We need civic righteousness. The best constitution that the wit of man has ever devised, the best institutions that the ablest statesmen in the world ever have reduced to practice by law or by custom, will be of no avail if they are not vivified by the spirit which makes a State great by making its citizens honest, just, and brave. I do not ask you as practical believers in applied Christianity to take part one way or the other in matters that are merely partisan. There are plenty of questions about which honest men can and do differ very greatly and very intensely, but as to which the triumph of either side may be compatible with the welfare of the State—a lesser degree of welfare or a greater degree of welfare—but compatible with the welfare of the State. ¶But there are certain great principles, such as those which Cromwell would have called “fundamentals,” concerning which no man has a right to have more than one opinion. Such a principle is honesty. If you have not honesty in the average private citizen, or public servant, then all else goes for nothing. The abler a man is, the more dexterous, the shrewder, the bolder, why, the more dangerous he is if he has not the root of right living and right thinking in him—and that in private life, and even more in public life. ¶Exactly as in time of war, although you need in each fighting man far more than courage, yet all else counts for nothing if there is not that courage upon which to base it; so in our civil life, although we need that the average man in private life, that the average public servant, shall have far more than honesty, yet all other qualities go for nothing or for worse than nothing unless honesty underlie them—not only the honesty that keeps its skirts technically clear, but the honesty that is such according to the spirit as well as the letter of the law; the honesty that is aggressive, the honesty that not merely deplores corruption,—it is easy enough to deplore corruption,—but that wars against it and tramples it under foot. ¶¶I ask for that type of honesty, I ask for militant honesty, for the honesty of the kind that makes those who have it discontented with themselves as long as they have failed to do everything that in them lies to stamp out dishonesty wherever it can be found, in high place or in low. And let us not flatter ourselves, we who live in countries where the people rule, that it is ultimately possible for the people to cast upon any but themselves the responsibilities for the shape the government and the social and political life of the community assume. I ask, then, that our people feel quickened within them indignation against wrong in every shape, and condemnation of that wrong, whether found in private or in public life.