A topic like moral aspiration raises questions that no historian can long neglect if he deals with sovereign national entities such as the United States. One of the most challenging questions to be faced has to do with those mysterious bonds of affection and loyalty that provide whatever degree of psychic unity and collective aspirations a country may possess. In responding to a question about the religious dimension of national aspirations, however, I am tempted by the promise of a shortcut modeled on an argument that gained prominence among nineteenth-century Baptists belonging to the Landmark movement who, despite the absence of clear historical evidence, wished to establish the unbroken continuity of the Baptist succession from apostolic times to the present day.