{ } = word or expression can't be understood

{word} = hard to understand, might be this

I hope I have convinced you that there is a real story to be told, because in

every century, there is a fight between the monopolists and the trinitarians. That

is, those who acknowledge that life is not lived on one strand alone, and the

others who try to convince themselves and others that there is one principle on

which everything is based. You have today in Communism the idea that the

material forms of -- the forms of production are decisive for man's bliss. You have

in the religious settlement, the idea that the faith of man is -- that we live by faith

alone. And you have in the philosophy of government of the last 150 years of

these United States, an attempt to prove that man lives by reason.

Now I have put here these three periods. We have now time for our own

period as of today, to see the -- the contenders between -- for the palm of victory

between 1800 to 1950. In 1650, when the people came to this -- these shores, they

asked for -- the question, "Who am I that you should be mindful of me?" They

asked the religious question, which is always the question "Who?" Whenever a

philosopher talks about religion, he'll always alter the question "Who?" in the

question "What?" as a -- a trap for which you have to beware when you really

want to find out -- the difference between philosophy and religion is that philos-

ophers ask, "What is man?" not "Who is man?" That's a very subtle distinction,

but a very important one, because if you ask, "What is man?" you can answer,

"He is matter." If you ask, "Who is man?" you can't give this answer, because it

must be some -- be somebody living.

The question "Who?" and "What?" divides religion and philosophy. The

philosopher is willing to ask about everybody, "What is he?" but that is an exter-

nal question to our -- your own soul and life, and -- and zest of living. You ask,

"Who am I?" And we'll come into this in a minute. But I would say that from 1650

to 1800 in these United States, the battle has been between the people who never

doubted that religion was a vital issue, but the half of them still asked the ques-

tion, "Who am I?" or "Who is man?" and the other began to ask the question,

"What am I?" These were the -- the Arminians; these were the people of the

{Halfway} Covenant. You must have -- heard of these people of the first 150

people in this country, the enemies of Edwa- -- Jonathan Edwards. The semi-

religious people, who tried to be deists, to rationalize. And they -- they ever

always pervert the decisive question, "Who am I that you should be mindful of

me?" into the perfectly different question, the philosophical question, "What is

man?" And then you end up that he is the sum of electrons, or that he is a furi-

ously rotating skeleton, or whatever you can -- try to prove. As soon as you stoop

to make man answer the question "What?" you are outside the realm of religion,

because the question that is interesting for you and me is, "Who are you that you

should be pardoned, that you should not be executed for all your crimes of

thought, and -- and your failures, and your deficiencies?"

Who am I that I have a right to live? Who am I that I'm privileged here to

stand here and teach you? Who are you who are privileged to get an education?

Who are we, that we deserve this? Only if the -- we par- -- are participants of

one unit -- a unity of spirit and -- through all times do we deserve this privilege

of knowing anything about human history, for example. That would be a reli-

gious answer. Because it would assert that you are members of a living body of

people. And people speak of each other as "Who is who?" And they don't speak

of each other, "What is what?" However it is rare to find today even religionists,

even preachers, even bishops, who know the difference between philosophy,

and theology, and religion, and -- and politics, and so -- watch out. If you want to

understand America's immersion into the three strands of its own history, you

have to look for the question "Who?" Wherever a question is just "What?" it's

philosophy in disguise.

My friend, Reinhold Niebuhr, told me frankly that for the first 50 years of

his life, he was trapped by this ambiguity, that in -- by 1930, and -- he was con-

vinced that Christianity, for example, was just as much an ideology as Commu-

nism, and that both answered the question, "What is man?" and that he woke up

with a shudder to discover that this was not so, that the religious question is a

question of "Who?" and the philosophical question is a question of "What is

man?" -- It's an interesting story that the leading American theologian has to tell

you that he had to be converted to better understanding of his own faith, that he

had never seen that the way of talking people out of religion into philosophy is

the way of changing, transforming this little bit of "who" into "what."

So if you want to do what the religion of America has been, even though

it was perhaps -- sometimes going underground, I come back to the statement

that it is there where people ask and answer the question of "Who we are," and

never allow the quite different question, "What we are" to interfere. Since we are

nobodies in the sight of other people who don't know us, obviously every man

has to con- -- commute with -- with the larger unity, with the divine spirit,

because he couldn't survive the disappointments of every day with his fellow

human beings.

And -- I remind you that I tried to prove -- I think have proven to my own

satisfaction, that the minimum form of religious life that in America prevailed

from 1800 to this day is the form of Unitarianism, in which all the problems of the

religious life, so to speak, have only been requested to serve the individual, and

not the visible Church, and not the organization of Christianity all over the

world; and this Unitarian brand of Christianity then may be called the greatest

adaption of the religious spirit in this country to the political century of national-

ism from 18- -- from 1776 onward.

That's why I gave you the limiting concepts of the life of William Ellery

Channing, the founder of American Unitarianism, and I gave you the fact that in

1913, Joaquin Miller was comforted by listening to this hymn, which his wife

read to him, "Nearer, my God, to Thee."

Now this minimum of religion, so to speak, which survived the seculariza-

tion of America, deserves your attention, because there is -- in this minimum,

there are several elements which, so to speak, are inherent to our present-day

state of soul, mind, and body. One is that religion is not a system of thought, but

a liturgy. Religion -- expresses itself in actions of common or private worship.

And the act of private worship is not meditation, is not philosophy, it's not writ-

ing papers on theological squabbles, but it is the necessity of giving thanks and

praising the Lord. And "liturgy" is perhaps to you a very clumsy expression. I

only use it because I think it is undisputed. It is -- hasn't come under the attack of

the agnostic, or the atheist, or even the Bolshevik. They don't understand what

liturgy is. Now the core of liturgy is song. The -- most normal human expression

of -- our own existence on this earth is singing. And where people sing, they are

religious. They may only play with it, like children's songs, you see. You can sing

just as in a kindergarten.

I was told the story that in 1927, 12 American journalists visited Moscow.

At that time, that was a great adventure. And Sinclair Lewis was there, too. And

now Sinclair Lewis, as you know, is quite a bitter pill. And they were given a

dinner in their honor. And they set to drinking very heartily. And at the end of

this session, they all were singing hymns, the old Midwestern good church

hymns, in Moscow. One would hardly believe it. And they could find no end to

it, because they knew so many.

That's an important story, because you may say that they toyed with these

hymns at that occasion, that they just came to them from childhood memory. I

know that. I don't want to -- pay too much -- give too much weight to this event.

Yet, it cannot be overlooked, that the way in which Americans, when they are

together, assert their American heritage is to -- by singing. And that they were

singing hymns is no accident, either.

Now singing has gone out of the scientific realm. Scientists are so stupid,

because they don't sing. They are exceedingly stupid, gen- -- ladies and gentle-

men. They are mutilated human beings. This is what they are. And you have to

learn this in time. Otherwise you will fell -- fall under the spells of these little

dwarves of the soul. They are dwarfed human beings. They are distorted. And it

is terrible that a whole nation should now adore these distorted children of the

night. What is a scientist? A man who -- suppresses his emotions. What's worth

suppressing the emotions, who gave you the emotions, if you don't use them,

and sing them out? They forbid themselves to sing.

No, Sir, I'm singing. You first have to listen to me before you can ask any

questions. But you can't listen anymore. You are always critical.

(I haven't a question.)

What is it?

(Pure criticism.)

Wie?

(Pure criticism.)

Exactly. So I'm not interested in it at this moment. I'm singing, as I told

you. Sing against me. Sing another hymn. But sing.

(If you'll allow me.)

There is a time where -- no, there isn't -- a time where there is no room for

questions, Sir. You have to learn this, too. Question is a Socratic incident, but I

don't think there's room for question all the time.

(There must be if change is possible, because one cannot accept dogma.)

Well, certainly I have nothing to do with your anxieties and fears. If you

have fear from dogma, sing. You will lose all your fears. Singing is the only way

to overcome fear. You whistle in the dark. Soldiers who march into their certain

doom on the battlefield, they have to have martial music. You go to the funeral,

because you are frightened to death, so you have music accompanying it. Music

is a way of overcoming anxiety. King Saul asked David to play the lute to him,

didn't he? But the -- in this country, you go on a couch. And you'll never over-

come your anxiety. It's so very simple. That's excluded here today by establish-

ment, the normal ways of life. So you go to the abnormal, the pervert li- -- forms

of life, like lying down on a couch, and getting somebody who isn't interested in

you becau- -- who is only interested in your money. Oh, it's -- so ridiculous. To --

you -- you buy your health for money in this country, your mental health. An

incredible story.

I have a friend -- schoolteacher who sacrificed her whole patrimony, her

whole inheritance, $8,000 a year; another boy gave $12,000 a year to the psycho-

analyst, because they didn't want to sing. It's much cheaper to sing.

Singing has been lost out of the picture of social history in this country in

the official books. But you can't. Singing is a very serious matter. And all

movements of -- whether it's Bill Graham, or whether it's the Oxford Group, or

whether it's the Moral Re-Armament, or whether it's the Latter-day Saints, or

whoever it is, you have to sing. You can reduce singing, as the old, stout Calvin-

ists did, who only allowed the Psalms to be sung in church. You may know that

down to 1750 in this country, in the old Congregational churches, there was no

hymn singing, but instead, there was Psalm singing, because that was scriptural.

And in South Africa to this day, there is the strongest church of the Boers, the

{ } church, the official church of the Boers, who are of course very important

for us because of their behavior in -- in the race question. They sing the Psalms

only. No hymns, except for private use.

So the place of singing in your worship or your in attitude is very impor-

tant. If you only sing doggerels, as most America at this moment, you have of

course degraded singing to a lower spot in your life. But it's still there. I don't

think that any community and any commonwealth can exist without song. And I

mean song. And I don't mean hits.

The word "hit" is in itself proof that it has lost the flavor of "song," you see.

Song is deliberating, and hit is hitting.

Now I'm serious. The -- the whole 19th century is filled out with a battle

between philosophical religion and singing religion. And the -- my -- I have a

friend who's a Unitarian. I always tease her. She is a doctor of medicine. And she

always upholds that Unitarianism is a religion, and I say it's just a philosophy;

it's just lectures; it's not even sermons. Well, the good soul--she's a very fine

person, indeed--can point out to the hymns of the Unitarians. And it is very

significant that in America the finest--and in Amer- -- England--the finest hymns

of the 19th century have been written by the Unitarians and people like Whittier,

who was a Friend, as you know, a Quaker. So that is very significant, because

this group still knew that the distinction between philosophy and politics, and

religion and liturgy is song. And it cannot be stressed sufficiently that "Nearer,

my God, to Thee" is the common faith of the American people to this day.

I'm going to read it to you. And of course most of you cannot face reli-

gious texts. It is -- you could face it if it was an Egyptian religious text, or a cunei-

form religious text. But I hope that you will in some way overcome your -- your

seasickness.

This -- this is Number 2. We live in a post-Christian, secular world. I think

it's very important for you, that the assumption of this secular world of my interviewer -- these two interviewers, these gentlemen there, especially, is that they are better than the Christians, that they don't need this, because they are -- risen beyond this dogmatic status of religion, and they -- they know it all, just the same. But you only know it, because you live in the year of the Lord 1959.

(In the year of man, 1959.)

Pardon me?

({ }.)

Yes, I'm sorry, too.

(You're sorry.)

And the third thing is, the very strange thing in this English language is that God is the only person whom you "thou" and "thee." I think it is very important for the Amer- -- Anglo-Saxon relation to his -- their maker that they say "you" to their children and "Thou" to God. That, of course, makes God into a petrified forest. I mean, it's a unique situation. The Quakers, as you know, have tried to break this ice by "thouing" and "theeing" each other, at least, too. As long as you teach -- call your parents and your children "you" and God "Thou," He will never become normal to you.

So the abnormalcy of the English religious situation is very much stressed by this very strange survival of the word "thou" and "thee" in this song. Miss -- Miss -- Mrs. Adams, the English woman, was not a Quaker, and she still na‹vely, of course, calls God as the people in -- at home had called each other in the days of Elizabeth or Henry VIII.

Now I only want to make you see that I'm perfectly aware of the Stone Age in which we are living. We are living at a time when the most central expressions of religion no longer are coming from the heart. They're just petrified.

If -- you begin -- would begin to speak of your maker in terms of "you," I would begin to believe that this is the living faith. And I'm -- in this sense, all on your side, Sir, that we live there, in this respect today, in a petrified forest.

These three things, however, that: we are estranged from the source of our self-knowledge, and self-recognition, and self-peace; that secondly there is a cross that beckons us in order to raise us to the right height; and third, that we speak of the secret process in obsolete terms I think is all to the -- important for the religious situation of this country since 1800. The religion was not up to date. That's the expression "thee," you see. On the other hand, it had a -- very unphilosophical- -- anti-philosophical content, because philosophy knows nothing of the Cross. The Cross is a living experience of history, of time. The Cross cannot experience by thought. If you are -- suffer, that takes time. Any Protestant -- it takes a lifetime to protest, you see. Criticism just takes half a second. The difference between a Protestant, that is, a religious critic, or -- you see, of the slaves of superstition, of the -- chains of superstition, and a philosophical criticism is that philosophical criticism is outside of time. It's superior; it's objective; it's outside history. And therefore it is worthless. It only becomes interesting if a man becomes a martyr inside society and uses his lifetime to carry out his protest.

And so the word "cross," gentlemen, is that one element that makes out of our religion an historical religion. The J- -- Hindus have dreams, fictions. The -- Confucius has an ethics. But Christianity knows that the life history of mankind is used up, is invested in this -- in this crusade, in this march through time, in our approach to our own destiny. You -- you cannot -- be aware enough of the fact that the two words, "crucial" and the word "cross"--these two words--are antiphilosophical terms. No philosopher knows what "crucial" is or what "cross" is, because all philosophy consists of an attempt to think without taking up time, to speed up. The sooner the better. The quicker, the more intelligent. All your IQs are based on this element of speed, you see. A slow reader -- well, he's out with the philosophers, but he certainly is very often a child of God. Slowness is not any indication that the man will not leave his mark in history. But slowness is certainly an indication that he will not pass as the first of his class in college. Isn't that true?

So the word "cross" is not such an -- benign and empty phrase as most of you -- perhaps are inclined to think. It reminds us of the very painful fact that any conviction, any philosophy you may entertain, or any good thought, or any op- -- interesting opinion that -- occur to your brain, is only historically valuable and fruitful if you invest your whole life, your l- -- blood, your conviction, your honor, your family, whatever, in carrying out this into the outer world.

When John Adams signed the Declaration of Independence, he wrote home that he knew that would -- was -- cost for the rest of his life and his fortune, and his happiness to stand up for what he signed there. Now that's the difference between a -- a schoolroom like this lecture hall here, where nothing what you say or what I say has immediate consequences, and -- from the public where we make declarations to be taken up, you see, by others, and to be held against us.

And that's the word -- the element, that of an historical religion, gentlemen. This word "cross." I recommend it to your attention, because people have lost sight of this. They take it as a symbol or something to be born -- here -- worn on your chest when you go to Communion or something. It is nothing of the kind. It is a reminder that we are temporary beings, and that our whole life is consumed in impersonating the membership of the divine community.

This time-consuming process then is what we call "liturgy" and what we express by song. That it takes up time is its peculiarity, and it is therefore absent from a campus, where the victory goes to the man who does the most with the little -- smallest amount of time. The intellectual, the scientific achievement, which the philosophical mind achieves is 70,000 -- miles per hour. But to live the good life for 70 years, that's the life given to men or -- at -- at most 80. That takes as much waiting and lying fallow, and wai- -- and -- perseverance as it takes hurry. And as you well know, at this moment, the whole business society of America is suffering from its confusion between rushing orders, and hurrying, and haste, and acceleration, and speed-up. So they buy cars that have 300 horsepower, although they are not allowed to use ever more than 80 on the road. That's a very good symbol of the idiocy of modern, secular man, that he has to show that he can go faster, but he's not allowed.

So this story of this one hymn may remind you that I am not dealing with theology here, but I'm dealing with religion. The liturgy, prayer and song, are the only things that deserve to be called "religion." Competition with philosophy, that's theology, you see, of a -- the religious mind -- is of quite a different order, and I'm not going to speak about this, if I can help it. Quite, we shall not be able to avoid it.

Now beginning with the founding of this worldly state, the United States of America, the problem was before these 13 colonies and the settlers in the wilderness: could they find a common language that -- not -- was not based on their freedom as children of God?

There is in the Gospel a very strange -- the New Testament a very strange passage on the law of liberty. You see, American today -- very often think as liberty from law. Freedom from laws -- from dogma, for example, as this gentleman thinks. But the problem of the settlers in this country was the law of liberty. They wanted to find out what law liberty dictated. My -- I myself have preached a sermon on this very strange law of liberty on the 4th of July. And in this word, "the law of liberty"--you have a concordance in the Bible, you'd better look up where it stands; I won't tell you--is the religious heritage of the secular state of America. The law of liberty means what the -- what the song means by the word "cross." It's the wor- -- line of resistance. It's a right of revolution if you offer yourself as the price to be paid for it, if you sit it out, if you suffer for it, you see. The crucial situation of man is such that there has never been a denial in this country of the right of revolution, for example. That was much discussed in the Civil War, for example. And Garfield, the later president, made a speech--I think I mentioned this last time here -- ?--that of course the South had a right to start a revolution. There was no question, he said, in the American tradition, that you -- man had the right to make a revolution, that he had to succeed. And there was no reason for the North not to resist a revolution, because the test of the revolution was, of course, the investment of faith and conviction in its doing. The right to revolution doesn't mean that anybody who makes a revolution then has to be kowtowed to by all the others, you see. That wouldn't be the right to -- make a revolution. That would be just anarchy and cowardice.

So I think the religious heritage of this country has been this law of liberty, that is, that man is in a crucial position, that by himself, he will obey the law. But that it may be that he cannot and must not obey the law, and develop a higher law.

This cleavage between the law that is, and the law that I myself have to embody anticipating fu- -- the future law, I think that illustrates, that illuminates, and that comforts the -- anybody who looks into the history of the last 150 years. You only have to think of Bill Mitchell and his court-martial to know what I mean by the law of liberty. Under the law of the land, he was court-martialed, you see. But under the law of liberty, he is acquitted. Now both is true. And both has to coexist. And you cannot have, with any sentimentality, one or the other, only. You cannot have a routine order in which nobody protests. And you cannot have mere protest, just shill- -- shallowing opinions offered by anybody on the street as his private opinion. Private opinions aren't worth anything. But give me a fellow who says, "My private opinion has to become your opinion, everybody else's opinion," and who takes the right steps to make it so, then I'll be -- be -- be willing to listen to this man, you see, because he's going to pay -- the price for this.

This is the law of liberty, then. A very strange expression, which is preconstitutional. When the Constitution was written in this country, and when the Declaration of Independence was passed, there was a religious heritage, which expressed itself in such terms as the law of liberty, that man is in a crucial position--that is, that he has to obey, and that he has to found new laws. That the old law can be consumed in him, so to speak, if he chooses to become the cornerstone of the next building. And that's a specifically Christian heritage, of course, and one of prophecy. And therefore, you also find already in the -- year 1776 a second religious expression that has been gone -- is not quite dissipated to this day: that's the word "promise." Since man is in a crucial position, and since to him is entrusted the law of liberty, and as I said, please look it up in your concordance and -- so that everybody knows next time where to find it in the Bible, this very queer thing, "law of liberty." The third thing is promise. That has to do with the future. The future is the fulfillment of the promise given to the colonists, away from the mother country, in the wilderness. The Church in the wilderness has not yet, from 1620 to 1776 received its own political commonwealth. It's depending on the British crown; it's a colony -- 13 colonies, it's wilderness. But this church is waiting, is promised the fulfillment of its own secular, so to speak, crystallization, or how do you call it?--projection, you see, into space, and into politics, and into the realm of sec- -- the secular. And the American promise, therefore, stems from this very fact that in America the Church is older than the state. Will you take this down? I, as a newcomer to this country, I think, am more prone to discover this great distinction from Europe than the native American who always tries to think in terms of European categories. In America, the Church is older than the state. In Europe, the state is older than the Church.

For 170 years, the Church was American and the crown was British. And therefore -- the religious heritage of 1776 was an attempt to project the experience of the Sunday service into the weekday affairs of a nation. The tremendous story of the American continent is unheard-of, except in the 40 years in the desert and the settlement of the promised land by Joshua and the Judges. And therefore, the people in this country were very strong in this -- in this parallel. And they were in the same position. And that's why the biblical names of the Old Testament abound in this country, with good reason, especially in New England, because it was a march into the wilderness, in which the sovereignty of the people was only in regard to church affairs, because the sovereign -- monarch was still in England, you see. And so the Church has been sovereign in this country long before the government was sovereign. And that has left of course its mark on the American society.

Has anybody a dollar note? I have unfortunately -- every day I have brought a dollar note to this class, always waiting that the moment would come to use it. And now I -- I give it back to you.

(I hope so.)

Anybody who has one in his pocket, please look it up. The translation of the law of liberty into the currency of everyday political affairs was done by the printing of this dollar note. The higher units don't have this same inspiration, strangely enough. But what do you find on the dollar note, in back of this face of the president? What's on the other side?

("In God we trust.")

Wie? What is it? What do you see? Wie? I don't understand? What? What is it, what you see there?

("In God we trust.")

A pyramid. No, no. There's a picture. That's the important thing, on the left-hand side. Well, it's a -- very important. It's the eye of Horus, you see, lifting on the pyramid, on top of a pyramid. We are in Egypt, here. A very strange idea. And it was an attempt to express in secular terms the law of liberty of this land. There was a pact, because the -- you also see on the right-hand side already -- no, the light is not on. There was a fight: should the symbols of this new country be simply taken over from the Church, from the Christian tradition, or should they be a translation of these aspirations into a new language of the world, what we call "secular"? Church and state are -- in America should not be called "Church and state" if you do not realize that the sequence is important. First, the Church; and then the state. So the state had in this country, more than in any other country of the world I'm aware of, and more on principle than in any other country, to drop all claims that it had any church-like quality itself. The sacred emperor of the Roman Empire had -- was anointed by the pope. The kings were anoin- -- crowned by -- are crowned by--the -- the English queen--by the archbishop of Canterbury. No such stuff here.

Now this secular character of the government of the United States is -- has some strange consequences, gentlemen. When you speak of the separation of Church and state in this country, it has absolutely nothing to do with the separation of Church and state ever -- in Italy or France; it's something quite different. And that's why people discuss these questions today without the slightest knowledge of what it means, for example, in -- would it mean in Spain, or in Argentina, or in Peru, or in Mexico. The sign of this is this pyramid. As you see, the cross is out.

There was a debate over this. And Jefferson and the Free Masons carried the day. The pyramid is a Free Mason symbol. If you go to "The Magic Flute," you will see there that Isis and Osiris are invoked. And that's contemporary with the Constitution of the United States. And "The Magic Flute," by Amadeus -- Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart is very much in tune with the songs of the founders of the Republic. And you should know this, because you must imagine that these -- this pyramid was put on this note--I never can wonder sufficiently over this fact--long before anybody was able to decipher the Egyptian hieroglyphs. The Egyptian hieroglyphs have been deciphered 30 years after this event. America has been prophetic in choosing a symbol which perhaps today we are able fully to encompass and to comprehend. I'll give you later on this sufficient proof. I think that -- will believe me.

"Nearer, my God, to thee,

Nearer to thee!

Even though it be a cross

That raises me;

Still all my songs shall be,

Nearer, my God, to thee,

Nearer to thee."

Now we have here three words that are the minimum, so to speak, of

religion, I think. One is that we are estranged from the "who" who must recog-

nize us, who we are. That in the encounter of a man's -- in his despair, "Who is --

who am I?" he wants to come nearer to the one and only one who recognizes us.

The second, that there is a cross in our life. That is, the Christian heritage behind

which even the most pagan mind today cannot fall. That is, we live in a post-

Christian society, since 1800, in which -- into which the Cross is received from a

Christian source, diluted, you may say, but still in such a way that whether we

hold any dogma of any faith, my dear man, where the {question now with} this

question of -- fear from dogma has -- song has nothing to do with dogma, you

see. Dogma comes later, after you have sung sufficiently long, you look at the

verses you have sung, and then you make a system out of the song, and that's

called dogma. That's all. For 300 years, the Christians had prayed to the Lord,

and then they said, "What do -- have we done?" That's dogma. That's the residue

of song, of liturgy. The liturgy's older than the dogma.

But since you do not see, you do not understand that all { } must have

substance. Otherwise you would know this. You only think of song as -- as

doggerel, as -- as children's songs, Mo- -- Mother Goose rhymes or so. That's

unimportant. But the "Battle Hymn to the Republic" is not unimportant, you see.

"I have seen" -- "I have seen"--how does it go? Wie?

("Mine eyes have seen the glory of the coming of the Lord.")

I mean, this -- this song of the -- of the Civil War is perhaps the greatest

religious song contributed by the American people to the world at large, certain-

ly much larger than any philosophical or artistic contribution made in this coun-

try.

So the pyramid is far ahead in its choice as a symbol of the ruling ideas of

that time. And so it is not without some self-righteousness that there is on the -- around the pyramid printed "Novus ordo Saeculorum," "A new order of the times," or of the ages. And "Annuit coeptis," God in Heaven nods -- gives His nods to what we have started.

As you know, Mr. Stevenson made a speech a certain time ago, scolding us because we didn't know where we are going, and that the people had lost their faith in the future. Well, if you would take the pyramid and this -- the inscription, the circumscription a little more seriously, you would suddenly realize that the founding fathers took a very wide and broad view of the beginning of these United States. And they certainly had no idea that they would be finished--the United States--within the next 150 years. At the same time, when this was printed, Mr. Ezra Stiles, president of Harv- -- New Haven College, Yale University, gave a famous speech in -- dedicating the country after the Peace of -- Treaty of Paris in 1783. Was it Versailles? Well, Sir; pardon me. And -- and he said that the history of the United States would fill the next 400 years.

I -- therefore I -- I think it is interesting for you to know that the expectations, when this country was founded, were still not so short of breath as modern man. We have been running, running, running so fast in this country that first you have to have a heart infarct at the ripe age of 42, then you live on with three more heart infarcts for another 30 years, under the guidance of Mr. {Paul White}. And finally you collapse from lack of -- of perseverance, of patience. Everything, as I said, has to be speeded up.

The founding fathers still went in sleighs -- sleds, and in buggies. They had no automobiles; they had no telegraph; they had no telephones; they have no television; and for this reason, they had the guts to think of the country in terms of 400 years.

I recommend to you the simple consideration: whether America is not at this moment forfeiting all its historical position in the world, because nobody in this country dares to think of 2200. I want -- like to find that clergyman, I would like to find that president, I would like to find this professor in research who dares to undertake -- to--it would just be his duty--to think what in -- by 2200 should be. And before, not -- some people begin to -- to go -- get thinking about it, there will be no future in this country, and there will be anxiety and anxiety, because anybody who thinks shorter than the life of the community in which he lives is meant to be, is full of anxiety. If you think for today and tomorrow, and the stock exchange, and the prosperity, and the building development, and the real estate -- profits that accrue to you from the speculation with your land to -- the day after tomorrow, and the country -- needs to live for another 300 years, this discrepancy drives you to the lunatic asylum. Obviously, you see, there is such a gap between what this mighty nation needs, and what you provide, that the vacuum makes itself felt in all kind of crazes, in all kind of sectarianism, in all kind of -- of improvisations, just to get out of this terrible discrepancy that you do not serve the future, but you serve the moment. And the moment is even less than -- than you yourself. You survive innumerable moments, so why give any importance to the moment? After all, your life is -- is composed out of the power to -- to survive any passing moment and mood.

Very strange. Never has -- have man so little time than he has at this moment in this country, on this continent. And never is therefore the -- the epoch-making break at this moment of my teaching here more obvious that the Second World War has ended in a complete defeat of mere secularism. Secularism is an attempt to live by your own timetable, by your own schedule. The -- all manufacturers, they make their own timetable and they produce accordingly.

Now that is secularism, to live by our own timetable, and we can't. We can't. It is impossible for any human society to live by its own timetable. It's -- just can't be done. People go crazy, because the time is always too short.

Well, in this state of yours, with the redwood, I don't have to appeal to your knowledge of -- of slow growth and longevity. I mean, the redwood testifies to the fact that God has created a universe that is much more prosperous when it goes slow than when it goes fast.

So we can see that from 1776, there has been -- an increasing loss of momentum, of impetus. And instead of momentum, there has been just moment. That's the opposite of momentum.

And the first symbol of the Republic then is the most far-reaching, this what I'm -- what I'm trying to drive at. But it is a secular symbol. It is anti-ecclesiastical, and it was meant as such. It was meant as an attack on any intervention of the ecclesiastics with the political administration of this country. The second expression for this is the formation of the stars of our Star-Spangled Banner. How many -- corners has the -- each star?

(Five.)

That's the Egyptian star. The Egyptians again--that's -- makes it so strange--had a five-cornered star, whereas the Star of David is six-cornered. And that would be still a theistic, a religious, a revelation, so to speak, emblem, you see. And it was rejected. And instead of David, the pharaohs of Egypt, strangely enough, came into the mind of the American people, without their of course paying very much attention to it at that time. It was a fight between Jefferson and Adams, between the Anglican -- the -- the Chur- -- so to speak the Church tradition of this country and the Free Mason tradition of this country.

And so I -- finally have paved the road so that we next time -- we can see the competition between a -- the religious remnants of a -- the American tradition before the state was formed, and the new attempts to find a language of secularism for this country, you see, which would no longer need to lean on any of the concepts of biblical language.

Thank you.