On this anniversary, every year, the eyes of the Arabs under every sky turn toward the man by whose generous hand God ordained that their fore-fathers should be led into the fold of faith, and that with them he should storm the field of conquest in the cause of this faith; and behold, they bound the horizons one to another with threads of new knowledge and of true eloquence; and behold, they spread over all that was known of the world a shel-tering shade, than which history has never known an ampler in the domain of goodness and dominion.

Yes: on this anniversary, every year, the eyes of the Arabs under every sky turn toward Muhammad, son of Abdullah. And Muhammad, son of Abdullah, is a great model of heroism, a greater example of struggle for the sake of a creed, and a symbol, grander and greater still, of revolt against ignorance and of aspiration toward knowledge. And upon my life, I do not think that time bestows on any nation, in the hour of its labor toward emancipation, a nobler face than Muhammad's, a purer heart than his, or a more honorable tongue. It is no accident, then, that history should have watched this nation act upon its stage, through a long era of it, that radiant, unsullied, noble part.

One thing more: he who carries in his heart and mind a message such as this message which the anniversary of the birth of the first of the Arabs breathes into us — I count him nothing less than one who raises its fluttering banner anew over the loftiest heights of the earth.