Sun Myung Moon
April 16, 1996
Inaugural Banquet of the Washington Times Foundation
Washington Hilton Hotel, Washington, DC, USA
Photo date and location unknown
Distinguished guests, ladies and gentlemen, today I sincerely thank God that you and I can meet as we face this era of great, historic change.
Religion and the purpose of the providence of salvation
God is the absolute One, the unique, unchanging, and eternal One. His Will is the same. If the human beings Adam and Eve had become one body under the love of God, everything would have been complete and ideal. God’s origin, purpose and process of creation, as well as cause, effect and direction are all absolute.
The human ancestors Adam and Eve entered into chaos after they fell due to their ignorance. This ignorance and chaos expanded from the individual level to the levels of family, nation and world. It has been the task of religion and God’s providence of salvation to liberate us from this sphere of the Fall.
In the Last Days, the Messiah comes and teaches clearly the absolute, unique, unchanging and eternal cause, direction and effect, from God’s viewpoint. He will cleanse the world of ignorance and chaos and return it to the original bosom of God. This is the completion of the Will of God.
If this does not happen, then in the Last Days all religions, systems of thought, “isms” and nations will pass away. Now humankind is facing the twenty-first century, entering the new historic era of the third millennium in just a few years. At this important moment, I would like to deliver this speech on the “View of the Principle of the Providential History of Salvation,” so that we can resolve to prepare ourselves for the new era.
To bring about completion and the ideal relationship between God and humankind, centering on true love, God required that human beings fulfill a condition of responsibility in order to attain unity with Him. Therefore, God needed to give the commandment to the first ancestors. In other words, God knew that they were in the growth period, on the way to reaching physical and spiritual maturity, so He established the commandment as the condition for His children to inherit the most precious thing, true love.
Originally, true love was to be gained through life experience and understood through internal realization. True love is not something that can be learned through words, a written text, or schooling. It is experienced completely only in the context of living our lives. Created as newborn infants, Adam and Eve were to grow and perfect themselves gradually through experiences of the heart of true children, true brother and sister, true husband and wife and true parents, encompassing their whole lives. Only after experiencing the true love of God in its entirety can one fulfill the purpose of creation and become an ideal human being.
All people desire their object partner of love to be many times more valuable, even infinitely more valuable, than themselves. In the same way, God desires that humankind, His object partner of love, become infinitely valuable. When human beings perfect themselves, then those persons come to possess godlike value by participating in God’s divinity and perfection.
God is absolute, however He cannot realize the ideal of true love alone. That is because love always requires an object partner, a beloved. At this point, we need to understand the relationship between God’s true love and humankind’s true love, and how they begin and are brought to fruition. What would have happened if God had not chosen human beings as His absolute object partners of true love, and instead had sought to realize true love in some other way? In that case, God and human beings would have pursued the ideal of true love with different motivations, directions and purposes. God would have had to achieve the ideal of love through an object partner higher than humankind and, by the same token, humankind’s ideal of love would have had no direct relationship with God.
True husband and wife perfect God’s absolute ideal of love
God, as the subject partner of true love, did establish humankind as the object partner of true love. Accordingly, God can fulfill the ideal of true love only through humankind. The fulfillment of God’s purpose of creation is the ideal world where God and humankind are united through absolute love. Human beings were created as the greatest object partners of God’s love. They alone in all creation potentially embody the full nature of God and they are born the visible bodies of the invisible God. If a person matures, they become a perfect temple of God—a visible, substantial body in which God can freely and peacefully dwell.
God’s overall ideal of absolute true love is realized and perfected through humankind in a vertical parentchild relationship. God created Adam first; he was to be the son of God and, at the same time, the substantial body of God. Later, God created Eve as the object partner of Adam so that Adam and Eve could fulfill the ideal of horizontal love in conjugal love. Eve was to be the daughter of God and also as a bride she was to realize substantially the ideal of the horizontal love of God.
The place where Adam and Eve are harmonized perfectly, consummating their first love by marrying under the blessing of God, is precisely the place where God meets His substantial bride. This is because God’s ideal of absolute love descends vertically and joins where the ideal of conjugal love between Adam and Eve is realized horizontally. In this way, the true love of God and the true love of humankind join in perfect communion at a single point, although they come from different directions, one vertical and the other horizontal.
God’s act of creation was necessary and we cannot imagine creation without a purpose. There was only one reason God needed the creation: to realize the ideal of true love. God developed life in pairs, from the simplest and lowest levels up to the human level, subject and object and positive and negative, to form reciprocal relationships under the ideal of love. The creation’s ideal of love and God’s ideal of ultimate love are not separate or different. The Principle of Creation is at work to complete the absolute love of God through the realization of true love between men and women in the human world. This is the reason why, in the beginning, God created one man and one woman, Adam and Eve.
God’s purpose of creation called for Adam and Eve to obey the commandment from God, who is the subject of true love, and fulfill their maturation as a true man and a true woman. Beyond that, they were to become a true couple united in the true love of God and then, by having sons and daughters through true love, they would have become true parents and lived in happiness. Had Adam and Eve matured in true love, they would have fulfilled God’s desire to wear a substantial body and when they perfected themselves as a true couple, the ideal of God’s absolute love would have been fulfilled.
By Adam and Eve having children of goodness and becoming true parents, God would have established substantially the position of parents eternally and achieved His ideal, which was to create infinite citizenship in the kingdom of heaven in heaven by means of multiplying myriad generations of loving descendants in the physical world.
Adam and Eve, the human ancestors, fell away from God. When they were expelled from Eden, they had not yet had children. Having driven them out, God had no basis to follow after them to bless their marriage. The entire human race has thus descended from our fallen ancestors. Humanity has multiplied without any direct relationship whatsoever with the love of God.
Human perfection includes the responsibility to love
Ladies and gentlemen, could the Fall have been the result of eating the fruit of a tree? The Fall of Adam and Eve was an immoral sin against the ideal of the true love of God. The fact that Adam and Eve needed to obey the commandment shows that they fell in a stage of immaturity, that is to say, during their period of growth. The archangel, symbolized by a serpent, tempted Eve to eat of the fruit of the Tree of Knowledge of Good and Evil, and she fell spiritually. She later tempted Adam, who was also too immature to eat of the fruit, and they then fell physically.
The only possible sin that could have been fatal in the garden of Eden, where Adam and Eve were in communication with God and living in joy, was the sin of illicit love. The first consummated love of the human ancestors, because it was supposed to have been the perfection of the love of God Himself, was to have marked the beginning of a celebration that would continue throughout history, filled with the neverending intoxication of joy and blessing for God, Adam and Eve and the universe. It was supposed to have been a joyous occasion through which the love, life and lineage of God would have been established within humankind.
To the contrary, Adam and Eve covered their lower parts and hid themselves among the trees, trembling in fear. By disobeying heavenly law, they established an immoral relationship as the basis for false love, false life and false lineage. As descendants of Adam and Eve, all human beings are born with original sin. The Fall gave rise to conflict between the mind and body within every person, thereby causing our societies to be filled with tainted love and with people who do things that contradict the desire of their original minds.
According to the ideal of love, all love relationships in the animal and plant kingdoms are for reproduction only. Human beings are the sole exception. Humankind enjoys freedom in the conjugal relationship of love, which is humanity’s special privilege as the lord of all creation. God gave the blessing and infinite joy of love to His sons and daughters. However, the true freedom that God allowed requires human responsibility. When an individual insists upon and practices freedom of love without responsibility, how much confusion and destruction takes place! Achieving the highest ideal of human love is possible only when one takes responsibility for love.
We can think of this responsibility in three ways. The first is for one to become the master of true love, truly free and thanking God for the freedom of love, wherein one knows how to cultivate and control oneself. This responsibility for a love relationship is not to be taken merely because of law or social convention. Instead, a person needs to establish responsibility through his own self-control and selfdetermination within a life-committing, vertical relationship with God.
The second is one’s responsibility toward the object partner of love. By nature, people do not want their spouse’s love to be shared with others. Horizontal conjugal love, which differs from the vertical love between parents and children, loses its potential for perfection the moment it is divided. This is because the Principle of Creation requires husband and wife to become one in absolute love. Each spouse has the responsibility given by love to live absolutely for the sake of the other.
The third responsibility of love is toward children. The love of parents is the basis for children’s pride and happiness. Children want to be born through the total and harmonious unity of their parents in true love, and they would want to be raised in that kind of love. The most precious responsibility of parents is not only to rear their children externally, it is also to offer them life elements of true love that can bring their spirituality to complete fruition. This is why the family is so valuable. The daily experience of the heart of true children, true brothers and sisters, true spouses and true parents cannot be acquired in any place other than the true family.
The Messiah is the true person who brings the seed of new life
If Adam and Eve had become a couple of true love centered upon God, God could have dwelt in Adam as His substantial body and thus loved Eve. What is more, Adam and Eve together could have become True Parents who substantially embodied God, and thereby could have become the origin of the love of goodness, a life of goodness and a lineage of goodness.
Due to the Fall however, Adam and Eve became the substantial body of Satan and ended up becoming the original fallen couple, fallen parents and fallen ancestors. Their union became the root of fallen love, fallen life and fallen blood lineage. Because human beings originated from this root, they descended from the adulterous Satan, who is the enemy of God, and inherited this lineage of fallen parents.
Ladies and gentlemen! How great God’s pain must have been when, by the Fall of humankind, our human ancestors destroyed His ideal of true love! Humankind was to have been the sons and daughters of God, yet they do not know God as their original Parent. Yet even though His sons and daughters serve Satan, God has worked for the providence of salvation. Because He is an absolute being, and the ideal of creation is also absolute, He has carried out the providence of salvation even amid great sadness. God’s providence of salvation is the providence of restoration, which means to recover the lost purpose of creation, centered on true love. The providence of salvation is also the providence of re-creation.
Based on this understanding, the root of the providence of salvation is the re-creation of the seed of the original child, the human being who will fulfill the ideal of creation. That which God abhors, the life and blood lineage that began with the false love of the adulterer Satan, must be cleansed. The essence of the providence is the task of setting up the birth of the True Parent, the Savior united with the true love, life and lineage of God.
Since the ancestors of humankind failed to fulfill their responsibility, inherited the immoral lineage of Satan, and came under the dominion of Satan, God could not directly intervene and return human beings to their original position. Furthermore, God can neither unconditionally accept humankind, who chose to go to the side of the evil archangel, nor punish them. Rather, God uses the strategy of placing a central figure on the side of the good archangel. Then, by being struck first, that figure fulfills the indemnity condition to recover what was lost. Satan strikes first and as a result, must take the losing position. The First, Second and Third, or Cold War, World Wars are good examples of this. That is, the side that struck first lost.
From the overall perspective of the providence of restoration, the foundation of cooperation between mother and son is very important. This was so at the time of Jacob, Moses and Jesus. God was working His providence to separate people from satanic life and lineage by establishing the foundation of cooperation between a mother, who needed to fulfill the responsibility of Eve, the originator of the Fall, and the second son of the family.
God cannot directly relate to the first son, because he stands in the position of having a direct blood relationship with Satan, who, through the Fall, was the first to dominate humankind. By having the second son, who represents the side of goodness, fulfill a condition, God has been restoring the blood lineage of goodness. Then God has had the first son, representing the side of evil, take a position subordinate to the second son.
In the family of Adam, God carried out the providence of recognizing the second son, Abel, and having him subordinate the first son, Cain. Even though Eve had fallen, as a mother she could have made an effort to foster unity between the two brothers. In the end, however, Cain murdered Abel and the providence of salvation was not fulfilled in Adam’s family, it was prolonged. There was also a required formula of cooperation between mother and son at the time of Noah, but that formula of meaningful cooperation was not realized until the time of Rebekah and Jacob.
The Fall was committed by three beings: Adam, Eve and the archangel. The archangel seduced Eve, causing the spiritual fall, and later fallen Eve seduced Adam, causing the physical fall. As a result, they turned their backs on God, and the fallen archangel became Satan. Since the providence of salvation is the providence of restoration, the principle of restoration can be carried out only by going in a direction one hundred eighty degrees opposite that of the Fall.
God lost Adam who had the seed of true love and true life. So God needed to find a son with the new seed, free from satanic accusation. Just as God created Adam first at the time of the creation, God must prepare a son first who has no relationship to the Fall, according to the providence of restoration which is the providence of re-creation. This is the basis for the idea of the coming of the Messiah. The Messiah rejects the sinful lives of those with a fallen lineage under the dominion of Satan. He comes as a true person who engrafts fallen humanity into the seed of new life. The Messiah has his roots in God and comes as the Second Adam, who wipes away all that was committed by the first Adam. This is the reason God cannot send a superman Messiah who will work only through miracles.
Providence of the restoration of lineage centered on Tamar
For a son to be born on earth with this seed of God’s love and life, there first must exist a mother. Such a mother cannot give birth to this child in a conventional way. Conception must happen in accordance with the formula of restoration. All the cooperation between mothers and sons in the providence of restoration is a preparation and a condition for the Son of God to be born with the seed of new life, free from satanic accusation. By making conditions to avoid Satan’s attacks, and by subordinating the firstborn son who represents evil, mother and son restore the love, life and lineage that were taken over by Satan.
The Bible, which records the providential work of God, contains many stories that are difficult to understand. For example, Rebekah deceived her husband Isaac and her first son Esau, and helped her second son Jacob receive the blessing. God took the side of that mother and son, and although they used methods that at first glance seem unjust, God still blessed them for their actions.
In Adam’s family, Cain and Abel fought and their struggle resulted in the death of Abel, the second son. Then came Jacob. On the merits of many godly people who paid indemnity and sacrificed after the time of Abel, Jacob at last caught up to the level at which Satan first dominated humankind. Jacob had to deal with his twin brother, Esau. At the ford of Jabbok, Jacob set up the condition of spiritual victory over the angel, and through winning over Esau, who was in the position of the archangel, Jacob consequently was blessed as the first victor in history, and was given the name “Israel.” (Gen. 32:28)
By then, however, Jacob was forty years old. Satan had sown the seed of false love within the womb of Eve, which gave birth to evil life. Therefore, God needed to purify a mother’s womb from which the heavenly son could be born. That purification period of separation from Satan had to begin at the time of conception and continue to age of forty. Even though Jacob was victorious, he made only one step toward meeting that criterion. The great mother who assumed the responsibility to meet this condition was Tamar.
Tamar had married Er, the eldest son of Judah, but Er displeased God and he died. According to the custom of that time, Judah gave Tamar to his second son, Onan, that they might bear a child for Er. Onan, knowing that Tamar’s child would not be his own, spilled his semen on the ground. This was a sin in the eyes of God, for which Onan died. Then Tamar wanted Shelah, the third son of Judah, for a husband, but Judah did not give him to her. Judah thought that his two sons had died because of Tamar, so he was afraid that Shelah would die and end the family lineage.
Tamar had the conviction that she was meant to carry on the lineage of the chosen people. In order to do that, she disguised herself as a prostitute and slept with her father-in-law, Judah, and became pregnant with twins. At the time of birth, one of the twin sons, Zerah, stretched out his hand from the womb to be born first. When he was pulled back into the womb, the second son, Perez, was born first, taking the position of the elder brother.
Thus, within the womb of Tamar, the first and second sons fought, and their reversal of position was the condition that separated them from Satan. In other words, this became the condition for restoration in the womb. Upon this condition, the Messiah could be conceived within the blood lineage of the chosen people, on the foundation of the nation of Israel, which could stand up to the Roman Empire two thousand years later. The victorious foundation on the national level could then be formed in the womb of a mother free from Satanic accusation, prepared for the seed of the Son of God. On this foundation, the Holy Mother Mary emerged in the mainstream of God’s providence.
Jesus can solely possess God’s first love
Mary, when she was engaged to Joseph, received from the archangel Gabriel the surprising message that the Messiah would be born through her. (Luke 1:31) In those days, if an unmarried woman became pregnant she was killed. However, Mary accepted the Will of God with absolute faith, saying, “Here am I, the servant of the Lord; let it be to me according to your word.” (Luke 1:38)
Mary consulted with the priest Zechariah, who was her relative and was highly respected. Zechariah’s wife Elizabeth, with the help of God, was pregnant with John the Baptist. Elizabeth said to Mary, “...Blessed are you among women, and blessed is the fruit of your womb! Why is this granted to me that the mother of my Lord should come to me?” (Luke 1:42-43) With these words, she testified to the coming birth of Jesus.
In this way, God let Mary, Zechariah and Elizabeth know about the birth of the Messiah before anybody else. All of them had the absolutely crucial mission of following the Will of God and serving Jesus. Zechariah’s family let Mary stay in their house. Jesus was conceived in the house of Zechariah.
Elizabeth and Mary were cousins on their mothers’ side. According to God’s providence, they were considered sisters, with Elizabeth as the elder (Cain) and Mary as the younger (Abel). Mary received Elizabeth’s help in the presence of Zechariah. Through this cooperation, Zechariah’s family, on the national level, indemnified the lack of unity between Leah and Rachel in Jacob’s family, and their failure in mother-son cooperation. This allowed Jesus to be conceived. For the first time in history, there could be generated on earth, free of satanic accusation and through a prepared womb, the seed of the Son of God, the seed of the True Father. In this way, the only begotten Son of God, the owner of the first love of God, was born for the first time in history.
Mary had to achieve something that could not be understood by common sense, nor easily tolerated under the law of those times. Mary, Elizabeth and Zechariah had been spiritually moved. They followed the revelation that came from God, and unconditionally believed that it was the will and desire of God.
Although the Son of God could be born on earth, he needed a wall of protection to grow up safely in Satan’s world and fulfill the Will of God. God had hoped that these three people in the family of Zechariah would establish that protective foundation. There are many points to consider with regard to how seriously the three had to dedicate themselves to protecting and serving the Son of God, and how long they were to have been united with each other.
In the Bible it is recorded, “And Mary remained with her [Elizabeth] about three months, and then returned to her home.” (Luke 1:56) After that, there is no biblical record of any further communication between Mary and
Elizabeth and Zechariah. From the time Mary left Zechariah’s house, difficulties began for Mary and Jesus. The family of Zechariah ought to have been the wall of protection for Jesus until the very end.
A short time later, Joseph discovered that Mary was pregnant. How great must have been his shock at that moment! Mary, his beloved fiancée, without having had any conjugal relationship with him, had become pregnant after a three-month stay in another place. It was natural for Joseph to question Mary about who the baby in her womb belonged to. What would have happened if, at that time, Mary had explained everything candidly? If she had exposed everything, it could have been the end of a clan. So Mary simply responded that she was pregnant by the Holy Spirit.
Mary’s pregnancy began to show, and the people of the surrounding area became aware of it. What would have happened if Joseph had declared that he didn’t know anything about it? However, Joseph was a righteous man. He believed in the revelation of God and defended Mary, saying the pregnancy was his responsibility. Mary may have been ridiculed for becoming pregnant during her engagement, yet she avoided being stoned to death.
Joseph, who loved Mary, protected her this way in the beginning. However, there was a great deal of anguish deep in his heart. Once Jesus was born, Josephs suspicions about the father of Jesus only increased and his heart ached. As Jesus grew older, the two became more and more distant in heart. And because of this, family problems frequently arose. Jesus was viewed as an illegitimate son and, lacking the protection of Zechariah’s family and the love of Joseph, he grew up with an indescribable loneliness in his heart.
Jesus’ solitary three-year course
Jesus was aware of his path as the Messiah, and he lamented by himself these lonely circumstances and the serious obstacle they presented to fulfilling the Will of God. The Messiah is the True Parent. To fulfill that mission, however, he needed to receive his substantial bride. Jesus had to reverse, at the very root, the false love by which the archangel had caused the Fall of Eve, who was originally growing up as the sister of Adam. Consequently, Jesus, in the place of Adam as the Son of God, ought to have received as his bride the younger sister of someone in an archangelic position. That bride was to have been none other than Zechariah’s daughter, the younger sister of John the Baptist. To fulfill this in a world where Satan plays the role of owner and lord, Jesus needed a foundation of protection formed by absolute faith. Tragically, the entire foundation ended up collapsing around him.
This would not have happened if Zechariah and Elizabeth, who had received the revelation and spiritual support from God, had maintained absolute faith. If they had fulfilled their responsibility, Mary would have been in contact with them continually, even after her three-month stay at their house. God chose Zechariah’s family as the foremost representatives of the entire world, so that even after the birth of Jesus they would protect, serve and witness to him as the Messiah. They not only would have served Jesus as the Son of God and Messiah with utter devotion, they would have learned the Will of God through Jesus and followed him absolutely. Also, John the Baptist was born to serve Jesus, and ought to have fulfilled his responsibility to guide everyone whom he led to repentance to believe in Jesus and receive salvation.
Unfortunately, although Zechariah, Elizabeth and John the Baptist testified at first to Jesus as the Son of God, there is no evidence that they served him as such. The respected priest Zechariah was simply a spectator. John the Baptist stood separate from Jesus. These circumstances blocked the people from following Jesus and made his path very difficult. Once this family lost faith in Jesus, looking at him through human eyes, there was no room for them to help him receive his bride.
We also need to consider the influence that Joseph and Mary’s relationship had on Jesus. Mary had to restore the positions of Eve and Tamar through indemnity, so she was supposed to have remained as only the fiancée of Joseph. Providentially, they could not be husband and wife. It was God’s desire that they not have sexual relations either before or after Jesus’ birth. Joseph still loved Mary after Jesus’ birth, however Mary ought to have separated from Joseph and raised Jesus as the Son of God.
The real circumstances did not make this easy to do. Even though Mary’s original mind told her that she was not to do so, she had sexual relations with Joseph and they had children, which was a repetition of Eve’s mistake. With this condition, Satan established a claim on them. With the exception of Jesus, everyone who ought to have protected Jesus came under the dominion of Satan: his father, his mother, his Abel-type brothers, John the Baptist and his brothers, and his Cain-type brothers, the children of Joseph.
When Satan influences someone, that person loses all spiritual support and inspiration. Trust in God, as well as any sense of gratitude to Him, is lost. One begins to see everything through human eyes. Mary did not help Jesus with the wedding he desired. She even opposed it. This was the direct reason that Jesus could not receive his bride, and could not become the True Parent. Ultimately, this compelled him to go the way of the cross.
Jesus’ words to Mary during the wedding at Cana, “Woman, what concern is that to you and to me?” (John 2:4), reveal a reproachful heart to a mother who helped in the weddings of others and neglected to help Jesus receive his bride, the most important requirement of the providence. With this perspective, we can now understand why Jesus asked, “Who is my mother, and who are my brothers?” (Matt. 12:48)
Faced with the opposition of Mary, Zechariah, Elizabeth and finally John the Baptist, Jesus gave up hoping to gain their protection as he sought to fulfill his mission. Therefore, Jesus left his home in search of a new spiritual foundation to restart the providence of salvation. Now without a family and household, Jesus lamented, “Foxes have holes, and birds of the air have nests; but the Son of Man has nowhere to lay his head.” (Matt. 8:20) Having lost his family-level foundation, Jesus sought to replace it. This was his three-year course.
The history of the providence of salvation from the viewpoint of the Principle
In the end, as people disbelieved and the disciples lost faith, Jesus endured Satan’s attack and, as his foundation crumbled, he went the way of the cross. Originally, Jesus came to the earth as the Messiah to give blessings to his disciples and all humankind. He was to build the sinless kingdom of heaven. Because of the lack of faith in him, Jesus could not receive his bride, they could not become the True Parents, and he could not complete his mission. This is why he promised to return.
The Lord of the Second Advent comes to complete the foundation of God’s providence of restoration left uncompleted by Jesus. That is to say, he comes as the seed of the original true child to complete the ideal of creation. He comes to complete the ideal of True Parents, who are the origin of the true love, true life and true lineage of God. He comes on the victorious foundation of the fundamental providence of God’s side up to the time of Jesus.
He also stands upon the victorious foundation of Jesus’ life and will find the bride that Jesus could not find. Together they become the True Parents to save all humankind.
Through the marriage Blessing that passes on God’s original blood lineage, the True Parents will be able to give salvation to all humanity. People will become true persons engrafting into the true love, true life and true lineage of God. Furthermore, the Messiah will establish a true family, creating the kingdom of heaven on earth. Thus, it is the international holy weddings that establish this new blood lineage when the Lord of the Second Advent comes in the flesh.
On the level of the great worldwide family, the Lord indemnifies that which was lost in the family of Adam and restores the true eldest sonship, true parentship, and true kingship Adam’s family was to have realized. He will transform this world into the kingdom of heaven on earth under the dominion of God, opening the kingdom of heaven in the spirit world for registration. Humanity will enter into the era of kingship both spiritually and physically centered on God, establishing a world of freedom, peace, unity and happiness, and create the heavenly kingdom on earth and in the spirit world, which is God’s ideal of creation. This is the “View of the Principle of the Providential History of Salvation.” I hope that in the future all of you can also receive this joyous new marriage Blessing.
Distinguished leaders of this nation and honored guests!
I would like to express again my deepest appreciation to you for coming here this evening to celebrate the inauguration of The Washington Times Foundation. In particular, I sincerely congratulate those who are being honored as the first recipients of The Washington Times Foundation National Service Award for making a positive contribution to this society.
Thank you very much.