VALLEY FORGE
A curious magic moves in the air of Valley Forge. There is the same subtle plucking at heart and nerves that one feels when, coming home from abroad, passing up some salty harbor on a ship, he sees his own flag rippling from a home staff. It is a sudden inner vision of the meaning of America. It is a realization of the continuity of history, a sense of the imperishable quality of human virtue. And today, when this nation stands on the sill of a new era, ready to surrender for the sake of humanity some of the proud traditions ingrained by years of bitter struggle, what place could be a more fitting haunt of dreams and nursery of imagination? Here, on these wind-swept slopes where now the summer air carries the sweetness of fresh-cut hay, here in this vale of humiliation men met the arrows of despair. There is an old belief that it is the second summer that is the danger time in a baby's life. It was the second winter that was the cradle-crisis of the young republic—the winter of 1777-78. It was then that began the long road that carries us from Valley Forge to Versailles.
Few of us realize, I think, what a vast national shrine Valley Forge has become under the careful hands of a few devoted people. There is little of winter and dearth in that spreading park as one views it on a July afternoon. In the great valley of the Schuylkill green acres of young corn ripple in the breeze. Sunlight and shadow drift across the hillsides as great rafts of cloud swim down unseen channels of the wind. There is no country in America lovelier than those quiet hills and vales of Montgomery and Chester counties, with their shadowed creeks, their plump orchards and old stone farmhouses. My idea of jovial destiny would be to be turned loose (about the beginning of the scrapple season) somewhere in the neighborhood of the King of Prussia—no one but an idiot will ever call him by his new name of Ye Old King!—with a knapsack of tobacco, a knobby stick and a volume of R. L. S.
Coming down the road from Devon, the first thing one sees is the great equestrian statue of Anthony Wayne on its pink pedestal. It stands on a naked ridge, which was formerly groved with fine oaks. The Caliph who had me in charge told me with blood in his eye that the trees had been slaughtered in order to give a wider view of the statue. It seems a serious pity. Beyond this one comes to the National Arch, designed by Paul Cret, of the University of Pennsylvania, who has since so gallantly served his native France on fields of battle far more terrible than Valley Forge. From this arch, with its fine inscription by Henry Armitt Brown, there is a serene view across yellow fields of stubble where a big hay wagon was piled high with its fragrant load.
Mr. Weikel, the friendly guard on duty at this spot, a Civil War veteran, was kind enough to show us the hut which is his headquarters. It is one of the many scattered through the park, replicas of the original soldiers' huts, built of logs and chinked with clay. With its little smoke-stained fireplace and weathered roof, sitting on that hill-top in the sweet quick air, it seemed a pleasant place for meditation. Over the rough-hewn mantel was an old picture of George Washington and a badge belonging to some member of the American Press Humorists, dropped by one of these mad wags on their recent visit to the park.
But the chief glory of Valley Forge is the Washington Memorial Chapel, a place so startling in its beauty that it takes the breath away. Through a humble arched door—as lowly as the doorway of suffering through which the nation came to birth—one enters a shrine of color where the history of the republic is carved in stone. The tall windows blaze with blue and scarlet. A silk Stars and Stripes, hanging by the stone pulpit, waves gently in the cool wind that draws up from the valley and through the open door. The archway into the cloister frames a glimpse of green. In every detail this marvelous little Westminster Abbey of America shows the devoted thought of Dr. Herbert Burk, the man who has lavished his heart upon this noble symbol of our national life. With his brown eyes glowing with enthusiasm he will explain how the religion, the romance, the pathos and humor of a century and a half are woven into every line and tint of the fabric. The magnificent stained windows—windows that recall nothing less fine than the most splendid cathedrals of the middle ages—were planned by Doctor Burk and executed by Nicola D'Ascenzo. The marvelous oak carvings of the choir stalls and pews, the carved lead lamps, the organ, all were done here in Philadelphia.
This amazing poem in stone, endless in lovingly elaborated beauty, can no more be described than any great poem can be described. It is as perfect, as unique, as "The Eve of Saint Agnes"; as rich in color and as thrilling in meaning. On these hillsides, where men "tramped the snow to coral," hungry, shivering and unshod; where a great artist, wanting to paint the commander-in-chief, had to do it on bedticking; and where this same commander, worshiper as well as warrior, stole from the campfire to pray; on this field of doubt and suffering there has risen this monument of religious art, devised as a focus of patriotic inspiration for the whole republic. It is an altar of national worship, as though expressly conceived to give outward shape to the words uttered only yesterday by another commander-in-chief:
The stage is set, the destiny disclosed. It as come about by no plan of our conceiving, but by the hand of God, who led us into this way. We cannot turn back. We can only go forward, with lifted eyes and freshened spirit, to follow the vision. It was of this that we dreamed at our birth.
Of the dreams of America's birth the Washington Memorial Chapel is the noble and fitting symbol. It is both a thanksgiving and a prophecy.
From no other lips than those of Doctor Burk himself can the story of this place be told. He will tell you how the chapel grew out of humility and discouragement. He will show you the plain little wooden chapel which he built first of all, before money could be raised for the present building. He will show you the gargoyle—the Imp of Valley Forge—which he says is emblematic of the spirit of the place because he can smile even in winter when his mouth is full of ice. The chapel goes back to the truest tradition of medieval art, when so much humor was carved into the stone ornaments of cathedrals. When the cornerstone was laid in 1903 Doctor Burk had only enough money on hand to pay for two loads of stone; he had only a piece of hemlock board to shelter the copper box that contained the relics to be inclosed in the foundations, and after the ceremony had to smuggle the box back to his home for safe-keeping. Standing in the beautiful little cloister, where the open-air pulpit looks out into the woodland cathedral (with Mount Vernon elms planted in the form of a cross), he says: "If the park were left alone it would be merely a picnic ground. It's the most spiritual spot in America: we must maintain its spiritual heritage."
It is one of the rector's regrets that only one President has ever visited Valley Forge. As one stands in the open-air pulpit looking out through the grove of elms and over the blue and green valley, one wishes that Mr. Wilson might visit the spot. There is no place in America of such peculiar significance just now, there would be no man so quick as Mr. Wilson to catch its spiritual echoes. Even the humblest of us hears secret whispers in the rustle of those trees.