The Course of Empire (1)

Part 2: The Course of Empire

Tonight I have a treat for you all - a guest post by a good friend, Rebecca Yeager. What you are about to read is the text of a persuasive speech that Rebecca wrote and delivered in NCFCA competition during the 2004/2005 season. She took this speech to the national tournament in San Diego, California, and it has ministered to her family, friends, and church, as well as to those who judged it in competition. Rebecca is an accomplished speaker and writer who has spoken at the national level through the American Legion Oratorical Contest, as well as through several years of successful NCFCA competition.

The following is the first part of her speech; tomorrow I will post the second section.

THE COURSE OF EMPIRE

As a very small child, I had an inordinate fear of....lawn chairs. Now, to many people, lawn chairs may seem harmless; but to me, they were a terror equal almost to that of the Abominable Snowman. I think those lawn chairs must have had a grudge against me. Every time I tried to sit down in one, it would collapse. You see, when you are 3 years old, you cannot simply walk up to a lawn chair and sit down. You’re not tall enough. I have a vague memory of using my elbows to boost me up and then scrambling to get my knee on the seat. At this time the malicious chair decides it’s time to tip forward and engulf the prey. So there I was - on the floor - bawling, with my arms and head folded up inside the lawn chair and the rest of me underneath it. It didn’t take more than one or two tries for me to realize that this could be deadly.

As I got older, I learned that lawn chairs are not the only things that collapse. Lego creations, pick-up stix, large buildings, and even nations eventually fall. It was this last subject - the collapse of nations - that especially intrigued me. What makes nations fall? Is America, herself, on the brink of collapse? And what can we do to prevent it? These three questions have led me to the following conclusion: That the strength of a nation resides in the hearts of its people; and it is only by transforming hearts that a nation can be redeemed. There is a pattern to the rise and fall of civilizations. Lord Byron’s poem, “Childe Harold” begins:

“There is the moral of all human tales;
‘Tis but the same rehearsal of the past.
First Freedom and then Glory - when that fails,
Wealth, Vice, Corruption [come] at last.
And History, with all her volumes vast,
Hath but one page.”

The nature of man has not changed over time, and we fall to the same temptations time and time again. If you take a look back through history, you can see this pattern reflected through all the major civilizations. The Greeks, the Romans, the Carthaginians, the Egyptians - all started out with a certain amount of virtue. Eventually, however, wealth and pleasure corrupted them. Their liberty led to license; their courage turned to complacency; and inevitably, the empire crumbled.

So what makes nations fall? The answer lies in the selfish hearts of the citizens. It has been said that no great nation can be destroyed from without unless it has first eroded from within. The strength of a nation resides in the hearts of its people. When the individuals in a certain country have devoted their lives to serving God and His law, that country will be strong. When the children of those same individuals have forgotten God ad are living their lives completely for the pleasures of the moment, the ruin of that country is near.

Edward Gibbon, in his work “The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire,” chronicles five attributes marking Rome at its end. The first was a mounting love of show and luxury. The second, a widening gap between the very rich and the very poor. The third was an obsession with sex. Fourth, freakishness in the arts. And the fifth attribute, an increased desire to live off the state.