A m e ric an freedoms and liberties are the product of the highest form of government ever achieved by man kind, but they require the highest type of citizens to make them work. To be a good American requires a love of truth and justice, a willingness to sacrifice personal advantage for honor. The only secret police we have are the voices of conscience in the hearts of our loyal citizens who love our land and its institutions. Our Constitution guarantees no results. It is primarily a rule of the game, a means of fairly determining the will of the people. Our Constitution will not work itself. We can no more have liberty and peace without effort than we can have bread without toil and labor. Our Constitution is entirely in the language of opportunity, a chance for the ambitious to achieve for the people of America. Each new generation must be persuaded to keep America free, or America as we know it will perish. Armies and navies on the sea and in the air are powerless to preserve freedom if it is lost in the hearts at home. Liberty is an achievement. It is not the natural state of man on this earth. It took long centuries of the con tinued sacrifice of blood and life by our bravest and best youth to establish the principles of human rights and free dom. But like a great and magnificent temple or capitol that has taken a score or more of years to build, freedom can be destroyed in a moment’s explosion of popular upheaval led by crafty schemers in organized groups that seek dictatorial power in times of national confusion or weakness. We cannot win the new ideological war with the old weapons of rifle and cannon. This is the greatest scrap in history. Your place is in the line up on the field of battle. Each new generation must be taught the priceless value of freedom. Not all Americans agree with me on this, but at least they should get out of the wrong rooting section and maybe root for the home team a little.
Military power alone is no longer able to preserve a nation and its insti tutions. There is a greater power in the world of men than blazing can nons, falling bombs, and roaring tanks. It is ideas. Ideas master populations; select and control national l e a d e r s . National leaders command armies and navies of the sea and in the air. Of what avail is storm- ing a bloody battlefield it at home the cause of liberty is lost in the hearts of the people? In the past 35 years a new type of total war has been loosed on the world, a propa ganda of deceit. It attacks the American institutions our fore fathers died to build, at their basic foundation in the hearts of our people. This ideological war will not go on forever. There will come an hour of decision. One side or the other will win the or world-wide slavery, physical and mental.
WHAT GIVES IS
Excerpts from an address by H onorab le N elson S. IHUrorth California State Senator, Retired
victory. The minds of all mankind are the stakes at issue, freedom
In the hands of the people is lodged the supreme power to preserve or to neglect. Along with the power also goes the work and worry of responsibility. This responsibility must be borne by human shoulders, cost what it may in sacrifice and effort. It has been well said that eternal vigilance is the price of liberty and it might have been added continual effort and service. There must be a continuous process of public education by public leaders, unselfishly given, to persuade each new generation of citizens to keep America free, and strong. Of course, if the time comes that American men will no longer willingly die to defend the Constitution, it will fall. It is equally true that if the time comes that American men and women will no longer give of their lives, their substance and their time to defend and serve the Constitution in peace, it will be ignored and over-thrown. The thing to be afraid of today in America is that we do not give an effective testimony to our youth of the value of American institutions and what they cost in the history of our race. God’s Word, the Bible, is as appropriate today as when the children of Israel were reminded, “ If my people, which are called by my name, shall humble themselves, and pray, and seek my face, and turn from their wicked ways; then will I hear from heaven, and will forgive their sin, and will heal their land” (II Chronicles 7:14). EDITOR S NOTE: Senator Dilworth, having served 24 years in the California Senate, retires this year at his home in Hemet, California. He is a member of the Biola Board of Directors. Mr. Dilworth's nephew, Richard, is a graduate of Biola and serves as a missionary in Africa. His grandneice is a freshman student at Biola this year. The Biola choirs have frequently been given the honor of singing and testifying before the California State Senate. 8 THE KING'S BUSINESS
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