governance. The first such document drafted on this continent. It began with these words “in the name of God amen” it went on to say that the signers, quote, “by these present, solemnly and mutually in the presence of God and one another, covenant and combine ourselves together into a civil body politic.” When gorge wash, resigned his commission of general of the army he wrote, “I consider it an indispensable duty to close this last act of my official life, but commending the interest of our dearest country to the protection of almighty god, and those who had the superintendents of them to his holy keeping.” As crystal has reminded us tonight, in his first inaugural address in 1789 he stated, “No people can be bound to acknowledge and endure the invisible hand which conducts the affairs of men, more than the people of the United States. Every step by which they have advanced to the character of an independent nation seems to have been distinguished by some token of providential agency.” We posted the colors tonight and stood and gave a pledge of allegiance to the flag of the United States of America and to the republic for which it stands, we said one nation under god, indivisible with liberty and justice for all. That fraise, one nation under God, essentially comes form Abraham Lincoln in the great Gettysburg address he stated, quote “that this nation under God shall have a new birth of freedom” close quote. That fraise was not in the pledge of allegiance that was spoken when I was a boy. Back in those days all of us in grade school, when the whether permitted, would form at the front steps of the school. The flag would be posted and we would recite together the pledge of allegiance before going into the building for our daily school works. I am grateful for the addition of the words ‘one nation under god’ to me it is tremendously meaningful. There are those in this nation today who would delete all of this reference to Deity. They would take it out of the pledge of allegiance. They would take it from our coinage. They would remove it from any mention in our national life. John Wesley Heel has written, “Gettysburg was the high-water mark of the rebellion. It involved the destiny of the union. Realizing this it was Lincoln who, while at battle, was being fought was driven to his knees to struggle like Jacob of old, alone with God, until in Lincoln’s own words “God told me he would give me Gettysburg and I believed him.” When the news of the victory reached him he gave to God the glory and set aside a day of national thanksgiving. When Misses Margaret Thatcher was on this campus and I was talking with her she said, “I cannot understand it. You have the motto ‘in god we trust’ on your coinage, and yet you cannot mention the name of deity in the classrooms of your schools.” She wondered, and I wonder about our consistency, at this meeting tonight, the first verse of our national anthem was sung, we seldom hear the third verse which include these words, “Oh, thus be it ever, when free men shall stand between there loved homes and the war’s desolation! Blessed with victory and peace, May this heaven rescued land, praise the Pow’r that hath made, and preserved us a nation! And conquer we must, for our cause it is just, and this be our motto: “In God is our trust!”” As boys who would grow to become citizens of this nation we repeated the scout oath including these words, “On my honor I will do my duty to do my best to God and my country.” Now even that is being challenged in the courts of the land. According to the Wall-street Journal, the state of New Jersey last year passed a law banishing the mention of God in state courtroom oaths. Following this action by the legislature, a county judge decided to ban Bibles for such oaths because quote, “You know who is mentioned inside.” Close quote. Without acknowledgement of Deity, without recognition of the almighty as the ruling power of the universe, the all important element of personal national accountability shrinks and dies. Are we so arrogant as to believe that we can get along without him? We see the manifestation of that arrogance in the great host of social problems with which we deal these days. Teen pregnancy, abandoned families and broken homes, failure to recognize the property and rights of others, gangs of young people aimlessly cruising the streets of our cities, and many other problems like these have resulted in substantial part, at least, from failure to recognize that there is a god to whom someday each of us must give an accounting. The wars in which this nation has been involved during this, the most bloody century of all time, have resulted from the greed, the avarice, the arrogance, the conceit and egotism of men in power who have sought to enslave and exercise dominion over others. Their very attitude has been totally incompatible with recognition of the almighty to whom each of us is accountable. There can be no doubt of the sickness in our society today, we cannot build prisons fast enough to accommodate the need humanism has replaced worship of the lives of so many we are forsaking the almighty and I fear he is forsaking us. We are closing the door against the god of whose sons and daughters we are, we sing “my country ‘tis of thee sweet land of liberty”. We need to sing again and again the fourth verse of that hymn, “Our fathers’ God to thee, author of liberty, to thee we sing; long may our land be bright with freedom’s holy light. Protect us by thy might, Great God, our King!” going back to George Washington’s first inaugural speech, he voiced a hope that the foundations of our national policy will be laid in the pure and immutable principles of private morality. He went on to say, “there is no truth more thoroughly established that there exists an indissoluble union between virtue and happiness, between duty and advantage, between genuine maxims of an honest and magnanimous policy and the solid rewards of the public prosperity and felicity since we ought to be no less persuaded that the propitious smiles of heaven can never be expected on a nation that disregards the eternal rules of order and right which heaven itself had ordained. A psalmist of old wrote, “The council of the Lord standeth forever, blessed is the nation whose God is the Lord.” Paul the apostle declared, “Where the spirit of the lord is, there is liberty.” I believe we are paying a very high price for our increasing secularism. Jefferson said, “God who gave us life, gave us liberty, can the liberties of a nation be secure when we have removed a conviction that these liberties are a gift of god?” Lincoln declared, “What constituted the bulwark of our liberty and independence? It is not our frowning battlements, our bristling seacoasts; our reliance is in the love of liberty which God has planted in us. Our defense is in the spirit which prizes liberty as the heritage of all men in all lands everywhere.” We go back to the prophetic words of Alexis De Toqueville, who came here from France as a young man in the early eighteen hundreds, after traveling widely he said, “I sought for the key to the greatness and genius of America in her harbors, in her fertile fields and boundless forests, in her rich mines and vast commerce, in her public school systems and institutes of learning, I sought for it in her democratic congress and in her matchless constitution, but not until I went into the churches of America and heard her pulpits of flame with righteousness did I understand the secret of her genius and power. America is great because America is good, and if America ever ceases to be good, America will cease to be great.” I am convinced that if we are to continue to have the freedoms, which came of the inspiration of the almighty to our founding fathers, we must return to the God who is their author. We need to worship Him in spirit and in truth. We need to acknowledge His all-powerful hand. We need to humble ourselves before Him and seek his guidance in all that concerns matters of state. Do we believe in the separation of church and state? Of course we do. But that belief does not preclude a petition to the almighty for wisdom and guidance as we walk through these perilous times. We celebrate the freedom of our nation. We hold this festival in remembrance of this greatest of all boons and blessings. May we look to Him as the author of our liberty. Is it too much to expect that prayer, public and private, be once again established in our national and private lives? Then will the general acknowledgment of the God in whom we put our trust. We may expect a diminution in our social problems, an increase in public and private morality and a renewed sense of freedom and liberty…. (Gordon B. Hinckley: 1997 Freedom Festival Adress.) [Still referencing the quotes.]