Set up and electrotyped. Published November, 1909. ReprintedJune, 1910; April, 1911; March, 1912.
Norwood Press
J.S. Cushing Co.—Berwick & Smith Co.
Norwood, Mass., U.S.A.
TO THE MEMORY OF THE LATE
The average American is nothing if not patriotic. "The Americans arefilled," says Mr. Emil Reich in his "Success among the Nations," "withsuch an implicit and absolute confidence in their Union and in theirfuture success that any remark other than laudatory is inacceptable tothe majority of them. We have had many opportunities of hearing publicspeakers in America cast doubts upon the very existence of God and ofProvidence, question the historic nature or veracity of the whole fabricof Christianity; but never has it been our fortune to catch theslightest whisper of doubt, the slightest want of faith, in the chiefGod of America—unlimited belief in the future of America." Mr. Reich'smethod of emphasis may not be very happy, but the substance of what hesays is true. The faith of Americans in their own country is religious,if not in its intensity, at any rate in its almost absolute anduniversal authority. It pervades the air we breathe. As children we hearit asserted or implied in the conversation of our elders. Every newstage of our educational training provides some additional testimony onits behalf. Newspapers and novelists, orators and playwrights, even ifthey are little else, are at least loyal preachers of the Truth. Theskeptic is not controverted; he is overlooked. It constitutes the kindof faith which is the implication, rather than the object, of thought,and consciously or unconsciously it enters largely i