In the midst of the enormous political upheaval of the past months and the growing evidence that we are face to face with a governmental machine that can no longer be trusted to keep freedom secure, I have been giving myself to re-reading and absorbing the great guiding thoughts and principles of some of the most memorable leaders with which the United States has been blessed. 

Some of these individuals may have been proponents of political views that I don’t share completely, but they seem to have been in agreement on one particular view that our nation’s citizens need to make the focus of their attention:  the concept that in God alone rests the historic success — and the successful future — of the United States of America.  I share a few of these statements here in the hope that we can continue to learn from these leaders whose experiences taught them the priceless value of governing according to the precepts of God.

Abraham Lincoln:  “Being a humble instrument in the hands of our heavenly Father, I desire that all my words and acts may be according to His will; and that it may be so, I give thanks to the Almighty and seek His aid.”

Benjamin Franklin:  “He who shall introduce into public affairs the principles of Christ will change the face of the world.”

Thomas Jefferson:  “I always have said, and always will say, that the studious perusal of the Sacred Volume will make better citizens, better fathers, and better husbands.”

Ulysses S. Grant:  “Hold fast to the Bible as the sheet anchor of your liberties; write its precepts on your hearts and practice them in your lives. To the influence of this Book we are indebted for the progress made, and to this we must look as our guide in the future.”

Patrick Henry:  “I have now disposed of all my property to my family. There is one thing more I wish I could give them and that is faith in Jesus Christ. If they had that and I had not given them one shilling, they would have been rich; and if they had not that, and I had given them all the world, they would be poor indeed.”

Abraham Lincoln:  “I am nothing, but truth is everything. I know I am right, because I know that liberty is right, for Christ teaches it, and Christ is God.”

Thomas Jefferson:  “I hold the precepts of Jesus as delivered by Himself, to be the most pure, benevolent, and sublime which have ever been preached to man. I adhere to the principles of the first age.”

Dag Hammarskjold:  “God does not die on the day when we cease to believe in a personal diety, but we die on the day when our lives cease to be illumined by the steady radiance, renewed daily, of a Wonder, the Source of which is beyond all reason.”

Albert Schweitzer:  “All work that is worth anything is done in faith.”

William Penn:  “Men will either be governed by God or ruled by tyrants.”

Abraham Lincoln:  “My great concern is not whether God is on our side; my great concern is to be on God’s side.”

Woodrow Wilson: “The sum of the whole matter is this: If our civilization is to survive materially, it must be redeemed spiritually.”

Dwight D. Eisenhower:  “Without some moral and spiritual awakening, we will awaken some morning to find ourselves disappearing in the dust of an atomic explosion.”

Lyndon B. Johnson:  “If we who serve free men today are to differ from the tyrants of this age, we must balance the powers in our hands with God in our hearts.”

Calvin Coolidge:  “In this little Book [the Bible] will be found the solution to all the problems of the world.”

Abraham Lincoln:  “We have been recipients of the choicest bounties of heaven; we have been preserved these many years in peace and prosperity; we have grown in number, wealth, and power as no other nation has ever grown. But we have forgotten God!  Intoxicated with unbroken success, we have become too self-sufficient to feel the necessity of redeeming and preserving grace, too proud to pray to the God who made us.”

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