I've been captivated by a news story I read earlier today. Luke Martin Jr. died this past Sunday in North Carolina. His father served in the Union Army during the Civil War! His father was also an escaped slave who was born in the year that Davy Crockett died at the Alamo! In this day and age America seems almost to be as a bygone dream. Its history of courage and fortitude and reverence for Almighty God encourages only those who are aware of it and drives the same to try to uphold those responsibilities, but to hear of this connection of two men makes it more memory than dream. This man's father was in the Civil War! He was a slave. His history both convicts and confirms that we had faults and evils but God held us together for His purposes. Yes, many people can go back generations to even the Mayflower and many others, myself included, can point to a father who was part of the greatest generation, who served in World War II, but this man, Mr. Martin, brought us within touching distance to Abraham Lincoln and Joshua Lawrence Chamberlain...to Robert E. Lee and Stonewall Jackson.....even to the Birth of Texas. He and his father weathered seemingly insurmountable odds; they were real, a chain of two links that covered three-quarters of the past years of these United States of America!
That particular link is now broken. Yes, we still have the original Constitution and we can visit Mount Vernon, and surely there are other heroes in every walk of life today who are cut from the same cloth as those planters and harvesters, those lawyers and legislators, those soldiers and sailors, those mothers and fathers that built this nation under the ever present hand of God, but we need the faith in that God who gave them every ability and determination to go on. And we need the humility and discernment that they showed when God's judgement was upon them!
Luke Martin Jr. must have been a wonderful man as evidenced by the tributes given to him.... an example to us, even a hero. His daughter Fannie Martin-Williams said that "He had a long, full life" and "He enjoyed every minute of it" and "He was a kind, generous man. He was a hard-working man...Everyone respected him. He loved his church; he loved his community; he loved his family...He met no strangers...and left no task undone." Mr. Martin, once a master brick mason, was given awards and accolades over the years including North Carolina's highest civilian honor!
There was a time when we were all fellow Americans. One needed only to think like an American, to hope like an American and to dream like an American. We were as diverse as one could imagine but there was a unity there. We have since discarded that unity and exalted diversity. There is only one chain that will never be broken, that will uphold us even laden down as we are with sin; that will encourage us in the darkest night and strengthen us in our weakest moments and that chain is the generations leading to Jesus Christ of Nazareth. Everything pales beside it and everything noble, and honorable and good exists because of it.
That particular link is now broken. Yes, we still have the original Constitution and we can visit Mount Vernon, and surely there are other heroes in every walk of life today who are cut from the same cloth as those planters and harvesters, those lawyers and legislators, those soldiers and sailors, those mothers and fathers that built this nation under the ever present hand of God, but we need the faith in that God who gave them every ability and determination to go on. And we need the humility and discernment that they showed when God's judgement was upon them!
Luke Martin Jr. must have been a wonderful man as evidenced by the tributes given to him.... an example to us, even a hero. His daughter Fannie Martin-Williams said that "He had a long, full life" and "He enjoyed every minute of it" and "He was a kind, generous man. He was a hard-working man...Everyone respected him. He loved his church; he loved his community; he loved his family...He met no strangers...and left no task undone." Mr. Martin, once a master brick mason, was given awards and accolades over the years including North Carolina's highest civilian honor!
There was a time when we were all fellow Americans. One needed only to think like an American, to hope like an American and to dream like an American. We were as diverse as one could imagine but there was a unity there. We have since discarded that unity and exalted diversity. There is only one chain that will never be broken, that will uphold us even laden down as we are with sin; that will encourage us in the darkest night and strengthen us in our weakest moments and that chain is the generations leading to Jesus Christ of Nazareth. Everything pales beside it and everything noble, and honorable and good exists because of it.
