Being Worthy of the Dead

Today is the anniversary of Abraham Lincoln's "Gettysburg Address," delivered on this date in 1863. The address is short and most people have a dim recollection of the first few words of it. But on reading it again, I was reminded of one of its central messages--that the dead, and their efforts and sacrifices, consecrate and even redeem the living, if the living attend to and pursue the projects of the dead. The living must be dedicated to the projects of the dead, and must aspire to be worthy of the dead. A rather unfashionable message indeed in our own time:

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.