history of these cities, and which points to their future indefinite
expansion, without the purpose in each of us, that, so far forth as in
us lies, with their increase in numbers, wealth, equipment, shall also
proceed, with equal step, their progress in whatever is noblest and
best in private and in public life; that all which sets humanity
forward shall come in them to ampler endowment, more renowned
exhibition: so that, linked together, as hereafter they must be, and
seeing "the purple deepening in their robes of power," they may be
always increasingly conscious of fulfilled obligation to the Nation
and to God; may make the land, at whose magnificent gateway they
stand, their constant debtor; and may contribute their mighty part
toward that ultimate perfect Human Society for which the seer could
find no image so meet or so majestic as that of a City, coming down
from above, its stones laid with fair colors, its foundations with
sapphires, its windows of agates, its gates of carbuncles, and all its
borders of pleasant stones, with the sovereign promise resplendent
above it,--
"And great shall be the Peace of thy children!"