LIBRARY OF CONGRESS 
 
 ODOEDElSDflE 
 
PRESBYTERIANS 
 
 AND 
 
 THE REVOLUTION 
 
 BY t6e 
 
 eev. w. p. Jbreed, D.D, 
 
 '^ih '^- 
 
 PHILADELPHIA : 
 
 PKESBYTERIAN BOAKD OF PUBLICATION 
 
 1334 CHESTNUT STREET. 
 

 Entered according to Act of Congress, in the y^ar 1876, by 
 
 THE TRUSTEES OF THE 
 
 PRESBYTERIAN BOARD OF PUBLICATION, 
 In the Office of the Librarian of Congress, at Washington. 
 
 "Westcott & Thomson, 
 Stereotypers and Elcctrotypers, Philada. 
 
c/3<r 
 
 CONTENTS 
 
 CHAPTEK I. 
 
 PAGE 
 
 Pkesbyterians and the Centennial 5 
 
 CHAPTEE II. 
 Pkesbyterianism a Representative Eepublican 
 Form of Government 24 
 
 CHAPTER III. 
 Presbyterianism Odious to Tyrants 34 
 
 CHAPTER IV. 
 Presbyterian Spirit in Harmony with that of 
 the Revolution 41 
 
 CHAPTER V. 
 The Westmoreland County Resolutions 58 
 
 CHAPTER VI. 
 The Mecklenburg Declaration 65 
 
 CHAPTER VII. 
 
 Presbyterian Zeal and Suffering 79 
 
 3 
 
4 CONTENTS. 
 
 CHAPTER VIII. 
 
 PAGE 
 
 FoRMAi. Action of the Pkesbyterian Church 108 
 
 CHAPTER IX. 
 Declaration op Independence and Dr. John 
 
 WiTHERSPOON 136 
 
 CHAPTER X. 
 Organization of the Confederacy 167 
 
 CHAPTER Xi. 
 Monument to Witherspoon 180 
 
PRESBYTERIANS 
 
 AND 
 
 THE EETOLUTIOIT 
 
 CHAPTER I. 
 
 PRESBYTERIANS AND THE CENTENNIAL. 
 
 TT was to be expected that the approach of 
 -*- the one hundredth anniversary of our 
 nation's birth would awaken a profound in- 
 terest in the public mind and give rise to 
 measures for a commemorative recognition in 
 some degree befitting the occasion. 
 
 Of necessity the national thought reverts 
 to those stirring times that so grandly tried 
 the souls of men and issued in the creation 
 of this gigantic republic. Again on our eye 
 flashes the light of those guns that laid the 
 martyrs low on Lexington Green and at 
 
6 PRESBYTERIANS AND 
 
 Concord Bridge. Again to our ear comes 
 the report of " the shot heard round the 
 world." The heroic devotion of those men 
 who, for the sake of a princijDle, so calmly 
 offered their breasts to the deadly leaden 
 hail, stirs with a fresh impulse the patriotic 
 virtues within us and lifts our manhood 
 higher in our esteem. Anew there passes 
 across the field of our vision that grand pro- 
 cession of sages and statesmen and military 
 heroes, and we thank the God of nations for 
 a generation of men so fitted for the exigencies 
 of such a day and hour. 
 
 History has abundantly verified the in- 
 sight of Chatham as displayed in his fervid 
 eloquence in the House of Lords, in January, 
 1775 : 
 
 " When your lordships look at the papers 
 transmitted us from America, when you 
 consider their decency, firmness and wisdom, 
 yon cannot but respect their cause and wish 
 to make it your own. 
 
 " For myself I must avow that in all my 
 
THE REVOLUTION. 7 
 
 reading — and I have read Tliucydides and 
 have studied and admired the master-states 
 of the world — for solidity of reason, force of 
 sagacity and wisdom of conclusion under a 
 comj)lication of difficult circumstances, no 
 nation or body of men can stand in prefer- 
 ence to the general congress at Philadelphia. 
 The histories of Greece and Home give us 
 nothing equal to it." 
 
 The bustle also of the tow^n-meeting breaks 
 on the ear. We hear the broad-browed yeo- 
 men discussing the foundation principles of 
 free government, and closing the discussion 
 with the high resolve for liberty or death. 
 The provincial congress gathers, and thrills 
 with the burning sentences that spring from 
 the lips of an Adams or a Patrick Henry. 
 The Continental Congress assembles, doubtful 
 of its j)owers, uncertain as to what wisdom 
 demands, hindered by countless obstacles, 
 only one thing clear, and that is their inflexi- 
 ble determination not to submit to the tyran- 
 nies of the British king and his parliament. 
 
8 PRESBYTERIANS AND 
 
 For a time apparent chaos reigns ; but 
 through all the will of God is working 
 toward order and organization, and the 
 result is, first, victory in the field, second, 
 a confederacy of the colonies, and third, 
 that wonderful embodiment of human ability 
 and ripe statesmanship, the national Consti- 
 tution. 
 
 "The structure," says Judge Story, "has 
 been erected by architects of consummate 
 skill and fidelity. Its foundations are solid ; 
 its compartments beautiful as well as useful ; 
 its arrangements are full of wisdom and 
 order, and its defences are impregnable from 
 without. 
 
 " In the sunshine of peace and in the 
 storm of war the Constitution of the United 
 States of America has had a severe but im- 
 partial, trial. It has amj)ly fulfilled the ex- 
 pectation of its friends and completely dissi- 
 pated the fears of its early opponents. 
 
 "As a great rule of political conduct it has 
 guided the country, through unprecedented 
 
THE REVOLUTION. 9 
 
 political vicissitudes and perilous revolution- 
 ary commotions among the nations, to a con- 
 dition at once so prosperous and commanding 
 tliat it has wholly outstripped all foresight 
 and calculation. 
 
 "When we look at the vast theatre on 
 which, under the influence of its provisions, 
 our maritime trade has been employed, the 
 freedom and prosperity we enjoy at home, 
 the respect entertained for our country 
 abroad, our thankfulness to God ought to 
 know no bounds." 
 
 In his oration at the late centennial cele- 
 bration at Concord, Mr. George William 
 Curtis well said : 
 
 "At the end of a century we can see the 
 work of this day as our fathers could not ; 
 we can see that then the final movement 
 began of a process long and i^^nonscioasly 
 preparing, which was to entrust liberty to 
 new forms, and institutions that seemed full 
 of happy promise for mankind. And now 
 for nearly a century what was formerly called 
 
10 PEESBYTERIANS AND 
 
 the experiment of a representative republic 
 of imperial extent and power lias been tried. 
 Has it fulfilled the hopes of its founders and 
 the just expectations of mankind? I have 
 already glanced at its early and fortunate 
 conditions, and we know how vast and splen- 
 did were its early growth and development. 
 Our material statistics soon dazzled the world. 
 Europe no longer sneered, but gazed in won- 
 der, waiting and watching. Our population 
 doubled every fifteen years, and our wealth 
 every ten years. Every little stream among 
 the hills turned a mill ; and the great inland 
 seas, bound by the genius of Clinton to the 
 ocean, became the highway of boundless 
 commerce, the path of unprecedented empire. 
 Our farms w^ere the granary of other lands. 
 Our cotton-fields made England rich. Still, 
 we chased the whale in the Pacific Ocean 
 and took fish in the tumbling seas of Labra- 
 dor. We hung our friendly lights along 
 thousands of miles of coast to tempt the 
 trade of every clime ; and w^herever, on the 
 
THE REVOLUTION. 11 
 
 dim rim of the globe there was a harbor, it 
 was white with American sails. Meanwhile, 
 at home, the political foreboding of Federal- 
 ism had died away, and its very wail seemed 
 a tribute to the pacific glories of the land. 
 
 The ornament of beauty is suspect, 
 
 A crow that flies in heaven's sweetest air. 
 
 "The government was felt to be but a 
 hand of protection and blessing; labor was 
 fully employed; capital was secured; the 
 army was a jest ; enterprise was pushing 
 through the Alleghanies, grasping and set- 
 tling the El Dorado of the prairies, and still, 
 having traversed the wilderness, reached out 
 toward the E-ocky Mountains, and reversing 
 the voyage of Columbus, re- discovered the 
 Old World from the New." 
 
 With a career behind us such as this, and 
 with such scenes of prosperity around us, it 
 was impossible that the hundredth anniver- 
 sary of the nation's birth should be allowed 
 to pass without some marked recognition of 
 
12 PRESBYTERIANS AND 
 
 the event, at least on the part of the city 
 where our independence was born and our 
 government brought into being. 
 
 It is now certain that the year 1876 will see 
 hundreds of thousands of our own nation, and 
 crowds from other nations, of every kindred, 
 tribe and tongue, thronging the city of Phil- 
 adelphia to take part in a succession of ex- 
 citing services commemorative of the time 
 when our fathers, under the inspiration of 
 principles derived from God's holy word, at 
 the ringing of that bell that proclaimed 
 "liberty throughout all the land, unto all 
 the inhabitants thereof," and chanting as 
 they marched, "All men are created equal, 
 and are endowed by their Creator with cer- 
 tain inalienable rights, among which are life, 
 liberty and the pursuit of happiness," crossed 
 the Jordan from colonial bondage to na- 
 tional freedom. 
 
 Then, as in a photograph, will be held up 
 to the world's gaze our own broad land ; this 
 Atlantic Slope and that Pacific Slope, with 
 
THE REVOLUTION. 13 
 
 that boundless intervening valley "well 
 watered everywhere like the land of Egypt, 
 as thou eomest unto Zoar;" blessed with 
 " the precious things of heaven, the dew and 
 the deep that coucheth beneath, the precious 
 fruits brought forth by the sun, the precious 
 things put forth by the moon, the chief 
 things of the ancient mountains and the 
 precious things of the lasting hills, the pre- 
 cious things of the earth and fullness there- 
 of, and the good- will of Him that dwelt in 
 the bush ;" that imperial platform of com- 
 monwealths, inseparably interlocked together, 
 ribanded to one another by majestic rivers 
 and pressed down in their places by ever- 
 lasting mountains, swarming with forty mil- 
 lions of people, humming with the music of 
 countless industries, adorned with arts that 
 vie with those of the nations across the sea, 
 dotted over with schools, seminaries, colleges 
 and universities where our sons are " as 
 plants growing up in their youth and our 
 daughters like corner-stones polished after 
 
14 PRESBYTiERIANS AND 
 
 the similitude of a palace/' abounding from 
 lake to gulf and from ocean to ocean with 
 Sabbath-schools, and with church edifices 
 whose spires point to heaven, and glorified 
 with countless hospitals and homes for the 
 friendless, and other institutions of Christian 
 charity : 
 
 " A glorious land, 
 
 With broad arms stretched from shore to shore, 
 The proud Pacific chafes her strand, 
 
 She hears the loud Atlantic roar ; 
 And nurtured in her ample breast, 
 
 How many a goodly prospect lies, 
 In nature's wildest grandeur drest, 
 
 Enameled with her loveliest dyes !" 
 
 When the project for the celebration had 
 taken practicable shape, and it had become 
 certain that a great "international exposi- 
 tion " was to be held which should present an 
 epitome of our national productions, a group- 
 ing of all the agencies, instrumentalities, ele- 
 ments, products and results of our American 
 civilization, challenging the attention of the 
 world to the condition of mechanic art and 
 fine art, agricultural interests, educational 
 
THE REVOLUTION. 15 
 
 institutions, literature and science among us, 
 the question very naturally arose, What of 
 religion f Is religion to be ignored as a 
 thing of naught on such an occasion ? Re- 
 ligion, in a land where nearly every seventh 
 person occupies a seat at some evangeli- 
 cal communion-table; religion, that had so 
 large an agency in the revolution ; religion, 
 that has done more for our civilization and 
 for the common weal than any other agency, 
 if not more than all the others put together, 
 — shall it have no part in the grand celebra- 
 tion, no voice in the general jubilee ? 
 
 To ask the question was to answer it. No 
 enlightened Christian but felt that the Church 
 in our land would be chargeable with shame- 
 ful remissness if it allowed the mere secular- 
 ities of life to monopolize the honors of the 
 hour, and refused or neglected to give God 
 the glory. Accordingly, all, or nearly all, 
 of the religious denominations in the country 
 have taken measures in one way or another 
 to call attention to their services severally in 
 
16 PRESBYTERIANS AND 
 
 the great work of helping on the weal of the 
 nation. 
 
 This being so, how could Presbyterians 
 fail to take their part on such an occasion ? 
 How could they justify themselves to them- 
 selves and to the system they so fondly cher- 
 ish if they alone remained inert, and, instead 
 of blending their denominational zeal with 
 their patriotism, allowed their fervor as cit- 
 izens to monopolize all their thoughts and 
 energies ? 
 
 On such an occasion who will condemn, 
 what magnanimous spirit will not commend 
 the act, if we as Presbyterians accept the 
 opportunity to inquire into and set forth the 
 services rendered by Presbyterianism in the 
 cause of our country ? 
 
 There is no call upon us to disparage any 
 other body of co-workers in the cause 
 of human emancipation. If our Lutheran 
 brethren remind us that the illustrious leader 
 whose name they bear was the first in the 
 great Reformation to smite and break the 
 
THE REVOLUTION. 17 
 
 cliain that held the human mind in bondagey 
 we, with all our hearts, will thank God with 
 them for the services which that heroic man 
 was called to render. But for the Reforma- 
 tion led by Luther, there had been no Revo- 
 lution led by Washington. And our Episco- 
 pal brethren may well glory in the fact that 
 Washington was an Ej^iscopalian, as was also 
 the pre-eminent George Mason, successor of 
 Washington as representative in the Virginia 
 Convention in 1776. Nor will our Baptist 
 brethren, always the champions of liberty, 
 civil and religious, forbid our glorying in our 
 cause, for we glory with them in the name 
 of Roger Williams, who, far in advance of 
 his times, delivered the golden oracle, " The 
 civil magistrate should restrain crime, but 
 never control opinion," and whose biography 
 has been faithfully recorded by a Presbyte- 
 rian pen. ''And John Wesley," writes Mr. 
 Bancroft, " on getting the tidings of the bat- 
 tles of Lexington and Concord, tliought that 
 silence on his part would be a sin against 
 
18 PRESBYTERIANS AND 
 
 God, against his country and against his 
 own soul ; and waiting but one day, he wrote 
 severally to Dartmouth and Lord North ;" 
 and among other things he said : 
 
 " In spite of all my long-rooted prejudices, 
 I cannot avoid thinking these an oppressed 
 people asking for nothing more than their 
 legal rights, and that in the most modest 
 and inoffensive manner that the nature of 
 the thing will allow. 
 
 "Is it common sense to use force toward 
 the Americans ? They are strong ; they are 
 valiant ; they are one and all enthusiasts — 
 enthusiasts for liberty — calm, deliberate en- 
 thusiasts. 
 
 " They are terribly united ; they think 
 they are contending for their wives, children 
 and liberty." 
 
 As to the Puritans of New England, their 
 heroic devotion, sacrifices and services are too 
 well known and too widely acknowledged to 
 fear assault from any quarter. Truth to his- 
 tory, indeed, constrains the record that the 
 
THE REVOLUTION. 19 
 
 Puritankm of ISTew England embosomed a 
 large element of Presbyterianism. '' It is 
 estimated," writes Dr. Charles Hodge in 
 his " Constitutional History of the Presby- 
 terian Church in the United States of 
 America/' "that about twenty-two thousand 
 two hundred emigrants arrived in New Eng- 
 land before 1640. Cotton Mather tells us 
 that previous to that same year four thou- 
 sand Presbyterians had arrived." In another 
 place, when speaking of the union effected 
 between the Congregationalists and Presby- 
 terians in London about the year 1690, he 
 says: "The same union, and on the same 
 terms, had subsisted between these two de- 
 nominations in New England for ^many dec- 
 ades of years' — that is, almost from the first 
 settlement of the country." 
 
 Accordingly, Increase Mather begged King 
 William to consider that "in New England 
 they differ from other plantations ; they are 
 called Congregational and Presbyterian ; so 
 that such a governor will not suit with the 
 
20 PRESBYTERIANS AND 
 
 people of New England, as may be very 
 proper for other English plantations. 
 
 " Of the two thousand Presbyterian minis- 
 ters cast out of the Church of England by 
 the Act of Uniformity, a considerable num- 
 ber, it is said, found a refuge in New Eng- 
 land." 
 
 The Eev. J. B. Dales, D. D., of the United 
 Presbyterian Church, in his discourse at the 
 Tercentenary Celebration of Presbyterian- 
 ism,* held in Philadelphia in 1872, said : 
 
 " The Puritans of England were long after 
 their rise unquestionably largely Presbyte- 
 rian. Robinson distinctly affirmed that his 
 church at Leyden, the mother-church of the 
 Plymouth colony, was of the same govern- 
 ment as the Protestant Church of France. 
 Fourteen years before the landing of the 
 Pilgrim Fathers in New England, Brewster 
 was chosen an elder by the congregation ; and 
 when, nearly two years after, he was eliosen 
 
 * See The Tercentenary Book, Presbyterian Board of Publi- 
 cation, Philadelphia. 
 
THE REVOLUTION. 21 
 
 to be an assistant of Robinson, he declined 
 to administer the sacraments expressly on the 
 ground that the ruling elder's office which he 
 held did not entitle him to do that which he 
 believed belonged to the minister or teaching 
 elder. 
 
 " With this office and with these views, 
 Brewster came to this country with the 
 Plymouth colony, and thus he helped to 
 form the Plymouth Church. Thenceforward 
 for a long period, acting on this principle, 
 the early churches of Salem, Charlestown, 
 Boston and elsewhere in New England had 
 ruling elders, while in 1646 and 1680 re- 
 spectively all the ministers and an elder 
 from each church met in synod at Cam- 
 bridge, and by distinct act recognized the 
 Presbyterian form of church government. 
 They went so far as to adopt the Confession 
 of Faith of the Westminster Assembly of 
 Divines." 
 
 It is therefore abundantly evident that in 
 the splendid patriotism of New England in 
 
22 PRESBYTERIANS AND* THE REVOLUTION. 
 
 tlie Kevoliition, Presbyterianism had a far 
 from insignificant share. 
 
 As, then, from our Centennial heights we 
 take a view of the teeming affluence of re- 
 suhs that have issued from our Revokitionary 
 struggle — results of material prosperity, of 
 civil and religious freedom, happy severance 
 of Church and State, of evangelical piety and 
 missionary zeal — and with ample and thank- 
 ful acknowledgments of all that is due to 
 others — it is a privilege of Presbyterians 
 w^hich no one will question, to remind 
 themselves and others of the services ren- 
 dered by Presbyterianism in that momentous 
 struggle. 
 
CHAPTER II. 
 
 PRESBYTERIANISM A REPRESENTATIVE RE- 
 PUBLICAN FORM OF GOVERNMENT. 
 
 DEESBYTERIANISM, strictly speaking, 
 -*- is a system of church government, and 
 is not necessarily allied to any one system 
 of doctrine. History, however, shows it so 
 steadily inclining toward and so generally 
 associated with the system of doctrine com- 
 monly styled Calvinistic as to suggest the 
 existence of strong affinities between them. 
 
 For as Mr. Barnes writes, "Calvinism and 
 Presbyterianism spring essentially from the 
 same idea — the idea of government, of regu- 
 larity, of order ; the idea that God rules ; 
 that government is desirable ; that things are 
 and should be fixed and stable; that there 
 is and should be law ; that the affairs of the 
 universe at large, the affairs of society and 
 
 23 
 
24 PRESBYTERIANS AND 
 
 the affairs of individuals should be founded 
 on settled principles, and should not be left 
 to chance and haphazard. 
 
 " Calvinism, though it seems to be, and 
 though it is often represented as, a mere 
 system of doctrine or of abstract dogmas 
 having no philosophical foundation and no 
 practical bearing, is, in fact, a system of 
 government — a method and form in which 
 the divine power is put forth in the adminis- 
 tration of the affairs of the universe. It is 
 based on the idea that God rules; that he 
 has a plan ; that the plan is fixed and cer- 
 taui ; that it does not depend on the fluctua- 
 tions of the human will, on the caprice of 
 the human heart, or on the contingencies 
 and uncertainties of undetermined events in 
 human affairs. It supposes that God is 
 supreme; that he has authority; that he 
 has a right to exercise dominion ; that for 
 the good of the universe that right should 
 be exercised, and that infinite power is put 
 forth only in accordance with a plan.'' 
 
THE REVOLUTION. 25 
 
 Presbyteriaiiism is the carrying out of 
 ideas of order, authority and law as mani- 
 fested in government and in docti'ine. And 
 as a rule, Calvinism and Presbyterianism are 
 found combined. 
 
 That there is a natural and strong affinity 
 between Presbyterian and republican forms 
 of government is a truth that secular his- 
 torians have recognized and fully acknow- 
 ledged. 
 
 " Calvinism," writes Mr. Bancroft, " is 
 gradual republicanism. 
 
 " In Geneva, a republic on the confines of 
 France, Italy and Germany, Calvin, appeal- 
 ing to the people for support, continued the 
 career of enfranchisement by planting the 
 institutions which nursed the minds of Rous- 
 seau, Necker and De Stael." 
 
 " It was to Geneva," writes Mr. A^illers 
 (quoted by Smythe), " that all the proscribed 
 exiles who were driven from Eno;land bv the 
 intolerance of Mary came to get intoxicated 
 with republicanism, and from this focus they 
 
26 PRESS YTEE&NS AND 
 
 brought back with them those principles 
 of repuhlicanism which annoyed Elizabeth, 
 perplexed and resisted James and brought 
 Charles to the deserved death of a traitor." 
 
 "The remains of the school of Melville," 
 writes Dr. Ay ton, " led on by Mr. William 
 Scott and Mr. John Carmichael, were favor- 
 able to a republic^ 
 
 " Did a proud aristocracy," writes Mr. 
 Bancroft, "trace its lineage through a high- 
 born ancestry, the Republican Reformer with 
 a loftier pride invaded the invisible world, 
 and from the book of life brought down the 
 record of the noblest enfranchisement decreed 
 from all eternity by the King of kings." 
 
 "Calvin," writes Bishop Horsley, "was 
 unquestionably in theory a republican. So 
 wedded was he to this notion that he endeav- 
 ored to fashion the government of all the 
 Protestant churches upon republican princi- 
 ples." 
 
 "The school of Knox," writes Hallam, 
 "was full of men breathing their Master's 
 
THE REVOLUTION, 27 
 
 spirit. Their system of local and general 
 assemblies infused, together with the forms 
 of a republic, its energy and impatience of 
 external control, combined with the concen- 
 tration and unity of purpose that belong to 
 the most vigorous government. 
 
 " Not merely in their representative as- 
 semblies, but in their pulpits, they perpet- 
 ually remonstrated in no guarded language 
 against the misgovernment of the court and 
 even the personal indiscretions of the king." 
 
 To such an extreme did they carry their 
 views of freedom that Andrew Melville, 
 when summoned before the court to answer 
 some so-called seditious utterances in the 
 pulpit, declined to acknowledge its jurisdic- 
 tion on the ground that he was responsible 
 first to his presbytery. 
 
 Of the Scottish preachers Lord Macaulay 
 writes : " They inherited the republican opin- 
 ions of Knox." 
 
 Isaac Taylor calls republicanism the Pres- 
 byterian pri7iciple. 
 
28 PRESBYTEltlANS AND 
 
 The late able and distinguislied Roman 
 Catholic, Arclibisliop Hughes of New York, 
 wrote : 
 
 " Though it is my privilege to regard the 
 authority exercised by the General Assembly 
 as usurpation, still I must say, with every 
 man acquainted with the mode in which it is 
 organized, that for the purposes of popular 
 and political government its structure is little 
 inferior to that of Congress itself. It acts 
 on the principle of a radiating centre, and is 
 without an equal or a rival among the other 
 denominations of the country." 
 
 Very welcome testimony is this, from a 
 very unexjDCcted quarter. 
 
 The fundamental principles of Presbyteri- 
 anism embrace the following points : 
 
 1. The body of the people arc, under God, 
 the source and fountain of all the powers 
 exercised in the government of the Church. 
 
 2. Only by the voice of the people can 
 any incumbent find his Avay into official 
 position. 
 
TJIE REVOLUTION. 29 
 
 3. In connection with the pastor, who has 
 been elected by the people, certain people, 
 elected for this j^wi'pose by their brethren, 
 shall exercise the functions of rulers over the 
 church and congregation. 
 
 4. The government of the Church is to be 
 administered in accordance with a constitu- 
 tion embracing principles derived from the 
 word of God and agreed upon by the people, 
 through those whom they have chosen to 
 represent them. 
 
 5. All ministers hold perfect equality of 
 rank among themselves, and as rulers all 
 preachers and ruling elders have equal au- 
 thority in the governing assemblies of the 
 Church. 
 
 6. The voice of the majority is the voice 
 of the whole. This principle applies equally 
 to any congregation in the choice of officers, 
 and to any one of the local governing as- 
 semblies, and also to the whole aggregate 
 Church. 
 
 "The radical principles of Presbyterian 
 
30 PRESBYTERIANS AND 
 
 church government are that a larger part 
 of the Church, or a representation of it, 
 should govern a smaller ; that in like man- 
 ner a representation of the whole should 
 govern and determine in regard to e very- 
 part, and to all the parts united — that is, a 
 majority shall govern J^ 
 
 That this system is in close accord with 
 that of the primitive Church ecclesiastical 
 history testifies. 
 
 " Each individual church," writes Mos- 
 heim, "assumed to itself the rights of a little 
 distinct rejjuhlic or commomvealth. 
 
 "At length the churches of a province be- 
 came associated much after the manner of 
 confederate republics, so that the Christian 
 community may be said thenceforward to 
 have resembled one large commonweal, made 
 up, like those of Holland and Switzerland, 
 of many minor republics." 
 
 Speaking of the Presbyterian system, 
 Alexander Henderson writes : 
 
 " Here is superiority without tyranny; for 
 
THE REVOLUTION. 31 
 
 no minister has a papal or monarchical juris- 
 diction over his own flock, far less over other 
 pastors and over all the congregations. Here 
 is parity without confusion and disorder; for 
 the pastors are in order before elders. Every 
 particular church is subordinate to a presby- 
 tery, the presbytery to the synod, and the 
 synod to the national assembly. Here is 
 subjection without slavery ; for the people 
 are subject to the pastors and assemblies; 
 yet there is no assembly wherein every par- 
 ticular church hath not interest and power." 
 
 Those who are familiar with the forms of 
 the Greek, Roman and former French re- 
 publics are aware of one marked distinction 
 between them and our own, in the matter of 
 organization. The former were exceedingly 
 loose-jointed, while ours is as one body, "fitly 
 joined together and compacted by that which 
 every joint supplieth," legislative, executive, 
 judicial, all distinct, yet working together as 
 component parts of well-adjusted machinery. 
 
 In the commonwealth we find township, 
 
32 presbyteMaxs axd 
 
 county and State government compacted 
 into a happy system of order, superiority 
 and subordination; in the judiciary, court 
 above court, from lowest to supreme ; and 
 above all, the national Congress and gov- 
 ernment. 
 
 So in our Church we have, first, the indi- 
 vidual session, composed of men elected by 
 the people — each church a little republic. 
 Above the session is the j)resbytery, super- 
 vising all the church sessions, and composed 
 of ministers and a lay representation from 
 the several churches, equal and often superior 
 in number to the ministers — another and 
 larger republic. Next above is the synod, 
 which is only a larger presbytery — another 
 republic. And above all is the general 
 assembly, whicli is the general presbytery, 
 ou: ecclesiastical congress, our whole Church 
 in general assembly convened. 
 
 The records of every session are annually 
 reviewed and commended or censured by 
 the presbytery to which it belongs. In 
 
THE REVOLUTION. 33 
 
 like manner, the records of each presbytery- 
 are reviewed by the synod, and the records 
 of each synod by the general assembly. A 
 member of any one of our churches tried 
 and censured by the session may appeal to 
 the presbytery, and thence, if he will, to the 
 synod, and thence to the general assembly. 
 Thus the youngest and humblest member 
 of the Presbyterian Church enjoys the in- 
 alienable privilege of having his case finally 
 adjudicated by the whole Church, 
 
 It is obvious, therefore, that our church 
 government is in singular harmony with the 
 spirit and form of government in both the 
 State and nation. 
 
CHAPTER III. 
 PRESBYTERIANISM ODIOUS TO TYRANTS. 
 
 "pKOTESTANTISM," writes Carlyle, " was 
 a revolt against spiritual sovereignties, 
 popes and much else. Presbyterians carried 
 out the revolt against earthly sovereignties.''^ 
 
 Queen Elizabeth detested " presbytery " 
 because it held princij)les inconsistent with 
 allegiance to her crown. 
 
 " She knew that the church of Geneva, 
 which the Puritans declared to be their 
 model, was not only essentially rej)ublican, 
 but could not be perfectly established except 
 in a republic." 
 
 "The Presbyterian clergy,'' whites Mr. 
 Hallam, " individually and collectively dis- 
 played the intrepid and haughty spirit of 
 the English Puritans. Though Elizabeth 
 had, from policy, abetted the Scottish clergy 
 
 34 
 
TEE REVOLUTION. 35 
 
 in their attacks upon the civil administration, 
 this connection itself had probably given her 
 such an insight into their temper as well as 
 their influence that she must have shuddered 
 at the thought of seeing a repuhlican assembly 
 substituted for her faithful satraps, her bish- 
 ops, so ready to do her bidding." 
 
 King James detested "presbytery." In 
 Scotland, indeed, he had professed himself 
 an enthusiastic Presbyterian. In the general 
 assembly, with uplifted Lands, in a rapture 
 of enthusiasm, he exclaimed : 
 
 " I bless God that I was born in such a 
 time as in the light of the gospel, and in such 
 a place as to be king in such a Kirk, the sin- 
 cerest Kirk in all the world. 
 
 " I charge you, my good people — minis- 
 ters, elders, nobles, gentlemen and barons — 
 to stand to your purity, and I, forsooth, as 
 long as I brook my life and crown, will main- 
 tain the same against all deadly." 
 
 But when, having become king of England 
 as well as of Scotland, he had crossed the 
 
36 PBESBYTEMANS AND 
 
 border, "he found," to quote the words of 
 Hallam, " a very different race of churchmen, 
 well tramed in the supple school of courtly 
 conformity, and emulous ^.atterers of both 
 hxs j)ower and his wiscl':m." 
 
 In this state of things the king soon began 
 to waver. His despotic instincts taught him 
 where his interests lay. And while in this 
 transition state it is said that one of his 
 stuiiy old chaplains, who feared God too 
 well to be overmuch afraid of kings, treated 
 His Majesty one Sabbath morning to a ser- 
 mon on a text after his own name, James 
 first, sixth (James was the first of England 
 and the sixth of Scotland) : " He that w^aver- 
 eth is like a wave of the sea driven with the 
 wind and tossed." 
 
 But the sermon did not save the king. 
 On the second day of the Hampton Court 
 Conference, while the learned and excellent 
 Dr. Reynolds was speaking, Bancroft, bishop 
 of London, fell on his knees and begged the 
 king to stop the schismatic's mouth. As 
 
THE REVOLUTIOK 37 
 
 Keynolcls proceeded King James broke In, 
 exclaiming in his profane way : 
 
 " You are aiming at a Scots' presbytery, 
 which agreeth as' v^ell with monai'chy as God 
 and the devil. TheK Jack and Tom and 
 Will and Dick shall meet, and at their pie i- 
 sure censure me and my council. Then Wdl 
 shall stand up and say, It must be thus. 
 Then Dick shall reply and say. Nay, nin^ry, 
 but we will have it thus; and therefore I 
 say, The king shall decide." 
 
 Then turning to the sycophants that fawned 
 on him, he added : " I will make them con- 
 form or I will harry them out of the land, 
 or else worse — only hang them, that's all." 
 
 On the third day the king advocated the 
 high commission, inquisitorial oaths, and 
 Whitgift, archbishop of Canterbury, ex- 
 claimed : 
 
 " Your Majesty speaks by the esj^ecial as- 
 sistance of God's Spirit." 
 
 And Bancroft, bishop of London, fell on 
 his knees and said : 
 
38 presbyteP.ians and 
 
 " My heart melteth for joy because God 
 liath given England such a king as since 
 Christ's time hath not been." 
 
 Charles I., a thorough despot, hated pres- 
 bytery. 
 
 The thought is brought out by Bancroft 
 where, incidentally, he speaks of " The po- 
 litical character of Calvinism, which with 
 one consent and with instinctive judgment 
 the monarchs of that day feared as republi- 
 canis7n, and which Charles I. declared a re- 
 ligion unfit for a gentleman," etc. 
 
 " Show me," said Charles, " any 2:>recedent 
 where presbyterial government and regal 
 were together without perpetual rebellions. 
 And it cannot be otherwise, for the ground 
 of their doctrine is anti-monarchical." 
 
 The king had a congenial instructor in his 
 chaplain, Peter Heylin, D. D., who wrote a 
 work under this title: "Aerius Redivivus ; 
 or, The History of the Presbyterians, contain- 
 ing the Beginning, Progresse and Successes 
 of that Active Sect, their Oppositions to Mo- 
 
THE REVOLUTION. 39 
 
 narchical Governments," etc. The volume 
 ends as follows : 
 
 " Thus we have seen the dangerous doc- 
 trines and positions, the secret plots and 
 open practices, the sacrileges, spoils and ra- 
 pines, the tumults, murders and seditions, 
 the horrid treasons and rebellions, which 
 have been raised by the Presbyterians in 
 most parts of Christendom for one hundred 
 years and upward," etc., etc. 
 
 Dean Swift, speaking of those who took 
 refuge in Geneva from persecution in Eng- 
 land, says : 
 
 "When they returned, they were grown 
 so fond of the government and religion of 
 the place that they used all possible en- 
 deavors to introduce both into our country. 
 From hence they proceeded to quarrel with 
 the kingly government because the city of 
 Geneva, to which their fathers had flown for 
 refuge, was a commonwealth or government 
 of the people." 
 
 The poet Dryden, a double apostate — an 
 
40 PRESBYTERIANS ANIi THE REVOLUTION. 
 
 apostate from Cromwellian republicanism to 
 the despotism of Charles II., and then from 
 Puritanism to Romanism — wrote, as well he 
 might: 
 
 " Quickened with fire below, your monsters breed 
 In fenny Holland and in fruitful Tweed ; 
 And, like, the ^rsf, the last aifects to be 
 Drawn from the dregs of a democracy. 
 
 " But as the poisons of the deadliest kind 
 Are to their own unhappy coasts confined, 
 So presbytery, in its pestilential zeal, 
 Can flourish only in a commonweal' 
 
CHAPTER ly. 
 
 PRESBYTERIAN SPIRIT IN HARMONY WITH 
 THAT OF THE REVOLUTION. 
 
 4 EEASONABLY thorough discussion 
 "^ of this theme woukl take us across 
 the ocean and back through past centuries, 
 since our earlier forefathers and many of 
 the noblest of our Revolutionary champions 
 came to us from other lands, and the prin- 
 ciples that formed the life of the American 
 struggle emerged to view and embodied 
 themselves in action on many a foreign 
 shore. 
 
 " A young French refugee," writes Mr. 
 Bancroft, " skilled alike in theology and 
 civil law, entering the republic of Geneva, 
 and conforming its ecclesiastical discipline 
 to the princijjles of reinihlicaii simplicity, 
 established a party of which Englishmen 
 
 41 
 
42 PRESBYTERIANS AND 
 
 became members and New England the 
 asylum. 
 
 "Calvinism was revolutionary. By tlie 
 side of the eternal mountains, the perennial 
 snows and arrowy rivers of Switzerland, it 
 established a government without a king. 
 It was powerful in France. It entered 
 Holland, inspiring an industrious nation 
 with heroic enthusiasm. It penetrated 
 Scotland, and nerved its rugged but hearty 
 envoy to resist the flatterers of Queen Mary. 
 It infused itself into England, and placed 
 its plebeian sympathies in strong resistance 
 to the courtly hierarchy. Inviting every 
 man to read the Bible, and teaching as a 
 divine revelation the natural equality of 
 man, it claimed freedom of utterance. 
 
 " It inspired its converts to cross the At- 
 lantic and sail away from the traditions of 
 the Church, from hereditary power, from the 
 sovereignty of earthly kings, and from all 
 dominion but that of the Bible and such as 
 arose from natural reason and equity." 
 
THE REVOLUTION. 43 
 
 In 1571 the French General Assembly 
 met at Rochelle, with Theodore Beza as 
 moderator. There were present at that As- 
 sembly the queen of Navarre, Henry, the 
 Bourbon prince of Conde, Prince Louis, 
 count of Nassau, Admiral Coligny and 
 other lords and gentlemen. That General 
 Assembly represented and ruled over twen- 
 ty-one hundred and fifty churches. In some 
 of these churches there were ten thousand 
 members. 
 
 Then came the massacre of St. Bartholo- 
 mew, followed by the revocation of the Edict 
 of Nantes, and this by every species of per- 
 secution and torture of which the Romish 
 brain has been ever so fertile — plunder of 
 property, burning of religious books, tearing 
 of children from their parents, dragging of 
 ministers to torture, breaking them on the 
 wheel, killing them and throwing their 
 bleeding corpses to dogs ; some were roasted 
 by slow fires, some were gashed with knives 
 and some torn with red-hot pincers. 
 
44 presbyteP.ians a^b 
 
 "No wonder tliese persecuted ones fled 
 beyond the seas and songlit shelter in for- 
 eign lands — five hundred thousand of them 
 — some in England, some at the Cape of 
 Good Hope and many in America. Of 
 these last some went to New^ England and 
 some to New York, but South Carolina 
 became their chief resort — fugitives from 
 Languedoc, Rochelle and Bordeaux and St. 
 Quentin and the beautiful valley of Tours. 
 
 " Their church was in Charleston ; and 
 thither on every Lord's day, gathering from 
 their plantations upon the banks of the 
 Cooper, and taking advantage of the ebb 
 and flow of the tide, they might be seen, 
 parents with their children, whom no bigot 
 could now wrest from them, making their way 
 in light skiffs through the tranquil scene. 
 
 " Other Huguenots established themselves 
 on the banks of the San tee, in a region which 
 has since been celebrated for affluence and 
 refined hospitality. 
 
 " The United States are full of monuments 
 
THE IIKVOLUTIOK. 45 
 
 of the emi2:rations from France. The son of 
 Judith Manigault entrusted the vast fortune 
 he had acquired to the service of tlie coun- 
 try that had ado2:)ted his mother. The hall 
 in Boston where the eloquence of New Eng- 
 land rocked the infant spirit of independence 
 was the gift of the son of a Huguenot. On 
 our frontier State the name of the oldest 
 college bears witness to the w^ise liberality 
 of the descendant of the Huguenots. 
 
 " The children of the Calvinists of France 
 have reason to resj^ect the memory of their 
 ancestors." 
 
 The Netherlands, from the earliest times, 
 had shown the spirit of revolt against the 
 sins and tyrannies of Kome, and hence be- 
 came a land of refuge for the persecuted 
 in other European countries. And in suc- 
 cessive generations, Waldenses, Albigenses, 
 Bohemian Brethren and others fought there 
 the fight of faith and leavened the general 
 mind with Calvinistic principles. There the 
 Bible became the text-book of the people. 
 
46 PRESBYTEIifANS AND 
 
 Forbidden to worship in the cliapels, tliey 
 went forth on the Lord's day in vast pro- 
 cessions into the fields ; women and children 
 gathered in a circle around the pulpit, and 
 around them the men with arms in their 
 hands, where, on some occasions for four 
 hours, they listened and prayed and sung. 
 Sometimes their preacher came galloping to 
 the field on a fleet-footed and spirited horse, 
 fired a pistol and preached the word from 
 the saddle. 
 
 In 1562 the Netherlanders drew up a 
 Confession of Faith. It was sent to Calvin 
 for his approval, and then printed in Dutch 
 and German. It confessedly expressed the 
 views generally maintained by believers dis- 
 persed throughout the Low Countries who 
 desired to live according to the purity of the 
 holy gospel of our Lord Jesus Christ. 
 
 Dutch Presbyterian Calvinism contributed 
 a noble band of heroes to the cause of Amer- 
 ican freedom. 
 
 The first settlement on Manhattan Island, in 
 
THE EEVOLUTION. 47 
 
 1623, consisted of thirty families, chiefly of 
 Protestant fugitives from the well-scourged 
 Belgian j^rovinces. In want of a regular 
 minister, two " consolers of the sick " held 
 religious services among them. In 1628 a 
 clergyman came, an elder was chosen and the 
 Lord's Supper administered to fifty souls. 
 Under the protection of the city of Amster- 
 dam, a body of Waldenses emigrated to 
 'New Netherlands. When the Huguenot 
 churches at E-ochelle were razed, emigrants 
 came in such numbers that public docu- 
 ments were sometimes issued in French as 
 well as in Dutch and English, and the 
 memory of the old Rochelle perpetuated by 
 a New Rochelle in the land of their refuge. 
 
 Of Scotland, the land of Knox and the 
 Melvilles, there is no need to speak. In 
 their struggles with tyranny, the Scottish 
 leaders were driven to probe to the bottom 
 the grave questions of the rights of man 
 and the prerogatives of princes; and in 
 America their children, the heirs of their 
 
48 PRESBYTEitlAKS AND 
 
 courage and principles, found a sphere for 
 the practical application of those principles 
 and the exercise of that courage. 
 
 To the trumpet-call of the Revolution so 
 universal and cordial was the response of 
 Presbyterians that ardent devotees of King 
 George, Lord North and Parliament could 
 scarce see any one else in arms for the colo- 
 nial cause but Presbyterians. 
 
 "Mr. Galloway, a prominent advocate of 
 the government," writes Dr. Charles Hodge, 
 "ascribed the revolt and revolution mainly 
 to the action of the Presbyterian clergy and 
 laity as early as 1764, when the proposition 
 for a general synod emanated from a com- 
 mittee appointed for the purpose in Phila- 
 delphia. This was a great exaggeration and 
 mistake, but it indicates the close connection 
 between the civil and religious part of the 
 controversy." 
 
 Another monarchist wrote : 
 
 " You will have discovered that I am no 
 friend of the Presbyterians, and that I fix 
 
THE REVOLUTION. 49 
 
 all the blame of these extraordinary Ameri- 
 can proceedings upon them. 
 
 " Believe me, sir, the Presbyterians have 
 been the chief and principal instruments in 
 all these flaming measures ; and they always 
 do and ever will act against government from 
 that restless and turbulent anti-monarchical 
 spirit which has always distinguished them 
 everywhere when they had, or by any means 
 could assume, power, however illegally." 
 
 Indeed, so prominent and consj)icuous was 
 the part taken by Presbyterians as individ- 
 uals and as a Church in the Pevolutionary 
 struggle that at the close of the war rumors 
 were very rife that projects wxre on foot to 
 make Presbyterianism the religion of the 
 new republic. 
 
 As we read in Gillett's history, ''The 
 Presbyterian Church occupied indeed a 
 highly respectable position. Its ministers 
 had been chaplains in the army. Its lead- 
 ing man, Dr. Witherspoon, had been a leader 
 in the General Congress. It was, in fact, 
 
/ 
 
 50 PBESBYTMBIANS AND 
 
 the only denomination which, from position 
 and influence, could be considered in the 
 light of a candidate for the special favors of 
 the State/' 
 
 The suspicion that such state connection 
 was aimed at by the Presbyterians was so 
 strong in certain quarters that the synod in 
 1783 put on her records a formal and em- 
 phatic repudiation of any such purpose or 
 desire. 
 
 Colonel Barre having in an enthusiastic 
 speech in parliament styled the Americans 
 ^^ Sons of Liberty^'' the colonists caught up 
 the title, and all through the land formed 
 associations of "Sons of Liberty," and the 
 Sons of Liberty of New York went by the 
 name of the ^^Presbyterian Juntos 
 
 Let us quote again from Bancroft : 
 
 " Just after the peace of Paris the ' Heart 
 of Oak Protestants' came over in great num- 
 bers and settled on the Catawba, in South 
 Carolina. In Pennsylvania they peopled 
 many counties. In Virginia they went up 
 
THE REVOLUTION. 51 
 
 the valley of the Shenandoah and extended 
 themselves into the upland region of North 
 Carolina. Their training in Ireland had 
 kept the spirit of liberty as fresh in their 
 hearts as if they had just been listening to the 
 preaching of Knox or musing over the polit- 
 ical creed of the Westminster Assembly ^ 
 
 " We shall find that the first voice pub- 
 licly raised in America to dissolve all con- 
 nection with Great Britain came, not from 
 the Puritans of New England, nor the Dutch 
 of New York, nor the planters of Virginia, 
 but from the Scotch- Irish Presbyterians.^^ 
 
 " In 1683, just after the grant of East New 
 Jersey, a proclamation unparalleled since 
 Alva drove the Netherlands to independence 
 put twenty thousand lives at the mercy of 
 informers. After the insurrection of Mon- 
 mouth, gibbets were erected in every village 
 and soldiers entrusted with the execution of 
 the laws ; scarce a Presbyterian family in 
 Scotland but Avas involved in proscriptions 
 and penalties.'' 
 
52 PRESBYTERIANS AND 
 
 "Is it strange that Scotch Presbyterians 
 of virtue, education and courage, blending a 
 love of 23opular liberty with religious enthu- 
 siasm, hurried to East New Jersey in such 
 numbers as to give to the rising common- 
 wealth a character which a century and a 
 half has not effaced?" 
 
 " In a few years a law of the common- 
 wealth giving force to the common principle 
 of the New England and the Scottish colo- 
 nists established a system of free schools." 
 
 " Hearts glowed more warmly on the 
 banks of the Patapsco. Its convenient prox- 
 imity to the border counties of Pennsylvania 
 and Virginia had at length been observed by 
 Scotch-Irkh Presbyterians and other bold 
 and industrious men, and within a few years 
 they had created the town of Baltimore." 
 
 When, in May, 1774, the messages from 
 the old committee of New York, Philadel- 
 phia and Boston reached the inhabitants of 
 the city and county of Baltimore, they, after 
 consultation Avith the men of Annapolis, ad- 
 
THE REVOLUTION. 53 
 
 vocated suspending commerce with Great 
 Britain and the West Indies, chose deputies 
 to a colonial convention, recommended a 
 Continental Congress, and sent cheering 
 words to their 'friends' at Boston as suffer- 
 ers in the common cause. The supreme 
 ' Disposer of events,' they wrote, ' will termi- 
 nate this severe trial of your patience in a 
 happy confirmation of American fi-eedom.' 
 
 " For this spirited conduct Baltimore was 
 applauded as the model, and its example 
 kindled new life in New York." — Bancroft. 
 
 Bespecting the Stamp Act Mr. Bancroft 
 writes : 
 
 " Our mother should remember that we 
 are not slaves, said the Presbyterians of 
 Philadelphia." 
 
 When news arrived of the passage through 
 parliament of Townshend's bill taxing tea, 
 glass, etc. — according to Bancroft — 
 
 " Courage, Americans !" cried one of the 
 famed "Triumvirate" of Presbyterian law- 
 yers; "liberty, religion and science are on 
 
54 PEESBYTERIANS AND 
 
 the wing to these shores. The finger of God 
 points out a mighty empire to your sons. 
 The savages of the wilderness were never 
 expelled to make room for idolaters and 
 slaves. The land we possess is the gift of 
 Heaven to our fathers, and divine Providence 
 seems to have decreed it to our latest j)os- 
 terity.'' 
 
 ^' The day dawns when the foundations of 
 this mighty empire are to be laid by the es- 
 tablishmeiit of a regular American Constitu- 
 tion, All that has hitherto been done seems 
 to be little beside the collection of materials 
 for this glorious fabric. The transfer of the 
 European part of the family is so fast and 
 our growth so swift that before seven 
 
 YEARS ROLL OYER OUR HEADS the first stoue 
 
 must be laid." 
 
 Such were the sentiments of the "Presby- 
 terian Triumvirate" so early as 1768. 
 
 On the 20th of January, 1775, " the lords 
 of the region" where the "Watauga and the 
 Forks of Holston flow into the Tennessee, 
 
THE REVOLUTION. 55 
 
 most of them Presbyterians of Scotch- Irish 
 descent, met in council near Abington. 
 
 "The news from Congress reached them 
 slowly, but on receiving it the spirit of free- 
 dom swept through their minds as naturally 
 as the ceaseless forest wind sighs through the 
 firs down the sides of the Black Mountains. 
 They adhered unanimously to the association 
 of Congress, and named a committee, with 
 Charles Gummings, their minister, as its 
 head. 
 
 " We explored," said the committee, " our 
 uncultivated wilderness, bordering on many 
 nations of savages and surrounded by moun- 
 tains almost inaccessible. But even to these 
 remote regions the hand of power hath pur- 
 sued us to strip us of that liberty and prop- 
 erty with which God, nature and the rights 
 of humanity have vested us. We are will- 
 ing to contribute all in our power, if applied 
 constitutionally, but we cannot think of sub- 
 mitting our liberty or property to a venal 
 British parliament or a corrupt ministry. 
 
56 PRESBYTERIANS AND 
 
 " We are deliberately and resolutely de- 
 termined never to surrender any of our in- 
 estimable privileges to any power upon earth 
 'but at the expense of our lives. These are 
 our real though unpolished sentiments of 
 liberty and loyalty, and in them we are re- 
 solved to live and die." * 
 
 The Hon. Gulian C. Verplanck of New 
 York, in a public address, traced the origin 
 of our Declaration of Independence to the 
 National Covenant of Scotland. 
 
 Mr. William B. Eeed of Philadelphia, 
 himself an Episcopalian, wrote : "A Presby- 
 terian royalist was a thing unheard of. The 
 debt of gratitude which independent Amer- 
 ica owes to the dissenting clergy and laity 
 never can be paidJ' 
 
 "The rigid Presbyterians," writes Mr. 
 Bancroft, " proved in America the sup- 
 porters of religious freedom. They were 
 true to the spirit of the great English dis- 
 senter who hated all laws that were formed 
 
 * Bancroft. 
 
THE REVOLUTION. 57 
 
 " To stretch the conscience, and to bind 
 The native freedom of the mind." 
 
 " In Virginia the Presbytery of Hanover 
 took the lead for liberty, and demanded the 
 abolition of the establishment of the Angli- 
 can Church and the civil equality of every 
 denomination." 
 
CHAPTER V. 
 THE WESTMORELAND COUNTY RESOLUTIONS. 
 
 TTOW thoroughly Presbyterian in origin 
 ^^ and character was the population scat- 
 tered through Western Pennsylvania is 
 known to all familiar with the early history 
 of the State. At the time of the Ke volu- 
 tion, Westmoreland county embraced nearly 
 all the territory claimed by Pennsylvania 
 west of the mountains. 
 
 When the news of the opening of the war 
 at Lexington and Concord reached the peo- 
 ple of Westmoreland, they came together at 
 Hanna's Town on the 16th of May, 1776, 
 and passed the following resolutions : 
 
 " Resolved, unanimously, That the parlia- 
 ment of Great Britain by several late acts 
 have declared the inhabitants of Massachu- 
 
 58 
 
THE REVOLUTION. 59 
 
 setts Bay to be in rebellion, and the ministry, 
 by endeavoring to enforce those acts, have 
 attempted to reduce the said inhabitants to 
 a more wretched state of slavery than ever 
 before existed in any state or country. Not 
 content with violating their constitutional 
 and chartered privileges, they would strip 
 them of the rights of humanity, exposing 
 lives to the wanton and unpunishable spirit 
 of a licentious soldiery, and depriving them 
 of the very means of subsistence. 
 
 ^'Resolved, unanimously, That there is no 
 reason to doubt but the same system of 
 tyranny and oppression will (should it meet 
 with success in the Massachusetts Bay) be 
 extended to every other part of America. It 
 is therefore become the indispensable duty 
 of every American, of every man who has 
 any public virtue or love for his country, or 
 any bowels for posterity, by every means 
 which God has put in his power, to resist 
 and oppose the execution of it ; that for us, 
 we will be ready to oppose it with our lives 
 
60 PRESBYTERIANS AND 
 
 and fortunes. And the better to enable us 
 to accomplish it, we will immediately form 
 ourselves into a military body to consist of 
 companies to be made up out of the several 
 townships under the following association, 
 which is declared to be the Association of 
 Westmoreland County. 
 
 " Possessed with the most unshaken loyalty 
 to His Majesty King George III., whom we 
 acknowledge to be our lawful and rightful 
 king, and who we wish may long be the be- 
 loved sovereign of a free and happy people 
 throughout the whole British empire, we de- 
 clare to the world that we do not mean to 
 deviate from the loyalty which we hold it 
 to be our bounden duty to observe ; but 
 animated by the love of liberty, it is no less 
 our duty to maintain and defend our just 
 rights (which with sorrow we have seen of 
 late wantonly violated in many instances by 
 a wicked ministry and a corrupt parliament) 
 and transmit them entire to our posterity, for 
 
THE REVOLUTION. 61 
 
 which purpose we do agree and associate 
 ourselves together : 
 
 ^' First. To arm and form ourselves into a 
 regiment or regiments, and choose officers to 
 command us in such proportion as shall be 
 thought necessary. 
 
 ''Second. We will, with alacrity, endeavor 
 to make ourselves masters of the manual ex- 
 ercise and such evolutions as may be neces- 
 sary to enable us to act as a body with con- 
 cert, and to that end we will meet at such 
 times and places as shall be appointed, either 
 for the companies or the regiments, by the 
 officers commanding each when chosen. 
 
 ''Third. That should our country be in- 
 vaded by a foreign enemy, or should troops 
 be sent from Great Britain to enforce the 
 late arbitrary acts of its parliament, we will 
 cheerfully submit to military discipline, and 
 to the utmost of our power resist and oppose 
 them, or either of them, and we will coincide 
 with any plan that may be formed for the 
 
62 PBESBYTSBIANS AND 
 
 defence of America in general or Pennsyl- 
 vania in particular. 
 
 ''Fourth, That we do not wish or desire 
 any innovation, but only that things may 
 be restored to and go on in the same way 
 as before the era of the Stamp Act, when 
 Boston grew great and America was happy. 
 As a proof of this disposition, we will quietly 
 submit to the laws by which we have been 
 accustomed to be governed before that period, 
 and will, in our several or associate capaci- 
 ties, be ready when called on to assist the 
 civil magistrate in carrying the same into 
 execution. 
 
 ''Fifth. That when the British parlia- 
 ment shall have repealed their late obnox- 
 ious statutes, and shall have receded from 
 their claim to tax us and make laws for 
 us in every instance, or when some general 
 plan of union and reconstruction has been 
 formed and accepted by America, this our 
 association shall be dissolved ; but till then 
 it shall remain in full force, and to the ob- 
 
THE REVOLUTION. 63 
 
 servation of it we bind ourselves by every- 
 thing dear and sacred amongst men. No 
 licensed murder! No famine introduced by 
 law !" 
 
 That the meeting was effective, and that 
 the association speedily developed into com- 
 panies and regiments, is gathered from a 
 letter from Arthur St. Clair, who lived in 
 the Ligonier Valley, twenty miles from Han- 
 na's Town, and who, on the 25th of May, 
 wrote at length to Governor Penn about the 
 troublesome boundary question, and made 
 mention of the patriotic movement in the 
 following paragraph : 
 
 " We have nothing but musters and com- 
 mittees all over the country, and everything 
 seems to be running into the greatest con- 
 fusion. If some conciliating plan is not 
 adopted by the Congress, America has seen 
 her golden days ; they may return, but they 
 will be preceded by scenes of horror. An 
 association is formed in this county for the 
 defence of American liberty. I got a clause 
 
64 PRESBYTERIANS J^D THE REVOLUTION. 
 
 added by which they bind themselves to as- 
 sist the civil magistrates in the execution of 
 the laws they have been accustomed to be 
 governed by." 
 
 The Hanna's Town resolutions on a first 
 reading scarcely seem to deserve the honor 
 of a centennial celebration. There is a curi- 
 ously mixed flavor of loyalty and rebellion 
 in them, and they certainly do not constitute 
 a declaration of independence, as has been 
 claimed. When read in connection with the 
 history of the times when they were adoj)ted, 
 however, it will be found that they were sin- 
 gularly bold and defiant. No public gather- 
 ing held in the colonies during the year 1775 
 went further in the direction of independence 
 unless it was the Mecklenburg meeting. The 
 farmers of Westmoreland really laid down 
 an ultimatum to the British government, and 
 pledged themselves to resist its authority by 
 force of arms until their demands for the 
 repeal of all oppressive measures Avere com- 
 plied with. 
 
CHAPTER VI. 
 
 THE MECKLENBURG DECLARATION. 
 
 r\F the population of Mecklenburg county 
 and the adjacent regions Washington Ir- 
 ving writes in his " Life of Washington :" 
 
 " In this part of the State was a hardy- 
 Presbyterian stock, the Scotch-Irish, as they 
 were called, having emigrated from Scotland 
 to Ireland and thence to America, and were 
 said to possess the impulsiveness of the Irish- 
 man with the dogged resolution of the Cove- 
 nanter. The early history of the colonies 
 abounds with instances of this spirit among 
 the people. ^They always behaved inso- 
 lently to their governors,' complained Gov- 
 ernor Barrington in 1731 ; ' some they have 
 driven out of the country, at other times they 
 set up a government of their own choice sup- 
 ported by men under arms.' " 
 
 5 65 
 
QQ PRESBYTEniANS AND 
 
 The following is Mr. Bancroft's account of 
 the "Mecklenburg Declaration," as given in 
 the seventh volume of his '^ History of the 
 United States," beginning at page 370 : 
 
 " The people of the county of Mecklenburg 
 had carefully observed the progress of the 
 controversy with Britain, and during the 
 winter political meetings had repeatedly been 
 held in Charlotte. That town had been 
 chosen for the seat of the Presbyterian col- 
 lege which the legislature of North Carolina 
 had chartered, but which the king had dis- 
 allowed ; and it was the centre of the culture 
 of that part of the province. The number 
 of houses in the village was not more than 
 twenty, but the district was already well set- 
 tled by herdsmen, who lived apart on their 
 farms. 
 
 " Some time in May, 1775, they received 
 the news of the address which in the preced- 
 ing February had been presented to the king 
 by both houses of parliament, and which de- 
 clared the American colonies to be in a state 
 
THE BE VOLUTION. 67 
 
 of actual rebellion. This was to them the 
 evidence that tlie crisis in American affairs 
 was come, and the 2)eo2:>le proposed among 
 themselves to abrogate all dependence on 
 the royal authority. But the militia compa- 
 nies were sworn to allegiance ; and ' how/ it 
 was objected, ' can we be absolved from our 
 oath ?' ' The oath/ it was answered, ^ binds 
 only while the king protects.' At the in- 
 stance of Thomas Polk, the commander of 
 the militia of tlie county, two delegates from 
 each company were called together in Char- 
 lotte as a representative committee. Before 
 their consultations had ended, the message of 
 the innocent blood shed at Lexington came 
 up from Charleston and inflamed their zeal. 
 They were impatient that their remoteness 
 forbade their direct activity ; had it been 
 possible, they would have sent a hundred 
 bullocks from their fields to the poor of 
 Boston. No minutes of the committee are 
 known to exist, but the result of their delib- 
 erations, framed with joeculiar skill, precision 
 
68 PRESBYTEklANS AND 
 
 of language and calm comprehensiveness, re- 
 mains as the monument of their wisdom and 
 courage. Of the delegates to that mem- 
 orable assembly the name of Ephraim Bre- 
 vard should be remembered with honor by 
 his countrymen. He was one of a numerous 
 family of patriot brothers, and himself in 
 the end fell a martyr to the j)ublic cause. 
 Trained in the college at Princeton, ripened 
 among the brave Presbyterians of Middle 
 Carolina, he digested the system which was 
 then adopted, and which formed in effect a 
 declaration of independence as well as a 
 complete system of government. ^All laws 
 and commissions confirmed by or derived 
 from the authority of the king or parlia- 
 ment,' such are the bold but well-considered 
 words of these daring statesmen, 'are an- 
 nulled and vacated; all commissions, civil 
 and military, heretofore granted by the 
 Crown to be exercised in the colonies, are 
 void; the provincial Congress of each prov- 
 ince, under the direction of the great Conti- 
 
THE REVOLUTION. 69 
 
 neiital Congress, is invested with all legislative 
 and executive powers within the respective 
 provinces, and no other legislative or execu- 
 tive power does or can exist at this time in 
 any part of these colonies. As all former 
 laws are now suspended in this province and 
 the Congress has not yet provided others, we 
 judge it necessary for the better preserva- 
 tion of good order to form certain rules and 
 regulations for the internal government of 
 this county until laws shall be provided for 
 us by the Congress.' 
 
 " In accordance wath these principles, the 
 freemen of the county formed themselves 
 into nine military companies and elected 
 their own officers. Judicial powers were 
 conferred on men to be singled out by the 
 vote of the companies, two from each of 
 them, the whole number of eighteen consti- 
 tuting a court of appeal. The tenure alike 
 of military and civil officers was ' the plea- 
 sure of their several constituents.' All pub- 
 lic and county taxes, all quit-rents to the 
 
70 FEESBYTEMANS AND 
 
 Crown were sequestered, and it was voted 
 that persons receiving new commissions from 
 the king or exercising old ones should be 
 dealt with as enemies of the country. 
 
 " The resolves were made binding on all, 
 and were to be enforced till the provincial 
 Congress should provide otherwise, or, wdiat 
 they knew w^ould never take place, till the 
 British j^arliament should resign its arbitrary 
 pretensions with respect to America. At 
 the same time, the militia companies were 
 directed to provide themselves with arms, 
 and Thomas Polk and Joseph Kenedy were 
 specially appointed to purchase powder, lead 
 and flints. 
 
 '^ Before the month of May had come to 
 an end the resolutions were signed by 
 Ephraim Brevard as clerk of the committee, 
 and were adopted by the people with the de- 
 termined enthusiasm which springs from the 
 combined influence of the love of liberty and 
 of religion. Thus was Mecklenburg county, 
 in North Carolina, separated from the Brit- 
 
THE REVOLUTION. 71 
 
 ish empire. The resolves were transmitted 
 witli all haste to be printed in Charleston, 
 and as they spread through the South they 
 startled the royal governors of Georgia and 
 North Carolina. They were despatched by 
 a messenger to the Continental Congress that 
 the world might know their authors had re- 
 nounced their allegiance to the king of Great 
 Britain, and had constituted a government 
 for themselves. 
 
 " The messenger stopped on his way at 
 Salisbury, and there, to a crowd round the 
 court-house, the resolves were read and ap- 
 proved. The western counties were the most 
 populous part of North Carolina, and the 
 royal governor had flattered himself and the 
 king with the fullest assurance of their sup- 
 port. ^ I have no doubt,' said he, ' that I 
 might command their best services at a word 
 on an emergency. I consider I have the 
 means in my own hands to maintain the sov- 
 ereignty of this country to my royal master 
 in all events.' And now he was obliged to 
 
72 PRESBYTERIANS AND 
 
 transmit tlie deliberate, consistent and well- 
 considered resolutions of Mecklenburg, which 
 he described as the boldest of all, * most trait- 
 orously declaring the entire dissolution of 
 the laws and constitution and setting up a 
 system of rule and regulation subversive of 
 His Majesty's government.' " 
 
 The full text of the Mecklenburg Declara- 
 tion is as follows : 
 
 " 1. Resolved, That whosoever, directly or 
 indirectly, abetted, or in any way, form or 
 manner countenanced, the unchartered and 
 dangerous invasion of our rights, as claimed 
 by Great Britain, is an enemy to this coun- 
 try, to America, and to the inherent and in- 
 alienable rights of man. 
 
 "2. Resolved, That we, the citizens of 
 Mecklenburg county, do hereby dissolve the 
 political bonds which have connected us to 
 the mother country, and hereby absolve our- 
 selves from all allegiance to the British 
 Crown, and abjure all political connection, 
 contract or association with that nation, who 
 
THE REVOLUTION. 73 
 
 have wantonly trampled on our riglits and 
 liberties and inhumanly shed the blood of 
 American patriots at Lexington. 
 
 " 3. Resolved, That we do hereby declare 
 ourselves a free and independent people; are, 
 and of right ought to be, a sovereign and 
 self-governing association, under the control 
 of no power other than that of our God and 
 the general government of the Congress ; to 
 the maintenance of which we solemnly pledge 
 to each other our mutual co-operation and 
 our lives, our fortunes and our most sacred 
 honor. 
 
 "4. Resolved,T\\2ii as we now acknowledge 
 the existence and control of no law or legal 
 officer, civil or military, within this county, 
 we do hereby ordain and adopt as a rule of 
 life, all, each and every of our former laws, 
 wherein, nevertheless, the Crown of Great 
 Britain never can be considered as holding 
 rights, privileges, immunities or authorities 
 therein. 
 
 "5. Resolved, That it is further desired that 
 
74 PRESBYTEBfANS AND 
 
 all, each and every military officer in this 
 county is hereby reinstated in his former 
 command and authority, he acting conform- 
 ably to these regulations. And that every 
 member present of this delegation shall 
 henceforth be a civil officer, namely : A 
 justice of the peace in the character of a 
 * committeeman,' to issue process, hear and 
 determine all matters of controversy accord- 
 ing to the said adopted laws, and to preserve 
 peace, union and harmony in said county, 
 and to use every exertion to spread the love 
 of country and fire of freedom throughout 
 America, until a more general and organ- 
 ized government be established in this prov- 
 ince." 
 
 On December 7, 1819, Captain James Jack 
 certified that he was appointed to carry the 
 declaration to Congress; that he stopped at 
 Salisbury, where Colonel Kennon, an at- 
 torney, read the resolutions in open court ; 
 that he only heard of one person, a Mr. 
 Beard, who opposed them ; and that he went 
 
THE REVOLUTION. 75 
 
 on to Philadelphia and delivered the decla- 
 ration. 
 
 The royal governor of the province, on the 
 30th of June, 1775, wrote as follows to the 
 colonial secretary of Great Britain : 
 
 " The resolves of the committee of Meck- 
 lenburg, which your lordship will find in the 
 enclosed newspaper, surpass all the horrid 
 and treasonable publications the inflamma- 
 tory spirits of this continent have yet pro- 
 duced; and your lordship may depend its 
 authors and abettors will not escape my 
 notice whenever my hands are sufficiently 
 strengthened to attempt the recovery of the 
 lost authority of the government. 
 
 "A copy of these resolves, I am informed, 
 was sent off to the Congress at Philadelphia 
 as soon as they were passed in the committee.'' 
 
 Then, on the 8th of August, 1775, he 
 issued a proclamation in which he said : 
 
 " Whereas I have seen a most infamous 
 publication in the * Cape Fear Mercury,' im- 
 porting to be the resolves of a set of people 
 
76 presbyteriJlns and 
 
 styling themselves a Committee of the County 
 of Mecklenburg, most traitorously declaring 
 the entire dissolution of laws, government and 
 constitution of this country, and setting up a 
 system of rule and regulation repugnant to 
 the laws and subversive of His Majesty's 
 government." 
 
 The coincidence of language and phrase 
 between the Mecklenburg and national 
 declarations will surprise no one familiar 
 with the political writings and speeches of 
 those times, where such phrases constantly 
 recur. 
 
 The silence of Congress respecting this 
 declaration, and the fact that both Jefferson 
 and John Adams knew nothing of it, are 
 easily explained. The messenger who con- 
 veyed to Philadel23hia the report of the 
 Mecklenburg proceedings delivered that re- 
 port to the North Carolina delegates. It 
 was the business of these delegates to pre- 
 sent this to Congress. But as Congress at 
 this time shrank from the thought of in- 
 
THE REVOLUTION. 11 
 
 dependence, and three months after this 
 unanimously and in the humblest terms 
 petitioned King George for redress of 
 grievances, what more likely than that the 
 Carolina delegates looked upon the Meck- 
 lenburg movement as a hasty act of a few 
 enthusiasts, and refrained from so much as 
 mentioning the matter in Congress ? 
 
 As late as August, 1775, Mr. Jefferson 
 said : " I would rather be in dependence 
 on Great Britain, properly limited, than on 
 any nation on earth, or than on no nation^ 
 
 Washington said in May, 1776, "When 
 I took command of this army (June, 1775), 
 I abhorred the idea of independence.^' 
 
 As to John Adams, so far as we can 
 learn from Bancroft, his first public word 
 in favor of independence was long subse- 
 quent to May, 1775. 
 
 Whatever, then, is uncertain, this is un- 
 questionable, that the Presbyterians of Meck- 
 lenburg in May, 1775, far in advance of 
 Congress and in advance of the rest of the 
 
78 PRESBYTERIANS AND THE REVOLUTION. 
 
 • 
 
 country, passed resolutions which the royal 
 governor Martin, in June of that year, could 
 very justly stigmatize as " treasonable," and 
 in August following could proclaim as " de- 
 claring the dissolution of the laws, govern- 
 ment and constitution of the country, and 
 the setting up of a system of rule and reg- 
 ulation repugnant to the laws and subver- 
 sive of His Majesty's government." 
 
 Mr. Bancroft is more than justified in his 
 declaration that ^'the first voice publicly 
 raised in America to dissolve all connection 
 with Great Britain came, not from the Puri- 
 tans of New England, nor the Dutch of New 
 York, nor the planters of Virginia, hut from 
 the Scotch-Irish Presbyterians J^ 
 
CHAPTER yil. 
 PRESBYTERIAN ZEAL AND SUFFERING. 
 
 rPHE zeal of Presbyterians during the war 
 exposed them to s|)ecial cruelties at the 
 hands of the British soldiery. Among the 
 foremost patriots of that day was the Rev. 
 James Caldwell, pastor of the Presbyterian 
 church of Elizabeth town, N. J. 
 
 " Descended from the Huguenots," writes 
 the Rev. Dr. Sprague in his "Annals," "and 
 imbibing the spirit of the Scotch Covenant- 
 ers, he may be said to have inherited a feel- 
 ing of opposition to tyrants. Connected with 
 his congregation were the Daytons, the Og- 
 dens, Francis Barber, William Crane, Oliver 
 Spencer, Elias Boudinot, William Living- 
 ston, Abram Clark, and others who became 
 eminent for their wisdom, piety, valor and 
 patriotism." 
 
 79 
 
80 PRESBYTEmANS AND 
 
 "When the news of the passage of the Dec- 
 laration of Independence reached the New 
 Jersey brigade, of which he w^as chaplain, 
 the men were called together, and Parson 
 Caldwell gave this toast : " Harmony, honor 
 and all prosperity to the free and independ- 
 ent United States of America; wise legisla- 
 tors, brave and victorious armies, both by sea 
 and land, to the United States of America.'' 
 His church was given up to be used as a 
 hospital for the sick. Its bell sounded the 
 alarm on the approach of the foe. 
 
 In an attack upon Springfield, when the 
 wadding of the patriots gave out, Caldwell 
 ran to the Presbyterian church ; and return- 
 ing with his arms and pockets filled with 
 "Watts' Psalms and Hymns," he scattered 
 them among the soldiers, exclaiming, " Now, 
 boys, give them Watts !" 
 
 In vexation at his patriotism, British of- 
 ficers offered large rew^ards for his ca23ture. 
 Failing in this, the British soldiery set fire to 
 his church and shot his wife through the win- 
 
THE REVOLUTION. 81 
 
 dow of her own room in the midst of her 
 nine children, dragged her bleeding corpse 
 into the street and laid the house and other 
 surrounding buildings in ashes. The follow- 
 ing poem by Bret Harte tells the story : 
 
 " Here's the spot. Look around you. Above on the height 
 Lny the Hessians encamped. By that church on the right 
 Stood the gaunt Jersey farmers. And here ran a wall. 
 You may dig anywhere, and you'll turn up a ball. 
 Nothing more. Grasses spring, waters run, flowers blow 
 Pretty much as they did ninety-three years ago. 
 
 " Nothing more did I say ? Stay one moment ; you've heard 
 Of Caldwell, the parson, who once preached the word 
 Down at Springfield ? What, no ? Come, that's bad ! Why, 
 
 he had 
 All the Jerseys aflame. And they gave him the name 
 Of the ' rebel high priest,' He stuck in their gorge, 
 For he loved the Lord God, and he hated King George. 
 
 " He had cause, you may say. When the Hessians that day 
 Marched up with Knyphausen, they stopped on the way 
 At the ' Farms,' where his wife, with a child in her arms, 
 vSat alone in the house. How it happened none knew 
 But God and that one of the hireling crew 
 Who fired the shot. Enough ! there she lay, 
 And Caldwell the chaplain, her husband, away. 
 
 *' Did he preach? did lie pray? Think of him as you stand 
 By the old church to-dav ; think of him and that band 
 
82 PRESBYTERIANS AND 
 
 Of militant plougliboys. See the smoke and the lieat 
 Of that reckless advance, of that straggling retreat ! 
 Keep the ghost of that wife, foully slain, in your view, 
 And what could you, what should you, what would you do ? 
 
 " Why, just what he did. They were left in the lurch 
 For the want of more wadding. He ran to the church, 
 Broke the door, stripped the pews, and dashed out in the 
 
 road 
 With his arras full of hymn-books, and threw down his load 
 At their feet. Then above all the shouting and shots 
 Rang his voice: * Put Watts into 'era ! boys, give 'em Watts !' 
 
 "And they did. That is all. Grasses spring, flowers blow 
 Pretty much as they did ninety-three years ago. 
 You may dig anywhere, and you'll turn up a ball, 
 But not always a hero like this; and that's all." 
 
 Dr. Thomas Smyth writes : '' The battles 
 of the Cowpens, of King's Mountain, and 
 also the severe skirmish known as Hiick's 
 Defeat, are celebrated as giving a turning- 
 point to the contests of the Revolution. Gen- 
 eral Morgan, who commanded at the Cow- 
 pens, Avas a Presbyterian elder. General 
 Pickens, who made all the arrangements for 
 the battle, was a Presbyterian elder, and 
 nearly all under their command were Pres- 
 
THE REVOLUTION. 83 
 
 byterians. In the battle of King's Mountain 
 Colonel Campbell, Colonel James Williams, 
 Colonel Cleaveland, Colonel Shelby and Col- 
 onel Sevier were all Presbyterian elders, and 
 the body of their troops were from Presby- 
 terian settlements. At Hack's Defeat, in 
 York, Colonel Bratton and Major Dickson 
 were both elders in the Presbyterian Church. 
 Major Samuel Morrow, who was with Colonel 
 Sumpter in four engagements and took part 
 in many other engagements, was for about 
 fifty years a ruling elder in the Presbyterian 
 Church. 
 
 " It may also be mentioned that Marion, 
 Huger and other distinguished men of 
 Kevolutionary memory were of Huguenot 
 — that is, of full-blooded Presbyterian — de- 
 scent." 
 
 On this point we find the following in the 
 lamented Gillett's " History of the Presbyte- 
 rian Church in the United States:" 
 
 " In initiating the Revolution and in sus- 
 taining the patriotic resistance of their coun- 
 
84 PRESBYTERIANS AND 
 
 trymen to illegal tyranny, tlie ministers of 
 tlie Presbyterian Church bore a conspicuous, 
 and even foremost, part. Throughout that 
 most trying and disastrous period through 
 which the Church and country had as yet 
 been called to pass they proved themselves 
 alike faithful to both. 
 
 "They preached the duty of resisting 
 tyrants. They cheered their people in the 
 dreary period of conflict by inspiring lofty 
 trust in the God of nations. 
 
 "Among those who advocated the cause 
 of the colonists and strengthened the patri- 
 otic zeal by Christian principle were Dr. 
 Witherspoon, Patrick Alison in Baltimore, 
 William Tennent in Charlestown, George 
 Duffield in Philadelphia, John Miller at 
 Dover, James Waddell and John Blair 
 Smith in Virginia. 
 
 " John Carmichael preached at their re- 
 quest to the militia of Lancaster. The dis- 
 course of Miller of Dover, who was bold in 
 the expression of his patriotic ardor, was 
 
THE REVOLUTION. 85 
 
 especially remarkable. Several days before 
 the Declaration of Independence he so far 
 anticipated the spirit of that decisive mea- 
 sure as to address his j)eo]3le from that sig- 
 nificant text, ' We have no part in David, 
 nor anv inheritance in the son of Jesse : to 
 your .tents, O Israel !' 
 
 " Robert Davidson, pastor of the First 
 Presbyterian church of Philadelphia at the 
 commencement of the war, preached before 
 several military companies from the text, 
 * For there fell down many slain because 
 the war was of God.' A fortnight after, it 
 was repeated before the troops at Burlington. 
 
 ^' Of John Craighead it is sai'd, ' He fought 
 and preached alternately.' At the commence- 
 ment of the war he raised a company from 
 the members of his charge and joined Wash- 
 ington's army in New Jersey. His friend, 
 Dr. Cooper of the Middle Spring church, is 
 also said to have been captain of a company. 
 He preached 'before Colonel Montgomery's 
 battalion under arms ' near Shippensburg, 
 
SQ IpS^byteriaxs and 
 
 Pennsylvania, August 31, 1775, a sermon 
 entitled 'Couraoe in a Good Cause.' 
 
 '' Dr. King of Gonococheague was eminent 
 for his patriotic zeal. He not only volun- 
 teered and went as chaplain to the battalion 
 which marched from his region, but many 
 were the addresses which he delivered to in- 
 spirit the hearts of the people in their devo- 
 tion to the cause of the country. 
 
 " In one of his sermons he said : ' Subjec- 
 tion is demanded of us, but it is not the con- 
 stitutional subjection which we are bound to 
 pay. It is not a legal subjection to the king 
 they wonld bring us to — that we already ac- 
 knowledge — ^^?>ut it is a subjection to the Brit- 
 ish j)arliament or to the people of Great 
 Britain. They are not our lords or masters ; 
 they are no more than our brethren and 
 fellow-subjects. They call themselves, and 
 it has been usual to call them, the mother- 
 country. But this is only a name ; and if 
 there was anything in it, one would think 
 that it should lead them to treat us like chil- 
 
THE REVOLUTION. 87 
 
 dren. But is it fatherly or motherly to strip 
 us of everything, to rob us of every right and 
 privilege, and then to whip and dragoon us 
 with fleets and armies till we are pleased? 
 No. As the name does not belong to them, 
 so their conduct shows that they have no 
 right to claim it. We are on an equal foot- 
 ing with them in all respects — with respect 
 to government and privileges — and therefore 
 their usurpation ought to be opposed. Nay, 
 when the king uses the executive branch of 
 government, which is in his hand, to enable 
 one part of his subjects to lord it over and 
 oppress another, it is a sufficient ground for 
 our applying to the laws of nature for our 
 defence. 
 
 " * But this is the case with us. We have 
 no other refuge from slavery but those pow- 
 ers which God has given us and allowed us 
 to use in defence of our dearest rights ; and 
 I hope he will bless our endeavors and give 
 success to this 0|)pressed people, and that the 
 wicked instruments of all these distractions 
 
«» PRESBYTERMNS AND 
 
 shall meet their due reward. I earnestly 
 wish that in such troublous times, while we 
 plead for liberty, a proper guard may be 
 kept against any turbulent or mobbish out- 
 break, and that unanimity may be universal 
 both in council and in action, and that we 
 may still have an eye to the great God who 
 has some important reasons for such severe 
 corrections. Let us look to the rod and 
 him that hath appointed it. Let us humble 
 ourselv^es before him daily for our sins and 
 depend upon him for success. If he be 
 against us, in vain do we struggle. If the 
 Lord be for us, though an host should en- 
 camp against us, we need not be afraid.' " 
 
 In one of the darkest hours of the strife, 
 after the repulse in Canada, he said in a 
 funeral discourse on the death of Mont- 
 gomery : 
 
 " Surely we have still reason for the exer- 
 cise of faith and confidence in God that he 
 will not give up a people to the unlimited 
 will and power of others who have done all 
 
THE REVOLUTION. 89 
 
 they could to avert the calamity, and who so 
 strenuously adhered to the course of reason 
 and humanity— a people who have been at- 
 tacked with unprovoked violence and driven 
 with the greatest reluctance to take up arms 
 for their defence — a people whom he himself, 
 by a series of gracious actings, hath gradu- 
 ally led on to this condition. Therefore, when 
 these are our circumstances, we may ration- 
 ally judge that God is not an unconcerned 
 spectator, but that he sees and will reward 
 the persecutors. 
 
 " Many things, indeed, seem to be against 
 us— a very great and powerful enemy, who 
 have long been trained to victory ; their 
 numerous and savage allies, who, having lost 
 their liberty, would have others in the same 
 condition ; our weakness and inexperience in 
 war ; internal enemies ; the loss of many of 
 our friends and a beloved and able general. 
 But let not these destroy our hopes or damp 
 our spirits. To put too much confidence in 
 man is the way to provoke God to deprive 
 
90 PRESBYTERIANS AND 
 
 US of tliem. This may perhaps be the dark- 
 ness which precedes the glorious day. . . . 
 It is agreeable to God's method to bring low 
 before he exalteth, to humble before he raises 
 up. Let us trust in him and do our duty, 
 and commit the event to His determination 
 who can make these things to be for us 
 which, by a judgment of sense, we are ready 
 to say are against us." 
 
 In a similar strain did he exhort the sol- 
 diers marching to the field or address the 
 people w^ho remained behind. " Be thou 
 faithful unto death " was the text of one of 
 his discourses. " There is no soldier," he 
 said, "so truly courageous as a pious man. 
 There is no army so formidable as those 
 who are superior to the fear of death. Con- 
 sequently, no one qualification is more neces- 
 sary in a soldier than true religion." These 
 words were accompanied by the tender coun- 
 sels of a pastor whose affections followed his 
 men to the scenes of danger and death. With 
 the greatest earnestness he urged them to 
 
THE REVOLUTION. 91 
 
 watch over their own souls, and not to bring 
 dishonor on the cause to which they were 
 attached. 
 
 While several of the Presbyterian minis- 
 ters performed service and led comiDanies to 
 the field, a large number were engaged as 
 chaplains in the army. Alexander Mc- 
 Whorter, afterward Dr. McWhorter, of New- 
 ark, was chaplain of Knox's brigade while it 
 lay at White Plains, and often had General 
 Washington among his hearers. James 
 F. Armstrong, afterward of Elizabethtown, 
 joined a volunteer company before his li- 
 censure, and soon after he was ordained was 
 appointed by Congress " chaplain of the sec- 
 ond brigade of the Maryland forces." Adam 
 Boyd was chaplain of the North Carolina 
 brigade. Daniel McCalla was sent to Can- 
 ada as chaplain with General Thompson's 
 forces at the commencement of hostilities. 
 Dr. John Podgers was chaplain of Heath's 
 brigade. George Duffield, in connection 
 with Mr. (afterward Bishop) White, was 
 
92 PBESBYTEBI*ANS AND 
 
 employed as cliaplain of the Colonial Con- 
 gress. 
 
 " It was not unfrequently that the minister 
 of peace felt called upon to engage in active 
 service in the armies of his country, and not 
 a few of the young men who had w^on dis- 
 tinction in the use of carnal weapons became 
 afterward still more eminent in the service 
 of the gospel. When an unusual number 
 of his people had been drafted to serve in 
 the militia, James Latta, of Chestnut Level, 
 with a view to encourage them, took his 
 blanket, shouldered his knapsack and ac- 
 companied them on their campaign. 
 
 " Samuel Eakin, of Penn's Neck, was a 
 strong Whig and the idol of the soldiers. 
 Gifted wath extraordinary eloquence and 
 accounted scarcely inferior to Whitefield, he 
 was ever on the alert to kindle the j^atriotic 
 zeal of his countrymen. When there were 
 military trainings, or the soldiers were or- 
 dered to march, he w^as present to address 
 them and thrill them by his eloquence. 
 
THE REVOLUTION. 93 
 
 "John Blair Smith, teacher, and afterward 
 president of Hampden-Sidney College, was 
 chosen captain of a company of students, and 
 after the battle of Cowpens hurried to join 
 the retreating army, and was only dissuaded 
 by the remonstrances of the commanding 
 officer, who represented to him that his pa- 
 triotic speeches at home would be far more 
 valuable than his services in the camp. 
 
 " James Hall, of North Carolina, subse- 
 quently the pioneer missionary in the valley 
 of the Mississippi, was selected as leader, and 
 accepted the command, of a company formed 
 mainly from his own congregation, whom 
 his fervid and pathetic appeals had inspired 
 to arm against Cornwallis. Such was his 
 reputation that he was offered the commis- 
 sion of brigadier-general. 
 
 " When Tarleton and his British dragoons 
 spread consternation throughout the sur- 
 rounding valley of Virginia, William Gra- 
 ham, John Brown and Archibald Scott 
 exhorted the stripling youths of their con- 
 
94 PRESBYTERIANS AND 
 
 gregations — their elder brethren were ah^eady 
 with Washington — to rise, join their neigh- 
 bors and dispute the passage of the invader 
 and his legion at Rockfish Gap, on the Blue 
 Kidge. Graham was the master-spirit, but 
 he was heartily supported by his co-presby- 
 ters. On one occasion, wdien there was back- 
 wardness to enlist, he had his own name 
 enrolled. The effect was such that the com- 
 pany was immediately filled, and he was 
 unanimously chosen captain. 
 
 '* It is worthy of mention that Dr. Ashbel 
 Green, many years before he tlspired to be 
 an ecclesiastical leader, had obtained the dis- 
 tinction of orderly sergeant in the militia of 
 the Revolutionary period, and had risked his 
 life in the cause of his country. Dr. Moses 
 Hoge served for a time, previous to entering 
 the ministry, in the army of the Revolution. 
 Dr. John Brown, president of Georgia Uni- 
 versity, had at the early age of sixteen ex- 
 changed the groves of the academy for the 
 noise and bustle of the camp, and fought with 
 
THE REVOLUTION. 95 
 
 intrepid spirit by the side of Sumter his coun- 
 try's battles. Dr. Asa Hillyer, of Orange, 
 N. J., while a youth, assisted his father, a 
 surgeon in the Revolutionary army. Joseph 
 Badger was in the battle of Bunker Hill, 
 and served as soldier, baker, nurse, etc., in 
 Arnold's expedition to Canada. 
 
 "James White Stephenson, of South Car- 
 olina, teacher of Andrew Jackson, served 
 throughout the war, and on one occasion had 
 his gun shivered in his hand by the enemy's 
 shot, which glanced and killed the man who 
 stood by his side. Lewis Feuilleteau Wil- 
 son, who studied medicine before his atten- 
 tion was directed to theology, served for 
 several years as surgeon in the Continental 
 army. Simpson, of Fishing Creek, S. C, 
 encouraged his people to deeds of heroism or 
 patient endurance, and was himself found 
 bearing arms, and was in several engage- 
 ments. Joseph Alexander, of the same State, 
 was often a fugitive from his own home, 
 while he offered his dwelling at all times 
 
96 PRESBYTERIANS AND 
 
 as a hospital for. sick or wounded soldiers. 
 Jonas Coe, one of the early members of the 
 Albany presbytery, joined the army, along 
 with his father and four brothers, while yet 
 a youth of sixteen. Robert Marshall, after- 
 ward an eloquent minister in Kentucky, was 
 in six general engagements, one of which 
 was the hard-fought battle of Monmouth. 
 James Turner, the eloquent Virginian j)reach- 
 er, could boast that at the early age of seven- 
 teen he had seen service in the Revolution- 
 ary army. 
 
 " These are but a few of that large band 
 identified with the interests of the Presbyte- 
 rian Church, and then, or at a later period, 
 serving at her altar, who freely risked their 
 lives in the service of their country. Whether 
 in the bosom of their own congregations or 
 serving in the camp, they were animated by 
 the same devotion to the cause of God and 
 their native land. Their message every- 
 where was welcome. The soldier was in- 
 spired to bolder courage by the look and 
 
THE REVOLUTION. 97 
 
 words of his own pastor or the pulpit exhor- 
 tations of those who shared his hardships 
 and his perils. The camp betrayed the 
 presence of a conservative influence, which 
 checked the vices which are wont to be in- 
 digenous to it, while many who never lis- 
 tened to the gos23el before were privileged to 
 hear it at a crisis when at every hour they 
 stood in peril of their lives. 
 
 *' To the privations, hardships and cruelties 
 of the war the Presbyterians were pre-emi- 
 nsntly exposed. In them the very essence 
 of rebellion was supposed to be concentrated, 
 and by the v^anton plunderings and excesses 
 of the marauding parties they suffered se- 
 verely. Their Presbyterianism was prima 
 facie evidence of guilt. A house that had a 
 large Bible and David's Psalms in metre in 
 it was supposed, as a matter of course, to be 
 tenanted by rebels. To sing "Old Rouse" 
 was almost as criminal as to have leveled a 
 loaded musket at a British grenadier. 
 
 "To the Presbyterian clergy the enemy felt 
 
98 PRESBYTERIANS AND 
 
 an especial antipathy. They were accounted 
 the ringleaders of rebellion. For them there 
 was often not so much safety in their own 
 dwellings as in the camp. When their peo- 
 ple were scattered, or it was no longer safe 
 to remain among them, the only alternative 
 was to flee or join the army; and this alter- 
 native was often presented. Not unfre- 
 quently the duty of the chaplain or the 
 pastor exposed him to dangers as great as 
 those which the common soldier was called 
 to meet. There was risk of person, some- 
 times capture, and sometimes loss of life. 
 Some ministers fled for safety. Dr. Rodgers 
 was forced to absent himself from New York 
 till the close of the war; McKnight, of 
 Shrewsbury, N. J., was carried off a captive ; 
 Richards, of Rahway, N. J., took warning 
 and fled ; Dr. Buell, of East Hampton, L. I., 
 who remained at his post, repeatedly ran im- 
 minent risks even from the men whom his 
 wit and urbanity finally disarmed. 
 
 " Duffield was saved from ca]3ture at Tren- 
 
THE REVOLUTION. 9^ 
 
 ton only by the timely warning of a friendly 
 Quaker. At one time, while the enemy were 
 on Staten Island, he preached to the soldiers 
 in an orchard on the opposite side of the bay. 
 The forks of a tree served him for a pulpit ; 
 but the noise of the singing attracted the 
 notice of the enemy, and soon the voice of 
 praise was interrupted by the whistling of 
 balls. But the preacher, undismayed by the 
 danger, bade his hearers retire behind a hil- 
 lock, and there finished his sermon. Daniel 
 McCalla was confined for several months in 
 a loathsome prison-ship near Quebec. Ne- 
 hemiah Greenman, of Pittsgrove, JST. J., fled 
 to the wilderness to escape the indignities so 
 largely dealt out by the enemy to the Pres- 
 byterian ministers. Azel Poe, of Wood- 
 bridge, N. J., taken prisoner by the enemy, 
 was confined for some time in the old susar- 
 house. He came near having a fall in a 
 small stream which the company had to ford 
 on the way. The commanding officer kindly 
 offered to carry Mr. Poe over on his back. 
 
100 PRESBYTERIANS AND 
 
 The offer was accejDted ; and the suggestion 
 of Mr. Koe to the officer that he was priest- 
 ridden now if never before so convulsed him 
 with laughter that he w^as like to have 
 dropped his load. Less merciful was the 
 experience of John Kosburgh, of Allentown, 
 N. J., first a private soldier and afterward 
 chaplain of a military company formed in 
 his neighborhood, and who w^is shot down 
 in cold blood by a body of Hessians to 
 vv^honi he had surrendered himself a pris- 
 oner. There was a strange commingling of 
 carnal and spiritual weapons in the experi- 
 ence of the camp. Joseph Patterson, one of 
 the fathers of the presbytery of Redstone, 
 had just knelt to pray under a shed w^hen a 
 board on a line with his head w^as shivered 
 by the discharge of a rifle. Stephen B. 
 Balch preached a sermon on subjection to 
 the higher powers while General Williams, 
 to the annoyance of royalists who were pres- 
 ent, protected him with loaded pistols in his 
 belt. The ministers on the frontiers, ex- 
 
THE REVOLUTION. 101 
 
 posed to the attacks of the Indians, were 
 compelled to go constantly armed. Thad- 
 deus Dod, with his people, exchanged his 
 church for the fort that had been built on 
 the Monongahela. Samuel Doak, of the 
 Holston settlements, paused in his sermon at 
 the alarm of an attack, seized his rifle, that 
 stood by his side, and led his male hearers in 
 pursuit of the foe. 
 
 " Not a few of the ministers of the Pres- 
 byterian Church were called into the civil 
 service of their country. Jacob Green, the 
 father of Dr. Ashbel Green, was a zealous 
 patriot, and was elected, though contrary to 
 his expressed wishes, a member of the pro- 
 vincial Congress of New Jersey. He was 
 chairman of the committee that drafted the 
 constitution of the 8tate. 
 
 " Henry Patillo was a member of the pro- 
 vincial Congress of North Carolina. J. J. 
 Zubly was a delegate from Georgia to the 
 Continental Congress. 
 
 " William Tennent of the Circular church. 
 
102 PRESBYTERIAH^ AND 
 
 Charleston, was a member of the provincial 
 Congress of South Carolina, and amid the 
 fearful emergencies of the period, and at 
 different hours of the same day, he was 
 occasionally heard, in his church and in the 
 State-house, addressing different audiences 
 with equal animation on their temporal and 
 spiritual interests. And not content with 
 this, in company with William H. Dray- 
 ton he made the circuit of the middle and 
 up-country of the State to stimulate the 
 people to resistance. 
 
 *' David Caldwell was a member of the con- 
 vention that formed the State constitution of 
 North Carolina. Kettletas, of Jamaica, was 
 chosen a delegate to the New York conven- 
 tion; and Duffield, E-odgers, McWhorter 
 and others were often consulted by civil and 
 military officers in the trying crises of the 
 Revolutionary period, and they were always 
 prompt to render their services. Like 
 Thomas Read, of Delaware, roused from his 
 bed at midnight to describe the region which 
 
THE REVOLUTION. 103 
 
 the army was to traverse, and in which he 
 might act as a guide, they were never 
 wanting when their country required their 
 counsel or their aid. 
 
 " It is not strange that their course was re- 
 garded as specially obnoxious by the British 
 troops. Their houses were plundered, their 
 churches often burned and their books and 
 manuscripts committed to the flames. The 
 church of Midway, in Georgia, then Congre- 
 gational, rendered itself obnoxious to the foe 
 by its patriotic zeal. In November, 1778, a 
 special detachment from Florida attacked the 
 settlement, burned the church edifice, almost 
 every dwelling-house, the crops of rice then in 
 stack, drove off the negroes and horses, carried 
 away the plate belonging to the planters, and 
 outraged even the graves of the dead. Some 
 of the members of the congregation were seized 
 and imprisoned. Dr. McWhorter had re- 
 moved to Carolina while the enemy, under 
 Cornwallis, threatened the Southern country. 
 Under the apprehension of danger, he fled 
 
104 PRESBYTERIANS AND 
 
 with his family, and on his return found that 
 his library, furniture and nearly all that he 
 possessed had been sacrificed. Not less un- 
 fortunate were Elihu Spencer at Trenton, 
 and David Caldwell and Hugh McAden 
 of North Carolina. On many occasions the 
 soldiers studiously destroyed all that they 
 could not carry away, and the Presbyterian 
 clergy were generally the special objects of 
 vengeance. 
 
 "As might be expected, religion suffered 
 greatly throughout the entire period of the 
 w^ar. The church edifices were often taken 
 possession of by an insolent soldiery and 
 turned into hospitals or prisons, or perverted 
 to still baser uses as stables or riding- 
 schools. The church at Newtown had its 
 steeple sawed off, and was used as a prison or 
 guard-house till it was torn down and its 
 siding used for the soldiers' huts. The chuich 
 at CrumiDond was burned to save its being 
 occupied by the enemy. That of Mount 
 Holly was burned by accident or design. 
 
THE REVOLUTION. 105 
 
 The one at Princeton was taken possession 
 of by the Hessian soldiers, and stripped of 
 its pews and gallery for fuel. A fireplace 
 was built, and a chimney carried up through 
 its roof. Supposing it would be defended 
 against him, Washington planted his cannon 
 a short distance off and commenced filing 
 into it. It was subsequently occupied by the 
 American soldiers ; and the close of the war 
 found it dilapidated and open to the weather, 
 while its interior was quite defaced and de- 
 stroyed. 
 
 "The church of Westfield was injured by 
 the enemy, and its bell carried off to New 
 York. The church of Babylon, Long Isl- 
 and, was torn down by the enemy for military 
 purposes. That of New Windsor w^as used 
 as a hospital. This was the case also with 
 the one at Morristown ; and repeatedly in the 
 morning the dead were found lying in the 
 pews. The one at Elizabethtow^n was made 
 a hospital for the sick and disabled soldiers 
 of the American army. Its bell sounded 
 
106 PRESBYTERIANS AND 
 
 the note of alarm at the approach of the foe, 
 while its floor was often the bed of the weary- 
 soldier, and the seats of its pews served as 
 the table from which he ate his scanty meal. 
 At length it was fired by the torch of the 
 refugee in vengeance for the uses to which 
 it had been devoted. The churches at New 
 York were taken possession of by the enemy. 
 Prisoners were confined in them, or they were 
 used by the British ofiicers for stabling their 
 horses. Ethan Allen describes the filth that 
 had accumulated in the one with which he 
 was acquainted as altogether intolerable. 
 More than fifty places of worship through- 
 out the land were utterly destroyed by the 
 enemy during the period of the war. The 
 larger number of these were burned, others 
 were leveled to the ground, while others 
 still were so defaced or injured as to be 
 utterly unfit for use. This was the case in 
 several of the principal cities — at Philadel- 
 phia and Charleston as well as New York. 
 " But all did not escape. Caldwell of Eliz- 
 
THE REVOL UTION. 107 
 
 abethtown was shot by a sentinel who is said 
 to have been bribed by the British or the 
 Tories, to whom he was especially obnoxious. 
 Moses Allen, a classmate of President Madi- 
 son at Princeton, pastor of the Midway church, 
 Georgia, and chaplain of a regiment, was 
 drowned near Savannah, February 8, 1779, 
 in attempting to swim ashore from a prison- 
 ship, the barbarous captain of which refused 
 his friends boards for his coffin. And not a 
 few others incurred hardships which, in all 
 probability, shortened their days. It is cer- 
 tainly remarkable, considering their exposure 
 and the almost venomous hatred with which 
 they were regarded by the enemy, that among 
 tlie Presbyterian ministers the direct victims 
 of the war were so few."* 
 
 * " History of the Presbyterian Church in the United States 
 of America." E. H. Gillett, D, D. Vol. i., chap. 10. 
 
CHAPTER yill. 
 
 FORMAL ACTION OF THE PRESBYTERIAN 
 CHURCH. 
 
 TF, now, from such records as these we turn 
 -*- to what may be termed the official action 
 of the Presbyterian Church in the Revolu- 
 tion, we shall find it full of ardent, high- 
 toned patriotism. 
 
 Dr. Charles Hodge, in his " Constitutional 
 History of the Presbyterian Church in the 
 United States," writes : 
 
 "One of the first exercises of the power 
 claimed by parliament to impose taxes on 
 America was the passage of the Stamp Act in 
 1764. The opposition to this measure was so 
 general and vehement that the British gov- 
 ernment thought proper to repeal the act, 
 though they accompanied the repeal with the 
 strongest declarations of their right to tax the 
 colonies at discretion. In the controversy re- 
 
 108 
 
THE REVOLUTION. 109 
 
 lating to this subject the Synod of New York 
 and Philadelphia publicly expressed their 
 sympathy with their fellow-citizens. As 
 soon as the repeal was known in this coun- 
 try, ' an overture was made by Dr. Alison 
 that an address be presented to our sovereign 
 on the joyful occasion of the repeal of the 
 Stamp Act, and thereby a confirmation of 
 our liberties, and at the same time proposing 
 a copy of an address for examination, which 
 Avas read and approved,' but not recorded. 
 The Synod also addressed a pastoral letter to 
 the churches, filled with patriotic and pious 
 sentiments. They remind the people that 
 after God had delivered the country from 
 the horrors of the French and Indian war, 
 instead of rendering to him according to the 
 multitude of his mercies, they had becomie 
 more wicked than ever. ' The Almighty, 
 thus provoked, permitted counsels of the 
 most pernicious tendency both to Great 
 Britain and her colonies. The imposition 
 of unusual taxes, a severe restriction of our 
 
110 PRESBYTERIANS AND 
 
 trade and an almost total stagnation of busi- 
 ness, threatened us with universal ruin. A 
 long suspense whether we should be deprived 
 of or restored to a peaceable enjoyment of the 
 inestimable privileges of English liberty filled 
 every breast with painful anxiety.' They 
 express their joy that government had been 
 induced to resort to moderate measures in- 
 stead of appealing to force, and call upon the 
 people to bless God, who, notwithstanding 
 their sins, had saved them from the horrors 
 of a civil war. They finally earnestly exhort 
 their people not to add to the common stock 
 of guilt, but *to be strict in observing the 
 laws and ordinances of Jesus Christ, to pay 
 a sacred regard to his Sabbaths, to reverence 
 his holy name, and to adorn the doctrine of 
 God our Saviour by good works. We pray 
 you,' say the Synod, ' to seek earnestly the 
 saving knowledge of Christ and the internal 
 power ai>d spirit of religion. Thus may 
 you hope for the continued kindness of a gra- 
 cious Providence, and this is the right way to 
 
THE REVOLUTION. Ill 
 
 express your gratitude to the Father of mer- 
 cies for your late glorious deliverance. But 
 persisting to grieve his Holy Spirit by a 
 neglect of vital religion and a continuance 
 of sin, you have reason to dread that a holy 
 God will punish you yet seven times more 
 for your iniquities.' " 
 
 As the indications of the coming conflict 
 began to multiply, the Synod endeavored to 
 prepare their people for the trial. Almost 
 every year they appointed days for special 
 prayer and fasting, and presented '' the 
 threatening aspect of public affairs as one 
 of the most prominent reasons for their ob- 
 servance." 
 
 On the 17th of May, 1775, the Synod met 
 in Philadelphia, and almost side by side with 
 the second Continental Congress. In that 
 Congress sat George Washington, Benjamin 
 Franklin, Samuel Adams, John Adams, 
 Richard Henry Lee, Patrick Henry, John 
 Jay and others, their worthy compeers. Near 
 by, in the Synod of New York and Phila- 
 
112 FBESBYTEEIANS AND 
 
 delpliia, then our General Assembly, sat 
 Dr. Witherspoon, William Tennent, Dr. Rod- 
 gers, George Duffield, John Brainerd, Robert 
 Cooper, for a time chaplain in the army ; 
 McWhorter, "who shared the councils of 
 Washington on the memorable 26th of De- 
 cember, 1776, when the American troops 
 crossed the Delaware, and who was after- 
 w^ard chaplain of Knox's brigade ; James 
 Caldwell, inheriting with his Huguenot 
 blood a feeling of opposition to tyranny and 
 tyrants; and Jedediah Chapman, the father 
 of Presbyterianism in Central New York, 
 an:l others besides, wtII worthy to stand 
 in the foremost rank of American and 
 Christian patriots." 
 
 ^' Foremost among them," w^rites Dr. Gillett, 
 whom w^e have quoted above, " was the ven- 
 erable Dr. Witherspoon, Scotch in accent and 
 in strength of conviction, but American in 
 feeling to his heart's core, and destined for 
 six years to represent his adopted State in 
 the general Congress, and draw up many 
 
THE REVOLUTION. 113 
 
 of the most important state papers of the 
 day. 
 
 " With a clear intellect, a calm judgment, 
 indomitable strength of purpose and a.reso- 
 hite and unflinching courage, he combined 
 that conscientious integrity and religious 
 feeling which made him among his associ- 
 ates in the Church what Washington was 
 in the field, and secured for him the respect 
 and veneration of all." 
 
 The following record occurs in the min- 
 utes of this body : " The Synod, considering 
 the present alarming state of public affairs, 
 do unanimously judge it their duty to call 
 all the congregations under their care to 
 solemn fasting, humiliation and prayer, and 
 for this purpose appoint the last Thursday 
 of June next to be carefully and religiously 
 observed. But as the Continental Congress 
 are now sitting, who may probably a]3point a 
 fast for the same purpose, the Synod, from 
 respect to that august body and for greater 
 harmony with other denominations, and for 
 
114 pbesbytebiAns and 
 
 the greater public order, if the Congress shall 
 appoint a day not above four weeks distant 
 from the said last Thursday of June, order 
 that the congregations belonging to this Syn- 
 od do keep the day appointed by Congress 
 in obedience to this resolution ; and if they 
 appoint a day more distant, the Synod order 
 both to be observed by all our communion. 
 The Synod also earnestly recommend it to all 
 the congregations under their care to spend 
 the afternoon of the last Thursday in every 
 month in public solemn prayer to God dur- 
 ing the continuance of our present troubles." 
 
 This recommendation of the observance of 
 a day for prayer every month was frequently 
 repeated during the war. 
 
 Witherspoon, Rodgers and Caldwell were 
 appointed a committee to perform the then 
 unusual task of drawing up a pastoral letter 
 to be sent to the churches. 
 
 "It bore throughout," says Dr. Gillett, 
 " the stamp of their deep feeling and patri- 
 otic as well as religious zeal. Five hundred 
 
THE REVOLUTION. 115 
 
 copies of this noble letter were ordered to be 
 printed and circulated at the Synod's ex- 
 pense. Thus they were scattered through- 
 out all the congregations, contributing in no 
 small measure to kindle and sustain the pa- 
 triotic zeal of the country." 
 
 "The Presbyterian Church, by act of its 
 highest judicatory, thus took its stand at 
 Philadelphia by the side of the American 
 Congress, then in session, and its influence 
 was felt in the most decisive manner through- 
 out the bounds of the Church." 
 This pastoral letter thus begins : 
 " The Synod of New York and Philadel- 
 phia being met at a time when public affairs 
 wear so threatening an aspect, and when, 
 unless God in his sovereign providence speed- 
 ily prevents it, all the horrors of a civil war 
 throughout this great continent are to be ap- 
 prehended, were of opinion that they could 
 not discharge their duty to the numerous 
 congregations under their care without ad- 
 dressing them at this important crisis. As 
 
116 PRESBYTERIANS AND 
 
 the firm belief and habitual recollection of 
 the power and presence of the living God 
 ought at all times to possess the minds of 
 real Christians, so in seasons of public ca- 
 lamity, when the Lord is known by the 
 judgments which he executeth, it would be 
 an ignorance or indifference highly criminal 
 not to look up to him with reverence, to im- 
 plore his mercy by humble and fervent 
 prayer, and, if possible, to prevent his ven- 
 geance by timely repentance. We do, there- 
 fore, brethren, beseech you in the most earn- 
 est manner to look beyond the immediate 
 authors either of your sufferings or fears, 
 and to acknowledge the holiness and justice 
 of the Almighty in the present visitation." 
 
 The Synod then exhorts the people to con- 
 fession and repentance, reminding them that 
 their prayers should be attended with a sin- 
 cere purpose and thorough endeavor after 
 personal and family reformation. *' If thou 
 prepare thine heart and stretch out thine 
 hand toward him ; if iniquity be in thine 
 
THE REVOLUTION. 117 
 
 hands, put it far away, and let not wicked- 
 ness dwell in thy tabernacles." 
 
 They considered it also a proper time to 
 press on all of every rank seriously to con- 
 sider the things which belong to their eternal 
 peace, saying, " Hostilities long feared have 
 now taken place ; the sword has been drawn 
 in one province, and the whole continent, 
 with hardly any exception, seem determined 
 to defend their rights by force of arms. If 
 at the same time the British ministry shall 
 continue to enforce their claims by violence, 
 a lasting and bloody contest must be ex- 
 pected. Surely, then, it becomes those w^ho 
 have taken up arms and profess a willingness 
 to hazard their lives in the cause of liberty 
 to be prepared for death, which to many 
 must be certain, and to every one is a possi- 
 ble or probable event. 
 
 " We have long seen with concern the cir- 
 cumstances which occasioned, and the grad- 
 ual increase of, this unhappy difference. As 
 ministers of the gospel of peace, we have 
 
118 FRESBYTERIfLNS AND 
 
 ardently wished that it might be, and often 
 hoped that it woukl have been, more early 
 accommodated. It is well known to you, 
 otherwise it would be imprudent indeed thus 
 publicly to profess, that we have not been in- 
 strumental in inflaming the minds of the 
 people or urging them to acts of violence 
 and disorder. Perhaps no instance can be 
 given on so interesting a subject in which 
 political sentiments have been so long and so 
 fully kept from the pulpit, and even malice 
 itself has not charged us with laboring from 
 the press. But things have now come to 
 such a state that as we do not w^ish to conceal 
 our opinions as men and citizens, so the re- 
 lation in which we stand to you seemed to 
 make the present improvement of it to your 
 spiritual benefit an indispensable duty." 
 
 Then follows an exhortation directed prin- 
 cipally to young men who might offer them- 
 selves as " champions of their country's 
 cause" to cultivate piety, to reverence the 
 name of God and to trust his providence. 
 
THE REVOLUTION. 119 
 
 "The Lord is with you while ye be with 
 him ; and if ye seek him, he will be found 
 of you : but if ye forsake him, he will for- 
 sake you." 
 
 After this exhortation the Synod offered 
 special counsels to the churches as to their 
 public and general conduct: 
 
 " First. In carrying on this important 
 struggle, let every opportunity be taken to 
 express your attachment and respect to our 
 sovereign King George, and to the revolu- 
 tion principles by which his august family 
 was seated on the British throne. We rec- 
 ommend, indeed, not only allegiance to him 
 from principle and duty as the first magis- 
 trate of the empire, but esteem and reverence 
 for the person of the prince, who has merited 
 well of his subjects on many accounts, and 
 who has probably been misled into his late 
 and present measures by those about him; 
 neither have we any doubt that they them- 
 selves have been in a great degree deceived 
 by false representations from interested per- 
 
120 PEESBYTERIANS AND 
 
 sons residing in America. It gives us the 
 greatest pleasure to say, from our own cer- 
 tain knowledge of all belonging to our 
 communion, and from the best means of in- 
 formation of far the greatest part of all de- 
 nominations in this country, that the present 
 opposition to the measures of administration 
 does not in the least arise from disaffection 
 to the king or a desire of separation from the 
 parent State. We are happy in being able 
 with truth to affirm that no part of America 
 would either have approved or permitted 
 such insults as have been offered to the sov- 
 ereign in Great Britain. We exhort you, 
 therefore, to continue in the same disposition, 
 and not to suffer apprehension or injury 
 itself easily to provoke you to anything 
 which may seem to betray contrary senti- 
 ments. Let it ever appear that you only 
 desire the preservation and security of those 
 rights which belong to you as freemen and 
 Britons, and that reconciliation upon these 
 terms is your most ardent desire. 
 
THE REVOLUTION. 121 
 
 "Secondly. Be careful to maintain the 
 union which at present subsists through the 
 colonies. Nothing can be more manifest 
 than that the success of every measure de- 
 pends upon its being inviolably preserved, 
 and therefore we hope you will leave noth- 
 ing undone which can promote that end. 
 In particular as the Continental Congress, 
 now sitting at Philadelphia, consists of del- 
 egates chosen in the most free and unbiased 
 manner by the body of the people, let them 
 not only be treated with respect and encour- 
 aged in their difficult service, not only let 
 your prayers be offered up to God for his 
 direction in their proceedings, but adhere 
 firmly to their resolutions, and let it be seen 
 that they are able to bring out the whole 
 strength of this vast country to carry them 
 into execution. We would also advise for 
 the same purpose that a spirit of candor, 
 charity and mutual esteem be preserved and 
 promoted toward those of different religious 
 denominations. Persons of probity and prin- 
 
^ 
 
 122 PRESBYTERIANS AND 
 
 ciple of every profession should be united 
 together as servants of the same Master; and 
 the experience of our happy concord hitherto 
 in a state of liberty should engage all to unite 
 in support of the common interest ; for there 
 is no example in history in which civil lib- 
 erty was destroyed and the rights of con- 
 science preserved entire. 
 
 " Thirdly. We do earnestly exhort and be- 
 seech the societies under our care to be strict 
 and vigilant in their private government, and 
 to watch over the morals of their several 
 members." 
 
 This duty is urged at some length, and 
 then the letter proceeds thus : 
 
 "Fourthly. We cannot but recommend 
 and urge in the warmest manner a regard to 
 order and the public peace ; and as in many 
 places, during the confusion that prevails, 
 legal proceedings have become difficult, it is 
 hoped that all persons will conscientiously 
 pay their just debts and to the utmost of 
 
THE REVOLUTION. 123 
 
 their power serve one another, so that the 
 evils inseparable from a civil war may not 
 be augmented by wantonness and irreg- 
 ularity. 
 
 "Fifthly. We think it of importance at 
 this time to recommend to all, of every rank, 
 but especially to those who may be called 
 to action, a spirit of humanity and mercy. 
 Every battle of the warrior is with confused 
 noise and garments rolled in blood. It is 
 impossible to appeal to the sword without 
 being exposed to many scenes of cruelty and 
 slaughter, but it is often observed that civil 
 wars are carried on with a rancor and spirit 
 of revenge much greater than those between 
 independent States. The injuries received 
 or supposed in civil wars wound more deeply 
 than those of foreign enemies. It is, there- 
 fore, more necessary to guard against this 
 abuse, and recommend that meekness and 
 gentleness of spirit which is the noblest at- 
 tendant on true valor. That man will fight 
 most bravely who never begins to fight till it 
 
124 PRESBYTERIANS AND 
 
 is necessary, and who ceases to fight as soon 
 as the necessity is over. 
 
 " Lastly. We would recommend to ail the 
 societies under our care not to content them- 
 selves with attending devoutly on general 
 fasts, but to continue habitually in the exer- 
 cise of prayer, and to have frequent occasional 
 voluntary meetings for solemn intercession 
 with God on this imjDortant trial. Those 
 who are immediately exposed to danger need 
 your sympathy, and we learn from the Scrip- 
 tures that fervency and importunity are the 
 very characters of that prayer of the right- 
 eous man that availeth much. We conclude 
 with our most earnest j)rayer that the God 
 of heaven may bless you in your temporal 
 and spiritual concerns, and that the present 
 unnatural disjDute may be speedily termi- 
 nated by an equitable and lasting settlement 
 on constitutional principles." 
 
 The Rev. Mr. Halsey, it is recorded, dis- 
 sented from that paragraph of the above let- 
 ter which contains the declarations of alle- 
 
THE REVOLUTION. 125 
 
 giance. This gentleman, it seems, was at 
 least a year in advance, not only of the Syn- 
 od, but of Congress. This pastoral letter 
 contains a decided and unanimous expression 
 on the part of the Synod of the side which 
 it took in the great struggle for the liberties 
 of America. It certainly does them and the 
 Church which they represented great honor. 
 They adhered to the last to the duties which 
 they owed their sovereign ; they approved 
 of demanding no new liberties ; they re- 
 quired only the secure possession of privi- 
 leges which they were entitled to consider 
 as their birthright. 
 
 The presbytery of Hanover, in a memo- 
 rial presented to the legislature of Virginia 
 in 1776, expressed with earnestness their 
 hearty adoption of their country's cause. 
 " Your memorialists," they say, " are gov- 
 erned by the same sentiments which have 
 inspired the United States of America, and 
 are determined that nothing in our power or 
 influence shall be wanting to give success to 
 
126 PRESBYTERIANS AND 
 
 tlieir common cause. We would also repre- 
 sent that dissenters from the Church of Eng- 
 land in this country have ever been desirous 
 to conduct themselves as peaceable members 
 of the civil government, for which reason 
 they have hitherto submitted to several ec- 
 clesiastical burdens and restrictions that are 
 inconsistent with equal liberty. But now, 
 when the many and grievous oppressions of 
 our mother-country have laid this continent 
 under the necessity of casting off the yoke 
 of tyranny and of forming independent gov- 
 ernments upon equitable and liberal founda- 
 tions, we flatter ourselves we shall be freed 
 from all the encumbrances which a spirit of 
 domination, prejudice or bigotry hath inter- 
 woven with our political systems. This we 
 are the more strongly encouraged to expect 
 by the Declaration of Rights, so universally 
 applauded for that dignity, firmness and pre- 
 cision with which it delineates and asserts 
 the privileges of society and the prerogatives 
 of human nature, and which we embrace as 
 
THE REVOLUTION. 127 
 
 the magna charta of our commonwealth, that 
 can never be violated without endangering 
 the grand superstructure it was destined to 
 \ sustain." 
 
 As at the beginning, so also at the close, 
 of the war, the Synod directed a pastoral 
 letter to their congregations expressing their 
 sentiments in relation to the contest. In 
 the letter written in 1783 they say : 
 
 "We cannot help congratulating you on 
 the general and almost universal attachment 
 of the Presbyterian body to the cause of lib- 
 erty and the rights of mankind. This has 
 been visible in their conduct, and has been 
 confessed by the complaints and resentment 
 of the common enemy. Such a circumstance 
 ought not only to afford us satisfaction on 
 the review as bringing credit to the body in 
 general, but to increase our gratitude to God 
 for the happy issue of the war. Had it been 
 unsuccessful, we must have drunk deeply of 
 the cup of suffering. Our burnt and wasted 
 churches and our plundered dwellings in 
 
128 pbesbytelTtans and 
 
 such places as fell under the power of our 
 adversaries are but an earnest of what we 
 must have suffered had they finally pre- 
 vailed. 
 
 "The Synod therefore requests you to 
 render thanks to almighty God for all his 
 mercies, spiritual and temporal, and in a 
 particular manner for establishing the inde- 
 pendence of the United States of America. 
 He is the supreme Disposer, and to him be- 
 longs the glory, the victory and the majesty. 
 We are persuaded you will easily recollect 
 many circumstances in the course of the 
 struggle which point out his special and 
 signal interjDOsition in our favor. Our 
 most remarkable successes have generally 
 been when things had just before worn the 
 most unfavorable aspect, as at Trenton and 
 Saratoga at the beginning, in South Caro- 
 lina and Virginia toward the end, of the 
 war. They specify, among other mercies, 
 the assistance derived from France and the 
 happy selection ' of a commander-in-chief of 
 
THE REVOLUTION. 129 
 
 the armies of the United States, who in this 
 important and difficult charge has given uni- 
 versal satisfaction, who was alike acceptable 
 to the citizen and the soldier, to the State in 
 which he w^as born and to every other on the 
 continent, and whose character and influence, 
 after so long service, are not only unimpaired 
 but augmented.' " 
 
 On the election of Washington to the pres- 
 idency, the General Assembly appointed a 
 committee to prej)are an address of congrat- 
 ulation, which was as follows : 
 
 "Sir: The General Assembly of the Pres- 
 byterian Church in the United States of 
 America embrace the earliest opportunity in 
 their power to testify the lively and un- 
 feigned pleasure which they, with the rest 
 of their fellow-citizens, feel on your appoint- 
 ment to the first office in the nation. 
 
 " We adore almighty God, the author of 
 every perfect gift, who hath endued you with 
 such a rare and happy assemblage of talents 
 as hath rendered you equally necessary to 
 
130 ^Presbyterians and 
 
 your country in war and in peace. Your 
 military achievement^ ensured safety and 
 glory to America in the late arduous conflict 
 for freedom, while your disinterested conduct 
 and uniformly just discernment of the public 
 interest gained you the entire confidence of 
 the people ; and in the present interesting 
 period of public affairs the influence of your 
 personal character moderates the divisions of 
 political parties and promises a permanent 
 establishment of the civil government. 
 
 " From a retirement more glorious than 
 thrones and sceptres you have been called 
 to your present elevated station by the voice 
 of a great and free people, and with an 
 unanimity of suffrage that has few, if any, 
 examples in history. A man more ambi- 
 tious of fame or less devoted to his country 
 would have refused an office in which his 
 honors could not be augmented, and where 
 they might possibly be subject to a reverse. 
 We are happy that God has inclined your 
 heart to give yourself once more to the 
 
THE n EVOLUTION. 131 
 
 public. And we derive a favorable presage 
 of the event from the zeal of all classes of 
 the j)eople and tlieir confidence in your 
 virtues, as well as from the knowledge and 
 dignity with which the Federal councils are 
 filled. But we derive a presage even more 
 flattering from the piety of your character. 
 Public virtue is the most certain means of 
 public felicity, and religion is the surest 
 basis of virtue. We therefore esteem it a 
 peculiar happiness to behold in our chief 
 magistrate a steady, uniform, avowed friend 
 of the Christian religion, who has commenced 
 his administration in rational and exalted 
 sentiments of piety, and who, in his private 
 conduct, adorns the doctrines of the gospel 
 of Christ, and on the most public and solemn 
 occasions devoutly acknowledges the govern- 
 ment of divine Providence. 
 
 " The example of distinguished characters 
 will ever possess a powerful and extensive in- 
 fluence on the public mind. And when we 
 see in such a conspicuous station the amiable 
 
132 PRESBYTERIANS AND 
 
 example of piety to God, of benevolence to 
 men and of a pure and virtuous patriotism, 
 we naturally hope that it will diffuse its in- 
 fluence, and that eventually the most happy 
 consequences will result from it. To the force 
 of imitation we will endeavor to add the 
 wholesome instructions of religion. We shall 
 consider ourselves as doing an acceptable ser- 
 vice to God in our profession when we con- 
 tribute to render men sober, honest and in- 
 dustrious citizens, and the obedient subjects 
 of a lawful government. In these pious 
 labors we hope to imitate the most worthy 
 of our brethren of other Christian denomi- 
 nations, and to be imitated by them, assured 
 that if we can by mutual and generous emu- 
 lation promote truth and virtue, we shall 
 render a great and important service to the 
 republic — shall receive encouragement from 
 every wise and good citizen, and, above all, 
 meet the approbation of our divine Master. 
 
 " We pray almighty God to have you al- 
 ways in his holy keeping. May he prolong 
 
THE REVOLUTION. 133 
 
 your valuable life, an ornament and a bless- 
 ing to your country, and at last bestow on you 
 the glorious reward of a faithful servant !" 
 
 To which Washington replied : 
 ^' To the General Assembly of the Preshyterian 
 
 Church in the United States of America. 
 
 " Ge^'TLEMEN : I received with great sen- 
 sibility the testimonial given by the General 
 Assembly of the Presbyterian Church in the 
 United States of America of the lively and 
 unfeigned pleasure experienced by them on 
 my appointment to the first office in the 
 nation. 
 
 "Although it will be my endeavor to avoid 
 being elated by the too favorable opinion 
 which your kindness for me may have in- 
 duced you to express of the importance of 
 my former conduct and the effect of my 
 future services, yet, conscious of the disinter- 
 estedness of my motives, it is not necessary 
 for me to conceal the satisfaction I have felt 
 upon finding that my com23liance w^ith the 
 call of my country and my dependence on 
 
134 PEESBYTEEIANS AND 
 
 the assistance of Heaven to support me in 
 my arduous undertaking have, so f^ir as I 
 can learn, met the universal approbation of 
 my countrymen. While I reiterate the pro- 
 fessions of my dependence upon Heaven as 
 the source of all public and private blessings, 
 I will observe that the general prevalence of 
 piety, philanthropy, honesty, industry and 
 economy seems, in the ordinary course of 
 human affairs, particularly necessary for ad- 
 vancing and confirming the happiness of our 
 country. While all men within our territo- 
 ries are protected in worshiping the Deity 
 according to the dictates of their consciences, 
 it is rationally to be expected from them in 
 return that they will all be emulous of evin- 
 cing the sincerity of their professions by the 
 innocence of their lives and the benevolence 
 of their actions. For no man who is profli- 
 gate in his morals or a bad member of the 
 civil community can possibly be a true 
 Christian or a credit to his own religious 
 society. 
 
THE REVOLUTION. 135 
 
 " I desire you to accept my acknowledg- 
 ments for your laudable endeavors to render 
 men sober, honest and good citizens, and the 
 obedient subjects of a lawful government, as 
 well as for your prayers to almighty God for 
 his blessings on our common country and 
 the instrument which he has been pleased to 
 make use of in the administration of its gov- 
 ernment.'" 
 
 " George Washington." 
 
 * The original of this letter is in the possession of the Pres- 
 byterian Board of Publication, Philadelphia. 
 
CHAPTER IX. 
 
 DECLARATION OF INDEPENDENCE AND DR. 
 JOHN WITHERSPOON. 
 
 npHE services of Presbyterianism in the 
 -^ cause of American liberty present two 
 points of special and commanding interest, 
 the one concerning the Declaration of Inde- 
 pendence, the other concerning the organiza- 
 tion of the national confederacy. 
 
 We are apt to think that the Declaration 
 of Independence was so completely a matter 
 of course that there could have been neither 
 question as to its propriety nor opposition to 
 it except from enemies to the patriot cause. 
 In truth, however, the subject w^as hedged 
 about with difficulties numerous and great. 
 Even for a full year after the martyrs had 
 fallen at Lexington, Concord and Breed's 
 Hill (we venture to give the true name in 
 this last case, as it is well known that neither 
 
 186 
 
THE REVOLUTION. 137 
 
 was tlie battle fought, nor does the monu- 
 ment stand, on Bunker Hill), vast numbers 
 of true-hearted patriots shrank from the 
 thought of severance from the mother-coun- 
 try as a true son shrinks from renouncing 
 connection with his parental home. 
 
 Yet on the 17th of May, 1776, kept as 
 a national fast, Mr. Bancroft tells us that 
 "George Dujffield, the minister of the Third 
 Presbyterian Church in Philadelphia, with 
 John Adams for a listener, drew a paral- 
 lel between George III. and Pharaoh, and 
 inferred that the same providence of God 
 which had rescued the Israelites intended 
 to free the Americans." 
 
 Whoever hesitated, Presbyterians did not. 
 On the day this sermon was preached the 
 provincial assembly of Pennsylvania voted 
 to leave the question of independence to the 
 discretion of their delegates in Congress, 
 knowing that a majority of those delegates 
 were op20osed to independence, Dickinson 
 pledging his word that they would vote 
 
138 presbytebIans and 
 
 against the measure. The next day the most 
 copious and animated debate ever held upon 
 the subject took place in Congress, lasting 
 from ten in the morning till seven in the 
 evening, Eobert Livingston of New York, 
 "Wilson, Dickinson and Edward Eutledge ar- 
 dently opposing it. 
 
 On Monday the 10th of June Rutledge 
 moved that the question be postponed for 
 three weeks, and it is significant of the state 
 of feeling that this motion, after a whole 
 day's discussion, was carried. 
 
 The next day a committee of five, with 
 Jefferson at its head, was appointed to pre- 
 pare a formal Declaration of Independence 
 and report it to the House. 
 
 On Friday the 28th of June the delega- 
 tion from the provincial Congress of New 
 Jersey ajDpeared in Congress, and among 
 them the only clergyman that sat in that 
 body, Dr. John Witherspoo7i, Presbyterian 
 minister and president of the College of 
 \ New Jersey. 
 
THE REVOLUTION. 139 
 
 Of Dr. Witlierspoon, Mr. Bancroft writes 
 in the sixth chapter of his history : 
 
 " In New Jersey, Witherspoon, a Presbyte- 
 rian minister and ^as high a Son of Liberty 
 as any in America,^ met the committee at 
 New Brunswick in July, 1774, and with 
 "William Livingston, member of the Pres- 
 byterian congregation of Elizabeth, New 
 Jersey, labored to instruct their delegates 
 that the tea should not be paid for." 
 
 Also, in his sixty-seventh chapter: "The 
 new provincial Congress of New Jersey, 
 which came fresh from the people with 
 ample powers, and organized itself on the 
 evening of the 11th of June, 1776, was 
 opened with prayer by John Witherspoon, 
 an eloquent Scottish minister of the same 
 faith with John Knox, a man of great abil- 
 ity, learning and liberality, ready to dash into 
 pieces all false gods. Born near Edinburgh, 
 trained up at its university, in 1768 he re- 
 moved to Princeton to become the successor 
 of Jonathan Edwards, Davies and Finley as 
 
140 PRESBY'TEttlANS AND 
 
 president of its college. A combatant of 
 skepticism and the narrow philosoj)liy of the 
 materialists, he was deputed by Somei'set 
 county to take part in applying his noble 
 theories to the construction of a civil gov- 
 ernment." 
 
 A lineal descendant of John Knox, he 
 was born in Haddingtonshire, Scotland, Feb- 
 ruary 5, 1722 ; ordained to the ministry in 
 1745; became president of the College of New 
 Jersey in 1768; died near Princeton, Septem- 
 ber 15, 1794. He comes before us in his- 
 tory as a " many-sided man." A scholar of 
 the largest culture, a profound theologian, a 
 faithful and laborious pastor, an orator of 
 commanding eloquence, a successful teacher, 
 a voluminous and successful author, a skillful 
 financier and a great leader among men, — it 
 is difficult to say in which of these characters 
 he shone to most advantage. By birth and 
 training the adversary of wrong and oppres- 
 sion in whatever form, immediately on his 
 arrival in this country he identified himself 
 
THE REVOLUTION. 141 
 
 with the colonial cause. Grasping, as by in- 
 tuition, the great principles involved in the 
 struggle with the mother-country, his pow- 
 erful advocacy of American rights speedily 
 elevated him to his proper place by the side 
 of Hancock, JeflPerson, Franklin and their 
 illustrious compeers. 
 
 As a member of the convention that 
 formed the constitution of New Jersey, Dr. 
 Witherspoon astonished and impressed his 
 coadjutors by his knowledge and wisdom as 
 a civilian. 
 
 For six years he was a member of the 
 Continental Congress, for the duties of which 
 position "he was eminently qualified not only 
 by the clearness and vigor of his intellect, the 
 calmness of his judgment and his indomita- 
 ble strength of purpose, but by an uncommon 
 familiarity with the forms of public business, 
 acquired from the position which he held as 
 a leader in the church courts in his native 
 country." The value of his services in that 
 body cannot be overestimated, and the extent 
 
142 PBESBYTEBIANS AND 
 
 and weight of liis influence on the country 
 was immeasurable. 
 
 Sanderson, in his " Biography of the Sign- 
 ers of the Declaration," writes: 
 
 " It is impossible to specify the numerous 
 services in which he was engaged during his 
 long continuance in Congress. 
 
 "His talents as a politician had been 
 thoroughly tested previous to his emigration, 
 as leader of the orthodox party in the Church 
 of Scotland ; and he was fully prepared to 
 play a much more important part on the 
 theatre of our grand Revolution than by 
 disjDlaying his eloquence and sagacity in the 
 Presbyteries, Synods and General Assemblies 
 of Scotland." 
 
 The firm and united adherence to Wash- 
 ington and his cause of the large Scotch and 
 Scotch-Irish population was due in no small 
 degree to their confidence in the piety, ability 
 and wisdom of Dr. Witherspoon. 
 
 He was a member of " the secret com- 
 mittee" of Conerress, whose duties were of the 
 
THE REVOLUTION. 143 
 
 first importance in the prosecution of tlie 
 war. 
 
 In November, 1776, when the army was 
 on the eve of dissolution and all hearts were 
 lapsing into despair. Dr. Witherspoon and two 
 others were appointed a committee to visit 
 and confer with Washington on the condition 
 of affairs. 
 
 In December, when Congress had been 
 driven from Philadelphia to Baltimore, Dr. 
 Witherspoon, Richard Henry Lee and John 
 Adams, having been appointed a committee 
 for the purpose, issued a heart-stirring ap- 
 peal to the people. Dr. Witherspoon was 
 an active and very efficient member of the 
 "Board of War." 
 
 In 1778 he was appointed, with three 
 others, to prepare a manifesto on the brutal 
 treatment by the British of American pris- 
 oners, and the eloquent and touching j^aper 
 reported by this committee was adopted by 
 a unanimous vote of Congress. 
 
 The same year he was appointed, with 
 
144 PRESBYTEjflANS AND 
 
 Robert Morris, Elbridge Gerry, Richard 
 Henry Lee and Gouverneiir Morris, a com- 
 mittee upon the finances. 
 
 In 1779 he greatly distinguished himself 
 as a member of the committee to secure sup- 
 plies for the famishing army. 
 
 The same year, when a body of people re- 
 siding within the "New Hampshire Grants" 
 insisted upon establishing themselves as an 
 independent State, giving rise to great con- 
 fusion and bitter animosities, Dr. Wither- 
 spoon, with four others, w^as a]3pointed a 
 committee to conduct the delicate negotia- 
 tions involved in this perplexing matter. 
 
 In the suj)erlatively important financial 
 questions that harassed and imperiled the 
 infant republic, the adjustment of which 
 " saved the country and exalted a Morris to 
 the rank and grandeur of a Washington," 
 Witherspoon was, more than any other man, 
 the trusted counselor of the great financier. 
 
 Through the darkest hour of the war his 
 courage w^as conspicuous and his resolution 
 
THE REVOLUTION. 145 
 
 indomitable. When, after the defeat on Long 
 Island, Lord Howe's propositions came before 
 Congress, Mr. Bancroft says : 
 
 *^ Witherspoon, with a very great majority 
 of the members, looked upon them as an 
 insult." 
 
 " Like Hush and Witherspoon, John Ad- 
 ams spoke vehemently against the proposed 
 conference." 
 
 Again Bancroft writes: " It was from "VVith- 
 ei'spoon of New Jersey that Madison, bred in 
 the school of Presbyterian dissenters under 
 Y/itherspoon at Princeton, imbibed the lesson 
 of perfect freedom in matters of conscience. 
 When the constitution of that State was 
 framed by a convention comj)Osed chiefly of 
 Presbyterians, they established perfect liberty 
 of conscience without the blemish of a test." 
 
 On the 17th of May, 1776, appointed by 
 Congress as a general fast day. Dr. Wither- 
 spoon preached a sermon, in which lie said : 
 
 ''' It would be criminal not to observe the 
 interposition of Providence in American af- 
 
 10 
 
146 PRESBYTERIANS AND 
 
 fairs. Some important victories have been 
 gained with so little loss that enemies will 
 probably think it has been dissembled. The 
 signal advantage gained by the evacuation 
 of Boston and the shameful flight of the 
 army and navy of Britain was brought about 
 without the loss of a man. 
 
 " I willingly embrace the opportunity of 
 declaring my opinion that the cause in which 
 America is now in arms is the cause of jus- 
 tice, liberty and human nature. 
 
 "Everybody must perceive the absolute 
 necessity of union. 
 
 " He is the best friend of American liberty 
 who is most sincere and active in promoting 
 true and undefiled religion. An avowed en- 
 emy to God I scruple not to call an enemy 
 to his country. I do not wish you to oppose 
 any man's religion, but everybody's wicked- 
 ness. The cause is sacred, and its champi- 
 ons should be holy. 
 
 " I exhort all who go not to the field to 
 apply themselves with the utmost diligence 
 
THE REVOLUTION. 147 
 
 to works of industry. It is in your power 
 by this means not only to supply the neces- 
 sities, but to add strength to your country. 
 
 " Suffer me to recommend to you frugality 
 in your families and every other article of 
 expense. Temperance in meals, moderation 
 and decency in dress, furniture and equipage 
 have, I think, generally been characteristics 
 of a distinguished patriot. 
 
 " God grant that in America true religion 
 and civil liberty may be inseparable, and that 
 the unjust attempts to destroy the one may in 
 the issue tend to the support and establish- 
 ment of the other." 
 
 This sermon was published and dedicated 
 to "The Hon. John Hancock, Esq., Presi- 
 dent of the Congress of the United States of 
 America." To the sermon was apjoended an 
 "Address to the natives of Scotland residins: 
 in America." Of this sermon and address a 
 writer in a recent number of the " New 
 York Evangelist" says: 
 
 " This sermon was printed in Philadelphia 
 
148 PRESBYTEEIANS AND 
 
 and reprinted the next year at Glasgow. 
 The object of the editors in thus reproducing 
 it was openly avowed in their ]3reface. It 
 was * to show what artful means and Mla- 
 cious arguments have been made use of by 
 ambitious and self-designing men to stir up 
 the poor infatuated Americans to the present 
 rebellious measures — what an active hand 
 even Dr. Witherspoon has had therein — to 
 convince his friends in this country of the 
 truth of his being a chief promoter of the 
 American revolt, and that, if he falls into 
 the hands of government and meets with the 
 demerit of his offence, he hath justly and de- 
 servedly procured it to himself.' 
 
 " In an appendix to the sermon it was 
 added to his discredit — although what was 
 then a reproach to his name has now become 
 an honor to his memory — that ' the scheme 
 of independency, it is said, was first planned 
 by him, and success to the independent States 
 of America, we are told, Avas a favorite toast 
 at the doctor's table when entertaining a 
 
THE REVOLUTION. 149 
 
 number of delegates before it was resolved 
 on by the Congress.' 
 
 " The language of the editor of the Scot- 
 tish edition of the sermon reflects the bitter- 
 ness with which the name of Dr. Wither- 
 sj^oon was mentioned in Scotland. He went 
 forth from his native land almost an exile, 
 virtually ostracised by that ^moderatism' in 
 the Church which he had so scathingly ex- 
 posed and so keenly ridiculed in his ' Cha- 
 racteristics.' 
 
 " We may add that for the facts which we 
 have here given we are indebted to a copy 
 of the Scotch edition of Dr. Witherspoon's 
 sermon, Glasgow, 1777, belonging to the 
 library of D. H. McAlpin of this city." 
 
 Conspicuous among the claims of Wither- 
 spoon upon the grateful applause of the nation 
 is the fullness of his confidence in Washington, 
 and the uncompromising fidelity of his ad- 
 herence to him through evil report and good 
 report. This merit is the more conspicuous 
 as it contrasts so strongly with the luke- 
 
150 PRESBYTERIANS AND 
 
 warmness, and even distrust and opposition, 
 of not a few in the Continental Congress, 
 whose course at various times during the war 
 made the great heart of Washington to ache 
 and put the country's cause in jeopardy. 
 
 In Bancroft's fourteenth chapter we read : 
 
 *' In Congress, which had become distracted 
 by selfish schemes, there were signs of im- 
 patience at his (Washington's) superiority, 
 and an obstinate reluctance to own that the 
 depressed condition of the country was due 
 to their having refused to heed his advice. 
 In a projDOsition for giving him the power 
 to remove generals, John Adams objected 
 vehemently, saying : * In private life I am 
 willing to respect and look up to him ; in 
 this house I feel myself to be the superior 
 of General Washington.' 
 
 " Washington was surrounded by officers 
 willing to fill the ears of members of Con- 
 gress with clamor against his management 
 or opinions in counteraction of his advice. 
 
 " With unselfish and untiring zeal. Wash- 
 
THE REVOLUTION. 151 
 
 ington strove to repair the errors and defects 
 of Congress. From the weakness of its 
 powers it would justly escape reprehension 
 if its members had unanimously given him 
 their support, but some of them indulged in 
 open expressions of discontent. 
 
 "Assuming the style of conquerors, they 
 did not, and would not, perceive the true sit- 
 uation of affairs. They were vexed that the 
 commander-in-chief insisted on bringing it 
 to their attention ; and as if Washington had 
 not adventured miracles of daring, Samuel 
 Adams and others were habitually impatient 
 for more enterprise. 
 
 " Washington bore their unjust reproaches 
 with meekness and dignity, never forgetting 
 the obedience and respect that were due to 
 Congress as his civil superior and the repre- 
 sentative of all the States.'' 
 
 Now, while even patriots like Samuel and 
 John Adams, to say nothing of men of lower 
 grade, were misled to censure where they 
 should have applauded, it is something well 
 
152 PRESBYTERIANS AND 
 
 worthy of observation and admiration that 
 Witherspoon was always on the side of the 
 Father of his Country. 
 
 Not least prominent among the features of 
 Dr. Witherspoon's character was his mascu- 
 line and decided piety. 
 
 ''His personal religion," writes one, "is 
 well known. Few men were ever more 
 anxious to walk close with God, and by a 
 solid, righteous and pious life to adorn the 
 doctrine of the gospel. Besides the daily 
 devotions of the closet and the family, he 
 regularly set apart with his household the 
 last day of every year for fasting, humilia- 
 tion and prayer. He was also in the prac- 
 tice of spending days in secret exercises of 
 this kind as occasion required." 
 
 As to his theology, we hardly need the as- 
 surance that " it was Calvinistic according to 
 the system of Calvin himself, subject only to 
 the modification which it has received in the 
 standards of the Presbyterian Church. Be- 
 tween him and Calvin, indeed, there was in 
 
THE REVOLUTION. 153 
 
 talents and improvements no inconsiderable 
 resemblance. Both were men of great in- 
 tellectual powers, both eminent divines, both 
 distinguished heads of literary institutions, 
 both erudite civilians and both keen satirists. 
 Dr. Witherspoon certainly possessed a pecu- 
 liar talent for presenting the Calvinistic doc- 
 trines in a popular form, and in a manner 
 the least offensive to those who do not hold 
 them, while he maintained them firmly in 
 their substance." 
 
 Of Witherspoon, Dr. Aslibel Green writes: 
 " In person Dr. Witherspoon was of the 
 middle size. He was fleshy, with a tendency 
 to corpulence. His limbs were well propor- 
 tioned and his complexion fair. His eyes 
 were strongly indicative of intelligence. His 
 eyebrows were large, hanging down at the 
 ends next his temples. His countenance 
 united gravity with benignity in its general 
 expression. The features of his face possessed 
 much of what painters denominate chara3ter, 
 and of course he was a good subject for the 
 
154 PRESBYTERIANS AXD 
 
 pencil. His public appearance was always 
 graceful and venerable, and in promiscuous 
 company he had more of the quality called 
 presence than any other individual with 
 whom the writer has ever had intercourse, 
 Washington excepted. 
 
 " Dr. Witherspoon was a man of genius. 
 His chief mental strength lay in his reason- 
 ing faculty. He was a powerful thinker. 
 When he took hold of a subject, he searched 
 it to the bottom, and in discussing it he often 
 treated it analytically and synthetically. It 
 was surprising to observe with what readiness 
 he could see through a complicated and per- 
 plexed subject, estimate its real merits and 
 bearing, disentagle it and present it in its true 
 aspect." 
 
 At length the three weeks through which 
 action on the resolution on Independence 
 was postponed draw to a close. On Friday, 
 June 28, Witherspoon and the other New 
 Jersey delegates take their seat in Congress. 
 The resolution comes up, and a further post- 
 
THE REVOLUTION. 155 
 
 ponement is suggested to enable the newly- 
 arrived members to become more familiar 
 with the momentous matter in hand. To 
 this suggestion Dr. Witherspoon answered 
 that for one he was no stranger to the sub- 
 ject, and that he was ready for action. To 
 tlie suggestion that the colonies were not ripe 
 for the measure he answered that in his judg- 
 ment " they were rotting for the want of it." 
 
 The motion was carried that on Monday, 
 July the first, the House go into a committee 
 of the whole upon the subject. Monday 
 came, and fifty members were in their seats. 
 They sat, as usual, with closed doors. The 
 committee on the Declaration had made 
 their report, and that report lay on the table. 
 All that day the resolution was debated, and 
 at the close nine colonies voted for it. South 
 Carolina and Pennsylvania voted unani- 
 mously against, and Delaware was divided. 
 
 On Tuesday the House again went into 
 committee of the whole, and the discussion 
 was continued, and at the close twelve colo- 
 
156 PRESBYTERIANS AND 
 
 nies voted for it, New York not voting. A 
 day intervened, and on Thursday, at the 
 close of the day, the same twelve colonies 
 passed the Declaration of Independence, New 
 York assenting afterward. During the de- 
 bates of these four momentous days the 
 measure encountered strenuous opposition. 
 Dickenson, of Pennsylvania, one of the most 
 respected and one of the ablest members of 
 the House, opposed the measure in a pro- 
 tracted and elaborate argument. 
 
 Of the following synopsis of Mr. Dickin- 
 son's argument Mr. Bancroft says : " It is 
 from a report made by himself that I 
 abridge his elaborate discourse, using no 
 words but his own. 
 
 " ' I value the love of my country,' said 
 Mr. Dickinson, * as I ought, but I value my 
 country more ; and I desire this illustrious 
 assembly to witness the integrity, if not the 
 policy, of my conduct. The first campaign 
 will be decisive of the controversy. The 
 Declaration will not strengthen us by one 
 
THE REVOLUTION. 157 
 
 man or by the least supply, while it may 
 expose our soldiers to additional cruelties. 
 
 " ' No instance is recollected of a people, 
 without a battle fought or an ally gained, 
 abrogating for ever their connection with a 
 warlike commercial empire. It might unite 
 the different parties in Great Britain against 
 us, and create disunion among ourselves. 
 
 " ' With other powers it would rather in- 
 jure than avail us. Foreign aid will not 
 be obtained but by our actions in the field, 
 which are the only evidences of our union 
 and vigor that will be respected. In the war 
 between the United Provinces and Spain, 
 France and Eugland assisted the provinces 
 before they declared themselves independent. 
 If it is the interest of any European kingdom 
 to aid us, we shall be aided without such a 
 Declaration; if it is not, we shall not be 
 aided with it. 
 
 " ' Before such an irrevocable step shall be 
 taken, we ought to know the disposition of 
 the great powers, and how far they will 
 
158 PRESBYTERIANS AND 
 
 permit any one or more of them to inter- 
 fere. 
 
 " ^ The erection of an independent empire 
 on this continent is a phenomenon in the 
 world. Its effects will be immense, and may 
 vibrate round the globe. How they may 
 affect or may be supposed to affect old es- 
 tablishments is not ascertained. 
 
 " * It is singularly disrespectful to France 
 to make the declaration before her sense is 
 known, as we have sent an agent expressly 
 to inquire whether such a declaration would 
 be acceptable to her, and we have reason to 
 believe he is now arrived at the court of 
 Versailles. The measure ought to be de- 
 layed till the common interest shall in the 
 best manner be consulted by common consent. 
 
 " ' Besides, the door to accommodation with 
 Great Britain ought not to be shut until we 
 know what terms can be obtained from some 
 competent j)ower. Thus to break with her 
 before we have compacted with another is to 
 make experiments on the lives and liberties 
 
THE REVOLUTION. 159 
 
 of my countrymen, which I would sooner die 
 than agree to make. At best, it is to throw 
 us into the hands of some other power and 
 to lie at its mercy, for we shall have passed 
 the river that is never to be repassed. We 
 ought to retain the declaration, and remain 
 masters of our own fame and fate. We ought 
 to inform that power that we are filled with 
 a just detestation of our oppressors — that 
 we are determined to cast off for ever all 
 subjection to them, and to declare ourselves 
 independent, and to support that declaration 
 with our lives and fortunes, provided that 
 power will approve the proceeding, acknow- 
 ledge our independence and enter into a 
 treaty with us upon equitable and advan- 
 tageous conditions. 
 
 "^ Other objections to the Declaration at 
 this time are suggested by our internal cir- 
 cumstances. The formation of our govern- 
 ment and an agreement upon the terms of 
 our confederation ought to precede the as- 
 sumption of our station among sovereigns. 
 
160 PEESBTT^IANS AND 
 
 A sovereignty composed of several distinct 
 bodies of men not subject to established 
 constitutions, and not combined together by- 
 confirmed articles of union, is such a sov- 
 ereignty as has never appeared. These par- 
 ticulars would not be unobserved by for- 
 eign kingdoms and States, and they will 
 wait for other proofs of political energy be- 
 fore they will treat us with the desired at- 
 tention. 
 
 '* 'With respect to ourselves the consider- 
 ation is still more serious. The forming of 
 ou:* government is a new and difficult work. 
 When this is done, and the people perceive 
 that they and their posterity are to live 
 under well-regulated constitutions, they will 
 be encouraged to look forward to independ- 
 en(3e as completing the noble system of their 
 po'.itical happiness. The objects nearest to 
 thcim are now enveloped in clouds, and those 
 more distant appear confused. The relation 
 one citizen is to bear to another, and the 
 connection one State is to have with another, 
 
THE REVOLUTION. 161 
 
 tliey do not, cannot, know. Mankind are 
 naturally attached to plans of government 
 that promise quiet and security. General 
 satisfaction with them when formed would, 
 indeed, be a great point attained ; but per- 
 sons of reflection will perhaps think it ab- 
 solutely necessary that Congress should in- 
 stitute some mode for preserving them from 
 future discords. 
 
 '' ' The confederation ought to be settled 
 before the declaration of independence. 
 Foreigners will think it most regular. The 
 weaker States will not be in so much danger 
 of having disadvantageous terms imposed 
 upon them by the stronger. If the Decla- 
 ration is first made, political necessities may 
 urge on the acceptance of conditions highly 
 disagreeable to parts of the Union. The 
 present comparative circumstances of the 
 colonies are now tolerably well understood. 
 But some have very extraordinary claims to 
 territory, which, if admitted, as they might be 
 
 in a future confederation, the terms of it not 
 11 
 
162 PBESBYTElirANS AND 
 
 being yet adjusted, all idea of the present 
 comparisons between them would be con- 
 founded. Those whose boundaries are ac- 
 knowledged would sink in proportion to the 
 elevation of their neighbors. 
 
 '"Besides, the unlocated lands not compre- 
 hended within acknowledged boundaries are 
 deemed a fund sufficient to defray a vast 
 part, if not the whole, of the exj)enses of the 
 w^ar. These ought to be considered as the 
 property of all, acquired by the arms of all. 
 For these reasons the boundaries of the colo- 
 nies ought to be fixed before the declaration, 
 and their resj)ective rights mutually guaran- 
 teed ; and the unlocated lands ought also, pre- 
 vious to that declaration, to be solemnly ap- 
 propriated to the benefit of all, for it may 
 . be extremely difficult, if not impracticable, to 
 obtain these decisions afterward. 
 
 " * Upon the whole, when things shall thus 
 be deliberately rendered firm at home and 
 favorable abroad, then let America, "Attolens 
 humeris famam et fata nepotum " — bearing 
 
THE REVOLUTION. 16^ 
 
 upon her shoulders glory and the destiny of 
 her descendants — advance with majestic steps 
 and assume her station among the sovereigns 
 of the world.' " 
 
 Now, when we consider the character and 
 ability of the man who spoke these words, 
 and ponder well the words themselves, we 
 shall feel that together they must have 
 carried with them a prodigious weight. 
 
 John Dickinson, " the illustrious farmer " 
 of Pennsylvania, was one who "had been 
 taught from infancy to love humanity and 
 liberty." His claims to public respect all 
 acknowledged. " He was honored for spot- 
 less morals, eloquence and good service in 
 the colonial legislature, and his writings 
 had endeared him to America as a sincere 
 friend of liberty. He had an excellent heart, 
 and the cause of his country lay near it." 
 
 In 1767 he had written sentences that rang 
 through all the colonies. Respecting the 
 British scheme of taxation, he wrote : " This 
 is an innovation^ and a most dangerous inno- 
 
164 PRESBYTERIANS AND 
 
 vation. We being obliged to take commod- 
 ities from Great Britain, special duties on 
 their exportation to us are as much taxes 
 upon us as those imposed by the Stamp Act. 
 We are in the situation of a besieged city 
 surrounded in every part but one. If that 
 is closed up, no step can be taken but to 
 surrender at discretion. 
 
 "I would persuade the people of these 
 colonies immediately, vigorously and unani- 
 mously to exert themselves in the most firm 
 but the most peaceable manner for obtaining 
 relief. If an inveterate resolution is formed 
 to annihilate the liberties of the governed, 
 English history affords examples of resist- 
 ance by force." 
 
 Thus wrote this able, wise and pure pa- 
 triot in 1767 ; nor was his patriotism any the 
 less above question in 1776. 
 
 Besides, if we recall to mind the circum- 
 stances of the hour, we can see that in many 
 ears his words had the ring of the soundest 
 wisdom, and can realize in some degree the 
 
PRESBYTERIANS AND 165 
 
 heroic intrepidity and indomitable resolution 
 required in those who took the opposite view 
 and urged to immediate action. 
 
 But in behalf of the Declaration Adams 
 thundered like a Demosthenes and Wither- 
 sjDOon pleaded like a Cicero. 
 
 *' When the Declaration of Inde2oendence 
 was under debate" — we quote the words of 
 the Eev. Dr. John M. Krebs, of New York 
 — " doubts and forebodings were whispered 
 through the hall. The House hesitated, 
 wavered, and for a while liberty and slavery 
 appeared to hang in even scale. It was then 
 that an aged patriarch arose — a venerable 
 and stately form, his head white with the 
 frost of years. 
 
 " Every eye went to him with the quick- 
 ness of thought and remained with the fixed- 
 ness of the polar star. He cast on the as- 
 sembly a look of inexpressible interest and 
 unconquerable determination, while on his 
 visage the hue of age was lost in the flush of 
 burning patriotism that fired his cheek. 
 
1G3 PRESBYTERIANS AND THE REVOLUTION. 
 
 " ^ There is,' said he, ^ a tide in the affairs 
 of men, a nick of time. We perceive it now 
 before us. To hesitate is to consent to our 
 own shivery. That noble instrument upon 
 your table, which ensures immortality to its 
 author, should be subscribed this very morn- 
 ing by every pen in this house. He that 
 will not respond to its accents and strain 
 every nerve to carry into effect its provisions 
 is unworthy the name of freeman. 
 
 « ' For my own j^art, of property I have 
 some, of reputation more. That reputation 
 is staked, that property is pledged, on the 
 issue of this contest; and although these 
 gray hairs must soon descend into the sepul- 
 chre, I would infinitely rather that they de- 
 scend thither by the hand of the executioner 
 than desert at this crisis the sacred cause of 
 my country.' " 
 
 " Witherspoon, of New Jersey," says Mr. 
 Bancroft, " urged that the country was fully 
 ripe for the great decision, and that delay 
 alone was fraught with iDcril." 
 
CHAPTER X. 
 
 ORGANIZATION OF THE CONFEDERACY. 
 
 IVTEXT in importance to the Declaration 
 was the organization of the colonies into 
 a confederacy. Independence of Great Brit- 
 ain might be secured by victory in the field, 
 and yet little but confusion and oft-recurring 
 and protracted intestine conflict ensue, un- 
 less the isolated States were drawn together 
 into a harmonious and compact national 
 Union. 
 
 Judge Story, in his fourth chapter on 
 " The Constitution," writes : " The union of 
 the colonies during the Revolution *grew 
 out of the exigencies and dangers of the 
 times, and would naturally terminate with 
 the return of peace.' 
 
 ^' As little could it escape observation how 
 great would be the dangers of the separation 
 
 167 
 
168 PEESBYTERIANS AND 
 
 of the confederated States into independent 
 communities, acknowledging no common head 
 and acting upon no common system. Rival- 
 ries, jealousies, real or imaginary wrongs, 
 diversities of local interests and institutions, 
 would soon sever the ties of a common at- 
 tachment which bound them together, and 
 bring on a state of hostile operations dan- 
 gerous to their peace and subversive of their 
 permanent interests." 
 
 At this late day it is not unnatural to as- 
 sume that the organization of a permanent 
 confederation was as easy as the need of it 
 was obvious. And yet the fact is that so 
 many and obstinate were the difficulties that 
 stood in the way that from the time when 
 Franklin first made the motion for it in Con- 
 gress to the time when the confederacy was 
 actually organized more than five long years 
 passed away. And it was more than sixteen 
 months after Congress appointed a committee 
 consisting of one member from each colony 
 to digest a plan for a confederation before 
 
THE REVOLUTION. 169 
 
 Congress adopted a plan and by vote sub- 
 mitted it to the colonies for their assent. 
 And then four years more elapsed before 
 the assent of the colonies could be secured. 
 
 The difiiculties that impeded the formation 
 of a confederate union were clearly set forth 
 in the circular transmitted with the articles 
 as adopted by Congress to the several State 
 legislatures. In this circular Congress thus 
 excuses itself for apparent tardiness in the 
 matter: "To form a permanent union ac- 
 commodated to the opinions and wishes of 
 the delegates of so many States differing in 
 habits, produce, commerce and internal police 
 was found to be a work which nothing but 
 time and reflection, conspiring with a dispo- 
 sition to conciliate, could mature and accom- 
 plish." 
 
 The main hindrance to the formation of a 
 Federal Union centred around the reluctance 
 of the several States to yield to a general 
 government any of the powers they pos- 
 sessed. 
 
170 PBESBYTEBfANS AND 
 
 " There was not," writes Mr. Bancroft, " at 
 that time one single statesman who fully com- 
 prehended the need of the country." 
 
 We more than suspect that there was at least 
 one exception to this sweeping remark. Still, 
 at that time " each one of the colonies con- 
 nected its idea of freedom and safety with 
 the exclusive privilege of managing its in- 
 ternal policy. And they delighted to keep 
 fresh the proud memories of repeated victo- 
 ries won over the persistent attempt of the 
 agents of a supreme power which was exter- 
 nal to themselves to impose restrictions on 
 their domestic autonomy." 
 
 Edward Rutledge, of South Carolina, "saw 
 danger in the ve^y thought of an indissoluble 
 league of friendship between the States for 
 their general welfare." And of even the 
 little less than anarchical scheme proposed 
 in Congress in July, 1776, he said : " If it 
 be adopted, nothing less than ruin to some 
 colonies will be the consequence." 
 
 It is no wonder, therefore, that we read 
 
THE REVOLUTION. 171 
 
 that " seemingly irreconcilable differences of 
 opinion left Congress no heart to continue 
 the work of confederation." 
 
 For sixteen months from the report of a 
 plan of confederation '' the spirit of separa- 
 tion fostered by opposing interests," dread 
 of interference of one State in the affairs of 
 another, fears on the part of the South of the 
 more compact and homogeneous North, " vis- 
 ibly increased in Congress." 
 
 Each colony retained a traditional jealousy 
 of any interference from without with its inter- 
 nal privileges. As they had forbidden king 
 and parliament, so now they forbade any con- 
 federate government, to levy taxes or duties 
 except for postage. The relation of slaves to 
 freemen in the basis of representation formed 
 another vexing question. Another, not less 
 troublesome, was whether the smaller States 
 should have equal vote in the Congress with 
 the larger ones. And as arduous as any 
 other ijroblem was that involved in the con- 
 flicting claims to the vast territories of west- 
 
172 PBESBYTEItlANS AND 
 
 erii lands. New Hampshire and five or six 
 other States had boundaries well defined. 
 But other of the colonies extended, accord- 
 ing to their charters, to the Mississippi, or 
 even to the Pacific Ocean. The former in- 
 sisted that this vast western domain ought to 
 be a joint property, while the latter claimed 
 each its own share for its own purposes as a 
 source of revenue. On this point Judge 
 Story writes : 
 
 "This subject was one of a perpetually 
 recurring and increasing irritation, and the 
 confederation would never have been acceded 
 to if Virginia and New York had not at last 
 consented to make liberal cessions of the ter- 
 ritory within their respective boundaries for 
 national purposes." 
 
 Thus years rolled away ere a confederation 
 became possible. 
 
 Now, a point on which Presbyterians love 
 to dwell is the inherent tendency of their 
 system toward organization. Just as natu- 
 rally as the seed germinates Presbyterianism 
 
THE REVOLUTION, 173 
 
 organizes. It is itself an organism ; and if 
 Nature abhors a vacuum, Presbyterian ism 
 abhors disintegration or anything that tends 
 thereto. 
 
 " Everything organic," writes Dr. Charles 
 Hodge, "has what may be called a nisus 
 fonnativiis, an inward force by which it is 
 impelled to assume the form suited to its 
 nature." 
 
 Thus Presbyterianism " is not an external 
 framework. It is a real growth. It is the 
 outward expression of an inward law." A 
 score of Presbyterians, shipwrecked in help- 
 less exile upon a distant shore, would as cer- 
 tainly organize by the election of a pastor 
 and a body of elders to rule them as the sun 
 is sure to rise in the morning. Possessed of 
 this spirit, it is the most natural thing in the 
 world that Presbyterianism should demand 
 order and organization wherever practicable 
 in all with which it has to do. And Dr. 
 Witherspoon being a Presbyterian from the 
 crown of his head to the sole of his foot, it 
 
174 PRESBYTERIANS AND 
 
 was one of the most natural things in the 
 world that he, when the subject of organizing 
 the chaos of independent States into a com- 
 pact system of order and subordination came 
 before Congress, should at once see its neces- 
 sity, believe in its practicability, and throw 
 all the energy of his nature into the effort 
 for its realization. Accordingly, in Sander- 
 son's " Lives of the Signers of the Declara- 
 tion " we read : 
 
 " Dr. Witherspoon warmly maintained the 
 absolute necessity of union to impart vigor 
 and success to the measures of government, 
 and he strongly combated the opinion ex- 
 pressed in Congress that a lasting confed- 
 eracy among the Stales was imj^racticable. 
 He declared that such sentiments were cal- 
 culated greatly to depress the minds of the 
 people and weaken their efforts in defence 
 of the country. 
 
 " ' I confess,' said he, ' such a conviction 
 would to me greatly diminish the glory and 
 importance of the struggle, whether consid- 
 
THE REVOLUTION. 175 
 
 ered as for the rights of mankind in general, 
 or for the pros]3erity and happiness of this 
 continent in future times. It would quite 
 depreciate the object of hope, as well as place 
 it at a greater distance. 
 
 " * For what would it signify to risk our 
 possessions and shed our blood to set our- 
 selves free from the encroachments and op- 
 pressions of Great Britain, with a certainty, 
 as soon as peace was settled with them, of a 
 more lasting war, a more unnatural, a more 
 bloody and much more hopeless war among 
 the colonies themselves ? 
 
 " ^ If, at present, when the danger is yet 
 imminent, when it is so far from being over 
 that it is but coming to its height, we shall 
 find it impossible to agree upon the terms of 
 this confederacy, what madness is it to sup- 
 pose that there ever wall be a time or that 
 circumstances will so change as to make it 
 even probable that it will be done at an after 
 season ! Will not the very same difficulties 
 that are in our way be in the way of those 
 
176 presbyte:^ians and 
 
 who shall come after us ? Is it possible that 
 they should be ignorant of or inattentive to 
 them? Will they not have the same jeal- 
 ousies of each other, the same attachment 
 to local prejudices or particular interests? 
 So certain is this that I look upon delay here 
 as in the repentance of a sinner, though it 
 adds to the necessity yet augments the diffi- 
 culty and takes away from the inclination.' " 
 
 A sentiment expressed in this debate that 
 it was to be expected from the nature of men 
 that a time must come when a confederacy 
 would be dissolved and broken in pieces, 
 and which seemed to create an indifference 
 as to the success of the measure, produced 
 the following burst of eloquence : 
 
 '' I am none of those who either deny or 
 conceal the depravity of human nature till 
 it is purified by the light of truth and re- 
 newed by the Spirit of the living God. Yet 
 I apprehend there is no force in that reason- 
 ing at all. Shall we establish nothing good 
 because we know it cannot be eternal ? Shall 
 
THE REVOLUTION, 177 
 
 we live without government because every 
 constitution lias its old age and its period? 
 Because we know that we shall die, shall we 
 take no pains to preserve or lengthen out 
 life ? Far from it, sir. It only requires the 
 more watchful attention to settle the govern- 
 ment on the best principles and in the wisest 
 manner, that it may last as long as the nature 
 of things will admit/' 
 
 Dr. Witherspoon concluded his eloquent 
 arguments in favor of a well-planned con- 
 federation in the following terms : 
 
 " For all these reasons, sir, I humbly ap- 
 j)rehend that every argument from honor, 
 interest, safety and necessity conspires in 
 pressing us to a confederacy ; and if it be 
 seriously attempted, I hope, by the blessing 
 of God upon our endeavors, it will be happily 
 accomplished." 
 
 Grouping together, then, these facts among 
 others — the fact that Presbyterianism is in 
 its own nature a system of pure representa- 
 tive republican government, and as such in 
 
 12 
 
178 PRESBYTERIANS AND 
 
 striking harmony, both in form and spirit, 
 with that of the State and nation ; that 
 it has always been peculiarly odious to ty- 
 rants ; the numerous patriotic deliverances 
 of the Synod of New York and Philadel- 
 phia and of some of the Presbyteries of 
 our Church; the fact that ^'the first voice 
 publicly raised in America to dissolve all 
 connection with Great Britain " was that of 
 the Presbyterians, the Westmoreland county 
 resolutions and the Mecklenburg Declara- 
 tion ; the fact that Witherspoon, a Presby- 
 terian of the most authentic type, repre- 
 sented in the Continental Congress the com- 
 pact Presbyterianism of the land, and that 
 (besides his other numerous and exceed- 
 ingly important services) he threw the whole 
 weight of his own personal influence and 
 that of those he represented, first in favor 
 of the Declaration of Independence and 
 then in favor of the organization of the 
 States into a confederate union, — and we 
 have some of the grounds upon which to 
 
THE REVOL UTION. 1 79 
 
 base an estimate of tlie share which Presby- 
 terians had in building and launching that 
 national vessel that now rides so proudly upon 
 the billows with forty millions of voyagers 
 on board. 
 
CHAPTER XI. 
 
 MONUMENT TO WITHERSPOON. 
 
 TF God bade his Israel to take stones from 
 -^ the river's bed and build them into a 
 monument of the Jordan jDassage, will he 
 look with disfavor upon us if we gather some 
 stones from the bed of our national Jordan, 
 and taking some of the brass we dig from 
 our hills shape it into the form and features 
 of the devout, devoted, patriotic Wither- 
 spoon, and set up that figure upon those 
 stones before the eyes of men, there to stand 
 through coming generations, a mute but elo- 
 quent witness of what God did in those early 
 days of heroism and trial for our beloved 
 country through his agency and that of 
 those he represented ? 
 
 1. Such a monument will stand as an ap- 
 propriate indication of the existence, claims 
 and services of religion in our country. 
 
 ISO 
 
THE REVOLUTION. 181 
 
 Our parks and public places abound with 
 statues of secular worthies — ^statesmen, heroes, 
 artists, poets and others — and is religion noth- 
 ing that it should have no such represent- 
 ative among them ? 
 
 The tourist abroad who visits the city of 
 Worms, in Germany, has his attention ar- 
 rested by the magnificent statue of Luther, 
 and catches anew the heroic spirit of the 
 Reformation as he gazes at that noble form, 
 the eyes raised to heaven, his left hand hold- 
 ing to his body a copy of the word of God, 
 his right hand closed and laid firmly down 
 upon it, and on his mute li]3s and determined 
 brow the daring purpose, " I'll go to Worms 
 though as many devils hinder as there are 
 tiles on the roofs of the houses." 
 
 At Oxford, England, we see the marble 
 forms of Cranmer, Ridley and Latimer stand- 
 ing there where their hot ashes smoked to 
 heaven, for ever reciting with their pure pale 
 lips the story of their burning; and what 
 lover of the Lord Jesus as he gazes on those 
 
182 PRESBYTERIANS AND 
 
 forms does not feel through his frame a 
 thrill of the martyr-spirit ? At Bedford the 
 statue of Bunyan rises before us ; and as we 
 look and muse we think of his twelve years 
 in Bedford jail, with his j^oor blind daughter 
 at his knees, and seem to hear from those 
 mute lips the recital again of the pilgrim's 
 immortal tale. At Kidderminster we see 
 the statue of Richard Baxter, " his uplifted 
 hands," in the w^ords of Dean Stanley, "call- 
 ing to the unconverted, as of the seventeenth 
 so of the nineteenth century, to turn and live, 
 his serene countenance telling us of the un- 
 seen and better world where ^ there remain- 
 eth a rest for the people of God/ " At Ed- 
 inburgh the statue of Andrew Melville recalls 
 the heroism that both baffled the wiles and 
 defied the threats of the bad regent Morton. 
 At Glasgow you see the form of Knox tow- 
 ering over the city, and every element of 
 manhood in you awakens to new energy as 
 you gaze upon the form of that man amongst 
 men. 
 
THE REVOLUTION. 183 
 
 But where in the parks and public places 
 of our rej)ublic will you find one solitary 
 statue to a Christian hero? Is it not time 
 that this monojDoly of secularism be broken 
 up ? — that by such a statue as we propose the 
 throngs who visit our public places be re- 
 minded that our thoughts are not wholly 
 engrossed with life's secularities, and that the 
 memories of those who have preached with 
 lip and life the great salutary ti-uths of 
 Christ's religion have place in our memories 
 and in our hearts ? 
 
 2. Such a monument will symbolize the in- 
 separable union between religion and freedom. 
 
 Witherspoon was at once an ardent Chris- 
 tian and an ardent patriot, and his princij^les 
 of civil freedom he derived from his religion. 
 
 Indeed, no feature of our whole Revolu- 
 tionary movement was more prominent than 
 its religious spirit. The great body of the 
 colonists were exiles for conscience' sake. 
 Almost invariably, when the earlier public 
 meetings were called, they were opened with 
 
184 PEESBYTBRIANS AND 
 
 prayer. Almost without exception the pas- 
 tors of the people were among the most 
 forward and most eloquent champions of 
 the cause. 
 
 Of these men, Jonathan Mayhew, of Bos- 
 ton, may stand as the type. As early as 
 1750 we find him preaching resistance to 
 " the first small beginnings of civil tyranny, 
 lest it should swell to a torrent and deluge 
 empires." Of like spirit was the eloquent 
 Samuel Cooper, pastor of the Brattle Street 
 church, in Boston. When the freemen " on 
 the rivers Watauga and Holstein," in Ten- 
 nessee, met together, as early as the opening 
 of 1775, they appointed their pastor. Be v. 
 Charles Cummings, as chairman of their 
 committee, who expressed his own spirit and 
 theirs in the words, " We are deliberately 
 and resolutely determined never to surren- 
 der any of our inestimable privileges but at 
 the expense of our lives." 
 
 On this point we cite also the following 
 from the pen of the well-known writer 
 
THE REVOLUTION. 185 
 
 J. T. Headley, published recently in the 
 " New York Observer :" 
 
 "The approaching Centennial has sud- 
 denly awakened attention to our early strug- 
 gle for independence. It cannot but have a 
 salutary effect to recall the scenes and events 
 of that time, and to comiDare its leaders and 
 statesmen with those who control our politi- 
 cal dostinies to-day, and may, perhaps, lead 
 to a new political departure. But if the 
 pulpit and clergy of that period do not have 
 a large place in the imposing ceremonials 
 proposed to be inaugurated, it will but half 
 fulfill its true object and teach but half the 
 lesson a true history of the devolution should 
 impart. In New England the Revolution 
 rested on the pulpit. It almost alone trained 
 the people in the knowledge of their political 
 rights and made the cause of freedom the 
 cause of God. This is seen in the fact that 
 the Massachusetts house of representatives 
 passed a resolution requesting the clergy of 
 the colony to preach on weekdays on polit- 
 
186 PRESBYTEBIANS AND 
 
 ical subjects. One can trace in the annual 
 election-sermons, as they were called, the 
 progress of the popular feeling. These were 
 preached every spring before the house of 
 delegates on the election of a council to His 
 Majesty's governor of the colony, and always 
 took up the question of political rights, and 
 discussed ably the doctrine of human free- 
 dom and the reciprocal duties and obliga- 
 tions of the governed and their rulers. They 
 were afterward printed in a pamj)lilet form 
 and scattered broadcast over the land. It 
 must be remembered that there were scarcely 
 any newspapers at that time, and the pulpit 
 and the clergy were almost the only chan- 
 nels of communication between the civil au- 
 thority and the people. England saw with 
 alarm the tremendous power the clergy 
 wielded in the colonies, and declared that 
 they were at the bottom of the rebellion. 
 In 1774 the governor of Massachusetts re- 
 fused the request of the assembly to appoint 
 a public fast, giving the reason ' that the 
 
THE REVOLUTION. 187 
 
 request was simply to give an opportunity 
 for sedition to flow from the pulpit.' 
 
 "Take these election-sermons from 1770 
 to 1775, and you can see the footprints of the 
 rebellion. At first dealing with general prin- 
 ciples, they, as the oppressions of the mother- 
 country increased, applied them to the exist- 
 ing state of things, till the governor became 
 alarmed at the outspoken truths he was com- 
 pelled to listen to. Thus, in the spring after 
 the tea had been thrown overboard, while Bos- 
 ton w^as still rocking like a vessel in a storm 
 under the popular excitement, Hitchcock, a 
 thorough Cromwellian, was selected to preach 
 the election-sermon. Rising in his place in 
 the house of representatives, he thundered in 
 the ears of the astonished governor, * When 
 the wicked bear rule, the people mourn.' 
 In that discourse the governor saw clearly 
 the indications of the coming storm. The 
 clergy w^ere actually in advance of the civil 
 authorities in their views. In 1776, after 
 the meeting of the first Continental Con- 
 
188 PRESBYTEMANS AND 
 
 gress, William Godwin preached the elec- 
 tion-sermon, and took his text from Jeremiah 
 XXX. 20, 21 : * Their children shall be as 
 aforetime, and their congregation shall be 
 established before me, and I will punish all 
 that would oppress them, and their nobles 
 shall be of themselves/ After reading 
 thus far, he paused a moment, and looking 
 over the assembled members said in an 
 altered tone, ^ The sentence is not perfected 
 without the addition, ^^ And the government 
 shall 2)yoceed from- the midst of them ;^' hut 
 the wisdom of the Continental Congress, in 
 which we cheerfully confide, has restrained 
 me from making it a part of my text. In 
 an abler hand, at some fitter time, it may of 
 itself alone suffice for a comjjlete text. Amen: 
 so let it he^ It is clear where he stands. 
 He is more than ready for the Declaration 
 of Independence. Let it come; and when it 
 does, it will be thundered from every New 
 England pulpit and startle every hearer like 
 the blast of a bugle. 
 
THE REVOLUTION. 189 
 
 ^' But not only did tlie Revolution in New 
 England rest on tlie shoulders of the clergy 
 and the pulpit become the great recruiting 
 station for the army, but a clergyman caused 
 the first blow to be struck that has made Lex- 
 ington immortal. It was on the village green, 
 in front of Lexington church, of which Jonas 
 Clark was pastor, that the first blood was shed 
 and flowed from the veins of his own parish- 
 ioners. Settled on a little farm, with a salary 
 of eighty pounds a year and twenty cords 
 of wood, he seemed destined to exert little 
 influence outside of his small parish ; yet 
 he started a movement that rent a kingdom 
 asunder and is destined to revolutionize the 
 civilized world. His wife was the cousin of 
 John Hancock, and the two men spent many 
 an hour discussing the great principles of 
 human freedom and the rights of the colo- 
 nies. The fruit of these discussions was 
 given to his peoj^le from the pulpit and at 
 the town-meetings. They, in turn, had these 
 views embodied in instructions to their dele- 
 
190 PRESBYTERIANS AND 
 
 gate to the provincial Legislature as express- 
 ing their wishes and determinations, and they 
 remain to this day on the town records as 
 model papers. Mr. Everett once said : ^ They 
 had no superiors and few equals.' He says, 
 moreover : ^ Mr. Clark was of a class of cit- 
 izens who rendered service second to no 
 others in enlightening and animating the 
 popular mind on the great question at issue. 
 I mean the patriotic clergy of New Eng- 
 land.' 
 
 " Kev. William Ware said : 'There was no 
 person at that time, in that vicinity — not only 
 no clergyman, but no person of ivhatever call- 
 ing or profession — who took a firmer stand 
 for the liberties of his country.' In fact, he 
 educated his people up to the point of resist- 
 ance, and on that memorable morning of the 
 19th of April, when at two o'clock the fierce 
 clang of his own church-bell called his par- 
 ishioners to the spot, they found their pastor 
 already there to rouse their courage by his 
 presence and appeals. The roll was called, 
 
THE REVOLUTION. 191 
 
 and a hundred and fifty men answered to 
 their names. What an impressive scene they 
 presented, the pastor and his congregation, 
 standing there in the dim starlight, under 
 the shadow of that silent church, waiting 
 for the clock of destiny to strike the hour ! 
 As the pastor passed along the ranks every 
 eye gleamed with more heroic fire, and every 
 hand grasped the firelock with a firmer 
 clutch. Clark had trained them for that 
 hour. ' Would they fight V Hancock and 
 Adams had asked. *Yes,' said Clark; 'not 
 only would they fight, but die right there, 
 under the shadow of the house of God, and 
 in the presence of their pastor.' Afterward, 
 in the sharp rattle of musketry that followed 
 the order, ' Throw down your arms and dis- 
 perse,' Mr. Clark heard what he knew would 
 be the result of his own teachings. When 
 the smoke cleared away and the British had 
 retreated, he walked up and gazed long and 
 silently on the seven stalwart men (his own 
 parishioners) that lay stark and stiff in death. 
 
192 PBESBYTERIANS AND 
 
 But he shed no tears, uttered no regrets. He 
 only murmured in solemn tones, ^ From this 
 day ivill be dated the liberty of the world.'' 
 His prophetic eye saw clearly ' beyond that 
 day's business.' And so, as we stated before, 
 Hhe teachings of the j)'^^P^l of Lexington 
 caused the first blow to be struck for Ameri- 
 can independence.^ ^^ 
 
 That the religious sentiment of the colo- 
 nists should have been on the side of free- 
 dom was perfectly natural. For the doc- 
 trines of true religion come from the Bible, 
 and it is there that the statesman learns that 
 '' all men are created equal, and they are en- 
 dowed by their Creator with certain inalien- 
 able rights." The true equality of men was 
 first practically exhibited when rich and 
 poor, master and slave, male and female, sat 
 down together at the same communion-table 
 to eat of the same loaf and drink from the 
 same cup. And all the sanctions of eternity 
 are given to the doctrines of man's equality 
 in the offer of the same heaven on precisely 
 
THE RE VOL UTION. 193 
 
 the same terms to prince and peasant, igno- 
 rant and enlightened. Further still, to the 
 continued enjoyment of liberty a high degree 
 of virtue is absolutely essential, and this vir- 
 tue draws its life-blood from the religion of 
 the word of God. 
 
 Atheism prates of human rights, and we 
 admit that an atheist has the same rights as 
 he who recognizes and worships the God of 
 heaven. But we affirm that on Ms own prin- 
 ciples he has no rights that any one is bound 
 to respect. I have certain inalienable rights 
 because I am made in the image of my God, 
 and who touches me touches God's image. 
 I have certain inalienable rights because my 
 Creator gave them to me, and who robs me 
 robs Jehovah. But that atheist, who " un- 
 tenants creation of its God," has by his creed 
 abolished the only source of human rights. 
 He is the product of blind, brutish, physical 
 forces. His body and soul are the result of 
 a fortuitous concourse of material atoms, and 
 as such a being what rights can be his other 
 
 13 
 
194 PRESBYTERIANS AND 
 
 than such as belong to the tree on the moun- 
 tain's side against tlie avalanche that grinds 
 it to powder ? On the atheistic and infidel 
 theory the only conceivable right is that 
 which might bestows. The right is with the 
 strongest. 
 
 Let infidelity and materialistic atheism 
 prevail in our republic, destroying the very 
 foundations of human rights, liberating the 
 human mind from the restraints of con- 
 science and from all sense of obligation, all 
 awe of God and all fear of future retribu- 
 tion, and republican liberty and government 
 perish for ever. 
 
 Now, in a day when a materialistic infi- 
 delity and atheism are floating in the air, 
 breathing from the pages of magazine and 
 newspaper, and even creeping into our school- 
 books, is it »nwise, is it not at once a jDrivi- 
 lege and duty, to take this idea and put it 
 into bronze, and set it up where millions of 
 eyes may see it ? The God of the Bible the 
 only source, and the religion of the Bible the 
 
THE REVOLUTION. 195 
 
 only conservator, of our inalienable rights. 
 Eeligion and liberty for ever inseparable. 
 
 3. Then the success of our Revolutionary 
 struggle was due to the favor of God in an- 
 swer to prayer. 
 
 Is it not well to set up before men the 
 figure of him who, in addition to his other 
 services, was ever the mover in Congress 
 for the appointment of those repeated days 
 of fasting, humiliation and prayer which 
 wrought so powerfully with the people to 
 blend piety with patriotism, and to hallow 
 all that was dear to love of country with all 
 that was sacred in religion ? 
 
 4. Such a monument will challenge the 
 attention of our sons and daughters to the 
 nature and historic glories of our cherished 
 Presbyterian system, and to the style of cha- 
 racter which it and the body of doctrine with 
 which it is almost invariably allied tends to 
 create. 
 
 It is in great measure through lack of in- 
 formation on these points that some of them 
 
196 PRESBYTEftlANS AND 
 
 exchange their church for another as readily 
 as they throw away an okl shoestring. And 
 it is a sigh of the hour — 
 
 " God, give us men ! A time like this demands 
 Strong minds, great hearts, true faith and ready hands ; 
 Men whom the lust of office does not kill ; 
 
 Men whom the spoils of office cannot buy ; 
 Men who possess opinions and a will ; 
 
 Men who have honor ; men who Avill not lie." 
 
 And not only men, but women too ! And a 
 little familiarity with the records of the past 
 will people the recollection with images of 
 stalwart men and heroic women moulded and 
 given to the world by Calvinistic Presbyte- 
 rianism. 
 
 No less truthfully than eloquently does 
 the historian Froude write of Calvinism 
 that it has "inspired and sustained the 
 bravest efforts ever made by man to break 
 the yoke of unjust authority." 
 
 *' When all else has failed, when patriotism 
 has covered its face and human courage has 
 broken down, when intellect has yielded, as 
 
THE REVOLUTION. 197 
 
 Gibbon says, witli a ^ smile or a sigli,' content 
 to pliilosophize in the closet and abroad wor- 
 ship with the vnlgar, when emotion and sen- 
 timent and tender, imaginative piety have be- 
 come the handmaids of superstition, and have 
 dreamed themselves into forgetfulness that 
 there is any difference between lies and truth, 
 — the slavish form of belief called Calvinism, 
 in one or other of its many forms, has borne 
 ever an inflexible front to illusion and men- 
 dacity, and has preferred rather to be ground 
 to powder like flint than to bend before 
 violence or melt under enervating tempta- 
 tion." 
 
 Our youth need to be taught, and perad- 
 venture some of their elders reminded, that 
 Coligny and his noble army of French Hu- 
 guenots were to a man Calvinistic Presby- 
 terians — that William the Silent and his 
 Dutch heroes, who bore so heroically tlie 
 long agony of Spanish oppression, and at 
 last chased the cruel minions of Philip and 
 the pope out of the Netherlands and built 
 
198 PRESBYTERIANS AND 
 
 a republic on the ruins of despotism, were 
 Calvinistic Presbyterians. 
 
 What style of womanhood comes from the 
 hands of Calvinistic Presbyterian ism we may 
 see in the person of Goligny's wife, the noble 
 Charlotte de Laval. The admiral, wounded 
 and taken prisoner at the memorable battle 
 of St. Quentin, had been conveyed to Ghent. 
 During his sickness and imprisonment there 
 his hand fell upon a copy of the word of 
 God. As he read and mused he was led 
 by the Spirit of God to accept salvation as 
 offered in the gospel. Sitting one evening 
 after his liberation and return to Chatillon 
 upon a balcony of the castle, and at his side 
 Charlotte his wife, who ^'was wonderfully 
 given to the Reformed religion," they looking 
 together at the silver stars, she said to him : 
 
 "How wonderful that you and your 
 brother Andelot should have been blest in 
 your captivity with a knowledge of the 
 truth ! And why do you not now publicly 
 avow your faith as he has done ?" 
 
THE REVOLUTION. 199 
 
 "Sound your soul/' he answered. "Are 
 you prepared to hear of defection, to receive 
 the reproaches of partisans as well as ene- 
 mies, treasons of your friends, exile, shame, 
 nakedness, hunger, even the hunger of your 
 own children, your own death by an execu- 
 tioner, after that of your husband ? I give 
 you three weeks to consider." 
 
 " They are gone already," replied his wife. 
 " Do not bring upon your head the deaths 
 of those three weeks, or I will myself bear 
 witness against you at the judgment-seat of 
 God." 
 
 " Enough, madame," said he. " It was 
 only for your sake that I thought of these 
 terrors." 
 
 At once he professed himself a follower of 
 the Keformation. And on St. Bartholomew's 
 bloody eve they stabbed him to death in his 
 own chamber and threw his body out of the 
 window, cut off his venerable head and sent 
 it, a choice and welcome present, to the pope, 
 and for three days the abjects of Paris 
 
200 PRESBYTERIANS AND 
 
 dragged the lifeless trunk through the streets, 
 and hung it up by the heels upon the gibbet. 
 
 See, too, the heroic wife of John Welsh 
 begging of England's coarse, cruel king the 
 favor that her poor sick husband, fourteen 
 years in exile and pining for a breath of his 
 native air, might return to his home. 
 
 "Whose daughter are you?" James de- 
 manded. 
 
 " The daughter of John Knox." 
 
 "Knox and Welsh! The devil never 
 made such a match as that." 
 
 "Very like, Your Majesty ; we never asked 
 his advice." 
 
 " What children did your father leave ?" 
 
 " Three, Your Majesty." 
 
 " Were they lads or lasses ?" 
 
 " Lasses, Your Majesty." 
 
 " The Lord be praised ! Had they been 
 lads, I could not have kept my seat upon 
 my throne." 
 
 Witherspoon was one of those banes of a 
 later generation, and King George was not 
 
THE REVOLUTION. 201 
 
 able to keep seat on the American portion of 
 his throne. 
 
 " But give him his native air, sir," begged 
 the woman. 
 
 " Give him the devil !" answered the bru- 
 tal king. 
 
 " Give that, sir, to your hungry courtiers." 
 
 " Well, he may return if he will conform." 
 
 Lifting her apron, she answered, "I would 
 rather take his head here." 
 
 And need we speak of Knox, whom Car- 
 lyle pronounced " the bravest of all Scotch- 
 men," whom Froude calls " the representa- 
 tive of all that was best in Scotland," and 
 of whom he adds, " no grander figure can be 
 found in the history of the Keformation in 
 this island"? 
 
 It was quite in the course of things tliat 
 Witherspoon should plead so earnestly in 
 behalf of the Declaration, for the chief sen- 
 timent of that immortal paper had been an- 
 nounced by Knox, his great ancestor, two 
 hundred years before. It was in the pres- 
 
202 PRESBYTERIANS AND 
 
 ence of the beautiful but wicked Mary queen 
 of Scots. 
 
 " Think you," asked the queen, with indig- 
 nant amazement — "think you that subjects, 
 having the power, may resist their princes ?" 
 
 To which Knox replied : " If princes ex- 
 ceed their bounds, madam, no doubt they may 
 be resisted even by power. For no greater 
 honor or greater obedience is to be given to 
 princes than God has ordained to be given 
 to father and mother. But the father may 
 be struck with a frenzy in which he would 
 slay his children. Now, madam, if the 
 children arise, join together, apprehend the 
 father, take the sword from him, bind his 
 hands and keep him in prison till the frenzy 
 be over, think you, madam, that the children 
 do any wrong ? Even so, madam, is it with 
 princes that would murder the children of 
 God that are subject unto them. Their 
 blind zeal is nothing but a mad frenzy; 
 therefore, to take the sword from them, to 
 bind their hands and to cast them into prison 
 
THE REVOLUTION. 203 
 
 till tliey be brought to a more sober mind is 
 no disobedience against princes, but true 
 obedience, because it agreeth with the will 
 of God." 
 
 "Thus spoke Calvinism," writes Froude, 
 " the creed of republics." 
 
 And Andrew Melville. 
 
 The bad regent Morton, scowling and 
 biting the head of his staff, growled: "There 
 will never be quietness in this country till 
 half a dozen of you be hanged or banished." 
 
 "Tush, sir!" answered Melville; "threaten 
 your courtiers after this manner. It is the 
 same to me whether I rot in the air or under 
 the ground. I have been ready to give my 
 life where it would not be half so well ex- 
 pended." 
 
 And those brave Covenanters who spread 
 their declaration of independence on the 
 })road tombstone in Gray Friars' churchyard, 
 and signed it, some of them, with a pen 
 dipped in their veins, opened for the purpose. 
 
 This covenant in its remotest conse- 
 
204 PRESBYTERIANS AND 
 
 quences took off the head of Charles I., of 
 Wentworth and Laud, the three great ty- 
 rants who had bound England, Church and 
 State, hand and foot Hke a very slave, and 
 thus liberated England and saved constitu- 
 tional liberty for the world. 
 
 This is the sort of character that Calvin- 
 istic Presbyterianism has given to the world. 
 Would our society be any the worse for a few 
 more like them ? AVould it harm our sons 
 and daughters to receive a new endowment 
 of this style of moral nerve and muscle ? 
 
 5. Such a monument will be a ceaseless 
 iteration of the fact that to a very large de- 
 gree the seed whose fruit we, as citizens of 
 this republic, are now harvesting, in our prin- 
 ciples of civil and religious freedom, in our 
 intellio-ence and means of culture and in the 
 nation's marvelous march to greatness, was 
 sown by Presbyterian hands. 
 
 Finally, the unveiling of this statue during 
 the Centennial period, with prayer and praise 
 and oration, will call the attention of the na- 
 
THE REVOLUTION. 205 
 
 tion and the world to these facts, reminding 
 thera that the Presbyterian Cliurch is, in ; ts 
 nature and form, a representative republc, 
 and that, ever hated by tyrants, ever a cham- 
 pion of truths that create moral nerve and 
 muscle and fit men to dare and do and en- 
 dure, it has deserved, and does deserve, a deep 
 place in the gratitude and a high place in 
 the admiration of the nation for its services 
 in the cause of God and man. 
 
 THE END. 
 
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