Give me your tired, your poor,
Your huddled masses yearning to breathe free.
The wretched refuse of your teeming shore
Send these, the homeless and tempest-tossed to me
I lift my lamp beside the golden door.Inscription on the Statue of Liberty
One of the first things people used to see when they emigrated to these United States of America for decades was the gleaming statue in New York Harbor. What most people saw was the start of the new life. They were close to the truth, and millions of men and women have looked on that statue and been reminded of the costs of liberty and the responsibility we all share to ensure that it never dies from this Earth again.
It never will. That statue welcomed those immigrants in days past as a beacon of hope at the end of a long journey. Read that inscription again, but instead of Lady Liberty saying it… imagine them as the words of Christ. In fact, He often said much the same things…
The thief comes only to steal and kill and destroy; I have come that they may have life, and have it to the full.
For God did not send his Son into the world to condemn the world, but to save the world through him.
For the Son of Man came to seek and to save the lost.
Give me your tired, your poor,
Your huddled masses yearning to breathe free.
The wretched refuse of your teeming shore
Send these, the homeless and tempest-tossed to me
I lift my lamp beside the golden door.God who gave us life gave us liberty. And can the liberties of a nation be thought secure when we have removed their only firm basis, a conviction in the minds of the people that these liberties are a gift from God? That they are not to be violated but with His wrath? Indeed I tremble for my country when I reflect that God is just, and that His justice cannot sleep forever.
Thomas Jefferson
