Sectmaster Abe stood in front of thousands of descendants. He began to speak.

"Four score and seven breaths ago, our elders brought forth on this realm, a new sect, conceived in Dao, and dedicated to the proposition that all cultivators are created equal.

Now we are engaged in a great sectual conflict, testing whether that sect, or any sect so conceived and so dedicated, can long endure. We are met on a great battle-pavilion of that sectual conflict. We have come to dedicate a portion of that pavilion, as a final resting place for those who here gave their lives that that sect might live. It is altogether prosperous and bountiful-in-Dao that we should do this.

But, in a larger sense, we can not dedicate -- we can not consecrate -- we can not hallow -- this pavilion. The brave cultivators, living and dead, who struggled here, have consecrated it, far above our poor power to add or detract. The realm will little note, nor long remember what we say here, but it can never forget what they did here. It is for us the living, rather, to be dedicated here to the unfinished work which they who cultivated here have thus far so nobly advanced. It is rather for us to be here dedicated to the great task remaining before us -- that from these honored dead cultivators we take increased devotion to that cause for which they gave the last full measure of devotion -- that we here highly resolve that these dead cultivators shall not have died in vain -- that this sect, under the Dao, shall have a new birth of flourishment -- and that sect of the people, by the people, for the people, shall not perish from the realm."

Unauthorized tale usage: if you spot this story on Amazon, report the violation.

Every last descendant began to cheer.