Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, in his immortal poem “Paul Revere’s Ride,” declared that “Through all our history, to the last, / In the hour of darkness and peril and need, / The people will waken and listen to hear … the midnight message of Paul Revere.”
Is that true still today? Do We the People still prize liberty so much we’d be willing to take up arms at an hour’s notice to defend it? Do we have the patriotic fervor and political idealism of the American Revolutionaries? Or have we perhaps become somewhat complacent, willing to compromise with creeping tyranny, unwilling to risk our jobs or friendships or property, to stand for what is right? 250 years after that fateful April 1775 ride of Revere, Samuel Prescott, and William Dawes, do we retain the spirit of the Revolutionaries? I believe and pray that spirit is reawakening, but we must fan the flames. Our republic is at stake.
Too many Americans now are willing to compromise for “some” tyranny (such as government “safety” overregulation) or “a little” socialism (such as Medicare and welfare) or “exceptions” for moral evil (such as abortion and homosexuality). How different from the Founders, who would take no compromise, who staked their lives, their fortunes, and their sacred honor to the cause of liberty!
Read Also: Heroes of Lexington and Concord, 250 Years Ago
But I do believe We the People are increasingly awake to the dangers of an encroaching bureaucracy, a government that ignores the Constitution, and the insidious immoral poison of Marxist ideology. In the 2024 election, we rose up politically, as our forefathers rose up militarily. We are recapturing the spirit of 1775 just in time for the 250th anniversary.
Our war might not involve guns on a battlefield, but it is just as vital, perhaps, as the Revolution begun at Lexington. After all, if the Marxists succeed in permanently taking over all our institutions, that will indeed be an end to the American experiment that astounded and inspired the world for over two centuries. Fortunately, many patriots are increasingly willing to fight the cultural and political battles. We must be willing to stand up courageously, each in our own way, to preserve this nation. We must hear the cry of Paul Revere now, as our ancestors did then. If we do, we will see that, as Donald Trump promised, a new Golden Age is just beginning.
In conclusion, let us take the moving words of Longfellow’s poem to heart:
A hurry of hoofs in a village street,
A shape in the moonlight, a bulk in the dark,
And beneath, from the pebbles, in passing, a spark
Struck out by a steed flying fearless and fleet:
That was all! And yet, through the gloom and the light,
The fate of a nation was riding that night;
And the spark struck out by that steed, in his flight,
Kindled the land into flame with its heat...
So through the night rode Paul Revere;
And so through the night went his cry of alarm
To every Middlesex village and farm,--
A cry of defiance and not of fear,
A voice in the darkness, a knock at the door,
And a word that shall echo forevermore!
For, borne on the night-wind of the Past,
Through all our history, to the last,
In the hour of darkness and peril and need,
The people will waken and listen to hear
The hurrying hoof-beats of that steed,
And the midnight message of Paul Revere.
