“An incident is told of the first American war, about an officer who set his men to fell some trees which were needed to make a bridge. There were not nearly enough men, and work was getting on very slowly. Up rode a commanding-looking man and spoke to the officer in charge, who was urging on his men but doing nothing himself. ‘You haven’t enough men for the job, have you?’ ‘No, sir. We need help.’ ‘Why don’t you lend a hand yourself?’ asked the man on horseback. ‘Me, sir? Why, I am a corporal,’ replied the officer, looking rather affronted at the suggestion. ‘Ah, true,’ quietly replied the officer, and getting off his horse he labored with the men until the job was done. Then he mounted again, and as he rode off he said to the officer, ‘Corporal, the next time you have a job to put through and too few men to do it you had better send for the Commander-in-Chief, and I will come again.’ It was General Washington.” (As retold by Ella Lyman Cabot)

In a letter to the governors of the 13 states, Washington wrote in 1783:

“I now make it my earnest prayer, that God would…most graciously be pleased to dispose us all to do Justice, to love mercy and to demean ourselves, with that Charity, humility & pacific temper of mind, which were the Characteristics of the Divine Author of our blessed Religion & without an humble imitation of whose example in these things, we can never hope to be a happy Nation.”

If America would be great, it first must be good; and if it would be good, it must be humble.  Are you proud to be an American?  Then be like Washington and imitate the humility of Christ.