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
