The history of the world is like one great and magnificent epic. Each nation constitutes a song in the poem. England has its own song--France has its own, and so forth. America has its own great hymn, but, in addition a large number of little songs, each has its own particular rhythm derived from the manifold living languages spoken here, and they add _richness_ and _volume_ to the mighty chorus. Let me use another simile: We all know the Mississippi River. It runs from a point 'way up in the remote northwest, winds its way east and south until finally it releases its immense masses of water into the great sea. How does the river get these immense masses of water? The answer is that on its way it absorbs one little rivulet after another. Humming and rippling from cheerful little wells here and there they come, and every little rivulet, no matter how pitifully small and insignificant it may look, helps the Mississippi to become the great river which carries its tremendous volume of water to the sea. Likewise, the American language is the great river which receives its cheerful additions from the many smaller living languages. Each springs from its own particular source, singing its own particular tune, and each language makes its own little contribution in order to make the American language powerful and great and to give it that wonderful volume which enables it to run into the great sea of the life of nations carrying with it a blessing of wealth like no other language. And the many individual peoples will, when they hear the English language spoken from America, feel that it comprises such a strange richness and volume as they are unable to find elsewhere. Indeed, it is almost as though they would hear the American people address them in their own respective language--that "wherein they were born" (Acts 2, 9). _Ah, you young generation!_ Behold this--and understand it! You are born not merely into the wealth of your land and to take up the heritage of your fathers. But you are destined for _a glorious future_, for a future achievement so great and magnificent that no young generation in any other country has ever seen the like.