MP3 audio

Alan Keyes
November 7, 1997
Yuba City, California

Thank you very much.

I have to say, it wasn't such a bad trip in. I mean, the plane went up and it came down. That's always good. And in the place expected, just a little later than expected--which, these days, if it's only a little later than you expect, you should be grateful. [laughter] I spend a lot of time flying around the country, so I've learned to lower my expectations. It makes life much easier.

The wonderful thing, though, is that once I get here, I can then raise my expectations again--because I know that I'm, one, going to be among friends, and, two, I'm going to be among people who wouldn't be here if you hadn't gathered to do that which it is most important that we do these days in America.

That's one of the reasons that I like coming to speak to dinners that are focused on the work of a crisis pregnancy center like A Woman's Friend, because in the midst of all of the other things we do, particularly these days, fighting the battle in the pro-life movement, you can very often get to the point where you accentuate the negative. After all, we are dealing with something that is very negative. And in the course of the next few minutes, I will, sadly, have to share some of that negativity with you.

But the wonderful thing is that in coming together tonight, we are not here to fight against a wicked thing. Though, happily, we end up doing that. We are actually here to celebrate a very good thing. And what we celebrate is not only the life that you and I enjoy, we celebrate something that may be even more awesome than life itself--and that is the fact that the Creator, God, has given us the privilege of participating in His recreation of life. Isn't that wonderful? [applause]

I mean, think about it. He didn't have to do that. He could very well have kept all the glory and joy and pleasure to Himself. But instead, He chose to share it with us. Instead, He chose to allow us, as human beings, to participate in the wonderful miracle of His creation, and to take just a little bit of credit for it ourselves, and to take just a little bit of responsibility for it--particularly as we watch, if we are parents, the lives of our children develop. And somewhere in our heart of hearts, we can't but take a little joy in it. Depending on how old they are, it becomes more or less, of course. [laughter]

My children are entering adolescence. I understand that I'm going to experience the less now. [laughter] But I thank God I haven't started on that journey quite yet, even though it does have its ups and downs. So it's wonderful to be here, and it's wonderful to know--in fact, I would have to say it's one of those things (I was going to say one of the few things) that gives me a certain amount of confidence about the nation's future--that you are here, and that we still have all over America, and I can report to you that it's not only here, but in cities all over this country, there are folks who are coming forward from the depths of their hearts of decency and love to affirm the truth that we must respect God's gift of life and not destroy it; to affirm the truth that the responsibility for that respect begins with each of us. It doesn't begin in some abstract principle or document in some law, in some legislature. It begins, rather, in what we are willing to stand for with our families, with our children, with our neighbors--how much we are willing to do, how we are willing to reach out.

It is a critical time. I want to share with you in the next few minutes something that today occurred that makes me realize it's even more critical than ever. I have a piece of paper here today, I usually don't carry that up to a podium, but I wanted to make sure that I read this correctly, because otherwise you won't believe me.

I host a talk show every day, and my wife approached me last night when I got home, and she asked me whether I'd read an article in the Washington Post by a fellow named Michael Kelly that had appeared yesterday. And somehow or another, in spite of the fact that I go through all these newspapers and pride myself on looking at everything, I had missed it. It's kind of like, you know, "where you put the sugar" and "where the suit was yesterday," and so forth. I missed that, too. That's why we get married, I suppose, so that we can find our way around--because there's so many things in the house, I'd never find them if my wife wasn't there. [laughter]

Well, in this particular case, there was an article in the newspaper I probably would never have found if she hadn't pointed it out to me. Once she pointed it out, though, I realized that I was looking at something that represented--sadly, in a negative way--a watershed for this country, and that might very well mark the beginning of a new, a desperate, a hopefully final faze in the struggle for this nation's soul. It was an article by Michael Kelly called "Arguing for Infanticide," in which, thankfully, he wasn't--but he was alluding to this little piece that I have here, this little screed, by a gentleman named Steven Pinker, which appeared in the New York Times' Sunday magazine this past Sunday.

Now, that is very significant. If it had been some obscure little journal, then maybe I wouldn't make much of it. But that it is a piece by a scientist who is increasingly reputable, author of a book called "How the Mind Works"--now, after reading the article, I'm not sure I'd trust a book by this man on how the mind works, since his obviously doesn't work too well. [laughter]

But still, I want to read you two paragraphs from this article which are startlingly relevant to what brings us together here tonight, and which, I hope, by the time we are done talking about it, will impress you with the fact that though you think you came to dinner, and you think you came to support a local crisis pregnancy center, and you think you came to do a little something for your community, in fact you gather here on the plains of our Armageddon in the battle that will determine, once and for all, the fate of your country. And quiet as it may seem, and ordinary as this setting may be, that decisive struggle is underway and you sit, right now, this evening, on its front line.

But this is what Mr. Pinker wrote. He was talking about the right to life, in the context of discussing what he calls "neonaticide"--you don't recognize that word, I guess. Neither did I. He made it up, I think. [laughter] Neonaticide is the killing of neonates! What is a neonate, you say? Well, "neonate" is the word that this gentleman will introduce into our vocabulary--you will, sadly, probably hear more of it--in order to dehumanize infant life. See, "fetus" is the word they used to dehumanize life in the womb. Now he introduces a term aimed at dehumanizing life outside of the womb: neonate. And when you kill the life out of the womb, you're not killing a baby anymore! You're killing a neonate. And you are not committing murder! You are committing neonaticide.

This is a serious scientist; this is not some fringe kook. This did not appear in some far-out place. It appeared in the Sunday magazine of that newspaper which, in spite of all its lies, purports to be the voice of America's intellectual establishment.

And this is what he wrote: "No, the right to life," he writes, "must come, the moral philosophers say, from morally significant traits that we humans happen to possess. One such trait is having a unique sequence of experiences that defines us as individuals and connects us to other people. Other traits include an ability to reflect upon ourselves as a continuous locus of consciousness, to form and savor plans for the future, to dread death and to express the choice not to die. And there's the rub: our immature neonates don't possess these traits any more than mice do.

"Several moral philosophers have concluded that neonates are not persons, and thus neonaticide should not be classified as murder. Michael Tooley has gone so far as to say that neonaticide ought to be permitted during an interval after birth. Most philosophers (to say nothing of nonphilosophers) recoil from that last step, but the very fact that there can be a debate about the personhood of neonates, but no debate about the personhood of older children, makes it clearer why we feel more sympathy for an Amy Grossberg than for a Susan Smith.

"So how do you provide grounds for outlawing neonaticide? The facts don't make it easy."

I hope you all appreciate what you just heard. Because I believe, in a moral intellectual sense, what you just heard is the beginning of the end of American life. Finally, the other shoe has dropped. Finally, that which for several decades now those of us who have committed ourselves to the cause of defending human life and opposing the doctrine of abortion--it is now out, it is now clear what is at stake. And what is at stake is what we have said all along is at stake. They told us, when we told them that this would happen, that we were alarmists--that there was no need to assume that simply because we redrew protection from life in the womb, that this would take us down the slippery slope to the destruction of life outside the womb. And we told them that you cannot destroy respect for life in principle and expect to sustain that respect in fact.

My friends, the evidence has mounted in practice that we were absolutely right. The rising crime and violence in the street, the children killing children, the mothers destroying their babies--but now, something I believe even worse, in fact, than the acts themselves. For, the acts themselves are terrible, they are tragedies, they are things that can be motivated by impulse or passion. This is the cold-blooded preparation of the American conscience for the mass murder of human beings! Not only in the womb, as we have been murdering them for twenty and twenty-five years, but in every walk of life and every stage of life. This prepares us for life's destruction.

And if you can see in this some difference between what this person contemplates and what the Nazis did, then you have better eyes than I. We stand on the verge, you know, of seeing an America in only a slightly different guise than what the Germans of the twenties stood on the verge of seeing in their country. I say it in all seriousness. You must realize that what will occur in this land once we have so destroyed our conscience with this lie--what will occur here will make Nazi Germany look like a dress rehearsal.

I do not say this rhetorically. I do not say this as part of a speech. This is going to happen to us. This will be the fate of your children--to live in a nation of which we can no longer be proud. To live in a country we can no longer love. To live in a time when they will have to decide whether or not they shall continue peacefully to acquiesce in the destruction of all right, or do what some Germans ought to have done: resist, once and for all.

We stand on the verge of an awesome time of trial for this land--and this is the sign.

And of course, those of you who are here, you saw it coming. We knew what was going on because we have understood the reality of abortion. When so many tried to tell us that there was some way, some way, that we could see that act as less than the destruction in principle of all justice, see it as less than murder, see it as less than an assault on the integrity of all human life, we knew that they were wrong. But you know, in spite of that knowledge, it still chills me to the marrow now to see the steps, the consequences, coming forward so quickly. So much more quickly, I guess, than I had anticipated.

I stand now in a country where, on this side of the country, the up folks in Oregon decide that they shall keep a law claiming that we have the right to kill ourselves. I thought it was interesting, by the way, though a little worrisome--you all ought to pause and think about this--in Washington state, they defeat gun control, so we can keep our guns. I'm in favor of that, myself. But when you put it side-by-side with Oregon, it is a disturbing result. [laughter] Because it seems to be the case that they're going to let us keep our guns so long as we promise to use them on ourselves. [laughter]

An implication I think ought to be quite disturbing to us--because when they come to you and offer you the right to kill yourself, you ought to pause for a minute and ask whether they are offering you a right or making a suggestion. And all joking aside, if your hair's graying a little bit right now, I hope you didn't read the words that I just read. The words that say, right here--this fellow, supposedly respectable scientist, writing in supposedly respectable journal, saying, "The right to life must come, the moral philosophers say, from morally significant traits that we humans happen to possess." Now, let me tell you something. What if you don't happen to possess some trait that this gentleman considers morally significant?

One of the traits these days that is considered morally significant is the ability to enjoy life. Have you noticed that? And as they talk about babies being born with Down Syndrome and other difficulties, they kind of make it clear, "No, that one shouldn't live because they don't have an ability to have a productive life, to enjoy life. It's the quality life."

Well, haven't you figured out yet that the quality of life at the beginning may be limited, at the end, it certainly gets more limited? So, somewhere in between you pass beyond the pale of morally significant traits. How gray does your hair have to be, do you think, before your old age becomes a sign that you are morally insignificant? How elderly, how diseased, how in need of the help others do you have to become before you become morally insignificant?

We have listened to all these arguments about abortion as if we were talking about taking the life of an "it," of a being, of a thing, of cells. Didn't you understand, we were talking about taking your life? And when this man comes forward to make his arguments as to how we can withdraw the protection of that respect for life from children--maybe in just the first week or maybe in just the second week. Don't you see that once we have established it as fact that we human beings can establish the criteria, it just becomes a matter of how clever you are, who's going to be covered, you understand? The clever scientist, the clever philosopher, the clever demagogue.

Just works in a little bit, and before you know it your brown hair could be a cause for moral insignificance. My brown skin certainly could be such a cause--has been, as I recall. [laughter]

So, you see, what we're faced with now is not academics, it's not abstract. It is happening now. And it is precisely this kind of intellectual drivel--moral turpitude masquerading as scientific thought--that softened, diluted, ultimately destroyed the conscience of the German people so that when the demagogue came forward, they were all prepared to believe that there was nothing wrong in what he said. And this preparation is now going on here.

And it not only prepares us for the legal taking of life in all its stages without more justification than our articulated whim, it also, of course, continues the destruction of our most vital institutions.

I was thinking about it today. Think about families, for instance. Being part of a family--being a parent, for instance, is an extraordinary revelation about yourself. You discover a depth of feeling for another human being that you weren't quite sure you had, especially since it doesn't necessarily involve yourself. The love we have for our children is something that is almost like a part of our bodies. They work their way into our bowels--what we would call our guts these days, I suppose--and they can wrench them this way and that. Highs and lows, joys and griefs and fears that are so intense that it's sometimes hard to believe you're feeling them about another.

But don't you see, the same is also true, though we don't always like to admit it, about the dark side of our persons. Your children can make you happier than most human beings ever thought they could be. They can make you feel a pride that you stumble across with great surprise. But if you're honest with yourself, you'll also acknowledge they can get you angrier than just about anybody in the world. [laughter]

That's why, if you read the Bible carefully--the Bible's very clear on family life, the most wonderful and the most dangerous life of all. As I recall, the first murder was a family quarrel. Fathers and sons, mothers and daughters, brothers and brothers, and sisters--the love is great, the hate can be intense, the resentment, the jealousy. Unbridled, that passion can be murderous. It can kill.

Now, somebody tell me. Most societies go to great lengths to make sure there's a feeling of absolute prohibition against destroying your children's lives. What do you think happens to these intense and strong emotions when we start to dilute that constraint? When we start to look at parents and say--well, we've already told to mothers, right, "you may kill your child in the womb." Everybody's trying to pretend that the increase we've been seeing in mothers killing their babies is somehow unconnected with this hardness of heart. We should know better. Now, if we start to tell parents they can kill their children in the first week, in the second week, in the third week--that's not going to have any effect on what they do to them in the second year, and the third year, and the fifth year? And maybe particularly in the fourteenth year and the fifteenth year? [laughter]

I think we're kidding ourselves if we think not. Once we start to remove, as a matter of course, what ought to be the deeply entrenched and ingrained sense of prohibition that separates the decent heart of parenting from violence against the young? We will see, I believe, an epidemic of violence that makes the present's supposed trend in child abuse seem like nothing at all.

It's what has always amazed me. These folks like Hillary Clinton come forward, pretending they care so much about children. How can you pretend that you care about the lives of our children when you are systematically destroying the heart of love that protects those lives? There is no way to reconcile these positions! [applause]

Step by step, we go further down this road. And now there appears in print in a respectable newspaper--what the people on the East Coast say is "the most respectable newspaper." That's only because most of them don't read it, I would think. [laughter] And we have a fellow telling us that--what I found most telling in this article, by the way, was this line about how, "So how do you provide grounds for outlawing neonaticide?" How do you provide grounds for it? Suddenly, you realize we are in a debate about how we're going to justify telling mothers they can't kill their born children! And this debate was inevitable, once we told them they could kill their unborn children.

It has begun, we are engaged in that final stage. But what does it really represent? Is it just then a question of the deepening confusion of our morality? No, it's something else, too. Because, the other line I read to you from here that really needs to strike a cord is this one: "The right to life must come, the moral philosophers say, from morally significant traits." Now, I don't know what moral philosophers this guy was reading. Frankly, if that's what they say, I would call them the immoral philosophers, myself.

But I also know something else. This notion that the right to life, or any rights, come from traits--where did they get this? Which traits? And if you happen to possess more of those traits, does that mean that you have more of the rights? So, something fundamental has just been utterly destroyed: the notion that in some essential way, each of us in our God-given humanity has a claim to dignity, a claim to be respected in our human life and worth that is the equal of every other human claim. [applause]

That is gone now. You see? If you think through what this man said, in his words he explicitly rejects it. The great words of the American Declaration have now been utterly, explicitly rejected, and the great truth that was stated there has been openly rejected--for I think the first time I've seen in such respectable quarters. Because what did they say at the beginning of this nation's life? Did they tell us that our rights came from "morally significant traits"? No. "We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable rights, that among these are life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness."

They did not say that the right to life comes from your ability to be a "locus of experiences from your propensity to plan and savor future projects." None of these things, none of these traits, none of these qualities, indeed no quality at all--not your intelligence, and not your strength, not your beauty, and not your ignorance, not your weakness, not your helplessness. No quality at is the source of your claim to basic rights, but rather, that which lies beyond the reach of all human will, that which lies beyond the scope of all human qualities is the source of our claim to human dignity. For it comes not from any human judgment or trait whatsoever, but from the will of our Creator, God.

That truth, that simple fundamental truth, is what in fact protects each and every one of us from the arbitrary abuses of human power--and what guarantees that under any circumstance, we will have the opportunity to find that courage which is needed to resist oppression.

Don't you see where this sort of argument goes? Once you start saying that the right to life, or any rights, come from morally significant traits, it's a very small step to noticing that some people have more traits than others. Well, if some people have more traits than others, then they have more rights than others. The rights that the better class of people have, and the rights that lower classes of people don't have, those are called "privileges." And we have taken this step away from the fundamental principles of liberty and representative government, back into the days of dark despotism--of rule by those who fancied on account of their birth or other qualities, that they were born booted and spurred to ride the rest of us.

I have said for many years that this is where the abortion doctrine takes us. My friends, we have arrived. And as a people, if we do not awaken now, and understand what is at stake, and conduct this struggle for our nation's soul at every level, then we shall lose what as a people is the dearest thing we own: that heritage of liberty that we are supposed to pass on to future generations.

This is what brings us here tonight. Because, then you have to ask yourself, "This is all well and good, Alan. But what do we do about it? Surely you're not recommending that we sort of sit back and take it?" No, I'm not. Nor do I think, as yet, that the time has come from any drastic action--though, there does come a time in human affairs, as our Founders knew, when the forces of oppression have gathered to such an extent that you'd better check your powder and make sure it's dry. But you know, we live in America still, and as of yet these corrupting and corrupt ideas haven't destroyed our ability to participate in our nation's life. Little by little, it is being eroded, but it has not yet been taken away.

If we are willing to get involved, if we are willing to take the time to understand the real nature of the danger we face, then we can make head against it--first, as we must, by doing everything within our power to fight the evil doctrine that is destroying us. We cannot back away from what has to be the ultimate goal of this effort: to replace the lie of Roe vs. Wade with the truth that all life--from the moment of conception in God's mind, as Creator--must be respected by human beings and not be destroyed. [applause]

We must fight for that principle, and we must do so in every way, making sure that we never--in my opinion, and I'll say this unequivocally, and I'll say it to the prejudice of every leader who happens to fall under this rubric, and I don't care. Some of you know that I am a Republican. This is a rumor that's gotten out. [laughter] I have to confirm its truth. Staunch one, in fact. But I'll tell you this. I'll tell you this: where's my first allegiance? It is to no party whatsoever. It is to no pursuit of power whatsoever. My first allegiance must be to God and to His truth. And anytime any party departs from that, I will depart from them. [applause]

It's why I told many people--I watched this last little election week. I don't think it was an accident that this article appeared on November 2nd in the New York Times Magazine, defining a new extreme in America's consciousness--because the old one was partial-birth abortion. The old extremists, Mr. Clinton and Christie Todd Whitman, and people like this, who pretend that it's okay if the little head is still in there to suck the brains out. See? That was extremism in my book. That was beyond the pale. Sad to say, a whole slew of so-called pro-life leaders went in to support Christie Todd Whitman, and in doing so, they faced that line of extremism.

See, I don't understand that, myself. I really don't understand it. If David Duke espouses tax cuts, does that mean that we can support him? Not in my book, because he's a racist extremist. He wishes to crush out the rights of people because of their race. Well, if it's extremist to crush out the rights of people because of their race, then surely it ought to be extremist to crush out the lives of babies because of their helplessness! [applause]

And there's a long list of people on my side of the partisan line that have now lost my allegiance utterly. I will never follow them, will never support them, they will no longer be in my book of people I can lead--Dan Quayle, Steve Forbes, John Kasich, John Engler, all of these people, Jack Kemp, they showed up at Christie Todd Whitman's behest to put their stamp of approval on extremism and to tell us that it's okay to take babies' lives, so long as you cut our taxes. It is not okay! I don't want your blood money! I will not take it at the price of America's conscience. You can keep it. You can have it, I don't want it! [applause]

We have got to take a stand, and we can't let partisanship, and we can't let anything get in the way of standing on that common ground which in fact defines our identity as Americans. There are so many things that might divide us--race and creed and background and nationality and ethnicity. We are such a motley crew as a nation. If those tangible things are all we got, then we are not a nation at all. But they are not all we have. We have those things which cannot be felt, and yet we feel. We have those things which cannot be touched, and yet have touched us to the heart--and made us live, and even willing to die, for the sake of this nation we love. But which we love not because it is ours, but because it has stood through all these decades for a human hope for human life in common, truly, good.

And these principles of moral right which define us as a people, we cannot abandon them without destroying our identity as a people, and without withdrawing that hope which we are supposed to offer to all the world. Now, see, we have to fight for that.

But there's something harder, still, and it brings us right back to the reason that we're sitting here together here today. Because, this battle we fight right now isn't like some of the ones that we've had to face in the past. The Revolutionary War, the Civil War, the Civil Rights Movement--these were all things that at some level could be decisively dealt with on the battlefields of war, on the plains of legislative debate, on account of great speeches given from platforms like the Lincoln-Douglas debates. But today, on this whole business of the moral fate of our country, the question of our allegiance to the nation's moral principles isn't any longer about the allegiance that shall be shown in our Constitution, or in our legislature, or in our state governments, or in our city councils. In the form of this issue of abortion, and the right to suicide, and all this constellation of things, the question of our allegiance to our moral principles as a people has been brought home to us, and the question is being put and must be decided, not just in our legislatures, but in our hearts; not just by what our leaders say to us from platforms, but by what we, as leaders, are willing to say in those worlds in which we lead.

The fate of this nation will be decided by what you as mothers say to your daughters; by what you as fathers say to your sons; by what you as brothers say to your sisters; by what you as husbands say to your wives; by what you say to your friends; by what you do with your neighbors, we shall decide the fate of this republic.

If we continue to go along, if we continue to be more afraid of losing their friendship, and not being popular, and not making this money, and not getting that contract, and not having these people come through the doors of our church, than we are of seeing this nation so corrupted by its rejection of the authority of our Creator, God, then we shall surely perish as a free people and as a civilized nation.

And that's something we have got to do. It will not be done by others for us. It will not be done by some leaders somewhere out there. It will be done by you, or it will not be done at all. And this is the challenge, you see? And this is why I say that you sit upon the front lines of the battle. For, what you decide will decide the issue--beginning, of course, with what you decide tonight. I don't know why you came here. Some of you came to have a good meal, perhaps? Some of you came to hear a speech, I'm told. They tell me I came to give one. [laughter] As you can see, sometimes those expectations are disappointed.

But I don't think that that's why we came here today. Whatever we thought we were doing, what we were actually doing, I deeply believe, is answering the call of God's providence that was on the heart of the patriots who founded this nation and of the people who called to its conscience to end slavery and to fight for civil rights; that was on the heart of those who responded when the shadow of evil crossed lands they did not know and people they had never heard of--and yet, they were willing to respond, even to the sacrifice of their lives, for the sake of those things they had been taught were true and good and right.

We face a harder challenge. We may not be called upon to die upon this or that battlefield of war, physically to sacrifice our lives. We are, rather, called upon in all the little decisions of the day, in all the intimate decisions of the heart, to decide whether we shall live according to those truths for which others have died. Whether we shall lift up life for the sake of which others gave their lives. That's what we must decide.

And in a very special way, you gathered here tonight, you can decide it. I know that many of us are people of faith. People of faith pray a lot because that's what we were told to do. And I believe in prayer--do you believe in prayer? I believe in prayer. [applause]

I think that God doesn't lie. And He said, "He who seeks will find, he who asks will receive, he who knocks will find the door opened unto him." That's what He said. Prayers will be answered.

People are fond now of remembering that passage from the Old Testament which calls upon people to turn from their wicked ways, call upon God, and He will hear our prayers, He will heal our land. Have you ever prayed that prayer? I have often prayed that prayer for this country. I have looked at its deep wounds, I have looked at its bleeding spirit, and I have cried out to God, "Help us, please, again, as You have helped us many times before." And you know something? I think He's answered the prayer. So many good-hearted people like yourselves have bent upon their knees, have begged Him for His aid, and He has answered our prayers. He has, indeed.

But we miss something. You know what we're missing? What we may not see. If right now, in this community, there is a young woman caught in the dark night of confusion, induced by the moral turpitude, depravity, and seductive lies of our time, if she has found herself in the midst of a pregnancy that came because she walked the path they said would bring her so much joy, instead, it has brought tragedy and confusion--she's trying to make up her mind, what should she do. It's a time of fear and great anguish. It's a time when many can forget what you and I, perhaps, remember: that no matter how dark it seems, and no matter how lonely it may appear, it is never so dark the light does not reach us. It's never so lonely that God is not there. But people can forget this.

Thanks to our prayers, though, right here in this same community, there is a voice that could speak healing. There is a mind that could reach into that darkness and enlighten it. There is a heart that could touch that confusion and let it know "you are never alone." There is. But what you've got to know is that as you pray, as God answers prayer, the prayer is yours, and you are the answer. For it is your hand that could be the hand of healing. It is your voice that could be the voice of hope. It is your heart that could be the heart of love. Somewhere in your experience, there is the insight that could touch someone right here in this community, and turn them from the path of death into the path of life.

Somewhere within your reach, there is the wherewithal, there are the resources, there is the time that will provide the winning margin that will save a baby's life, and with it, a mother's soul. You can do that. And in the process, you will not only save two precious lives, but you will take that step which of itself will save the life of your nation. For we have prayed, and you are the answer to our prayers. We have asked, and He has given you the call.

I wouldn't be here tonight if I didn't believe that you would answer it. I, frankly, don't think you would be here either. But if you go out the doors, and you've had a good meal, and you've heard a speech and this and that and the other, and you haven't made that commitment, and you haven't decided what your place will be, then maybe you misunderstood. For we are called in this moment of decision to decide. We are called in this moment of crisis to be the ones who, through our action and will, will turn this nation from its rejection of life and mercy and God, back to its bedrock belief that He is the source of our justice, that He is the cause of our hope, that He is the great provider of that future through which we are to offer hope--not just to ourselves and our posterity, but to all His human race.

We think of ourselves, sometimes, as ordinary people. But in God's plan, there are no ordinary people. There is only this extraordinary moment when He calls and we decide whether we shall answer. In that decision lies our freedom.

I believe that you shall use it well. For you, too, must wait to hear those words that we so long to hear: "Well done, my good and faithful servant. Welcome to the kingdom of your God."

God bless you. [applause]