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_small.jpg) The Gettysburg Address is perhaps one of the most simple, eloquent, and
important speeches in American history. President Abraham Lincoln gave
this short speech on November 19, 1863 at the dedication of the new
national military cemetery in Gettysburg, Pennsylvania just 4 1/2 months
after that famous Civil War battle.
Lincoln spoke of those who had given "the
last full measure of devotion" to the Union cause. He was referring to
physical death in a physical war. In Civil War Dads, Lincoln's words are used to call
Christian men to give the last full measure of devotion to God and their
families in the spiritual civil war. That is, Christian men should fulfill
their biblical calling to leadership, service, and sacrifice as husbands
and fathers.
_____________ Gettysburg Address
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Fourscore and seven years ago our fathers brought forth on this continent
a new nation, conceived in liberty and dedicated to the proposition that
all men are created equal. Now we are engaged in a great civil war,
testing whether that nation or any nation so conceived and so dedicated
can long endure. We are met on a great battlefield of that war. We have
come to dedicate a portion of that field as a final resting-place for
those who here gave their lives that that nation might live. It is
altogether fitting and proper that we should do this. But in a larger
sense, we cannot dedicate, we cannot consecrate, we cannot hallow this
ground. The brave men, living and dead who struggled here have consecrated
it far above our poor power to add or detract. The world will little note
nor long remember what we say here, but it can never forget what they did
here. It is for us the living rather to be dedicated here to the
unfinished work which they who fought here have thus far so nobly
advanced. It is rather for us to be here dedicated to the great task
remaining before us--that from these honored dead we take increased
devotion to that cause for which they gave the last full measure of
devotion--that we here highly resolve that these dead shall not have died
in vain, that this nation under God shall have a new birth of freedom, and
that government of the people, by the people, for the people shall not
perish from the earth.
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