The Heritage of Liberty
By Charles M. Snow
OUR fathers bequeathed to us a glorious heritage,—the right of every man to think and to believe and to worship as he should choose. Freedom from the control of the nation across the sea was not the greatest of the liberties achieved in the founding of the American republic. Without freedom in religious concernments, men are robbed of the capacity to enjoy any freedom, and all liberty is robbed of its significance. The mind that is free is the mind that achieves, that builds, that grows, that overcomes difficulties, driving through the darkness of ignorance and superstition a shaft of light by which benighted men may see their way up to the mount of God. That light has been shining in the New World from the day the American nation was founded; and the nation has, in consequence, grown in power and influence. Its citizens have accomplished marvelous undertakings, and the genius of the Old World has been rekindled by the fire lighted in the New. History furnishes no parallel to the growth of this country in all that goes to make a nation great. This progress has not been a work of chance. It has been the direct result of the seed sown. The value which we place upon the country’s heritage of liberty will be judged by the interest we take in defending the principles and institutions bequeathed to us by the founders of this government.