b'LIBRARY OF CONGRESS, \n\n\n\n>3^Gq \n\n\n\ntt \n\n\n\nChap.J3..._. Copyright No.. \n81ielf__..Q\'_.5. \n\n\n\nUNITED STATES OF AMERICA. \n\n\n\nTHE QUILLIAN LECTURES, 1898. \n\n\n\nCHRISTIANITY \n\n\n\nAND THE \n\n\n\nAMERICAN COMMONWEALTH; \n\n\n\nOR. \n\n\n\nThe Influence of Christianity in \nMaking This Nation. \n\n\n\n1^ \n\n\n\nBY BISHOP CHARLES Bp^^ALLOWAY, D.D., LL.D. \n\n\n\nDelivered in the Chapel at Emory College, Oxford, Ga., \nMarch, 1898. \n\n\n\nNashville, Tenn.: \n\nPublishing House Methodist Episcopal Church, South, \n\nBarbee & Smith, Agents. \n\n\n\n\n\n\n1120 \n\n\n\n/ \n\n\n\nCopyrighted by \n\nEmory College, Oxford, Ga., \n\n1898. \n\n\n\n\nTWO COPIES DECEIVED. \n\n\n\n^^n ^ \n\n\n\n\nv\\ ^^^.^9^ \n\n\n\n398. \n\n\n\nTHE QUILLIAN LECTURESHIP. \n\n\n\nOn June 4, 1897, the Board of Trustees of Emory \nCollege, Oxford, Ga., received the following communi- \ncation from Rev. W. F. Quillian : \n\nTo the Board of Trustees of Emory College. \n\nDesiring to promote the cause of Christian education and to \nadvance the theological literature of Methodism, and believing \nthat I can most effectively do this by laying the foundation of a \nlectureship at the college of my Church, located at Oxford, Ga., \nI give to Emory College fifty shares of $10 each, of the capital \nstock of the " Country Bank Stock Security Company " (esti- \nmated to be w^orth $550,* the amount I paid for same), to be \nheld or sold and reinvested by the Board of Trustees, for the \npurpose of founding a lectureship on the following conditions \nand plan: \n\n1. This sum, together with any other amounts which may \nbe given by myself or others for this purpose, shall be safely \ninvested, and the interest added to the principal until the sum \nof $3,000 shall have been reached. But one course of the lec- \ntures may be provided for at an earlier date by special dona- \ntion, provided no part of the principal of this fund shall be \nthus used. \n\n2. Thereafter the interest, together with any appropriations \nmade to this fund from other sources, shall be used for the \nmaintenance of a lectureship in Emory College. The lecturer \n\n* Subsequently this sum was increased to $i,ooo, Dr. Quillian increasing his \ngift to $700 and his nephew, Prof. Marvin C, Quillian, giving $300. \n\n(3) \n\n\n\n4 Christianity and the American Commonzvealth. \n\nshall be elected by the Board of Trustees upon the nomination \nof the Faculty, three names being submitted in nomination \nfrom among the ministers of the Methodist Episcopal \nChurches in the United States, provided, however, that in case \nthis fund eventually yields an income of sufficient amount to \nsecure the services of a Methodist from any other part of the \nvv^orld, such person shall not be ineligible by reason of his res- \nidence. The lecturer shall be at liberty to choose his ovv^n sub- \nject or subjects within the range of apologetical, doctrinal, \nexegetical, pastoral, or historical theology. Upon the subject \nthus chosen he shall deliver a course of lectures before the \nFaculty and students of Emory College at such time and \nplace as the authorities of the college may designate. When \ndelivered, the manuscripts of the lectures shall become the \nproperty of Emory College, and such profits as may arise from \nthe publication of them shall be added to this fund, provided, \nhowever, if the principal sum of this fund shall ever reach \n$25,000, said profits shall thereafter be added to the general en- \ndowment of the college. \n\n3. This I do for the glory of God, and as the beginning of \nwhat I hope in time will grow to large proportions through \nthe liberality of others desiring to promote the same ends \nwhich I have in view, and in laying this foundation-stone in \nthis fund I invite benevolently disposed people to consider the \nimmense good which has been accomplished by the " Bamp- \nton Lectures" at Oxford University, and the "Cunningham \nLectures " of the Free Church College in Edinburgh. \n\nW. F. QUILLIAN. \n\nThe trust was gratefully accepted by the Board of \n\n\n\nThe Quillian Lectureship. \n\n\n\nTrustees, and provision was made to increase the in- \ncome from the stock for the first year to the sum of \n$300, and a lecturer for the year 1898 was elected. \nBishop Charles B. Galloway was chosen, who on \nMarch 22\xe2\x80\x9427, i^9^5 delivered the lectures of which \nthis volume is composed. \n\n\n\nCONTENTS. \n\nLECTURE I. PAGE \n\nReligion and Civil Government 9 \n\nLECTURE IL \n\nThe Christian Coming and Character of \nTHE Early Colonists 49 \n\nLECTURE IIL \n\nThe Christian Institutions and Laws of \nTHE Colonists 95 \n\nLECTURE IV. \nChristianity and the Nation 137 \n\nLECTURE V. \n\nChristian Education in the American \n\nCommonwealth 181 \n\n(7) \n\n\n\nLECTURE I. \n\nReligion and Civil Government. \n\n(9) \n\n\n\nChristianity and the American Commonwealth. \n\nLECTURE I. \n\nRELIGION AND CIVIL GOVERNMENT. \n\nIN accepting the kindly worded invitation of the \nBoard of Trustees to inaugurate the series of \nlectures on the Quillian foundation in this historic \ninstitution, I must first express my high apprecia- \ntion of the ecclesiastical statesmanship and wise \nbeneficence displayed by the worthy founder. \nSimilar foundations in the great universities of Eu- \nrope and America have become thrones of power, \nand have already made valuable contributions to \nthe literature of Christian doctrine and apologet- \nics. They have enriched the thought and stimu- \nlated the faith of the modern Church. It gave \nme joy, therefore, to hear that a lectureship had \nbeen established in this college, and my hope is \nthat it may take rank with others as a place of au- \nthority in high scholarship and Christian culture. \nAnd this ardent hope occasioned my extreme re- \nluctance to appear here to-day. Unaffectedly \n\n(11) \n\n\n\n1 2 Christianity and the American Commonwealth. \n\nconscious of my lack of qualification for a service \nof this character, I should have positively de- \nclined but for the terms in which the invitation \nwas conveyed. \n\nThe theme chosen for this series of lectures is : \nChristianity and the American Commonwealth; \nor, The Injiuence of Christianity in Making This \nNation, \n\nI wish it borne in mind that this is to be in no \nsense a study of Church history. I have no pur- \npose to trace the growth of ecclesiastical organi- \nzations, or the progress of Christianity in the \nUnited States. The object of this discussion is to \nascertain how far the type of religion embraced \nby the American colonists affected and deter- \nmined the character of our civil institutions and \nthe course of our social progress. It is not per- \nsonal but civic righteousness with which we \nare immediately concerned; not religion as it \nachieves the salvation of the soul, but religion as \nit exalts the nation ; not so much spiritual as so- \ncial and civil redemption. I shall have little to do \nwith the statistics of Churches, and more with the \nconstitutions of commonwealths, the statutes of \n\n\n\nReligion and Civil Government. 13 \n\nstates, and the history of jurisprudence. Our in- \nvestigation will be along the line of that approved \nstatement of Kidd, in his "Social Evolution:" \n** After all, Christianity was intended to save not \nonly men but man, and its mission should be to \nteach us not only how to die as individuals but \nhow to live as members of society." \n\nThe Christian design lor the world is not \'*an \nanarchy of good individuals." They fatally un- \ndervalue the mighty mission of Christianity who \nlimit it merely to *\'the assertion of moral prin- \nciple," without any care for its social and political \nresults. It contemplates the sanctification of the \nhome, the redemption of the nation, the purifica- \ntion of commerce, and the exaltation of civic vir- \ntue. When our Lord announced that his king- \ndom is not of this world, he meant not to say that \nit had nothing to do with the things of this world. \nHis mission was to adjust human relations; and \nthe enthronement of his gospel in the life of so- \nciety will right all social wrongs and bring in a \nnew heaven and a new earth. The teachings of \nChrist are the perfect solution of all the problems of \nsociety. Mr. Gladstone, at once a statesman and \n\n\n\n1 4 Christianity and the American Commonwealth. \n\na seer, spoke words of truth and soberness, though \nwith spiritual energy, when he said: \'\'Talk about \nthe questions of the day: there is but one ques- \ntion, and that is the gospel. It can and will cor- \nrect everything needing correction." \n\nAnd I feel also that an apology is due because \nof the subject selected for these lectures. Though \nthe study of history has for years had for me a \nstrange fascination, I have no such special ex- \npert acquaintance w4th its facts or philosophy as \nto entitle me to speak by the authority of accurate \nand ample knowledge. The exacting and labo- \nrious duties of my responsible office, necessitating \nwearisome travel at home and abroad, and bereav- \ning me of the delightful privileges of a library for \nweeks at a time, afford little opportunity for pros- \necuting any definite line of investigation. I can \nonly hope, therefore, to offer some suggestions \nthat may stimulate other students to fully explore \na much-neglected field. \n\nTo the study of this subject I have been im- \npelled by the evident tendency of some modern \nhistorians to minify, if not almost entirely elimi- \nnate, religion from the formative forces of our \n\n\n\nReligion and Civil Government, 15 \n\nAmerican institutions. Books on the making of \nour nation have been written, and are the texts in \nour colleges, in which the Christian religion, as a \nsocial and civil factor, has only scant or apologet- \nic mention. This is either a fatal oversight or a \ndeliberate purpose, and both alike are to be de- \nplored and condemned. A nation ashamed of its \nancestry will be despised by its posterity. What- \never use or misuse we may make of our inherit- \nance, it is well to be reminded from whence it \ncame. We ought to know the genesis of our in- \nstitutions, though we may have to lament their ex- \nodus. With the growth of a subtle materialistic \nspirit which invades every department of life, how- \never sacred and secret, we are threatened with an \nundervaluing or ignoring of the great moral and \nspiritual forces that constructed the massive frame- \nwork of this mighty nation. Climatic, economic, \nracial, and purely political forces are analyzed \nand properly classified; but the religious factor, \nwhich more than either or all of them determined \nthe character of our civilization and the form of \nour government, has received very indifferent, if \nnot malevolent, consideration. All of which con- \n\n\n\n1 6 Christianity and the American Commonwealth. \n\nfirms the judgment of a distinguished writer who \nhas recently observed that \'*the place of religion \nin human history is too often the subject merely of \necclesiastical or antiecclesiastical declamation, or \nelse, through fear of giving offense, it is left se- \nverely alone." \n\nNow, with the hope of contributing somewhat \nto the arrest of that tendency, and of aiding the \nstudents of this honored institution to a broader \nstudy of the earlier history of this American com- \nmonwealth, I have timidly ventured upon the \ntheme of these lectures. My purpose shall be, if \npossible, to demonstrate that Protestant Christian- \nity has been the dominant influence in our na- \ntion\'s construction and continuation. For I hes- \nitate not to affirm that the temple at Jerusalem \nwas built by a no more sacred patriotism or under \nthe benedictions of a no more favoring Providence \nthan were the colonial governments of this New \nWorld. Christian teachings were the seed- \nthoughts of our political constitutions, and Chris- \ntian evangelism was the inspiration of American \ncolonization. If we eliminate from our national \nhistory the direct and all-powerful influence of the \n\n\n\nReligion and Civil Government. 17 \n\nChristian religion, we have nothing left but a set \nof disjointed facts without significance, dry and \ndreary annals without parentage or posterity. \nBut, on the other hand, a right apprehension of \nall the formative forces in our national life will \nvindicate the matured judgment of Emerson, that \n** our whole history appears like a last effort of \nDivine Providence in behalf of the human race.\'\' \nNow, as introductory to this study of our ear- \nlier American history, and in order to get a van- \ntage point from which to take the most satisfac- \ntory observations, I shall speak to-day on the gen- \neral subject of Religion and Civil Government. \nMy contention will be that the governments and \ncivilizations of all people are typed and deter- \nmined by the character of their religions. And \nthis proposition will hold good whether the relig- \nion be true or false. The deepest and mightiest \nthing in any nation\'s heart is its religion; there- \nfore as is the religion so is the nation. ** The \nkingdom of heaven is within you," some one once \nquoted to Frederick Maurice. **Yes," he re- \nplied, " and so is the kingdom of England.*\' And \nto every true American we may say, \'\'And so is the \n\n\n\n1 8 Christianity and the American Commonwealth. \n\nrepublic of the United States. \' \' Now if this discus- \nsion shall prove to be a demonstration, the appli- \ncation of these clearly ascertained principles to \nour American commonwealth will account for the \nhistory and reveal the true philosophy of our so- \ncial and civil institutions. \n\nThere is an intimate, a vital connection between \nthe spiritual and political faiths of a people. As \nGod hath joined them together, they can not be \nput asunder. So intimate indeed is this relation \nthat the dominance of the one determines the char- \nacter of the other. The heavens and the earth \nare in immediate and vital relation. And no peo- \nple can have politically a new earth until they \nhave first had spiritually a new heaven. On this \npoint the distinguished Dr. Fairbairn has thus \nspoken: ** Political and religious thought are\' so \norganically related that each is but the form of the \nother. Political thought is the religious idea ap- \nplied to the state and the conduct of its public af- \nfairs, while religious thought is but our view of the \npolity of the universe, and man\'s relation to it. It \nfollows that as man thinks in the one field he comes \nto think also in the other." But I should go far- \n\n\n\nReligion and Civil Government. 19 \n\nther, and say that a man\'s thinking in the political \nfield is invariably, if not necessarily, determined \nby his convictions in the spiritual field. In the \nrealm of the civil, as in the ecclesiastical, the old \naphorism holds good: *\' Like priest, like people." \nThe state is a true reflex of the Church; the \ncivil law is a faithful rescript of the canon law. \nAnd, as in the days of the Hebrew theocracy, so \nin all lands and under all religions, there is a \nclose connection between the sanctuary and the \nseat of judgment. The altar shapes the throne, \nthe character of the crozier measures the strength \nof the scepter. Out ^f religious doctrines are de- \nveloped political principles; and, therefore, the \npurer the religion the broader a nation\'s constitu- \ntion and the wiser its civil polity. Religion is a- \n\ni \n\npolitical force as well as a spiritual influence;? \nboth a social dynamic and a celestial inspiration. \nWith a slight modification I accept the statement \nof Prof. Seeley: **From history we learn that \nthe great function of religion has been the found- \ning and sustaining of states." And in language \nquite as emphatic that accomplished student on \nanother occasion expressed the same critical judg- \n\n\n\n20 Christianity and the American Commonwealth. \n\nment as follows: \'*Look almost where you will \nin the wide field of history, you find religion, \nwherever it works freely and mightily, either giv- \ning birth to and sustaining states, or else raising \nthem up to a second life after their destruction." \nAnd even the skeptical but philosophically acute \nand observant Rousseau, himself a political leader \nand social reformer, gives assent to the same great \ndoctrine in these strong words: \'\xe2\x80\xa2\'\'Never was a \nstate founded that did not have religion for its \nbasis y \n\nAll the civil institutions of the ancient world \nwere the outgrowth of religious belief, the social ex- \npressions of a spiritual faith. Nations were gov- \nerned as the gods directed. Kings ruled, judges \ndelivered opinions, soldiers fought, generals \nplanned their campaigns, all under the patronage \nand supposed guidance of their favorite deities. \nOracles were consulted, shrines were reverently \nvisited, and costly sacrifices freely offered, in or- \nder to secure the approval of the gods before any \nmovement was undertaken. The Roman Empire, \nwhether pagan or Christian, from Romulus to \nCharlemagne, ** never dreamed of executing its \n\n\n\nReligion and Civil Government. 21 \n\nfunctions without a divinity." **The Greek \nking," as a distinguished scholar has said, ** pro- \nnounced his decisions as judge by inspiration from \nThemis. The Roman king learned the elements \nof legislation from the nymph Egeria." The \nMohammedan power, swift and terrible as an ava- \nlanche, and cruel as death itself, " made religion \nthe most vigorous element in its administration, \ncivil and military." And the history of the He- \nbrew nation teaches with powerful emphasis and \nendless iteration the imminence of their God. \n*\'The theocracy in Israel," as Canon Freemantle \nwell says, " was the righteous God abiding in the \nnation. The theocracy in Christendom was to be \nthe same righteous power abiding in mankind." \n\nHeathen and Christian alike, in all ages of the \nworld, have regarded religion as the basis of the \ncommonwealth, as the very condition of national \nexistence. Those were remarkable words uttered \nby Plutarch, one of the greatest and purest disciples \nof Plato: \'* There never was a state of atheists. \nYou may travel all over the world, and you may \nfind cities without walls, without king, without \nmint, without theater or gymnasium; but you will \n\n\n\n2 2 Christianity and the American Commonwealth. \n\nnowhere find a city without a God, without prayer, \nwithout oracle, without sacrifice. Sooner may a \ncity stand without foundations than a state with- \nout belief in the gods. This is the bond of all so- \nciety and the pillar of all legislation." All his- \ntory attests the fact that religion is not only a help- \nful influence, but that it is the most potential factor \nin a nation\'s life. Governments could not exist \nwithout its cohesive and undergirding power. \nTheir steadiest support would be withdrawn, their \nmightiest bulwark dismantled. And all far-see- \ning rulers, without regard to their own personal \nfeelings or opinions, have not failed to take this \nfundamental fact into account. Speaking of re- \nligion as a national force, as *\'the mystery of so- \ncial order," Napoleon said: *\' One can not govern \nwithout it; otherwise the repose, dignity, and in- \ndependence of the nation are disturbed at every \nmoment." And in historic support of the doc- \ntrine here announced, this great master of state- \ncraft further observed: \'\'In the Roman republic \nthe senate was the interpreter of heaven, and this \nwas the mainspring of the force and strength of \nthat government. In Turkey, and throughout the \n\n\n\nReligion and Civil Government. 23 \n\nOrient, the Koran serves as both a civil and relig- \nious Bible. Only in Christianity do we find the \npontificate distinct from civil government." \n\nLord Erskine, England\'s great constitutional \nlawyer and forensic orator, in prosecuting a man \ncharged with high crime, thus referred to the co- \nhesive power of our Christian religion: ** Depend \nupon it, the world can not be held together with- \nout morals ; nor can morals maintain their station \nin the human heart without religion, which is the \ncorner-stone of the fabric of human virtue." And \nthe distinguished Chief Justice of this great state \nof Georgia, the Hon. Joseph H. Lumpkin, has \nwith equal eloquence and force applied the same \nprinciple to our American commonwealth: ** Ban- \nish the Bible from the land, or, w/zat is the same \nthing, succeed in loosing its hold on the public \nmind, and my word for it, the experiment of self- \ngovernment will prove a failure." \n\nPolitical atheism will inevitably produce polit- \nical anarchy. For a nation, as for an individual, \nit is better to have a bad god than no god at all. \nKishub Chunder Sen, of India, showed himself a \ngenuine philosopher when he uttered this distress- \n\n\n\n24 Christianity and the American Commonwealth. \n\nful apprehension: **I fear for my countrymen \nthat they will sink from the hell of heathenism into \nthe deeper hell of infidelity." A nation without a \nGod is a nation without a conscience ; and a na- \ntion without a conscience knows no rule of right \nbut might, perverts law into license, and makes \nauthority the bitter synonym of cruel tyranny. \nOn this point the late lamented and learned Dr. \nPhilip Schaff spoke these wise words of warning; \n**The destruction of religion would be the de- \nstruction of morality and the ruin of the state. \nCivil liberty requires for its support religious lib- \nerty, and can not prosper without it." And David \nHume, skeptic though he was, yet an impartial \nhistorian and philosopher, did not hesitate to make \nthis candid affirmation: *\' If you find a people \nwithout religion, rest assured that they do not dif- \nfer much from the brute beasts." But this pro- \nfound political principle, which is slowly working \nout its predestined results in the history of nations, \nlong ago had more authoritative announcement than \nany opinion of uninspired man, in these words of \nthe prophet Isaiah: **The nation and the king- \n\\ dom that will not serve thee shall perish." \n\n\n\nReligion and Civil Government. 25 \n\nA striking modern illustration of the doctrine \nfor which I am now contending we have in the \n"Reign of Terror" in France, that bloodiest \nchapter in the history of a land of revolutions and \ncounter-revolutions. Blatant infidelity precipi- \ntated that storm of pitiless fur}^ The National \nAssembly passed a resolution deliberately declar- \ning ** There is no God; " vacated the throne of \nDeity by simple resolution, abolished the Sabbath, \nunfrocked her ministers of religion, turned tem- \nples of spiritual worship into places of secular \nbusiness, and enthroned a vile woman as the God- \ndess of Reason. Now, instead of larger liberty \nand wiser laws and more perfect peace and \ngreater commercial and industrial prosperity, the \ndays of anarchy and terror had just begun. That \nvery night the storm burst, and the streets of the \nworld\'s fairest city ran red with the blood of the \nproudest chivalry of France. What a verification \nis that sad history of the eloquent words of Lord \nMacaulay: \'\'Whoever does anything to depre- \nciate Christianity is guilty of high treason against \nthe civilization of mankind." \n\nIt now bfecomes necessary to examine some- \n\n\n\n26 Christianity and the American Commonwealth. \n\nwhat into the civilizations of people living under \ndifferent religions in order to ascertain how far \nthe principles here announced are verified by the \nfacts of history. If my contention is true, we shall \ndiscover that civil governments and their admin- \nistration differ as their religions differ. That \nwhich so powerfully affects the inner life must of \nnecessity determine the outer form of society. \n\nIt would be most instructive, if the limits of this \ndiscussion allowed, to make an extended study of \nthe pagan civilizations of certain countries ante- \ndating the Christian period, and then note the \nchanges wrought by the coming and dissemina- \ntion of the religion of the Man of Galilee. Those \nmarvelous changes were not mere coincidences, \nbut the effects of mighty causes potential in the \ngospel. In a few centuries the spiritual teachings \nof the Nazarene dethroned the gods of great na- \ntions, revolutionized the social life of many peo- \nples, shifted the shadings on the map of the world, \nand marked the rise and fall of empires. In spite \nof persecutions long and bitter, in face of legisla- \ntion malignant and merciless, armed only with \nspiritual weapons, the Church moved forward to \n\n\n\nReligion and Civil Government. 27 \n\nglorious conquest. "Those were times of awful \nagony," says the historian, ** the two years of De- \ncius, the ten yea-rs of Diocletian, when the Roman \nEmpire, shutting the gates of the amphitheater, \nleaped into the arena face to face with the Chris- \ntian Church. When those gates were opened, \nthe victorious Church went forth with the bap- \ntism of blood on her saintly brow, bearing a new \nChristian empire in her fair, white arms." But it \nwill be amply sufficient for the purpose of this ar- \ngument to examine existing civilizations and con- \ntrast their dominant forces. \n\nAnd at the very outset of this investigation \none broad generalization may be clearly made: \nXhe governments of all non-Christian countries \nare desfotic. Whatever the cause, this is the \nhistoric fact, and a fact written in blood and \ntears. It is a logical and spiritual necessity. \nA tyrannous religion produces a political des- \npotism. Without spiritual liberty there can be \nno civil freedom. Dr. Dennis, in his master- \nly and voluminous work on ** Christian Mis- \nsions and Social Progress." after a critical and \nexhaustive survey of the entire field, makes this \n\n\n\n28 Christianity and the American Commonwealth. \n\nstrong statement: *\' The history of heathenism is, \nas a rule, marked by despotism. The old oriental \nempires and their modern successors are alike in \nthis respect. Savage life has been almost inva- \nriably characterized by tyranny on the part of \nthe rulers." And in referring especially to those \nill-fated lands under Moslem rule Archbishop \nTrench makes a like sweeping declaration. He \nclaims that **the despotisms of the East are not \naccidents, but the legitimate results of the Koran; \nand so long as this exists as the authoritative book \nnothing can come in their stead." Its political \nsupremacy has been a soulless tyranny, wielding \na scepter of iron and waving a flag of flame. The \ncivilizations of Japan, China, and India are the \nsocial and political expressions of their ancient \nreligions. They have molded the thought, con- \ntrolled the legislation, and directed the public pol- \nicies of those vast empires through dreary and \nweary centuries. In none of them is there any \nconception of the great doctrine of personal lib- \nerty, and only in modern Japan is there an ap- \nproach to civil and constitutional rights. And a \nlike condition of things obtains in the little "her- \n\n\n\nReligion and Civil Government. 29 \n\nmit nation" of the East. The government of Ko- \nrea, in the judgment of a native Korean, is *\' a com- \nbination of despotic monarchy and corrupted oli- \ngarchy, with the worst elements of both." Its \nwhole machinery is run in the interest of the few- \nest people at the cruel cost of the nation. Civil \noppression, without even a show of justice, was \nthe habit of centuries, and the only hope of the \nsuperstitious masses. And to whatever pagan \nland we turn, the same sad story is heard, a story \nof heartless tyranny and suffering slaves. The \n\'\' demon-ridden islands" of the sea, and the dark \ncontinent of Africa, with its fetishism and name- \nless idolatries, only swell the orphan cry of hu- \nmanity, the weird wail of the millions for that \nfreedom which comes only to those who know the \nemancipating power of the truth as it is in Jesus. \n\nOnly in Christian countries do we find liberal \nand representative government. There autocra- \ncies give way to republics, and royal decrees to \nstatutes and constitutions. The old fable of the \ndivine right of kings surrenders to the sovereignty \nof the people and the reign of constitutional law. \nI quote again a fine passage from the distinguished \n\n\n\n!>\xe2\x96\xa0> \n\n\n\n\n\n\nyi; \n\n\n\n30 Christianity and the American Commonwealth. \n\n\n\n^^y ^i \n\n\n\nJ\'\'^ ^Dr. Fairbairn : \'* If you want political freedom, it \nis to states that have known what it was to believe \nin the Christian religion that you must go. You \nmust go to Holland, as she issues purified from \nher baptism of blood, strengthened in her faith and \nennobled in her spirit by the unequal yet victo- \nrious struggle against Spain; you must go to \nEngland as the Puritans made her; you must go \nto Scotland as she was made by John Knox; you \nmust go to America, so largely formed, organized, \nand governed by the sturdy Puritan men of New \nEngland and the mild, inflexible Friends and the \nstalwart Presbyterians of Pennsylvania. And un- \nderneath all you find that the grand, dominant \nfactors are the religious ideas, the faith that came \nthrough Jesus Christ." \n\nThe social and. political force of any religion is \nmeasured by the estimate it puts upon l/ie individ- \nual and the family. The religion that enthrones \nman and sanctifies the home, builds the strongest \nstate, with the surest guarantees of enduring and \nincreasing glory; but, on the other hand, the re- \nligion that undervalues the individual and secular- \nizes the home, that disregards personal rights and \n\n\n\nReligion and Civil Government. 31 \n\ndebases family relationships, of necessity exalts \nthe state into a despotism, degrades the citizen into \na mere slave, and breeds immoralities that sooner \nor later accomplish its ruin. A nation is strong" in \nproportion as man is respected as a sovereign and \nprotected in his rights; a nation is pure in pro- \nportion as the sanctities of the home are properly \nappreciated and safeguarded. \n\nI shall first, therefore, seek to ascertain what \nplace man holds in the world\'s great religions, and \ndiscover thereby the character of civilization that \nhas been built about him. Every religion must \nbe measured by the man it produces. As is the \nman so is the religion, and as is the religion so is \nthe nation. I accept without qualification the \nstrong statement of Humboldt, that ** govern- \nments, religion, property, books, are nothing but \nthe scaffolding to build man. Earth holds up to \n\' her Maker no fruit like the finished man." \n\nIn all non-Christian countries manhood is more \nor less debased, and human life is cheap. The \ndoctrine that the state must guarantee the protec- \ntion of life is purely a Christian conception. \nKings have put citizens to death to gratify person- \n\n\n\n32 Christianity and the American Commonwealth. \n\nal revenge, without other authority than their own \nwills. Dr. Fairbairn states the whole case in a \nfew words: *\'The great notion in all ancient em- \npires was that the king or the priest owns the peo- \nple. The idea of man as a conscious, rational, \nmoral individual, of worth for his own sake, of \nequal dignity before his Maker, did not exist in \nantiquity till it came into being through Israel.\'* \nAnd that fatal misconception of humanity, distin- \nguishing all non-Christian religions and nations, \naccounts for the heartless atrocities that so often \nshock the civilized world and redden the pages of \nhistory. \n\nA critical and philosophical student of com- \nparative religions, in estimating their working \nforces upon individual life and character, has \nmade an analysis which I think eminently correct \nand just. He finds in Buddhism a paralyzed per- \nsonality, in Confucianism an impoverished person- \nality, in Hinduism a degraded personality , and in \nMohammedism an enslaved personality. \n\nOn the other band, Christianity teaches that \nevery man is a sovereign. It exalts the individual, \nplaces the crown of a king upon every human \n\n\n\nReligion and Civil Government. 33 \n\nbrow, and the crozier of a priest in every human \nhand. Christ tells us there is nothing greater \nthan manhood. In commenting upon the fact \nthat Jesus Christ put value upon man himself, \napart from possession or position, James Russell \nLowell said he was* \'the first true democrat that \never breathed.^\' \n\nA -paralyzed -personality is the legitimate and nec- \nessary product of the Buddhist creed. Buddha \nhated life and preached a gospel of annihilation. \nHis aim was to make men know their misery, that \nthey might willingly escape therefrom. His ulti- \nmate and hopeless end was a state of non-exist- \nence. The sum of his teaching may be thus ex- \npressed : \n\n" Know that, whatever thou hast been, \n\'Tis something better not to be." \n\nTo Buddha the highest life was in seclusion, the \nrenunciation of the common duties of home, so- \nciety, and state. Buddhism makes \'* celibacy the \nloftiest state and mendicancy the highest idea of \nlife." It has little provision for the great organic \ninstitutions of society. The striking contrast be- \ntween the spirit of Buddhism and Christianity has \n\n\n\n34 Christianity and the American Commonwealth. \n\nbeen sharply drawn by the scholarly Bishop of \nRipon: ** While Buddha cries * Retire,\' Christ \ncries \'Advance.\' While Buddha cries * Reduce \nthe powers of affection and happiness,\' Christ \nbids us live fully, enlarging our capacities, strength- \nening while elevating our affections. The end \nwhich Buddha points to is the cessation of suffer- \ning; the end which Christ proposes is the perfec- \ntion of character." Now out of this religion of \ndespair, this petrified pessimism, what may we ex- \npect but a man of degraded spirit, without high \npurpose or lofty ambition or daring enterprise or \naggressive courage? And history has not disap- \npointed the dreary expectation. Look at China, \na land of heavy slumber and darkness, for which \nthere can be no awakening until it is proclaimed \nby Christianity\'s mighty angel of the resurrection. \nFrom Confucianism we have an impoverished per- \nsonality. Confucius said he was " a transmitter, \nnot a maker." He taught that religion was re- \nflection. He opposed progress. He abhorred \neverything new as untrue. He taught nothing \nwith regard to man\'s relation to God, He \nsaid: ** The part of wisdom is to attend care- \n\n\n\nReligion and Civil Government. 35 \n\nfully to our duties to men, and, while we respect \nthe gods, to keep aloof from them." The car- \ndinal doctrine of his creed was the worship of an- \ncestors. Now, from such lifeless, spiritless phi- \nlosophy and religion we can only expect an im- \npoverished manhood. It has nothing on which to \ndevelop stalwart virtues and imperial manliness, \nnothing to stimulate noble aspiration or to satisfy \nthe divine hunger of the deathless soul. These \ndoctrines, transmuted into the thought and life of \nthe Chinese people, have sterilized the whole na- \ntion, and reduced that naturally great power into \nthe plaything and spoil of other governments. \n\nThe combined influence of Buddhism and Con- \nfucianism has produced the civilization of China. \nIt has been compared to Lot\'s wife, a hardened, \nstiffened figure, with its face ever toward the \nchangeless past. China sits forever by the grave. \nHer only ambition is to emulate the dead, her ho- \nliest worship is to dwell among the tombs. No \nwonder she is stationary. There is no future but \nthe past. Departure from old customs is a nation- \nal crime, variance from the ways of the sages an \nunpardonable sin. A true picture of this vast na- \n\n\n\n3^ Christianity and the American Commonwealth. \n\ntion is a figure sitting before the tablets of the dead ; \na giant of massive mold and immense capabilities, \nbut a paralyzed and impoverished personality. \n\nThe contribution of Hinduism to society is a \ndegraded -personality. This is the necessary prod- \nuct of the caste system, which is the distinguishing \nfeature of the Hindu faith. It suppresses the \ndevelopment of individuality and independence of \ncharacter. Administered as it is with Draconian \nseverity, it brutalizes the conscience and destroys \nall moral distinctions. A man may commit mur- \nder and not lose caste, but receiving a glass of \nwater from the hands of a European would be a \nmortal sin, the forfeiture forever of all social dis- \ntinction or recognition. It eradicates human sym- \npathy, annihilates compassion, hardens the heart, \nand intensifies selfishness. Outside the caste the \nweal or woe of a fellow -man makes no im- \npression, excites not the least concern. Pity for \nthe low caste is unknown, and measures for \ntheir relief would be a contamination. No won- \nder a distinguished Parsee scholar, while contem- \nplating the degraded and hopeless condition of \nthe Pariah outcasts, exclaimed: \'*0 Caste, thou \n\n\n\nReligion and Civil Government. 37 \n\ninexorable tyrant, what hope is there for India \nwhile thy Juggernaut wheel is grinding man\'s best \nnature out of him?" \n\nUnder this system there can be no social unity, \nno national sentiment, no esfrit de cor^s, no co- \nhesive power. Caste has developed social tyran- \nny and erected family and personal barriers that \nhave necessarily weakened the state. No wonder, \ntherefore, that the great Indo- Aryan race has be- \ncome the easy prey of invading nations. Buckle, \nin his "History of Civilization," has in these \ngraphic words given a faithful picture of that land \ncursed by caste: \'*It is not surprising that, from \nthe earliest period to which our knowledge of In- \ndia extends, an immense majority of the people, \npinched by the most galling" poverty, and just \nliving from hand to mouth, should always have re- \nmained in a state of stupid debasement, broken \nby incessant misfortune, crouching before their \nsuperiors in abject submission, and only fit either \nto be slaves themseves or to be led to battle to \nmake slaves of others." \n\nAnd, in addition to this cruel caste, the hideous \nidolatries of Hinduism can only produce a de- \n\n\n\n3^ Christianity and the American Commonwealth. \n\nbased and debauched manhood. No people can \nrise higher than their conceptions of the gods \nthey worship. Debased deities make degraded \nvotaries. Look at some of those horrid fig-ures \nbefore which the superstitious Hindu slavishly \nbows. There is the stone image of Vishnu, with \nfour arms, riding on a creature half bird, half \nman, or else sleeping on a serpent. There is \nSiva, a monster with three eyes, riding naked on \na bull, with necklace of skulls for an ornament. \nThere is Kartekeya, the god of war, with six \nfaces, riding on a peacock, and holding bow and \narrow in his hands. There is Ganesa, god of \nsuccess, with four hands and an elephant\'s head, \nsitting on a rat. There is Goddess Kali, with flow- \ning hair reaching to her feet, with a necklace of \nhuman heads, her tongue protruded from her \nmouth, and her girdle stained with blood. Be- \nfore such forbidding creatures, with elaborate and \nhorrid rites of worship, it is impossible for the soul \nto have pure and noble aspirations. The product \nof Hinduism can only be a degraded -personality. \nIndia\'s sad story has been told by Matthew Ar- \nnold in these despairing lines: \n\n\n\nReligion and Civil Government. 39 \n\nOn that hard pagan world, disgust \n\nAnd secret loathing fell, \nDeep weariness and sated lust \n\nMade human life a hell. \n\nNow, in contrast with this degrading system, \nthe ennobling virtues of the Christian reHgion are \nthus described by a distinguished native of India, \na Parsee scholar: "On the other hand, one need \nnot be a Christian himself to be able to see that \nChristianity has tended powerfully to humanize \none of the least human of the races of men. In \nits essence it ought to exercise a threefold influ- \nence: to humanize, to liberalize, to equalize. \nThis, to me, is a very great achievement. Other \nreligions have their special merits, but none of \nthem claims to have rendered this threefold serv- \nice to the race." \n\nMohammedanism has produced an e7islaved per- \nsonality. *\' Its Koran demands intellectual sla- \nvery; its harem requires domestic slavery; its \nstate implies and enforces both a religious and a \ncivil slavery." The Koran puts a premium upon \nwar, offering the highest rewards to those who \nslay the greatest number of infidels. Mohammed\'s \n\n\n\n40 Christianity and the American Commonwealth. \n\ncardinal principle, that the end justifies the meanSj \nconsecrated every form of deception and lying, \nand encouraged every sort of persecution and vio- \nlence; commercial confidence is almost unknown, \nand hence there are few banks and business \npartnerships. The citizen is the slave of the \nstate; he has no rights to be respected. Mo- \nhammedanism is an absolute despotism, the most \ngigantic engine of intolerance and persecution \nthe world ever saw. There is a proverb which \nsays: \'\'Where the Turkish horse sets its hoof \nthe grass never grows." The Turkish horse is \nthe synonym of the Turkish government, which \nis the political expression of the Moslem religion. \nIn every land swept by this heartless despotism it \nhas left a tale and trail of blood. Its simple touch \nis a blight. Commerce languishes, then decays; \nharvests cease, and then the fields become barren \nas the uncovered rocks of the eternal hills. All \nhistory attests the atrocious verity. A glance at \nMohammedan nations will recall the facts of this \nmournful story. But, while the shrieks of dying \nChristians in Armenia still linger in our ears \xe2\x80\x94 \ndying by the cruel edge of the Turkish swords, \n\n\n\nReligion and Civil Government. 41 \n\nwielded by Turkish slaves, and in order to propa- \ngate the Moslem faith\xe2\x80\x94 we may well veil from \nour eyes the desolations of Mohammedan gen- \nerations. \n\nBy the side of these developments of character \nlet us place the Christian conception of manhood. \nThe dignity and individuality of man, with per- \nsonal, inalienable rights, and entitled to the lar- \ngest freedom consistent with the rights of others, \nis the ** exclusive legacy of Christianity to human- \nity." In no land untouched by the Christian relig- \nion has such a conception ever obtained. The doc- \ntrine of equality of citizenship \xe2\x80\x94 equality in privi- \nlege unaffected by possession or position \xe2\x80\x94 is only \nanother form of our Lord\'s declaration that **A \nman\'s life consisteth not in the abundance of the \nthings which he possesseth." Every human soul \nhas an intrinsic value. Christianity alone has \nheard and answered the anxious prayer of human- \nity, voiced in these lines: \n\n" O Freedom, deepen thou a grave, \nWhere every king and every slave \nShall drop in crown and chain, \nTill only man remain." \n\n\n\n42 Christianity and the American Commonwealth. \n\nAnd Christ has brought to the world the blessed \ndoctrine of the brotherhood of man \xe2\x80\x94 a brother- \nhood that *\' involves an equality of rights on the \none hand, and a sovereignty of duty on the \nother." Belief in many gods is irreconcilable \nwith the doctrine of a common humanity. Max \nMiiller tells us that the word *\' mankind" never \nfell from the lips of Socrates or Plato or Aristotle. \n** Where the Greeks saw barbarians, we see \nbrethren; where the Greek saw nations, we see \nmankind." \n\nAfter a critical examination of the influence of \nthe Roman empire in promoting national unity. \nVon Humboldt said: *\'But the feeling of com- \nmunion and unity of the whole human race, \nand of the equal rights of all its families, is de- \nrived from a nobler source. It is founded upon \ndeeper motives of the mind, and upon religious \nconvictions. Christianity has assisted most pow- \nerfully in promoting the idea of the human race: \nit has acted beneficially in rendering man more \nhuman in his manners and institutions. The idea \nof humanity is interwoven with the earliest Chris- \ntian doctrines." \n\n\n\nReligion and Civil Government. 43 \n\nReligions, as social and political factors, are \nalso differentiated by their injluence ufon tkefafn- \nily. A religion that fails to purify the home is \npowerless to elevate the nation. The corner-stone \nof the commonwealth is the hearthstone. The \nstate is but the enlargement of the family; or, as \nProf. Woodrow Wilson happily phrases it, ** State \nis family writ large." And as woman is head of \nthe home, a nation is no better than its women. \nIf they are ignorant and depraved, the family will \nbe impure and the nation debauched. In all non- \nChristian lands there are no homes, only houses. \nWomen are looked upon as slaves or animals. \nThe family life is debauched. The harem is the \nscene of bitter jealousies, fierce hostilities, and \nnameless debaucheries. A missionary once asked \na Mohammedan woman how she felt when a sec- \nond wife came into the house. She smote upon \nher breast and said : \' ^Fire here \xe2\x80\x94 -fire in the heart J\' \' \nOut of such houses of shame and sorrow can not \nbe developed the virtues that construct great na- \ntions and give glory to empires. For those schools \nof national character we must look to Christianity, \nwhich seeks to make every home as sacred as the \n\n\n\n44 Christianity and the American Commonzvealth. \n\nshrine of a temple and every woman as pure as \nthe bride of Christ. \n\nIn his great work on the \'\'Divine Origin of \nChristianity, Indicated by Its Historical Effects," \nDr. Storrs thus eloquently refers to woman\'s in- \ndebtedness to the ennobling influences of the Chris- \ntian religion: "The tendency of Christianity al- \nways has been, while recognizing the sex in souls, \nto give to woman larger opportunity, more effect- \nive control of all instruments for work : to put her \nside by side with man in front of all the great \nachievements \xe2\x80\x94 in letters, arts, humanities, missions \n\xe2\x80\x94 as at the majestic south portal of Strasburg ca- \nthedral the figure of Sabina, maiden and architect, \nfaces the figure of Erwin von Steinbach ; and though \nthe old traditions of law are hard to change, the \nentire movement of modern society is toward the \nperfect enfranchisement of the sex to which the \nreligion brought by Jesus gave at the outset pre- \neminent honor." \n\nChristianity has also given the world a new law \nof international comity^ and has brought the na- \ntions of earth into closer fellowship. The historian \nLecky has well said: \'\'Christianity has never \n\n\n\nReligion and Civil Government. 45 \n\nbeen an enemy to national feeling, though she has \ninfused into Christendom a bond of unity which \nis superior to the divisions of nationhood." The \ngreat and beneficent fabric of international law is \nthe direct product of the Christian religion. It \ncomes from the doctrine of universal brotherhood : \nthat all nationalities, however distant and diver- \ngent, are members of a higher spiritual family, and \nthat as the spirit of kinship is enthroned the pos- \nsibility of wars and blood will be reduced. Ed- \nward Everett paid this generous tribute to our \nholy religion in his review of the great work by \nGrotius: *\'The foundations of his immortal trea- \ntise on the law of nations are laid in the scriptures \nof the Old and New Testaments, and the original \nconception of the work was in the genuine spirit \nof Christian philanthropy." \n\nAnd its mission of peace on earth and good \nwill to men continues with increasing success. It \nhas introduced the doctrine of arbitration for the \nsettlement of international controversies, and is \ndaily decreasing the occasions for strife. If it \nhas not yet made wars to cease on the earth, it has \ngreatly mitigated their barbarities, and some day \n\n\n\n4^ Christianity and the American Commonwealth. \n\nwill usher in that cloudless morning which Alfred \nTennyson saw in a vision, when \n\nThe M^ar-drums will throb no longer, and the battle-flags be \n\nfurled, \nIn the parliament of man, the federation of the world. \n\nThis study might be profitably extended into a \ncomparison of Protestantism, and I^omanis?n, in \ntheir effects upon the civilization of the world. \nNot all so-called Christian nations are alike. \nThey are separated widely, radically, sometimes \nfatally. The distinguishing doctrines of Chris- \ntianity may be variously interpreted, and held with \ndifferent degrees of spiritual intelligence and mor- \nal honesty. So Christian nations differ from each \nother, not so much from climatic and traditional \nreasotis, but because of variant and even diver- \ngent conceptions of the cardinal principles of \nChristianity. These differences are not attribu- \ntable to race, climate, or nationality. The cleav- \nage is along the line of religion. Sons of the same \nblood, heirs of the same promise, have built differ- \nent civilizations under the same sun and on the \nsame soil. All history attests the truth of Lord \n\n\n\nReligion and Civil Government. 47 \n\nMacaulay\'s eloquent words: " Whoever passes in \nGermany from a Roman Catholic to a Protestant \nprincipality, in Switzerland from a Roman Cath- \nolic to a Protestant canton, in Ireland from a Ro- \nman Catholic to a Protestant county, finds that he \nhas passed from a lower to a higher grade of civ- \nilization. On the other side of the Atlantic the \nsame law prevails. The Protestants of the United \nStates have left far behind them the Roman Cath- \nolics of Mexico, Peru, and Brazil. The Roman \nCatholics of Lower Canada remain inert, while \nthe whole continent around them is in a ferment \nwith Protestant activity and enterprise." \n\nBut the limits of this lecture will not allow a \nmore extended comparison. The story of one \ncountry is substantially the history of all others. \nRomanism sterilizes ; Protestantism vitalizes. The \none is adapted to a feudal state ; the other creates \na free commonwealth. \n\nAnd now the sum of all this discussion is elo- \nquently stated by Wendell Phillips in these words : \n"The answer to the Shasters is India; the an- \nswer to Confucianism is China; the answer to \nthe Koran is Turkey; the answer to the Bible is \n\n\n\n48 Christianity and the American Commonwealth. \n\nthe Christian civilization of Protestant Europe \nand America." To which Rev. Dr. W. J. R. \nTaylor very properly offers this important amend- \nment: \'\'The answer to Romanism is Spain and \nMexico; and the answer to atheism is the Reign \nof Terror in France and the Commune in Paris." \n\n\n\n\' -^^~^.^-. \n\n\n\nLECTURE II. \n\n\n\nThe Christian Coming and Character of the Early \n\nColonists. \n\n4 (49) \n\n\n\nLECTURE II. \n\nTHE CHRISTIAN COMING AND CHARACTER OF \nTHE EARLT COLONISTS. \n\nTHE general principles discussed in the first \nlecture \xe2\x80\x94 the influences of religion upon civil \ngovernment \xe2\x80\x94 must now be applied to the colonial \nperiod of American history. We will ascertain, \nif possible, how far those great basal principles \nfind illustration and verification in an analysis of \nthe formative forces of our vast republic. From \nbroad generalizations we proceed to historic ap- \nplication. \n\nIn the former lecture it was sought to be shown \nthat religion was the determining and dominant \nfactor in all civilizations, and, therefore, the purer \nthe religion the higher the civilization and the \nwiser the civil government. In illustration of this \ndoctrine the civilizations of Christian and non- \nChristian countries were contrasted, resulting in \nthe triumphant vindication of Christianity as the \nmightiest political influence and social dynamic \nknown to the history of the world. Comparison \nwas also instituted betv/een Protestantism and Ro- \n\n(51) \n\n\n\n52 Christianity and the American Commonwealth. \n\nmanism as civilizing and national forces, revealing \nthe fact that our Protestant faith is the social hope \nof the world, the only true friend of freedom, the \nonly redeemer of nations, the only palladium of \ncivil liberty, the only wise master-builder of per- \nmanent empires. \n\nIt ought, therefore, to be an occasion of un- \nceasing gratitude to every American patriot that \nthis mighty continent was colonized by Protestant \nEngland rather than by Catholic France and \nSpain ; that the early rulers of America were the \nsturdy sons of a pure Protestantism and not the \nfanatical votaries of an effete Romanism. When \nColumbus, steering west, and nearing the shores \nof an undiscovered world, saw a Hock of land- \nbirds toward the south, he changed his course to \nfollow their flight, and gave to Spain the West In- \ndies Islands. But for those winged messengers of \nthe wilderness, guided, it may be, by a favoring \nProvidence, the great voyager would have come \ndirectly to the shores of Carolina, and this mag- \nnificent country, so distinctly Protestant and pow- \nerful, might have become the sterile land of an \nunprogressive Catholic civilization. Instead of a \n\n\n\nThe Early Colonists. 53 \n\nvigorous, aggressive nation, this might have been \nanother pitiable South American repubHc, scourged \nwith poverty and treachery. Instead of the home \nof Magna Charta, it might have been the land of \nthe guillotine and the Inquisition. \n\nIt is a suggestive fact that the first bloodshed \nin America by Europeans was prompted by Ro- \nman Catholic fanaticism. The ferocious assas- \nsins who led in the massacre were accompanied \nby twelve Franciscans and four Jesuits, who gave \nthem the benedictions of the Church. A com- \npany of humble, brave-hearted Huguenots fled \nfrom persecution in France, and, crossing the At- \nlantic, formed a little colony near the mouth of the \nSt. Johns River, in Florida. But the presence of \nthese harmless heretics excited Spanish alarm and \nhate, so the next year (1565) an expedition was \nfitted out under the command of the distinguished \nPedro Melendez, ** a bigot, who could conceive \nof no better manifestation of love to God than \ncruelty to man, when man was heretical." The \nhelpless colony was cruelly invaded and all swung \nto the trees, with this inscription written under- \nneath: " Hung as heretics, and not as Frenchmen." \n\n\n\n54 Christianity and the American Commonzvealth. \n\nSo America\'s first tragedy was a new St. Barthol- \nomew\'s day, the heartless expression of Catholic \ncasuistry and cruelty. Well would it have been \nfor Spain in that early time if she had been able to \nhear and heed the philosophic and wise counsel of \nsome leader like her own Emilio Castellar of to- \nday. ** National freedom," says this Spanish \nstatesman, \'*can be won only by pacific means. \nSoldiers are as unfit to build the temple of freedom \nas the warrior David was to build the temple of \nGod. Those who depend upon the sword shall \nperish by the sword." \n\nHad the early colonists of America come from \nother lands, impelled by other motives and in- \nspired by another religious faith, the results \nwould have been vastly different. The brilliant \nhistory of the American commonwealth could \nnever have been written. The grand doctrines \nthat have been wrought into the vast framework \nof this great republic were incarnated in the colo- \nonists. Their everlasting principles have become \nour magnificent institutions. **Our nation, in its \ngreatness to-day, is nothing more than the oak \nwhich has sprung from the acorn which they plant- \n\n\n\nThe Early Colonists. 55 \n\ned." Such a nation could only have been born \nof a sturdy Protestant faith. The Declaration of \nIndependence could never have been penned by a \nman, or adopted by a people who accepted the \ndoctrines and were dominated by the principles of \na papal hierarchy. It has a Protestant inspiration. \nBut these and other great historic facts will be \nclearly developed in the process of this discus- \nsion. \n\nI invite you in this lecture to a study of the \nearly colonists^ their motives^ character , and -prin- \nciples. For the magnificent history of our coun- \ntry we are indebted more than anything else to \nwhat the eloquent Sergeant S. Prentiss called \nthe ^^ awful virtues of our pilgrim sires." We \nwill therefore most reverently inquire who they \nwere, what principles they embraced and taught, \nand whither and when and why they came. It \nwill be found, I doubt not, that religion was the \ncontrolling motive of their coming and the divine \npurpose of their remaining. **With this," as \nBancroft says, *\'the wounds of the outcast were \nhealed and the tears of the exile sweetened." \n\nIndeed, long before the days of permanent col- \n\n\n\n5 6 Christianity and the American Commonwealth \n\nonization we find this ardent religious purpose di- \nrecting all westward movements. It characterized \nand largely controlled the period of discovery. \nIt was alike regnant in Catholic and Protestant. \nSails were set in the name of the cross as well as \nthe crown, and lands were claimed both for the \nChurch and the king. But in asserting that relig- \nion was the primary motive of American discov- \nery, I do not overlook or undervalue other deter- \nmining forces. Maritime enterprise, commercial \ngreed, political ambition, and territorial expansion \nexercised the full measure of their power in speed- \ning the ships that swept the Western seas in search \nof unseen continents. \'\'Avarice and religious zeal \nwere singularly blended." \n\nIn the national art gallery of Mexico there is a \nmagnificent portrait of Christopher Columbus. \nHe is a young man, with the pale face of a stu- \ndent, and wearing an expression of seriousness \ndeepening to sadness, as though in his heart some \nlong-unrequited hope were about to die. He is \nsitting on a rock that juts out into the sea, and is \npeering thoughtfully over the restless waves, while \nmaps and charts are spread out before him, and in \n\n\n\nThe Early Colonists, 57 \n\none hand is a much-used compass. Before that \nbusy brain visions of far-off unknown lands had \nalready passed, and upon that burdened young \nsoul had been rolled the holy mission of their dis- \ncovery. The sadness that shadowed his fair \nbrow came from the inadequate means at com- \nmand to fulfil the sublime prophecies of his great \nsoul. That picture, the work of a master, fitly \nrepresents the scientific and spiritual beginning of \nthis great Western empire. \n\nColumbus was a man of deep piety, and con- \nsidered himself the *\' called of God." He felt, as \nhis name \'* Cv^r/stopher" implied, that in an im- \nportant sense he was a \'* Christ-bearer." On one \noccasion he said: ** God made me a messenger of \nthe new heavens and the new earth." To his rev- \nerent mind his voyage of discovery was little less \nthan a missionary journey. His last act in the \nOld World and his first in the New were solemn \nacts of worship. The last note in the Old was a \nprayer, the first in the New a song. Before \nlaunching out to sea the holy communion was cel- \nebrated in a temporary chapel at Palos, and so \nsoon as they landed on the island which the great \n\n\n\n5^ Christianity and the American Commonwealth. \n\ndiscoverer himself named San Salvador, a cross \nwas erected, and the Gloria in Eoccelsis was sung \nwith loud voice, waking with its swelling cadences \nthe deep silence of a wilderness soon to become a \nnew world. \n\nOn his second voyage Columbus was accompa- \nnied by twelve priests and a vicar apostolic, with \na solemn charge from Queen Isabella to give spe- \ncial spiritual attention to the natives. Other ex- \npeditions rapidly followed, each under immedi- \nate ecclesiastical benediction and patronage and \narmed with papal authority to take possession of \nnew countries in the name of \'Hhe Churchy the \nqueen and sovereign of the world. \' \' By the pope\'s \n*\'bull of partition," loyal Catholic nations were \nto parcel out and possess the New World. \n\nAnd a like missionary purpose dominated, more \nor less, the daring enterprise of English voyagers. \nSir Humphrey Gilbert, a favorite at the court of \nQueen Elizabeth, who led several expeditions over \nthe seas, claimed to be filled \'\'with nobler aims \nthan finding ore of gold." His chief ambition, \nhe declared, was \'\'the honor of God, the com- \npassion of poor infidels captivated by the devil," \n\n\n\nThe Early Colonists. 59 \n\nand to *\' discover all such heathen lands as were \nnot actually possessed by any Christian prince or \npeople." And the same announced purpose en- \ntered more or less into the daring and ambitious \nplans of Capt. John Smith, Sir Walter Raleigh, \nand other adventurous sailors over the, as yet, un- \ncharted ocean. \n\nBut before discussing the period of permanent \ncolonization I pause for a moment to consider a \nhistoric fact v^hich has been called a \'\xe2\x80\xa2 prodigy of \nDivine Providence." The vjhen of the coming of \nthe colonists is not less significant than the whither \nand the why. \n\nThe providential planting of the American na- \ntion is most manifest in the ti7ne appointed for the \nmovement to begin. An earlier or a later date \nwould have written for us a different history. \n*\'The hour of American colonization was the \nfittest one, in all modern times, for the New World \nto receive the best which the Old World had to \ngive." It had a connection in time and spirit with \nthe Reformation that was more than a fortunate \ncoincidence ; it must have been a special and wise \nprovidence. For, as the great Dr. Dorner has \n\n\n\n6o Christianity and the American Commonwealth. \n\nreverently observed, *^ a new land arose out of the \nsea to serve as a bulwark and a reserve for the \nChurch of the Reformation." And on the other \nhand, God seems to have restrained the spirit of \nwestern migration until the forces of the Reforma- \ntion had wrought a spiritual and political revolu- \ntion in Europe, and had become sufficiently strong \nto lay the foundations of a new empire on the other \nside the seas. ** That was high strategy in the \nwarfare for the advancement of the kingdom of \nGod in the earth." \n\nWhen Columbus touched the shores of San \nSalvador Luther was a child only nine years old. \nAll Europe was yet under ecclesiastical and civil \nbondage to the Church of Rome. The papacy \nwas still supreme in Church and State. True, the \nforces of revolt were slowly forming, but they \nwere waiting for a leader. The dying voice of \nJohn Huss was echoing over the continent. Across \nthe channel, Wyclif\'s English Bible was grad- \nually working the overthrow of ecclesiastical and \npolitical despotism. His scattered ashes only \nsymbolized the triumphant spread of the doctrines \nhe so fearlessly preached in life. Thus a way \n\n\n\nThe Early Colonists, 61 \n\nwas being prepared for another " prophet unto the \nnations," and in the fulness of time he came. \nThe child grew to stalwart manhood, and the \nhumble monk became the intrepid and masterful \nleader of a movement that had \'^centuries in its \nhistory." From a cloister came this divinely ac- \ncredited apostle, an open Bible in his hand, girded \nwith power, and armed with pen of fire and tongue \nof flame. He stirred to its stillest depths the slum- \nbering conscience of nations. His words were \nbattalions, and his doctrines mightier than dis- \nciplined armies. Soon every iron crown became \nuneasy, and almost every throne began to totter. \nAnd so it came to pass that " the entire sixteenth \ncentury was a period of universal disturbance." \n\nI am sure Guizot limited too narrowly the tre- \nmendous results of the Reformation when he as- \nserted that it had little effect politically, but that it \n** abolished and disarmed the spiritual power, the \nsystematic and formidable government of thought." \nIt was more than an emancipation of mind ; it was \na political, a national, and international revolution. \nIt was the birth of a new and holier patriotism, \nthe beginning of a larger and freer national life. \n\n\n\n63 Christianity and the American Commonwealth. \n\nFrom it came a broader conception and a bolder \nassertion of popular rights. Liberty became the \nworld\'s watchword. The old fable of the divine \nright of kings began to give way to constitutional \ngovernments.* \n\nThe Reformation wrought the emancipation and \nexaltation of the State. It abolished the false dis- \ntinction between the sacred and the secular, and in- \nvested magistrates with responsibilities and functions \nas sacred as those of priest or apostle. An early \nreformer insisted that ** the distinction between \necclesiastical and profane laws can find no place \namong Christians." They were not to have two \nconsciences, one for the State and another for the \nChurch, but were to be alike loyal to a divine in- \ntegrity in discharging both the high functions of \ncitizens and churchmen . The Reformation brought \nthe principle of religious liberty **from the region \nof abstract speculation, in which it had been born, \ninto the field of practical politics, where it had no \nexistence." \n\nThe colonization of North America, whether \nenterprised by Protestant England or Catholic \nFrance and Spain, was more of a rehgious inspi- \n\n\n\nThe Early Colonists, 63 \n\nration than a commercial ambition, a scheme of \nspiritual propagandism rather than of territorial \naggrandizement. Many m.otives doubtless prompt- \ned the coming of the colonists, but the greatest of \nthem all was religion. The earliest in the field \nwere the Spanish and the French. Though \nstrangely restrained by conditions at home, they \ndid push their American conquests with much \ncourage and religious zeal. In the South and on \nthe Pacific coast the Spanish planted themselves, \nand advanced far into the interior. The French \nsettled along the St. Lawrence, and sought to for- \ntify stations down the entire length of the Missis- \nsippi Valley. And everywhere they were guided \nand commanded by the authority of the Church. \nThe king of Spain said: *\' The conversion of the \nIndians is the principal foundation of the con- \nquest." The French advanced their schemes of \ncolonization and conquest, chanting the hymn, \n\n"The banners of heaven\'s King advance; \nThe mystery of the cross shines forth." \n\nBancroft says: "It was neither commercial en- \nterprise nor royal ambition which carried the pow- \n\n\n\n64 Christianity and the American Commonwealth. \n\ner of France into the heart of our continent: the \nmotive was religion. Religious enthusiasm col- \nonized New England, and religious enthusiasm \nfounded Montreal, made a conquest of the wilder- \nness on the upper lakes, and explored the Missis- \nsippi." In all the French and Spanish possessions \n\'*not a cape was turned nor a river entered but a \nJesuit led the way." Cardinal Richelieu issued \nthe decree that " everybody settling in New France \nmust be a Catholic." \n\nBut all those magnificent schemes of empire \nwere doomed to humiliating failure and almost \nutter extinction. Like a dream as one awaketh, \nthe splendid vision faded away. Only a few som- \nber monuments of French and Spanish dominion \nremain to remind us of America\'s providential es- \ncape from the iron grasp of a medieval civilization. \nThe issue was finally settled \xe2\x80\x94 an issue involving \nthe fate of this continent \xe2\x80\x94 on the stormy heights \nof Abraham. The fall of Quebec was the rise of \nthe American republic. The defeat of Montcalm \nwas the triumph of personal and civil liberty, of \nthe habeas corpus and free inquiry. The victory \nof Wolfe was the overthrow of civil and ecclesias- \n\n\n\nThe Early Colonists, 65 \n\ntical despotism. And so **this echo of the mid- \ndle ages" passed away. \n\nIt was religion that also promoted the colonial \nsettlements established by the sturdy and liberty- \nloving Protestants. The Virginia colony, the first \nestablished by the English in North America, was \nan avowed measure of religious propagandism. \nThe first charter prescribed their mode of worship, \nand, in the royal instructions given, the adventu- \nrous colonists were \'*to provide that the true word \nand service of God be preached, planted, and \nused, not only in the said colony but also as \nmuch as might be among the savages bordering \nupon them, according to the rites and doctrines of \nthe Church of England." And one of the char- \ntered reasons assigned for the Jamestown grant \nwas that the colony, \'\' under the providence of Al- \nmighty God, might tend to the glory of his Di- \nvine Majesty in propagating the Christian religion \nto such people as yet live in darkness and miser- \nable ignorance of the true knowledge and wor- \nship of God." The first house built after their \narrival was a place of worship. Their first penal \nlaws were adopted, as was declared, \'*to aid the \n\n\n\n66 Christianity and the American Commonwealth. \n\ncolonists in keeping a good conscience . \' \' And when \nSir Thomas Dale, the new governor, arrived in \n1611, he came furnished with a body of ^^aws, \ndivine, moral, and martial." When the first leg- \nislative assembly met, in 1619, the Church was es- \ntablished by law, and it was enacted that the year- \nly salary each clergyman should receive from his \nparishioners was fifteen hundred pounds of tobac- \nco and sixteen barrels of corn, estimated to be \nworth about two hundred pounds. Each male in- \nhabitant over sixteen years of age was taxed, for \nthis purpose, ten pounds of tobacco and one bush- \nel of corn. In 1624 the colonial assembly further \nenacted that on every plantation *\'a house or \nroom\'\' shall be provided for public worship, and \nattendance upon church service was made com- \npulsory. Thus we see how a fervent religious \npurpose determined the establishment of the Vir- \nginia colony. Of the politico-ecclesiastical ques- \ntions involved in this and other colonial settle- \nments much will be said in a later discussion. \n\nThe Plymouth colony, which landed thirteen \nyears after the Jamestown settlement, was projected \nin order better \'\'to practise the positive part of \n\n\n\nThe Early Colonists. 67 \n\nChurch reformation and propagate the gospel in \nAmerica." No devout souls ever made more \nhonest spiritual preparation for the holy worship \nof the sanctuary than did these noble pilgrims \nprayerfully perfect their plans to establish a home \nand new empire in this western wilderness. A \nsolemn fast was observed, then the holy com- \nmunion was celebrated, and, after a farewell ad- \ndress from the apostolic pastor, Rev. John Rob- \ninson, the * \'Mayflower" turned her prow toward \nthese far-off shores. With prosperous winds and \nthe guiding Eye which is above storm and billow, \nthe little vessel in due time hailed the heights \nwhere in the name of God a new banner was un- \nfurled under the open heavens. \n\nIn the cabin of the \'\'Mayflower," anchored off \nCape Cod, the Plymouth colonists gathered sol- \nemnly around a table, drew up a ** compact," and \norganized themselves into \'\' a civil body politic." \nThis was signed by all the male heads of families \nand the unmarried men not attached to families \nthus represented. That historic document reads \nas follows : \n\n** In the name of God, Amen. We whose names \n\n\n\n68 Christianity and the American Commonwealth. \n\nare underwritten, the loyal subjects of our dread \nsovereign lord, King James, by the grace of God, of \nGreat Britain, France, and Ireland, King, Defender \nof the Faith, etc., having undertaken, for the glory \nof God and advancement of the Christian faith and \nhonor of our king and country, a voyage to plant \nthe first colony in the northern parts of Virginia, \ndo, by these presents, solemnly and mutually, in \nthe presence of God and of one another, cove- \nnant and bind ourselves together into a civil body \npolitic, for our better ordering and preservation, \nand furtherance of the ends aforesaid, and by vir- \ntue hereof to enact, constitute, and frame such \njust and equal laws, ordinances, acts, constitu- \ntions, and offices, from time to time, as shall be \nthought most meet and convenient for the general \ngood of the colony: unto which we promise all \ndue submission and obedience. In witness where- \nof we have hereunder subscribed our names, at \nCape Cod, the nth of November, in the year of \nthe reign of our sovereign lord. King James, of \nEngland, France, and Ireland the eighteenth, \nand of Scotland the fifty-fourth. Anno Domini \n1620.\'\' \n\n\n\nThe Early Colonists, 69 \n\nThis, by the way, was the first effort of Amer- \nican colonists to frame a constitution, and out of \nthis grew the more elaborate fundamental law \non which this mighty nation is so securely built. \nThe dominant purpose, it is seen, was *\'to ad- \nvance the Christian faith," and, free from the \nfierce persecutions which they had suffered so \nlong, to build a nation in which the conscience \nshould be unfettered and the free worship of God \nguaranteed. The combined missionary and pa- \ntriot spirit which impelled their coming is thus \nexpressed by the eccentric and eloquent colonial \npreacher, Cotton Mather: **In coming to the new \ncontinent they were influenced by a double hope : \nthe enlargement of Christ\'s kingdom by the con- \nversion of heathen tribes, and the founding of an \nempire for their own children in which his relig- \nion should gloriously prevail." \n\nThe colony of Massachusetts Bay was project- \ned with the same religious purpose and the same \ndivine ideal. The Plymouth Company, *\'for the \npurpose," says Dr. Baird, in his \'\'Religion in \nAmerica," \'\' at once of providing an asylum for \npersons suffering for conscience\' sake in the Old \n\n\n\n70 Christianity and the American Commomvealth. \n\nWorld, and of extending the kingdom of Christ \nin the New," sold a vast belt of land to a number \nof English gentlemen. That was the origin of the \n\'* colony of Massachusetts Bay." John Win- \nthrop, the accomplished young governor of the \ncolony, on the occasion of leaving the shores of \nEngland, thus gave expression to the elevated \npiety of the brave company in a letter to his fa- \nther: *\'I shall call that my country where I may \nmost glorify God and enjoy the presence of my \ndearest friends. Therefore herein I submit my- \nself to God\'s will and yours, and dedicate myself \nto God and the company with the whole endeav- \nors both of body and of mind." And, after em- \nbarking. Gov. Winthrop and others drew up a \nhumble request for prayer in their behalf, ad- \ndressed \'*to the rest of their brethren in the \nChurch of England." Immediately after landing, \na day of solemn fasting and prayer was appointed, \nand was reverently devoted to the worship of God \nunder the wide-spreading trees of the unbroken \nforest. They felt that \'* nothing could be really \nor permanently prosperous without religion." \nThe colonial seal of Massachusetts in 1628 had \n\n\n\nThe Early Colonists. 71 \n\nthe device of an Indian, with this motto in his \nmouth: ^^Co7ne over and help us."\' \n\nThe colony of Connecticut was settled in 1623, \nand upon the very spot where the city of Hartford \nnow stands. \'\'They too," says Dr. Baird, "car- \nried the ark of the Lord with them, and made re- \nligion the basis of their institutions." The solemn \ncompact then adopted, and afterward expanded \ninto their constitution, contained the liberal polit- \nical principles that yet obtain in that common- \nwealth. \n\nThe New Haven colony was founded shortly \nafterward, with Rev. John Davenport as spiritual \nteacher. Their first Sabbath was spent in relig- \nious worship under an oak-tree, the faithful pas- \ntor preaching on the Saviour\'s "temptation in the \nwilderness." After a day of fasting and prayer \nthey laid the foundation of their civil government \nby covenanting that "all of them would be or- \ndered by the rules which the Scriptures held forth \nto them." \n\nThe Rhode Island colony was founded in 1636 \nby Roger Williams, the apostle of "soul-liberty" \nand the champion of civil rights. Unrestricted \n\n\n\n72 Christianity and the American Commonwealth. \n\nfreedom of conscience and opinion was guaran- \nteed. One writer speaks of *\'the organization of \nthe community on the unheard-of principle of ab- \nsolute religious liberty combined with perfect civil \ndemocracy." In the compact of 1640 that doc- \ntrine was reaffirmed in these word: *\'We agree, \nas formerly hath been the liberties of this town, so \nstill, to hold forth liberty of conscience." And a \ndistinguished professor of Brown University says : \n**To this day the annals of both city and state \nhave remained unsullied by the blot of persecu- \ntion." \n\nThe Maryland colony was planted by Lord \nBaltimore, a Roman Catholic, under whose wise \nand liberal administration it rapidly and greatly \nprospered. The earliest law of Maryland pro- \nvided that ** no person within the province, pro- \nfessing to believe in Jesus Christ, shall be in any \nway troubled, molested, or discountenaced for his \nor her religion, or in the free exercise thereof." \nGenerous praise has been given the Catholic gov- \nernor of this American colony for his large relig- \nious toleration, and it has been severely contrast- \ned with the proscriptive, intolerant, persecuting \n\n\n\nThe Early Colonists. 73 \n\nspirit of the New England Puritans. But, while \ndetracting nothing from the high character and \nsplendid qualities of the noble governor, it should \nbe remembered that the liberal charter of the col- \nony was granted by Protestant England. \n\nBut time would fail me to relate the story of \neach struggling colony. They were all born of a \ncommon purpose, impelled by a common impulse, \nand sustained by a common hope. Indeed, so \nprominent and dominant were the religious prin- \nciples and scruples of the fathers, that Frederick \nMaurice characterized the colonies as \'* sect-com- \nmonwealths," connected by their religious con- \nvictions and peculiarities. What Dr. Baird has \nso generously said of early New England may be \nproperly applied to all the colonies: **To their \nreligion the New England colonists owed all their \nbest qualities. Even their political freedom they \nowed to the contest they had waged in England \nfor religious liberty, and in which, long and pain- \nful as it was, nothing but their faith could have \nsustained them. Religion led them to abandon \ntheir country rather than submit to a tyranny that \nthreatened to enslave their immortal minds; and \n\n\n\n74 Christianity and the American Commonwealth. \n\nmade them seek in the New World the freedom \nof conscience that was denied them in the Old." \nThe coming of the colonists was hastened by 7\'e- \nligious persecution. They were refugees for con- \nscience\' sake. Indeed, the noted Dr. Increase Ma- \nther, in 1695, went so far as to declare that hut \nfor the persecutions of Old England there would \nnot have been a New England. The story is a \nchapter of horrors. When in 1633 Laud was \nmade Archbishop of Canterbury, persecutions be- \ncame more cruelly systematic and extreme. Every \npossible indignity was heaped upon the non-con- \nformists. Occasions for their humiliation and \ndegradation were made with fiendish inventive- \nness. He prohibited the importation of small \npocket Bibles from Geneva, which had been pop- \nular with the people. Laymen by hundreds were \nexcommunicated for not kneeling when they re- \nceived the communion. He ordered every min- \nister to read from the pulpit a declaration in favor \nof Sunday sports. The story is told of one cou- \nrageous spirit who read the declaration, and then \nthe Ten Commandments, after which he said: \n"You have heard the commands of man and the \n\n\n\nThe Early Colonists. 75 \n\ncommands of God. Obey which you please." \nKing James himself said: *\'I will make them \nconform, or hurry them out of the land." Per- \nsecution became so fierce in England that a dis- \ntinguished Puritan statesman on the floor of the \nHouse of Commons exclaimed: *\' Danger enlarges \nitself in so great a measure that nothing but \nHeaven shields us from despair." \n\nAnd on the continent the struggle against an \nunfettered conscience and the pure worship of \nGod gathered strength for a new onset. The rev- \nocation of the edict of Nantes inaugurated another \nreign of terror for the long-suffering Huguenots. \nThousands died by fanatical violence, and iDther \nthousands fled from their home and country in \ndisguise and under cover of night, seeking an \nasylum among those who had less religion but \nmore piety and humanity. \n\nWhile the storm was thus beating in pitiless \nfury upon these seemingly hopeless but ever-fear- \nless friends of a true religion, the way of escape \nto America was opened. In that darkest hour of \nthe struggle for constitutional and religious lib- \nerty the westward migration began. ** Through \n\n\n\n7^ Christianity and the American Commonwealth. \n\nscenes of gloom and misery," says Bancroft, \'\'the \nPilgrims showed the way to an asylum for those \nwho would go to the wilderness for liberty of con- \nscience. Enduring every hardship themselves, \nthey were the servants of posterity, the benefac- \ntors of succeeding generations." \n\nJohn Norton, of Boston, in a letter to the re- \nstored King Charles II., tells the pathetic story of \none people, which was the history of all: *\'Our \nliberty to walk in the faith of the gospel with all \ngood conscience, according to the order of the \ngospel, was the cause of our transporting our- \nselves, with our wives, our little ones, and our \nsubstance, from that pleasant land over the At- \nlantic Ocean, into this vast wilderness. . . . We \ncould not live without the public worship of God, \nnor be permitted the public worship without such \na yoke of subscription and conformity as we could \nnot consent unto without sin. That we might, \ntherefore, enjoy divine worship free from human \nmixtures, without offense to God, man, and our \nconsciences, we, with leave, but not without tears, \ndeparted from our country, kindred, and fathers\' \nhouses, into this Patmos." \n\n\n\nThe Early Colonists. 77 \n\nI come now to speak somewhat more particular- \nly of the quality and qualifications of the men \nwho laid the foundations of the American Com- \nmonwealth. In nothing is the hand of God more \ndistinctly seen than in the character of the early \ncolonists. Mighty men they were, of iron nerve \nand strong hand and unblanched cheek and heart \nof flame. God needed not reeds shaken by the \nwind, not men clothed in soft raiment; but he- \nroes of hardihood and lofty courage to be the \nvoice of a new kingdom crying in this Western \nwilderness. And such were the sons of the mighty \nwho responded to the divine call. Bishop Hurst \nsays: ** With some exceptions they were the \nwheat of the Old World. Unlike many of our \nrecent immigrants, they came to make here their \npermanent homes. They cut the last ties that \nbound them to the elder civilization, and entered \nheart and soul, for life or death, into the struggle \nof this new and rising land. Besides, they were \nreligious men, swayed by religious principles, who \nfeared God, and him only. They were men of \nintelligence, far-sighted, who had been trained in \nthe rough discipline of an age that tried men\'s \n\n\n\n7^ Christianity and the American Commonwealth. \n\nsouls, and they were thus able to lay broad and \ndeep the foundations of a republic whose corner- \nstones are freedom and law." \n\nThe Independents, who had to flee from Eng- \nland and take refuge in Holland, resolved at \nlength to make their permanent home in the New \nWorld. Inured to hardships, accustomed to \nstruggles for life and the means to sustain life, in- \nspired with an undaunted courage born of simple \nfaith in God, they were eminently fitted for the \nperils of pioneers, and to be the brave builders of \na new nation in the wilderness. Their heroic and \napostolic minister, the Rev. John Robertson, thus \nspoke affectionately of his flock soon to be dis- \npersed abroad: **We are well weaned from the \nthe delicate milk of the mother country, and in- \nured to the difflculties of a strange country. The \npeople are industrious and frugal. We are knit \ntogether as a body in a most sacred covenant of \nthe Lord, of the violation whereof we make great \nconscience, and by virtue whereof we hold our- \nselves strictly tied to all care of each other\'s good, \nand of the whole. It is not with us as with men \nwhom small things can discourage." \n\n\n\nThe Early Colonists. 79 \n\nTheir rugged virtues and austere morality were \nneeded for those trying times. Only soldiers who \ncould endure hardness were able to brave the \ndangers of a wilderness life. They were indus- \ntrious, self-denying, abstemious, and rigidly con- \nscientious. Their convictions were strong and \ntheir purposes inflexible. Of the same blood and \nfaith, they had the steady nerve and sustained \ncourage of Cromwell\'s ironsides. To them the \nBible was everything: "the source of religious \nprinciples, the basis of civil law, the supreme au- \nthority in matters of common life." With the ex- \nception of the colony of Lord Baltimore all were \nProtestants, and, as Dr. Dorchester properly char- \nacterizes them, were \'* men of stern and lofty \nvirtues, invincible energy, and iron wills \xe2\x80\x94 the fit- \nting substratum on which to build great states." \nThey brought with them the sublime conviction, \nafterward so forcefully stated by that great Puri- \ntan teacher and epic poet, John Milton, that ** the \nBible doth more clearly teach the solid rules of \ncivil government than all the eloquence of Greece \nand Rome." \n\nAnd what may we not say of the .Quakers, and \n\n\n\n8o Christianity and the American Commonwealth. \n\nof our heirship in their splendid virtues and simple \nmanner of life ? The very name is a synonym for \nrugged honesty and uncompromising integrity. \nThey were the embodiment of civic righteousness. \nTheir unswerving contention was for equal and \nperfect political privilege. And for peace they \nwould almost go to war. Carlyle\'s quaint estimate \nof George Fox may also serve as a fit characteri- \nzation of his great disciple and friend, William \nPenn, who brought to America the divine princi- \nples of an ideal civilization. He says: ** The \nmost remarkable incident in modern history is not \nthe Diet of Worms, still less the battle of Auster- \nlitz, Waterloo, Peterloo, or any other battle, but \nGeorge Fox making himself a suit of leather. \nThis man, the first of the Quakers, was one of \nthose in whom the divine idea is pleased to mani- \nfest itself and, across all the hills of ignorance, \nshine in awful and unspeakable beauty. He is a \nhighly accredited prophet of God." With a spirit \njust as heroic, a purpose just as pure, and a cour- \nage just as undaunted, William Penn led an expe- \ndition to this Western world ; and here, with others, \nplanted the seed from which this mighty nation \n\n\n\nThe Early Colonists. 81 \n\nhas grown. He came as an apostle of God, with \nthese words upon his lips: "God in Christ has \nplaced a principle in every man to inform him of \nhis duty and to enable him to do it." Thoroughly \nimbued with the democracy of Christianity \xe2\x80\x94 that \nwe are all brothers of one blood in Christ \xe2\x80\x94 he \neven addressed King Charles II., on one occasion, \nas "Friend Charles." And so he came across \nthe seas as a sort of incarnated Declaration of In- \ndependence. An eloquent utterance of his sounds \nas though it might have been spoken in an after- \ntime, on the floor of the Continental Congress: \n\'*Any government is free when the people are a \nparty to the laws enacted." \n\nIn Penn\'s address, inviting persons to join his \ncolony far over the Atlantic, he used this language, \nworthy of a broad-minded Christian and far-seeing \nstatesman: "I purpose, for the matters of liberty, \nthat which is extraordinary \xe2\x80\x94 to leave myself and \nsuccessors no power of doing mischief, that the \nwill of one man may not hinder the good of a \nwhole country. It is the great end of government \nto support power in reverence with the people and \nto secure the people from abuse of power; for lib- \n\n\n\n82 Christianity and the American Commonwealth. \n\nerty without obedience is confusion, and obedience \nwithout liberty is slavery ^ The Quakers of Nevv^ \nJersey drew up a solemn compact, in which it is \nexpressly declared: \'\'^We put the -power in the \nfeophy And in their code of ** Concessions and \nAgreements " may be found the germ of the Amer- \nican constitution. And wherever these God-fear- \ning, simple-minded people found a dwelling-place \nthey stood for freedom of conscience and worship \nand for the largest personal and civil liberty. \nAgainst every form of oppression\xe2\x80\x94everything that \nerected a barrier between brothers and citizens \xe2\x80\x94 \nthey protested with the vehemence of profound \nconviction. Whittier has given the story of a \nQuaker girl at Salem, condemned to exile, in de- \nfault of paying a fine of \xc2\xa3io for not attending the \nPuritan Church. When the sheriff proposed to \nthe captain of a vessel to take the condemned \nmaiden to the Barbadoes, the poet made the old \nhero of the sea respond as follows : \n\nPile my ship with bars of silver, pack with coins of Spanish \n\ngold, \nFrom keel-piece to deck-plank, the roomage of her hold ; \nBj the living God who made me, I would rather in jour bay \nSink ship and crew and cargo, than bear this child away. \n\n\n\nThe Early Colonists. 83 \n\nThat stern old commander of the waves must \nhave been a spiritual and political son of George \nFox and William Penn. Out of such sturdy stuff \ncame the heroes of the revolution and the builders \nof the republic. \n\nOf the Huguenots^ and our national indebted- \nness to their rich blood, and pure faith, and sus- \ntained courage, and mechanical ingenuity, and \ntireless industry, and habits of economy, I might \nspeak at undue length. They have contributed \nmuch that is best and most enduring in our Amer- \nican civilization, and from them have come many \nof the greatest statesmen and jurists who adorn \nour country\'s brilliant annals. \n\nWhat a history of storm and sorrow had those \nbrave French reformers ! From the massacre of \nSt. Bartholomew under Charles IX. to the revo- \ncation of the edict of Nantes by Louis XIV., they \nwere the objects of suspicion and pitiless persecu- \ntion by both royal and ecclesiastical despots. \n\nAs the stanch advocates of free conscience, free \nspeech, and free worship \xe2\x80\x94 of the divine principles \nof civil and religious liberty \xe2\x80\x94 the Huguenots were \nconsidered dangerous alike to the monarchy and \n\n\n\n\xc2\xa74 Christianity and the American Commonwealth. \n\nthe papacy. So the Jesuit cry rang out: ** Crush \nthese things out of the rehgion of the Huguenots ! \nCrush out the Huguenots themselves T^ For two \nhundred years not a synod of their Church could \nbe held, but their faith never faltered and their \nhope never died. In secret they worshiped their \nLord, and on the home altar the holy fires of sac- \nrifice never ceased to burn. Every private house \nbecame a spiritual temple where the law of the \nLord was read and expounded. And thus through \ntwo weary centuries these pious patriots prayed \nand waited for a day of deliverance. \n\nBut when the final blow came in the revocation \nof the edict of Nantes, the remnant of blood, \nprobably five hundred thousand, were compelled \nto flee the country. Many came to the American \ncolonies, and found hospitable welcome. They \nscattered over New York and the New England \nsection, but \'\' a warmer climate was more inviting \nto the exiles of Languedoc," and so they went \nsouthward into the Carolinas. Thus it was that \nSouth Carolina especially became the **home of \nthe Huguenots," those holy and heroic exiles who \nfled from fagot and fire to find a peaceful place in \n\n\n\nThe Early Colonists. 85 \n\nwhich to worship God. I know of no more beau- \ntiful picture, spiritual and idyllic, than Bancroft\'s \npathetic description of those early saints on the \nw^ay to their devout and joyous Sabbath conven- \nticles. A few passages can not be withheld: \n*\' There it was that the Calvinist exiles could cele- \nbrate their worship without fear, in the midst of \nthe forests, and mingle the voice of their psalms \nwith the murmur of the winds which sighed among \nthe mighty oaks. Their church was at Charles- \nton. They repaired thither every Sunday from \ntheir plantations, which were scattered in all direc- \ntions on the banks of the Cooper. They could be \nseen, profiting by the tide, arriving by families in \ntheir light canoes, preserving a religious silence \nwhich was alone interrupted by the noise of their \noars and the hum of that flourishing village which \nwas watered by the confluence of two rivers." \n\nBetter citizens no nation ever had than these \npious sons of beautiful France. It has been said, \nto the credit of their rare virtues and pure home \nlife, that very few of their descendants have ever \nbeen arraigned for crime before the courts of the \ncountry; and Henry Cabot Lodge has affirmed \n\n\n\n86 Christianity and the American Commonwealth. \n\nthat \'\'in proportion to their numbers, the Hug-ue- \nnots produced and gave to the republic more men \nof ability than any other." \n\nMrs. Sigourney, in whose veins flowed the finest \nHuguenot blood, chanted this prayer for her peo- \nple, in which all America can devoutly join: \n\nOn all who bear \n\nTheir name or lineage may their mantle rest: \nThat firmness for the truth, that calm content \nWith simple pleasures, that unswering trust in \nTrial, adversity, and death, which cast \nSuch healthful leaven \'mid the elements \nThat people the New World. \n\n** Your own state of Georgia was colonized," \nsays Dr. Baird, " expressly as an asylum for im- \nprisoned and persecuted Protestants;" and Dr. \nBacon says, "\xe2\x80\xa2 No colony of all the thirteen had a \nmore distinctly Christian origin than this." God- \nly Moravians from Germany, devout Churchmen \nand pious Puritans from England, brave High- \nlanders from Scotland, the heroic Salzburgers \nfrom their beautiful Alpine homes, and others, \nfound cordial welcome here from " the good Ogle- \nthorpe, one of the finest specimens of a Christian \ngentlemen of the Cavalier school." Of these, \n\n\n\n\n\n\nThe Early Colonists. ^7 \n\nprobably the most interesting and least known \nwere the Salzburgers, and yet their Georgia colony, \nBishop Hurst affirms, furnishes ** one of the most \nremarkable records of a patient, pure, and uncom- \nplaining religious body in the whole history of the \nChristian Church." They were descended from \nthe Waldenses. Driven from Austria because of \ntheir religious faith, they sought refuge in Protes- \ntant lands. Invited by the trustees of the Georgia \ncolony, a large number reached these shores and \nsettled near Savannah. John Wesley found these \nSalzburgers ^* among his warmest supporters," \nand from them Whitefield received generous \nassistance in building his historic Orphan House. \nSturdy, industrious, brave, liberty-loving, their \nvirtues are worthy of all emulation and their \nnames of everlasting honor. One of their favorite \nhymns is a fair expression of their devout spirit \nand purpose. What it lacks in poetry is sup- \nplied in pathos and piety: \n\n" I am a wretched exile here \xe2\x80\x94 \nThus must my name be given. \nFrom native land and all that\'s dear, \nFor God\'s word, I am driven. \n\n\n\n88 Christianity and the American Commonwealth. \n\nFull well I know, Lord Jesvis Christ, \n\nThy treatment was no better: \nThj follower I now will be: \n\nTo do thj will, I\'m debtor. \n\nHenceforth a pilgrim I must be. \n\nIn foreign climes must wander: \nO Lord, mj prayer ascends to thee, \n\nThat Thou my path will ponder." \n\nBut of the coming and character of others I can \nnot, in the limits of this lecture, speak at length. \nMuch should be said of the honest-hearted Hol- \nlanders, the founders of New York, who were in \nadvance of all Europe in the struggle for civil lib- \nerty, who gave to England herself the first Eng- \nlish Bible, the work of Miles Coverdale, print- \ning it at Antwerp, and who for a long period led \nthe world\'s commerce on the high seas. They \nimported and reestablished those principles in the \nNew York colony; and on Manhattan Island, \nwhich they purchased from the Indians for twenty- \nfour dollars, *\' built the first free church and the \nfirst free school in America." \n\nAnd then there are the Scotch, who distributed \nthemselves through all the colonies, bringing the \nsimple virtues of their highland homes, preaching \n\n\n\nThe Early Colonists. 89 \n\nthe strong gospel of old John Knox, putting honor \nupon the proper observance of the holy Sabbath, \nand asserting with dogmatic emphasis the great \ndoctrines of civil freedom. To them we are in- \ndebted for the Mecklenberg Declaration of Inde- \npendence, which was the first ringing of x\'^-ierica\'s \nliberty-bell. Into the political and spiritual veins \nof this great nation the rich blood of these and \nother colonial fathers has been freely poured. \n\nSuch men are God\'s best gift to a nation, and, \nas an American divine has eloquently said, *\'in \ntheir grandeur and goodness are worthy to be \ncatalogued with Mount Sinai and with Calvary, \nfor they carry in their personalities and in their \nfeelings and in their principles and in their char- \nacters all \xe2\x80\x94 all that is contained in the law and the \ngospel, and all that Sinai and Calvary stand for." \nBy such apostolic and heroic hands our ship of \nstate was built. \n\n" We know what masters laid thy keel, \nWhat workman wrought thj ribs of steel, \nWho made each mast and sail and rope, \nWhat anvils rang, what hammers beat \nIn what a forge and what a heat \nWere shaped the anchors of thj\'^ hope." \n\n\n\n90 Christianity and the American Commonwealth. \n\nFor their austere morality the fathers have been \nseverely censured and caricatured. The penal \ncodes of the colonial era are now anathematized \nas cruel even to barbarity, but indiscriminate cen- \nsure betrays ignorance of historic conditions. We \ncan not judge men of the seventeenth and eight- \neenth centuries by nineteenth-century ideals and \nstandards. If, however, the colonists, escaped to \nthe unrestricted freedom of the Western wilder- \nness, are compared with their brothers in England \nand all Europe, they stand out as reformers of the \nmost advanced and majestic type. Shortly after \nthe ** Mayflower \'\' left England the number of of- \nfenses punishable with death was thirty-one, in- \ncreased later to two hundred and twenty-three, of \nwhich one hundred and seventy-six were without \nbenefit of clergy; while in the American colo- \nnies not one recognized more than fifteen capital \ncrimes. So the *\' dreadful and disgusting inhu- \nmanities *\' of our colonial fathers, so much de- \nclaimed against, appear among the gentlest amen- \nities, when compared with their kin of the old \nworld. \n\nAnd there is another view worthy of considera- \n\n\n\nThe Early Colonists. \n\n\n\ntion. The rigidly extreme and sometimes im- \npracticable spirit of the colonists was the normal \nexpres\'sion of the things for which they themselves \nhad suffered. That seeming paradox follows an \ninvariable law of the human mind \xe2\x80\x94 a fact, by the \nway, that ought to soften all severe criticisms of \nthe early fathers. Whipple, in his \'\'Essays and \nReviews," says: *\' If a body of men be deprived \nof their dearest rights for professing conscientious \nopinions, it is natural that they should attach more \nimportance to those opinions than if they were \nallowed their free exercise. It not only makes \nthem more sturdy champions of their belief, but \nit leads them into intolerance toward others." \n\nOut of such material the institutions of our \nAmerican commonwealth have been built. And \nthese institutions will abide, because founded on \nthe truth of God, built by faith in the providence \nof God, and baptized with the blessing of God. \nMacaulay must for the moment have forgotten or \nfailed to take account of the spiritual element in our \npolitical history when he wrote down his gloomy \nprophecy. \'\'As for America," said he, \'\'I appeal \nto the twentieth century. Either some Caesar or \n\n\n\n92 Christianity and the American Commonwealth. \n\nNapoleon will seize the reins of government with \na strong hand, or your republic will be as fearfully \nplundered and laid waste by barbarians in the \ntwentieth century as the Roman empire was in the \nfifth century, with this difference: that the Huns \nand Vandals who ravaged Rome came from with- \nout her borders, while your Huns and Vandals \nwill be engendered within your own country and \nby your own institutions." In answer to that \nrather doleful prediction I can not forbear the more \noptimistic judgment and generous prophecy of a \nrecent and very accomplished historian of England, \nProf, John Richard Green: ** In the centuries that \nlie before us the primacy of the world will lie \nwith the English people. English institutions, \nEnglish speech, English thought, will become the \nmain features of the political, the social, and the \nintellectual life of mankind. ... In the days \nthat are at hand, the main current of that people\'s \nhistory must run along the channel, not of the \nThames or the Mersey, but of the Hudson and the \nMississippi." \n\nOn the rocky summit overlooking the bay where \nthe *\' Mayflower" first anchored, a magnificent men-. \n\n\n\nThe Early Colonists. 93 \n\nument has been erected. That colossal statue is at \nonce a miracle, a parable, and a prophecy \xe2\x80\x94 a mir- \nacle of artistic genius, a parable of Christian civ- \nilization, and a prophecy of increasing national \nglory. On the corners of the pedestal are four \nfigures in a sitting posture \xe2\x80\x94 representing Law, \nMorality, Freedom, and Education. Standing far \nabove, on the lofty shaft of granite, is a majestic \nfigure symbolizing Faith, holding an open Bible in \none hand, and, w^ith the other uplifted, pointing far \naway to the throne of God. What a sublime con- \nception ! How true to the facts of our heroic his- \ntory ! That open Bible is the Magna Charta of \nAmerica, and that uplifted hand, symbolizing trust \nin the God of our fathers, is the condition of our \nnational stability and continued prosperity. \n\n\n\nLECTURE III. \n\n\n\nThe Christian Institutions and Laws of the \n\nColonists. \n\n(95) \n\n\n\nLECTURE III. \n\nTHE CHRISTIAN INSTITUTIONS AND LAWS OF \nTHE COLONISTS. \n\nIN the last lecture we studied the Christian \ncharacter of the early colonists, together with \nthe motives that impelled their coming to America, \nand the pronounced religious principles that domi- \nnated their first settlements. It was ascertained \nthat all the earliest schemes of discovery and colo- \nnization were inspired by a religious impulse and \ncontrolled by a Christian purpose. "We all," \nsays one of the two oldest of American written con- \nstitutions, " came into these parts of America to \nenjoy the liberties of the gospel in purity and \npeace." Fleeing from ecclesiastical persecution \nin the Old World, they sought safety in the New, \nand opportunity to build a nation in which the \nlargest civil and religious liberty, consistent with \nthe rights of others, should be sacredly guarded \nand guaranteed. To use the words of Canning, \nthey " turned to the New World to redress the bal- \nance of the Old." \n\nIn our analysis of their sturdy characters, we \n7 (97) \n\n\n\n9^ Christianity and the American Commonwealth. \n\nfound in them those virile and splendid virtues, \nout of which all good civilizations are constructed, \nand which have been so eminently distinctive of \nthe American commonwealth. A noble genera- \ntion they were. Men who had the spirit of proph- \necy, the high purpose of an apostolate, and the sub- \nlime courage of martyrdom. "We have learned \nfrom them," says a distinguished author, "the \ngrand possibilities which wait for men of faith who \nare content to bow their heads to the storm and \ncommit their way unto the Lord and trust him to \nbring them to the desired haven." \n\nOur fathers came to these shores as Christians \n\xe2\x80\x94 as Protestant Christians \xe2\x80\x94 and on the great car- \ndinal principles of that faith began the making of \nthis nation. Those doctrines "cradled our free- \ndom." We found occasion, therefore, in the proc- \ness of our investigation, for special thankfulness \nthat this wonderful country was colonized by Prot- \nestant England, rather than by Catholic France and \nSpain. Speaking of the Spaniards, William Cul- \nlen Bryant said: " Fortunately for the progress of \nthe human race and the future history of North \nAmerica, all their efforts to gain a permanent foot- \n\n\n\nInstitutions and Laws of the Early Colonists. 99 \n\nhold north of the Gulf of Mexico were in the main \nunsuccessful." And the remark applies with equal \nforce to the colonization plans of all Roman Cath- \nolic nations, with their doctrines of a fettered con- \nscience, a sealed Bible, a feudal state, and a me- \ndieval civilization. The defeat of Montcalm on \nthe Heights of Abraham was the pivot on which \nturned the modern history of the world. \n\nIn one of the public squares in Boston there is \na statue of Gov. John Winthrop, the " Founder of \nMassachusetts," that devout and able pioneer, \nwho is worthy to be canonized as a saint and \nchronicled among the statesmen of the world. It \nis an erect and manly figure, with a Bible in one \nhand and the charter of the colony in the other. \nThat heroic statue, with the written scroll and the \nopen Book of Heaven, may fittingly represent all \nthe founders of this great republic. By the legal \nguarantees of the one and the inspired teachings \nof the other they took possession of this goodly \nland, and laid the foundations of a Christian na- \ntion that has become the marvel and model of \nmodern empires. \n\nBancroft says that *\'the colonists from Maine \n\n\n\nloo Christianity and the American Commonwealth. \n\nto Carolina \xe2\x80\x94 the adventurous companions of \nSmith, the proscribed Puritans that freighted the \nfleet of Winthrop, the Quaker outlaws that fled \nfrom jails, with a Newgate prisoner as their sov- \nereign \xe2\x80\x94 all had faith in God and in the soul." \nAnd by that unfaltering faith, more than all else, \nwere they enabled to defy the discouragements \nand endure the distresses and perils of their wil- \nderness life, while building their heroic princi- \nples into the framework of this republic. What- \never is put in a man\'s religion will express itself \nin his politics. The governmental doctrines of our \nfathers, therefore, were the public and political ex- \npression of their profound religious convictions. \n\nIn this lecture we will proceed with our studies \nfrom men to -principles \xe2\x80\x94 from the character of the \ncolonists to the character of the institutions they \nestahlished. We will advance from an analysis of \nthe rare virtues of the fathers to an inquiry into \nthe principles embodied in the constitutions they \nadopted, the laws they enacted, and the social life \nthey created. Thus we will ascertain how far \ntheir avowed faiths were crystallized into organic \nlaws, and to what extent they were enthroned in \n\n\n\nInstitutions and Laws of the Early Colonists. loi \n\nthe life of communities. We have a right to ex- \npect that men so aggressively religious as to en- \ncounter persecution, and so rigidly conscientious \nas to become exiles rather than submit to ecclesi- \nastical tyranny, v^ould embody their convictions \nin the government they constructed, and stamp \ntheir characters upon the legislation they enacted. \nFurther investigation, I am sure, will not disap- \npoint this well-grounded expectation. \n\nAnd not only so, but we will have a heightened \nappreciation for our large and increasing indebt- \nedness to the early colonists. The constitutions \nunder which we live, and the improved education- \nal, industrial, and social conditions of our time, \nare but the flowering and fruitage from the seeds \nof their prayerful and patriotic planning. *\' We \nare drinking at the fountains which they opened. \nWe walk in their light, and we are to pass on the \ntorch to other generations." Of those mighty \nchampions of liberty, and the idea they developed \ninto our American commonwealth, Longfellow \nthus sweetly sings : \n\nGod has sifted three kingdoms to find the wheat for this plant- \ning, \nThen had sifted tlie wheat, as the Hving seed of a nation. \n\n\n\nI02 Christianity and the American Commonzvealth. \n\nThose living seed, watched by a favoring Provi- \ndence, watered by the tears of a sanctified pa- \ntriotism, warmed by the genial sun of civic right- \neousness, and cultivated by the industrious hands \nof a peerless statesmanship, have produced the \nmagnificent Americanism of to-day. Despite its \ndefects, and notwithstanding the sad chapters of \nits history, our Americanism stands for all that is \npurest and grandest in the world\'s modern civili- \nzation. Should any one ask what has been the \ncontribution of those colonial patriots to civil and \nreligious history, I would answer, in the language \nof a distinguished historian, as follows: ** Free \ngovernments, by the people and for the people; a \nfree press; an enlightened public opinion which \ncontrols princes and cabinets; free public-schools, \n\xe2\x80\x94 open to the children of the people; a nobler \nChristian manhood; a fuller comprehension of \nthe religion of Christ, which brings help and com- \nfort to the poor, which brings liberty to the slaves as \nthose redeemed by the Saviour of the world; the \nseparation of Church and State; the equality of \nall branches of the Church before the law; free- \ndom within the Church, whether it be prelatical \n\n\n\nInstitutions and Laws of the Early Colonists. 103 \n\nor presbyterian or congregational; a quiet Sun- \nday, with its opportunities for the culture of the \nspiritual nature ; and a free pulpit, in sympathy \nwith all sorts and conditions of men." Though \nnot realized at once \xe2\x80\x94 and at times all hopeful \nprophecies seemed about to fail \xe2\x80\x94 this at last is the \nharvest of that early sowing. \n\nMotley, the accomplished historian, thus speaks \nof our great republic: **The American democra- \ncy is the result of all that was great in bygone \ntimes. All led up to it. It embodies all. Mount \nSinai is in it; Greece is in it; Egypt is in it; \nRome is in it; England is in it; all the arts are in \nit, and all the reformations and all the discoveries." \nThat generous judgment is true; but of all the \nformative forces that have entered into our civic \ncomposite life, and given it distinction in modern \ncivilization, the type of Christianity embraced by \nthe fathers was the most potent and permanent. \nThere was a good deal of Mount Sinai in their re- \nligion, and it found stern expression in the rigid \nterms of their early legislation. \n\nThe Christianity of the colonists taught the su- \npremacy of conscience, the sovereignty of the in- \n\n\n\nI04 Christianity and the American Commonwealth. \n\ndividual, the inviolability of private rights, the sa- \ncredness of human life, and the brotherhood of \nman. Out of these cardinal doctrines came the \nfundamental principles of our republican govern- \nment: liberty, equality, fraternity, and the protec- \ntion of life and property. Religious liberty cre- \nated and sustained an inexorable demand for po- \nlitical liberty. Freedom of conscience claims the \nright of free speech and personal independence. \nThe facts of history abundantly sustain the state- \nment of Dr. Baird, that "the political institutions \nof the Puritan colonies of New England are to be \ntraced to their religion, not their religion to their \npolitical institutions ; and this remark applies to the \nother colonies also." And the same author states \nanother fact which evidences the religious genesis \nand genius of the great principles on which this \nnation is founded. ** Persecution," said he, *\' led \nthe Puritan colonists to examine the great subject \nof human rights, the nature and just extent of civil \ngovernment, and the boundaries at which obedi-_ \nence ceases to be a duty." \n\nThe religion that holds the conscience of a na- \ntion will determine its civilization. \n\n\n\nInstitutions and Laws of the Early Colonists. 105 \n\nThe development of those feeble, scattered set- \ntlements into solid, self-sustaining colonies, then \ninto independent states, and finally into a power- \nful union, makes a chapter unique in the annals \nof empires. Certainly some forces above human \ncontrol must have been at work. \'\'The history," \nsays Dr. Leonard Woolse}^ Bacon, " reads like the \nfulfilment of the apocalyptic imagery of a rock \nhewn from the mountain without hands, moving \non to fill the earth." \n\nBut, before entering more in detail upon the \nstudy of the character and form of the govern- \nments established by the colonial fathers, I wish \nto make two observations which will be helpful in \nour investigations and serve as a warning against \nharsh and hasty conclusions. The one refers to \nthe ecclesiastical and religious intolerance of the \ncolonies, and the other to the severe laws enacted \nand their inhumane administration. My purpose \nis not to defend all the acts of the fathers, or ap- \nprove much of their legislation, but to show that \ntheir great desire and high intention were to es- \ntablish a distinctly Christian commonwealth, in \nwhich righteousness should perpetually dwell, and \n\n\n\nio6 Christianity and the American Commonwealth. \n\nthe golden rule of Christ be made the royal law \nof personal and public life. \n\nI. It is not surprising that the colonists should \nhave enacted the most rigorous laws against the \nRoman papacy, and in New England shown the \nstrongest hostility toward the English prelacy. Men \nwhose fathers had been killed by Catholic fanat- \nicism, and whose mothers and sisters had to fly in \nterror from their homes at night, with scant cloth- \ning and not a crust of bread, were not apt to be \ntolerant toward those who might attain power and \nrepeat such barbarities. John Endicott, cutting \nout the cross of St. George from the flag of his \ncountry, because the cross was a symbol used by \nthe Church of Rome, is not so much a picture of \nPuritan prejudice as of real fear lest the slightest \ntoleration should lead to the restoration of a des- \npotism that had brutally spilled the blood of his fa- \nthers. And the Pilgrims who had been driven \nfrom their native land by the Act of Uniformity \nand the tyranny of the Stuarts would hardly be \nsupposed to look with much favor and hospitality \nupon the Church of England. Banished from the \nOld World for not using the Book of Common \n\n\n\nInstitutions and Laws of the Early Colonists. 107 \n\nPrayer in public service, they would not be swift \nto adopt it as their mode of worship in the New. \nIt is a fact not to be wondered at, therefore, that \n** for over sixty years after the Pilgrims landed \nthere was not a single Episcopal church in New \nEngland." And as late as 1720, when it was dis- \ncovered that certain persons connected with Yale \nCollege were leaning toward episcopacy, alarm \nwas created \'\'lest the introduction of Episcopal \nworship into the colony should have a tendency to \ngradually undermine the foundations of civil and \nreligious liberty." The memories of Archbishop \nLaud and the Court of Sessions, imprisoning and \nbanishing their fathers, were too vivid and recent \nfor them not to fear a repetition of the same ter- \nrible tyranny. In the twelve years from 1628 to \n1640 four thousand English families \xe2\x80\x94 a total of \ntwenty -one thousand persons\xe2\x80\x94 came to these \nshores "under stress of the tyranny of Charles \nStuart and the persecution of William Laud." In- \ndeed, so direful were the cruelties that drove near- \nly all our colonial fathers across the seas, that \nBancroft has said: \'\'The history of our coloniza- \ntion is the history of the crimes of Europe." \n\n\n\nio8 Christianity and the American Commonzvealth. \n\nThere was another reason why the colonies of \nNew York and New England especially should \nhave shown intolerance toward the Roman \nCatholics \xe2\x80\x94 the incitement by Jesuit missionaries \nof the Indians to repeated bloody massacres. \nTheir complicity in those scenes of carnage led \nthe New York Assembly in the year 1700 to pass \n*\' an act against Jesuits and popish priests,\'* which \nrecited the facts of their seditious conduct. And \nthis necessitated the aggressive action of the gov- \nernment of Massachusetts against the French Jes- \nuit missionary, Father Sebastien Rale. Some \npapers of his fell into the hands of the government, \nwhich furnished conclusive evidence of the fact \nthat he had led an Indian expedition against the \nEnglish settlers. Such treachery in the name of \nthe Church was quite sufficient to occasion the \nmost vigorous measures of expatriation and pro- \ntection. \n\n2. And another fact must be borne in mind as \nwe study the seemingly rigid institutions and harsh \nlegislation of the colonists: they lived hack in the \nseventeenth century^ and were not exempt from the \nspirit of that age. They are to be compared. \n\n\n\nInstitutions and Laws of the Early Colonists. 109 \n\ntherefore, with seventeenth rather than nineteenth \ncentury standards. Measured by that rule, \'* they \nwere the progressives of their age, and were the \nmost merciful people of that century." Their \nlaws were in milder form and the penalties were \nless severe than any known to that period of \nblood and iron. And yet most forbidding pic- \ntures have been drawn of the brave and hardy \npioneers, as though they were monsters of cruel- \nty and exceptions in all history for the enormity \nof their inhumanities in the name of religion. \nThe story of burning the witches has been re- \npeated with such pious horror, as though that fa- \nnaticism never occurred outside the American \ncolonies. There was intolerance, civil and eccle- \nsiastical, not to be defended, and there were laws \nenacted and regulations adopted that seem to us \nin this day exceedingly ludicrous ; but we must re- \nmember that they lived in the seventeenth century, \nand that they were the gentlest and best people of \ntheir time. \n\nIn this connection I commend the following ju- \ndicious and accurate statement by an accomplished \nhistorian: *\' No intelligent student of their history \n\n\n\nno Christianity and the American Commonzvealth. \n\nwill ignore the fact that the world has made mar- \nvelous progress since 1620. The belief in witch- \ncraft was, I think, universal in Christendom, in \nthat age. The great jurists and philosophers of \nEngland were confident that there were such \ncreatures as witches. Sir Matthew Hale and Sir \nThomas Browne and Ralph Cudworth and Black- \nstone, and even John Wesley, believed in witch- \ncraft." And Dr. Fisher, in his " History of the \nChristian Church" says: \'* It is supposed that, \nprior to the witchcraft epidemic in Massachusetts, \nthirty thousand persons had been put to death in \nEngland on this charge, seventy-five thousand in \nFrance, and one hundred thousand in Germany." \nIt related that those deaths in Germany were \ncaused by the bull issued by Pope Innocent the \nEighth, \n\nBut this outburst of superstition and fright \nagainst witchcraft only continued for less than two \nyears, and was arrested by the aroused moral sen- \ntiment of the colonists themselves, without sug- \ngestion or pressure from abroad. In England \nand on the Continent it raged for many years \nthereafter. And it is well also to recall a fact \n\n\n\nInstitutions and Laws of the Early Colonists, 1 1 1 \n\nstated in the former lecture, that in not one of the \ncolonies were there more than fifteen crimes pun- \nishable with death, while in England the number \nwas thirty-one. \n\nIt may be well also, while considering these ex- \naggerations that have so grossly misrepresented the \ncolonists, to refer to the case of Roger Williams. \nWhile detracting nothing from his fearless cour- \nage, perfect sincerity, and great conscientious- \nness, and reiterating the highest appreciation of \nhis valuable contributions to the cause of civil and \nreligious liberty, I must believe that his banish^ \nment was more attributable to his obstinancy and \ncontentiousness than to the intolerance and inhu- \nmanity of his fellow colonists. He declaimed \nagainst the charter of the colony as without au- \nthority; declared that the people had no title to \ntheir lands; taught that it was unlawful to even \nworship with the unregenerate, though members \nof one\'s own family, and that it was unlawful to \nadminister an oath to a citizen who was not a \nChristian. He was a constitutional separatist. A \nminister of the Church of England, he left that \nbody to become an Independent, then he became \n\n\n\n112 Christianity and the American Commonwealth. \n\na Baptist by self-appointment in a church of his \nown organizing, and afterward left that, to die \noutside the communion of any Christian Church. \nOne historian speaks of Roger Williams as " sep- \narating himself not only from the English Church, \nbut from all who would not separate from it, and \nfrom all who would not separate from these, until \nhe could no longer, for conscience\' sake, hold \nfellowship with his wife in family prayers." It is \na pleasure, however, to know that his sentence of \nbanishment was revoked some years thereafter, \nwhen troubles came upon him, and an order \nwas entered that Mr. Williams "\xe2\x96\xa0 shall have liberty \nto repair into any of our towns for his security and \ncomfortable abode during these public troubles." \nProbably the jirst distinctive act toward repre- \nsentative government in America was that of the \nVirginia colony in 1619, a year before the Pil- \ngrims landed at Plymouth Rock. The burgesses \nassembled in Jamestown, July 30, 1619, and the \nhistoric meeting of the little legislature was held \nin the church. From the contemporaneous ac- \ncount sent to England by the Speaker, I quote as \nfollows : \n\n\n\nInstitutions and Laws of the Early Colonists. 113 \n\n*\'The most convenient place we could finde to \nsitt in was the Quire of the Church, when Sir \nGeorge Yardley, the Governor, being sett down in \nhis accustomed place, those of the Counsel of Es- \ntate sate nexte him on both handes, except only \nthe Secretary, then appointed Speaker, who sate \nright before him. John Twine, Gierke of the \nGeneral Assembty, being placed nexte to the \nSpeaker, and Thomas Peirse, the Sergeant, stand- \ning at the barre, to be ready for any service the \nAssembly should command him. But forasmuche \nas men\'s affairs doe little prosper where God\'s \nservice is neglected, all the burgesses took their \nplaces in the Quire till a prayer was said by Mr. \nBucke, the minister, that it would please God to \nguide and sanctifie all our proceedings to his owne \nglory, and the good of this plantation. Prayer \nbeing ended, to the intente that as we had begun \nat God Almighty, so we might proceed with awful \nand due respecte towards the Leiutenant, our \nmost gratious and dread soveraigne, all the Bur- \ngesses were intreated to retyre themselves into the \nbody of the Churche, which being done, before \n\nthey were freely admitted, they were called to order \n8 \n\n\n\n114 Christianity and the American Commonwealth. \n\nand by name, and so every man (none staggeringe \nat it) tooke the oath of Supremacy, and then en- \ntered the Assembly." \n\nThus it will be seen that the first movement to- \nward democracy in America was inaugurated in \nthe house of God and with the blessing of the \nminister of God. And this interesting incident \nleads to the statement of a momentous fact: that \nz\'n America, the state was the outgrowth of the \nChurch, The sanctuary built the nation. ** In \nall affairs," says Dr. Dorchester, ** civil and ec- \nclesiastical, the Church took the precedence, and \ngave character to the civil administration; the \nState was only the Church acting in secular and \ncivil affairs." The ballot was restricted to mem- \nbers of the Church. This suffrage law was \nadopted in 1631, and, however unwise such action \nmay now be considered, we can not but honor the \npatriotic and religious purpose that inspired it. \nThey desired to lodge political power only in the \nhands of good men. It was not an ecclesiastical \nambition to subordinate State to Church, but a \nmisguided effort, it maybe, to save the State from \na corrupt and dangerous citizenship. That fran- \n\n\n\nInstitutions and Laws of the Early Colonists. 115 \n\nchise clause, adopted by the Massachusetts Bay \ncolony, reads as follows: \'* To the end that the \nbody of the Commons may be preserved of honest \nand good men, no man shall be admitted to the \nfreedom of this body politic but such as are mem- \nbers of some of the Churches within the limits of \nthe same." This, or a similar statute, was adopted \nby the colonial government of Maine, Massachu- \nsetts, and Connecticut. In Connecticut the law \nwas more liberal: residents of accepted character \nmight be admitted as freeman, but the Governor \nmust be a member of the Church. The New \nHaven colony restricted the suffrage to Church- \nmembers, and adopted the Scriptures as the law \nof the land. And in all the colonies, except \nRhode Island and Pennsylvania, ministers of the \ngospel were supported by public taxation. But \nin extenuation of such legislation it must be re- \nmembered that throughout Christendom at that \ntime it was \'\' the universal prerogative of the \nChurch to confer the civil franchise," and it w^as \nthe admitted duty of all citizens to support the \nChurch. The whole argument of those devout \nand heroic colonists has been stated by Dr. Dor- \n\n\n\n1 1 6 Christianity and the American Commonwealth. \n\nChester in a single sentence: " The key principle \nwas that government, civil and ecclesiastical, is \nconstituted and administered upon the Bible as the \nsource of knowledge and authority." \n\nAnd this principle controlled in all the laws \nframed for the government of the colonies. The \nfirst general court of the Connecticut colony \nadopted a set of laws, and prescribed that all de- \nficiencies in the same were to be supplied by the \nWord of God. Basing their ideas of government \nupon the ancient Hebrew theocracy, the Massa- \nchusetts colony passed this act: \'*No custom nor \nprescription shall ever prevail amongst us . . . \nthat can be proved to be morally sinful by the \nWord of God." The governor of the colony \nof New York was charged to \'\' take special care \nthat God Almighty be devoutly served through- \nout the government." In Virginia stringent stat- \nutes were enacted for the punishment of blas- \nphemy, to compel observance of the Lord\'s day, \nattendance upon public worship, etc. ; and one \nprovided that a person denying the existence \nof God, or the Trinity, or the authority of the \nScriptures, should forfeit all official positions with- \nin the province. \n\n\n\nInstitutions and Laws of the Early Colonists. 117 \n\nThe chapter of laws adopted by the Quaker \ncolony of Pennsylvania is so curious in phrase and \nspirit, that I can not refrain from giving a liberal \nextract : " Whereas ye glory of Almighty God, and \nye good of mankind, is ye reason and end of gov- \nernment, and therefore government in itself is a \nvenerable ordinance of God ; and forasmuch as it is \nprincipally desired and intended by ye proprietary \nand governor, and ye freedom of ye province of \nPennsylvania, and territories thereunto belonging, \nto make and establish such laws as shall best pre- \nserve true Christians and civil liberty, in opposi- \ntion to all unchristian, licentious, and unjust prac- \ntises, whereby God may have his due, C^sar his \ndue, and ye people their due, from tyranny and \noppression on ye one side, and insolency and li- \ncentiousness on ye other, so that ye best and \nfirmest foundation may be laid for ye present and \nfuture happiness both of ye governor and people \nof this province and territorys aforesaid and their \nposterity: Be it therefore enacted by William \nPenn, proprietary and governor, by and with ye \nadvice and consent of ye deputys of ye free- \nmen of this province and counties aforesaid in \n\n\n\n1 1 8 Christianity and the American Commonwealth. \n\nassembly mett, and by ye authority of ye same, \nthat these following chapters and paragraphs \nshall be the laws of Pennsylvania and the ter- \nritorys thereof." Then, after granting the most \nliberty of conscience and worship, in order \nthat looseness, irreligion, and atheism might not \ncreep into the body bolitic, the law provides for \nthe observance of the Sabbath, punishes profane \nswearing and cursing, and further enacts, that \n\'* whoever shall speak loosely and profanely of \nAlmighty God, Christ Jesus, the Holy Spirit, or \nScriptures of truth, and is thereof legally convict- \ned, shall forfeit and pay five pounds, and be im- \nprisoned for five days in the house of correction. \'* \n\nMost remarkable indeed were these efforts of \nthe fathers to establish a pure Christian com- \nmonwealth. And in many respects they were far \nin advance of their age. As nation-builders they \nwere republican pioneers. \n\nDr. Leonard Bacon says: *\' The greatest and \nboldest improvement which has been made in \ncriminal jurisprudence by any one act since the \ndark ages was that which was make by our fa- \nthers when they determined that **the judicial \n\n\n\nInstitutions and Laws of the Early Colonists. 119 \n\nlaws of God, as they were delivered by Moses, \nand as they are a fence to the moral law, being \nneither typical nor ceremonial nor having any ref- \nence to Canaan, shall be accounted of moral \nequity, and generally bind all offenders and be a \nrule to all the courts." \n\nThe pious sturdy colonists brought with them \nalso a sacred regard for the holy Sabbath, and \nthey enacted laws for its rigid observance. Some \nof these seem rather ludicrous and extreme, but \nevidence the straightforwardness and sincerity of \nthose heroic men, out of whose sublime virtues \nthis nation has been evolved. Little labor was \nperformed, and scant food was prepared on that \nsolemn day. All the recreation deemed neces- \nsary were two long walks, deliberate, silent, and \nsolemn, to and from the house of worship. But \nthat gruesome Sabbath, so much declaimed against, \nhas done much to make glorious the civilization \nand history of this great republic. \n\nOf the so-called ** Connecticut Blue Laws" I \nneed not speak to this audience, for all well-in- \nformed persons know that they never existed in \nfact, but were the malicious fabrication of one \n\n\n\n1 20 Christianity and the American Commonwealth. \n\nSamuel Peters, a Tory and an English clergyman \nwho had been driven from the country on account \nof his disloyalty during the war of the Revolution. \n\nSome things in their manner of thought and \nlife are certainly very curious, if not ludicrous. \n\nDr. Dorchester, in his admirable *\' History of \nChristianity in the United States," reproduces an \nancient document written in Danvers, Mass., in \n1713, which shows the grotesque Sabbath scruples \nthat obtained in that day: *\'When ye services \nat ye house were ended, ye council and other dig- \nnitaries were entertained at ye house of Mr. Epes, \non the hill near by, and we had a bountiful table, \nwith Bear\'s meat and venison, the last of which \nwas from a fine Buck shot in the woods near by. \nYe bear was killed in Lynn Woods near Reading. \nAfter ye blessing was craved by Mr. Garrish, of \nWenthom, word came that ye buck was shot on \nye Lord\'s day by Pequot, an Indian. Like Ana- \nnia of old, ye council, therefore, refused to eat of \nye venison, but it was agreed that Pequot should \nreceive forty stripes save one for lying and pro- \nfaning the Lord\'s day, restore Mr. Epes the cost \nof ye deer; and considering this a just and \n\n\n\nInstitutions and Laws of the Early Colonists. 121 \n\nrighteous sentence on ye sinful heathen, and that \na blessing had been craved on ye meat, ye coun- \ncil all partook of it but Mr. Shepard, whose con- \nscience was tender on ye point of venison." \n\nI invite you next to consider t/ie injiuence of the \nministry and the \'^ meeting-house^^ ufo:i colonial \ninstitutions, \n\n*\' According to the system established in Massa- \nchusetts," says Hildreth in his *\' History of the \nUnited States," the Church and State were most \nintimately blended. The magistrates and gen- \neral court, aided by the advice of the elders, \nclaimed and exercised a supreme control in spir- \nitual as well as temporal matters; while even in \nmatters purely temporal the elders were consulted \non all important questions." The central build- \ning and ruling influence through all the colonial \nperiod was the meeting-house. **The village \ngrew up around it, and the country roads were \nlaid out with reference to it." And so permanent \nand potential has been that influence that James \nRussell Lowell said: *\'New England was all \nmeeting-house when I was growing up." It was \na sanctuary of worship on the Sabbath, and a hall \n\n\n\n123 Christianity and the American Commonwealth. \n\nof legislation and administration during the week. \nThere was held the town meeting, "that little \ncongress of the local democracy which was the \ngerm of the republic," and all its deliberations \nwere opened with an earnest invocation and closed \nwith the apostolic benediction. \n\nThe most influential and honored person in \nevery parish was the colonial clergyman. The \nparson was what his name implied, the chief per- \nson in every community. He was consulted not \nonly about questions in morals and theology, but \nabout matters of legislation and civil administra- \ntion. In some instances he was called upon to \nprepare important state papers, and to go on deli- \ncate and dangerous missions and embassies. Dr. \nIncrease Mather was entrusted with a mission that \ndemanded the most skilful diplomacy, and achieved \nsuch success as called forth the highest expressions \nof praise and gratitude. The Levitical priesthood, \nin Jewish history, *\' constituted," says John Stu- \nart Mill, *\'the firm vertebral column which se- \ncured the historic unity of the nation throughout \nthe changing generations." And another author \nthus refers to the same suggestive fact: "A bond \n\n\n\nInstitutions and Lazvs of the Early Colonists. 123 \n\nof union running through the tribes was the tribe \nof Levi, which were given cities within the terri- \ntories of other tribes, instead of a territory of \ntheir own, so that they might reside in every part \nof the country, and keep the people in mind of \nthe national covenant which made them one peo- \nple." This means of spiritual instruction and \npropagandism was incorporated into the political \nlife and found striking illustration of the American \ncolonies, and was probably the most efficient agen- \ncy in producing and strengthening the national \nspirit that ultimately found expression in the ma- \njestic union of sovereign states. Some years ago, \nin one of his Boston Monday lectures, Joseph \nCook gave utterance to a similar opinion, but his \nstatement as to Mr. Wesley was inaccurate: *\'It \nis sometimes said that Wesley and Whitefield, \nmoving up and down the Atlantic coast as shut- \ntles, wove together the sentiments of the thirteen \ncolonies, and made union possible by creating a \nnational spirit." \n\nMinisters of the colonial period, whether church- \nmen or dissenters, were men in authority. Their \ninfluence was unbounded, determining, as they did, \n\n\n\n1 24 Christianity and the American Commonwealth. \n\nall questions in the colony, *\' from the choice of a \ngovernor to that of the village school teacher." \nThey belonged to an order of democratic nobility. \nThey commanded the profoundest respect of the \nolder, and to the children they were the " most \nvivid image of respectability and majesty." The \nminister\'s \'* calmly awful" appearance, and his \nquaint dress and three-cornered hat, form a dis- \ntinct picture of social life in the second generation \nof the colonial times. Mrs. Stowe\'s description of \nDr. Samuel Hopkins may serve as a portrait of the \nministers of that day, whether churchman in Vir- \nginia or Puritan in New England. *\'He entered \nthe dining-room with all the dignity of a full-bot- \ntomed, powdered wig, full flowing coat with ample \ncuffs, silver knee and shoe buckles, as became the \nmajesty of a minister of those days. The com- \npany rose at his entrance. The men bowed, and \nthe women courtesied ; and all remained standing \nwhile he addressed to each, with punctilious de- \ncorum, those inquiries in regard to health and \nwelfare which preface a social interview." \n\nIn Massachusetts the magistrates and general \ncourt exercised no important function and adopted \n\n\n\nInstitutions and Laws of the Early Colonists. 125 \n\nno unusual measures without **the advice of the \nelders." And when, in 1649, the first codification \nof the laws of that colony was made, the commission \nappointed for the purpose consisted of \'*two mag- \nistrates, two ministers, and two able persons from \namong the people of each county." Into that code \nsome ancient laws of the Hebrews were literally \ntransferred. The * \' Body of Liberties \' \' adopted by \nthe colony a few years before was prepared by Rev. \nNathaniel Ward, of Ipswich, a man learned in law \nand divinity. \'\'This code," says Bancroft, \'\'for \nliberality and comprehensiveness, may vie with any \nsimilar record from the days of Magna Charta." \nAt the first session of the general court of the \ncolony of Connecticut, which he had founded, \nThomas Hooker preached a sermon in which he \nsaid : \' \' The foundation of authority is laid in the \nfree consent of the people; the choice of public \nmagistrates belongs unto the people, by God\'s \nown ordinance; . . . they who have power \nto appoint ofRcers and magistrates have the right \nto set the bounds and limitations of the power and \nplace of those who are called." \n\nA striking evidence of the potential influence \n\n\n\n1 26 Christianity and the American Commonzvcalth. \n\nexercised by the colonial clergy in the administra- \ntion of civil affairs and their valued contributions \nto the foundations of our republican government is \nfound in Bancroft\'s elaborate account of a certain \npolitical crisis. It was in 1676, when a serious \nbreach had occurred growing out of the enforce- \nment of the acts of navigation. The colonists \nmade firm resistance, and determined to fall, if \nfall they must, with dignity and unstained integrity. \nAnd, as was their pious custom, they went to the \nhouse of prayer to find grace and wisdom for their \npolitical trials. The great historian says: "Re- \nligion had been the motive of the settlement; re- \nligion was now its counselor. The fervors of the \nmost ardent were kindled; a more than usually \nsolemn form of religious observance was adopted ; \na synod of all the churches in Massachusetts was \nconvened to inquire into the causes of the dangers \nto New England liberty and the mode of removing \nthe evils." And thus the early patriots sought \ncounsel from the Most High in determining what \nwas duty in a national crisis. \n\nAmong the greatest of colonial patriots was the \nRev. Jonathan Mahew, and out of his religious \n\n\n\nInstitutions and Laws of the Early Colonists. 127 \n\nconvictions was born his sublime devotion to the \ncause of civil freedom and independence. *\' In- \nstructed in youth," as he said of himself, " in the \ndoctrines of civil liberty, as they v^ere taught by \nsuch men as Plato, Demosthenes, Cicero, and \nothers among the ancients; and such as Sidney \nand Milton, Locke and Hoodly, among the mod- \nerns, I liked them ; and having learned from the \nHoly Scriptures that wise, brave, and virtuous \nmen were always friends to liberty, that God gave \nthe Israelites a king in his anger, because they \nhad not sense and virtue enough to like a free \ncommonwealth, and that where the spirit of the \nLord is there is liberty, this made me conclude that \nfreedom is a great blessing." And to this man, \nwhose voice was potential in all the stormy and try- \ning scenes of that early time, some historians give \nthe high honor of making the first formal sugges- \ntion of a federal union. It is said that he planted \nthe seed-thought in the mind of Samuel Adams, \nwho became its first great champion. The next \nday, after holding an interdenominational com- \nmunion service in his church, he met Samuel \nAdams, and said to him, with the enthusiasm of a \n\n\n\n128 Christianity and the American Commonwealth. \n\nnew inspiration : " We have just had a communion \nof the churches, now let us have a union of \nstates." That is claimed to be the genesis, first \nof colonial, and afterward of the federal union. \n\nAnd it is a fact of history that though the genius \nof a great statesman penned the Declaration of \nIndependence, it was the convincing eloquence of \na minister of the gospel that compelled the mem- \nbers of the Continental Congress to affix to it \ntheir signature. That minister, a member of the \nCongress, was the Rev. Dr. Witherspoon, Presi- \ndent of Princeton College. The Congress hesi- \ntated. The destiny of a nation was suspended \nupon one hour of agonizing suspense. The his- \ntoric document lay unrolled upon the table. At \nthat critical moment the venerable President of \nPrinceton arose, and with great emotion uttered \nthese words : " To hesitate at this moment is to con- \nsent to our own slavery. That notable instrument \nupon your table, which insures immortality to its \nauthor, should be subscribed this very morning by \nevery pen in this house. He that will not respond \nto its accent and strain every nerve to carry into \neffect its provisions is unworthy the name of free- \n\n\n\nInstitutions and Laws of the Early Colonists. 129 \n\nman. Whatever I have of property, of reputation, \nis staked on the issue of this contest; and although \nthese gray hairs must soon descend into the sep- \nulcher, I would infinitely rather that they descend \nhither by the hand of an executioner than desert \nat this crisis the sacred cause of my country." \n\nAmong the most influential of those early pas- \ntors and teachers was the Rev. Alexander Whita- \nker, who was honored with the title of \'*the \napostle of Virginia." He gave Christian baptism \nto the Indian princess, Pocahontas, and officiated \non the occasion of her marriage. And another \ndistinguished minister in Virginia was a native of \nScotland, a man of letters, and one eminently \ngifted with the leadership, the Rev. James Blair. \nBy his indefatigable labors the college of William \nand Mary was established, and for forty-nine \nyears he was its able President. \n\nIn New England was Thomas Hooker, whom \nCotton Mather called **the incomparable Hook- \ner" \xe2\x80\x94 a scholarly graduate of Cambridge and hon- \nored with an invitation to sit m the Westminster \nAssembly, whose ability as a statesman was only \nequaled by his eloquence as a preacher, his learn- \n\n\n\n130 Christianity and the American Commonwealth. \n\ning as a theologian, and his self-denying toils for \nhis poor sheep in the wilderness. So great was \nhis power that it is said \'\'miracles were attributed \nto him by his wondering parishioners." But the \ngreatest leader of that early day, a Cambridge \nscholar and fellow of Emanuel College, was the \nRev. John Cotton. Driven from his parish church, \nSt. Botolph\'s in Lincolnshire, he fled the country, \nand, "after many narrow escapes," reached Bos- \nton in 1633. He soon rose to unrivaled influence, \nand was called "the Pope of New England." \nOne historian of that time said that whatever John \nCotton " delivered in the pulpit was soon put into \nan order of the court ... or set up as a practise \nin the Church." Roger Williams reported the \npeople of New England as saying that " they could \nhardly believe that God would suffer Mr. Cotton \nto err." So vast and abiding was his influence as \nto call forth from Thomas Carlyle this quaint re- \nmark: "John Cotton, his mark, very curiously \nstamped on the face of this planet, likely to con- \ntinue for some time." To his genius and abiding \ninfluence Longfellow paid this appreciative trib- \nute: \n\n\n\nInstitutions and Laws of the Early Colonists. 131 \n\nThe lantern of St. Botolph\'s ceased to burn \nWhen from the portals of that church he came, \nTo be a burning and a shining light, \nHere in the wilderness. \n\nWhat was said of Oliver Cromwell might have \nbeen applied just as truly to John Cotton: that \n*\' he was a strong man; in the dark perils of war, \nin the high places of the field, hope shone in him \nlike a pillar of fire when it had gone out in all \nothers." \n\nBut of Thomas Bray, in Maryland, and Jona- \nthan Dickinson, in New Jersey, of whom Erskine \nsaid "the British Isles had produced no such \nwriter on divinity in the eighteenth century," and \nJohn Eliot, the apostle to the Indians, and the two \nremarkable but quaint brothers. Increase and Cot- \nton Mather, and others who wrought their noble \ncharacters into the Christian civilization of that \nearly period, I can not speak at length. A grate- \nful word must be spoken of Jonathan Edwards, \nthe grandest figure in the colonial pulpit. Among \nthe mighty men of the centuries his name will ever \nhave conspicuous mention. As theologian, au- \nthor, educator, preacher, he impressed this nation \n\n\n\n132 Christianity and the American Commonwealth. \n\nand all its generations. " I consider Jonathan \nEdwards," says Robert Hall, ** the greatest of the \nsons of men. He ranks with the brightest lumi- \nnaries of the Christian Church, not excluding any \ncountry or any age since the apostolic." This \nmarvelous man, who was "a Thomas a Kempis, a \nCalvin, a Jeremy Taylor in one," has enriched \nthe spiritual and political heritage of the American \ncommonwealth, and " his name invests the middle \ncolonial period with a halo of glory and renown." \nI come now to consider the organic laws adopt- \ned by the young states soon to form a more per- \nfect union \xe2\x80\x94 "an indissoluble union of indestruc- \ntible states." The constitution of New Jersey, \nframed in 1776, guaranteed to every one the *\' in- \nestimable privilege of worshiping Almighty God \nin a manner agreeable to the dictates of his con- \nscience,\'" and then declared that "all persons \nprofessing a belief in the faith of any Protestant \nsect, and who shall demean themselves peaceably \nunder the government, should be capable of being \nmembers of either branch of the Legislature, and \nshould fully and freely enjoy every privilege and \nimmunity enjoyed by others, their fellow citizens." \n\n\n\nliislJutions and Lazvs of the Early Colonists. 133 \n\nThe constitution of New Hampshire affirmed \n*\' that morality and piety, rightly grounded on \nevangelical principles, would give the best and \ngreatest security to government," and \'\'that the \nknowledge of these was most likely to be propa- \ngated by the institution of the public worship of \nthe Deity, and public instruction in morality and \nreligion." *\' The towns," therefore, were au- \nthorized and empowered to make proper and ade- \nquate provision for the maintenance of \'\' public \nProtestant teachers of piety, religion, and mo- \nrality." \n\nThe constitution of Delaware declared that *\'all \npersons professing the Christian religion ought \nforever to enjoy equal rights and privileges," and \nprovided that all persons elected to the Legislature \nor appointed to any other public office should \nmake the following declaration: "I do profess \nfaith in God the Father, and in Jesus Christ his \nSon, and the Holy Ghost, one God, blessed for- \nevermore; and I do acknowledge the Holy Scrip- \ntures of the Old and New Testaments to be given \nby divine inspiration." \n\nIn the organic law of North Carolina, adopted \n\n\n\n1 34 Christianity and the American Commonwealth. \n\nabout the same time, there was a provision de- \nclaring that *\' no person who should deny the be- \ning of God, or the truth of the Protestant religion, \nor the divine authority of either the Old or New \nTestament, or who should hold religious princi- \nples incompatible with the freedom and safety of \nthe state, should be capable of holding any office \nor place of trust in the civil government of the \n\nstate." \n\nThe constitution of Georgia, adopted in 1777, \n\nsays, ** Every officer of the state shall be liable to \nbe called to account by the House of Assembly," \nand that every member of that House ** shall be of \nthe Protestant religion." \n\nSouth Carolina, in 1778, framed a constitution, \nwhich directed the Legislature, at its regular meet- \ning, to ** choose by ballot from among themselves, \nor from the people at large, a governor and com- \nmander-in-chief, a lieutenant-governor, and privy \ncouncil, all of the Protestant religion." It further \nprovide that no man should be eligible to a seat \nin either branch of the Legislature, \'* unless he be \nof the Protestant religion," and positively or- \ndained \'*that the Christian religion be deemed, \n\n\n\nInstitutions and Laws of the Early Colonists. 135 \n\nand is hereby constituted and declared to be, the \nestablished religion of this land." \n\nIn 1780 Massachusetts adopted a constitution, in \nwhich was the f ollov/ing language : \' \' That as the \nhappiness of a people, and the good order and pres- \nervation of civil government, essentially depend \nupon piety, religion, and morality; and as these \ncan not be generally diffused through a communi- \nty but by the institution of the public worship of \nGod and of public instruction in piety, religion, \nand morality: therefore, to promote their happi- \nness, and to secure the good order and preser- \nvation of their government, the people of this \ncommonwealth have a right to invest their Legis- \nlature with power to authorize and require, and the \nLegislature shall from time to time authorize and \nrequire the several towns, parishes, precincts, and \nother bodies politic, or religious societies, to make \nsuitable provision, at their own expense, for the \ninstitution of the public worship of God, and for \nthe support and maintenance of public Protestant \nteachers of piety, religion, and morality, in all cases \nwhere such provision shall not be made voluntari- \nly: and the people of this commonwealth have \n\n\n\n1^6 Christianity and the American Commonwealth. \n\nalso a right to, and do, invest their Legislature with \nauthority to enjoin upon all the subjects an attend- \nance upon the instructions of the public teachers \naforesaid, at stated times and seasons, if there be \nany one whose instructions they can conscien- \ntiously attend;" and it was also provided that \nevery person ** chosen governor, lieutenant-gov- \nernor, senator, or representative, and accepting \nthe trust," shall solemnly affirm that he ** believes \nthe Christian religion, and has a firm persuasion \nof its truth." \n\nBut further investigation is unnecessary to es- \ntablish the truth of my contention. Such was the \nstructure and dominant spirit of the early colonial \ninstitutions. Although reaction soon set in, and \nmany modifications were adopted from time to \ntime to meet the demands of a liberalizing public \nopinion, those governments \'* lasted long enough \nto be the mold in which the civilization of the \nyoung states should set and harden." \n\n\n\nLECTURE IV. \n\nChristianity and the Nation. \n\n(137) \n\n\n\nLECTURE IV. \n\nCHRISTIANITT AND THE NATION. \n\nIN the last lecture we studied the principles em- \nbodied by the colonists in the institutions they \nestablished. Attention was directed to the com- \npacts and constitutions they adopted, the laws \nthey enacted, and the social life they created. \nHaving previously analyzed the character of the \nearly settlers of America, and noted the high \nChristian motive that impelled their coming to \nthese shores, and the divine purpose that domi- \nnated their efforts to build here a nation in which \nthey could worship God unmolested, we expected \nto find their vigorous and aggressive religious \nprinciples preeminent in the social and govern- \nmental conditions they established. And that ex- \npectation was abundantly realized. We discov- \nered that religion chiefly inspired the colonization \nof this great country, and religion determined the \ncharacter of government under which those \nChristian exiles proposed to live. Some of the \n\nlaws enacted were but transcripts of the divine \n\n(139) \n\n\n\n140 Christianity and the American Commonwealth. \n\nlaw, and nothing was allowable that was not sus- \ntained by the letter or spirit of the Holy Scrip- \ntures. In more than one colony the oath of a \npublic officer was scarcely less than a formal con- \nfession of faith. In all except two colonies \xe2\x80\x94 \nRhode Island and Pennsylvania \xe2\x80\x94 the Church was \nestablished by law, and ministers were supported \nby public taxation. In several colonies there was \na spiritual qualification on the suffrage \xe2\x80\x94 only those \nallowed to vote who were members of the Church. \nBy thus guarding the franchise effort was made to \nlodge political power only in the hands of good \nmen, and to preserve the government pure from \nimmorality and irreligion. However unwise the \nmeasures adopted, we can not but applaud the \nhigh purpose of such legislation. They thought \nit better that the state should be molded by the \nChurch than for the Church to be molded after \nthe state. \n\nIri tracing the evolution of those scattered set- \ntlements into organized colonies, and then into \nthe dignity and independence of statehood, we \nnoted the informing and guiding influence still ex- \nercised by the Christian religion. Though the \n\n\n\nChristianity and the Nation. \n\n\n\nI4.I \n\n\n\nrelaxation of certain regulations was made nec- \nessary by the rapid increase of population, and \nother laws had to be repealed or greatly modified, \nthe distinct Christian and Protestant character of \ntheir institutions was carefully preserved. The \nconstitutions of the young states sought to sacred- \nly guard the priceless heritage of the fathers, and \nsome of them reenthroned with emphasis the doc- \ntrines of civil and religious liberty that had made \nthe country grow so great and with such majestic \nspeed. \n\nWe will now advance from the colonial to the \nnational period of our country\'s history, and in \nthis lecture study Christianity and the Nation. \nWe will ascertain, if possible, how far those gran- \nite Christian principles and sturdy faiths of the \ncolonies we have been so eagerly investigating \nwere retained and employed in the nation that \nwas builded. It has been positively affirmed, and \nby one somewhat eminent in literature, that ** the \ngovernment of the United States is not in any \nsense founded upon the Christian religion." Is \nthere any historic foundation for that contention, \nor did the author take counsel of personal de- \n\n\n\n142 Christianity and the American Commonwealth. \n\nsire rather than accepted and authoritative fact? \nThat the latter is true will be triumphantly sus- \ntained by the results of a little candid investiga- \ntion. Did the colonies lose their distinctive relig- \nious character when they developed into nation- \nhood? Was there anything in the evolutionary \nprocess to strip them of their Christian principles \nand demand that they be clothed upon with new \nfaiths, or no faith? Was the nation built of new \nmaterials, or did the framers of our federal gov- \nernment use the principles and forces already at \nhand? These and similar inquiries must now be \nimpartially considered and candidly answered. \n\nThat certain adverse influences, notably French \ninfidelity, imported during the war of the Revolu- \ntion, had a temporary yet strong effect upon our \nnational life must be admitted. To that darkest \nperiod of our nation\'s annals attention will be \ngiven. But that those destructive influences were \nsufficiently potent to change the character of our \nsocial life and the type of our governmental insti- \ntutions, I apprehend, will not be sustained by the \nfacts of history. \n\nBefore the national constitution was framed \n\n\n\nChristianity and the Nation. 143 \n\nthere was a severing of the politico-ecclesiastical \nties that had long existed in most of the colonies. \nBut the separation of the Church from the State \ndid not mean the severance of the State from God, \nor of the nation from Christianity. Some of the \ncolonial states disestablished the Church and passed \nlaws guaranteeing unrestricted freedom of wor- \nship before the plan of a constitutional convention \nhad ever taken shape in the mind of any patriot- \nstatesman. Virginia did so two years before the \nconvention met, and fully ten years before all \nrepressive acts against dissenters had been swept \nfrom the statute-books. And other colonies took \nsimilar action. Those changes came by the logic \nof events. They were demanded, expected, and \ncould not be resisted. \n\nFrom such an unauthorized and unscriptural \nunion of Church and State of course evil came. \nBancroft states the case clearly in a few well \nworded sentences: \'\'Since a particular form of \nworship had become a part of the civil establish- \nment, irreligion was now to be punished as a civil \noffense. The state was a model of Christ\'s king- \ndom on earth; treason against the civil govern- \n\n\n\n144 Christianity and the American Commonwealth. \n\nment was treason against Christy and, reciprocal- \nly, as the gospel had the right paramount, blas- \nphemy, or whatever a jury might call blasphemy, \nwas the highest offense in the catalogue of crimes. \nTo deny any book of the Old or New Testament \nto be the written and infallible word of God was \npunished by fine or by stripes, and, in case of \nobstinacy, by exile or death. Absence from the \nministry of the word was punished by fine." \n\nThe too close union of Church and State, as \npopulation grew and immigration increased, be \ncame a source of increasing irritation. It was an \nunnatural alliance, and has ever been an occasion \nof injury \xe2\x80\x94 injury to the Church and peril to the \nState. Christ and Caesar are at peace, but their \nkingdoms are independent. They cooperate, but \nshould never unite. The miter and the crown \nshould never encircle the same brow. The cro- \nzier and the scepter should never be wielded by \nthe same hand. And whenever the functions of \nthe State have been usurped by the Church, or the \noffices of the State have been seized and exercised by \nthe Church, Christ and Caesar have alike suffered \nat the hands of professed but misguided friends. \n\n\n\nChristianity and the Nation. 145 \n\nBut the sundering of the ties that bound Church \nand State too closely together did not drive the \nnation from Christianity. No such purpose was \ncontemplated and no such action was taken. \nTheir high ambidon was not to construct a new \nnation out of new materials, but to make strong \nand more enduring the one founded on the faith \nof their fathers. \n\n"A pure republic, where, beneath the sway \nOf mild and equal laws, framed by themselves, \nOne people dwell and own no lord save God." \n\nThe scenes connected with the overthrow of \n\nBritish power and the firm establishment of an \n\nindependent nationhood form some of the most \n\nthrilling and brilliant chapters in the annals of \n\nAmerica, if not in the world. But not all the \n\nheroism was on the high places of the field; and \n\nnot all the victories were won in the wild shock of \n\nbattle. There was a heroism of pure faith as well \n\nas of high courage. And the one was not less \n\npotential than the other. The patriarch kneeling \n\nat his family altar, the minister in his pulpit, the \n\ndevout mother in Israel hiding all these wondrous \n\nthings of God in her heart, and the words of cheer \n10 \n\n\n\n146 Christianity and the American Commonwealth. \n\nsent to the front, were not unimportant factors in \nthe final triumph of the colonial arms. Along \nwith the military chieftain\'s words of command \nwent the ringing appeals and fervent prayers of \nthe ministers of religion. The man of God sat on \nthe mountain-side with hands uplifted in piteous \nprayer to Heaven, while brave battalions charged \nwith intrepid courage upon their enemies on the \nplains below. And but for that mountain of \nprayer there would not have been the glorious \nvictory of the plain. \n\n** The pulpit of the Revolution," a distinguished \nauthor says, *\' was the secret of that moral energy \nwhich sustained the republic in its material weak- \nness against superior numbers and discipline and \nall the powers of England." The intrepid faith \nof the ministry was as inspiring as the drum-beat \nof heroic legions led by some gallant commander \nflushed with the honors of great victory. And \nall through the history of the American common- \nwealth the holy men who have ministered at her \naltars of religion by their exposition and enforce- \nment of the ethics of the Man of Galilee have \n** connected," says John Quincy Adams, *\' with \n\n\n\nChristianity and the Nation. 147 \n\none indissoluble bond the principles of civil gov- \nernment with the principles of Christianity." \n\nAnd all during that memorable struggle of eight \neventful years the Continental Congress, voicing \nthe national faith, often appointed days of fasting \nand prayer, and repeatedly invited the people to \nrepentance, reformation, and the renewal of their \nChristian vows. Strange indeed were the passage \nof such solemn resolutions if they were not an ex- \npression of the spiritual hope and faith of the na- \ntion. At the very beginning of that long war \nCongress formally expressed its desire to " have the \npeople of all ranks and degrees duly impressed \nwith a solemn sense of God\'s superintending prov- \nidence, and of their duty to rely in all their lawful \nenterprises in his aid and direction.*\' In the proc \xe2\x80\xa2 \nlamation of a general fast these words occur: \n**That they may with united hearts confess and \nbewail their manifold sins and transgressions, and \nby a sincere repentance and amendment of life \nappease His righteous displeasure, and through the \nmerits and mediation of Jesus Christ obtain his \npardon and forgiveness." This language reads \nvery much like a pastoral letter issued by some \n\n\n\n148 Christianity and the American Commonwealth. \n\ngreat ecclesiastical synod, conference, or council. \nHere is a clear, distinct confession of faith in *\'the \nmerits and mediation of Jesus Christ" by the \nCongress of the nation, which was the authorita- \ntve voice and conscience of the people. \n\nAnd a few months later another proclamation \nwas issued, which contained this language: "The \nCongress do also, in the most earnest manner, \nrecommend to all the members of the United \nStates, and particularly the officers, civil and mili- \ntary, under them, the exercise of repentance and \nreformation ; and further require of them the strict \nobservance of the articles which forbid profane \nswearing and all immoralities." Thus with the \nfervor of apostles did those revolutionary states- \nmen plead for holiness of conduct, that the nation \nmight be assured of the favor of heaven. They \nhad not read the history of Israel in vain, and \nknew that it is righteousness that exalteth a nation. \n\nIn 1777 Congress called the colonies to earnest \nprayer, and begged \'* that with one heart and voice \nthe good people may express the grateful feelings \nof their hearts, and consecrate themselves to the \nservice of their Divine Benefactor; and that, to- \n\n\n\nChristianity and the Nation. 149 \n\ngether with their sincere acknowledgments and \nofferings, they may join the penitent confession \nof their manifold sins, whereby they have forfeit- \ned every favor, and their earnest supplication that \nit may please God, through the merits of Jesus \nChrist, inercifully to forgive and blot them out of \nremembrance; that it may please him graciously \nto afford his blessings on the governments of these \nstates respectively, and prosper the public council \nof the whole; to inspire our commanders, both by \nland and sea, and all under them, with that wisdom \nand fortitude which may render them fit instru- \nments, under the government of Almighty God, to \nsecure to these United States the greatest of all \nblessings \xe2\x80\x94 independence and peace ... to take \nschools and seminaries for education, so necessary \nfor cultivating the principles of true liberty, virtue, \nand piety, under his nurturing hand, and to pros- \nper the means of religion for the promotion and \nenlargement of that kingdom which consisteth in \nrighteousness, peace, and joy in the Holy Ghost." \njf^[ In 1799, ^^y rtisolution of Congress, the people \nare called upon to pray: \'* That God would grant \nto his Church the plentiful effusions of divine \n\n\n\n1 50 Christianity and the American Commonwealth. \n\ngrace, and pour out his Holy Spirit on all min- \nisters of the gospel; that he would bless and pros- \nper the means of education and spread the light of \nChristian knowledge throughout the remotest cor- \nners of the earth." And similar appeals were \nmade in 1780, 1781, and 1782. Certainly there \nwas no lack of religious faith in that body of Chris- \ntian patriots. \n\nBefore considering the convention of 1787 and \nthe constitution then drafted and afterward ratified \nby the several states \xe2\x80\x94 that instrument which has \nbeen characterized as the most remarkable unin- \nspired document ever struck from the human brain \nby a single blow \xe2\x80\x94 I invite you to take account of \nsome adverse currents that came in like a flood \nupon our country. \n\nThe independence of the colonies was achieved \nat a dreadful cost: the threatened loss of our na- \ntional faith. With the triumph of arms there came \nthe fall of public morals. The French allies \nproved to be dangerous friends. They fought for \nour success in the field, but they poisoned our na- \ntional faith. They injected the virus of an ag- \ngressive and unblushing infidelity into our country \n\n\n\nChristianity and the Nation. 151 \n\nthat came near working its ruin. Its blight was \nseen and felt everywhere. The churches suffered, \nhomes were destroyed, colleges were poisoned, \nthe Sabbath was desecrated, and public morals \nwere polluted. The churches reported \'\' the lam- \nentable decay of vital piety, the degeneracy of \nmanners, the want of public spirit, and the general \nprevalence of vice and immorality." Some public \nmen became blatant and blasphemous in their infi- \ndelity. Gen. Dearborn, afterward Secretary of \nWar in Jefferson\'s cabinet, is reported to have \npointed on one occasion at a Christian church and \nsaid: \'\' So long as those temples stand we can not \nhope for order and good government." Passing \na church-building m Connecticut on another occa- \nsion, he remarked with scornful tone and sneering \nlip: \'\'Look at that painted nuisance." Edmund \nRandolph became a deist, but afterward returned \nto his evangelical faith. Thomas Jefferson be- \ncame very liberal in his creed, probably a unita- \nrian, but never lost a firm faith in God and his \nprovidence. And many others felt the contagion. \nBut the great body of patriots and statesmen stood \nfirmly by the faith of their fathers. Patrick Henry \n\n\n\n152 Christianity and the American Commonwealth. \n\nsaid he abhorred infidelity, and wrote a book, \nthough never pubHshed, in reply to Paine \'s **Age \nof Reason." And so Washington and others \nboldly resisted the deadly plague. \n\nDevereux Jarrett, of Virginia, drew a vivid \nsketch of the moral degeneracy of the times, and \ncharged it to *\' the prevalence of the spirit of the \nFrench Revolution/\' The General Assembly of \nthe Presbyterian Church in 1798 sent out a pasto- \nral letter, full of alarm and entreat}^: \'\'We per- \nceive with pain and fearful apprehension a gen- \neral dereliction of religious principle and practise \namong our fellow-citizens, a visible and prevailing \nimpiety and contempt for the laws and institutions \nof religion, and an abounding infidelity which, in \nmany instances, tends to atheism itself. The \nprofligacy and corruption of the public morals \nhave advanced with a progress proportioned to \nour declension in religion." \n\nInfidel clubs were organized, and publications \nlike Paine\'s \'\'Age of Reason" were scattered \nbroadcast over the land. The colleges of the \ncountry became the hotbeds of a shallow but \nnoisy skepticism. But a reaction, after a time, \n\n\n\nChristianity and the Nation. 153 \n\nset in, led by Dr. Dwight, President of Yale Col- \nlege, and others of great influence in Church and \nState, and this great nation, born of religious \nconvictions and built by Christian faith and prin- \nciple, swung safely back to the integrity of her \ndivine inheritance. \n\nWhen, in 1800, President John Adams received a \nletter from Germany, proposing to send over to this \ncountry \'* a company of schoolmasters, painters, \npoets, etc., all of them disciples of Thomas Paine," \nhe made prompt and emphatic reply as follows: \n" I had rather countenance the introduction of Ariel \nand Caliban with a troupe of spirits the most mis- \nchievous from the fairy-land." And in a procla- \nmation shortly thereafter, setting forth the dangers \nthreatening the young republic, he thus rean- \nnounced the national faith : \' \' The most precious in- \nterests of the United States are still held in jeopardy \nby the hostile designs and insidious arts of a foreign \nnation (France), as well as by the dissemination \namong them of those principles subversive of the \nfoundation of all religious, moral, and social obli- \ngations, that have produced incalculable mischiefs \nand misery in other countries." \n\n\n\n154 Christianity and the American Commonzvealth. \n\nThe one man whose coming to America was \nmore to be deplored than any other was Thomas \nPaine. His political writings gave him fame and \ninfluence, but his coarse and vulgar skepticism \nmade him in the end the shunned and despised of \nall American decency. Though regretting the \noccasion for any reference to such moral and po- \nlitical vileness, as a study in personal irreligion \nand an object-lesson to the young who may be \ntempted to toy with the faiths of the soul, I here \nintroduce a graphic description of his last days by \nan excellent historian. That horrible old age and \ndespised memory are the bitter harvest of his own \nskeptical sowing. \n\nMcMaster, in his \'* History of the People of \nthe United States," thus describes Tom Paine: \n"We doubt w^hether any name in our Revolu- \ntionary history, not excepting that of Benedict \nArnold, is quite so odious as the name of Thomas \nPaine. Arnold was a traitor; Paine was an infi- \ndel. . . . Since the day when the \'*Age of \nReason" came forth from the press the number \nof infidels has increased much more rapidly than \nbefore that book was written. The truth is, he \n\n\n\nChristianity and the Nation. 155 \n\nwas one of the most remarkable men of his time. \nIt would be a difficult matter to find anywhere an- \nother such compound of baseness and nobleness, \nof goodness and badness, of greatness and little- \nness, of so powerful a mind left unbalanced and \nled astray by the worst of animal passions. . . . \nOf all humankind he is the filthiest and nastiest, \nand his disgusting habits grew upon him with his \nyears. In his old age, when the frugal gifts of \ntwo states which remembered his good work had \nplaced him beyond immediate want, he became a \nsight to behold. It was rare that he was sober; \nit was still rarer that he washed himself, and he \nsuffered his nails to grow till, in the language of \none who knew him well, they resembled the claws \nof birds. What gratitude was he did not know.\'\' \nI come now to study the federal charter \xe2\x80\x94 the \n"supreme law of the land" \xe2\x80\x94 adopted by the his- \ntoric convention of 1787 in the city of Philadel- \nphia, and its relation to the Christian religion. \nWas any action taken by that grave body of great \nstatesmen that was intended directly or indirectly \nto repudiate the pronounced Christian faith of the \ncolonial fathers? Their courage had been tested \n\n\n\n156 Chris fianity and the American Commonwealth. \n\nin the storm of war, and now their ambitions could \nonly be inspired by the loftiest patriotism \xe2\x80\x94 the \ncompletion of a work so gloriously begun. James \nMadison, who preserved the debates of that mem- \norable convention, and who v^as conspicuous in its \ndeliberations, said that *\' there never was an as- \nsembly of men, charged with a great and arduous \ntrust who were purer in their motives, or more \nexclusively or anxiously devoted to the object \ncommitted to them, than were the members of the \nfederal convention of 1787 to the object of devi- \nsing and proposing a constitutional system which \nshould best supply the defects of that which it was \nto replace, and best secure the permanent liberty \nand happiness of their country." \n\nGeorge Washington sat in the President\'s chair, \nand all the deliberations of that serious body were \nas solemn as the synod of a great Church in a time \nof spiritual crisis. The burdens of a nation and \nthe centuries were upon their already chafed and \nweary shoulders. Great were the difficulties they \nhad to meet, and most momentous were the prob- \nlems they had to solve. One graphic and pathetic \nscene in that convention is painfully suggestive \n\n\n\nChristianity and the Nation. i^\'j \n\nof the tremendous burden of anxiety that some- \ntimes threatened the defeat of all their patriotic \ncounsels and the loss of all the splendid fruits of \nvictory on the field of battle. I refer to the ap- \npearance of Dr. Franklin \xe2\x80\x94 a veteran of eighty- \nthree years of age \xe2\x80\x94 and his memorable appeal for \nprayer. The speech of Benjamin Franklin in the \nconstitutional convention, supporting a motion for \ndaily prayers to God in the body, is a notable his- \ntoric fact, when we consider the great man who \nuttered it and the greater occasion which suggest- \ned it. It was an hour of gloom. Divided opinion, \nsectional animosities, and some personal estrange- \nments threatened to defeat the patriotic purpose of \ntheir solemn assembling. But little progress had \nbeen made, and many began to fear that differ- \nences were irreconcilable and agreement was im- \npossible. In that hour Dr. Benjamin Franklin, \nnot supposed to be evangelical in his opinions, \narose, but, too feeble to stand long on his feet, \nasked his colleague to read the manuscript speech \nhe had prepared. From that address I take these \nsuggestive sentences: \n\n** In the beginning of the contest with Great \n\n\n\n15S Christianity and the American Commonwealth. \n\nBritain, when we were sensible of danger, we had \ndaily prayer in this room for the divine protection. \nOur prayers, sir, were heard, and they were gra- \nciously answered. All of us who were engaged \nin the struggle must have observed frequent in- \nstances of a superintending Providence in our fa- \nvor. To that kind Providence we owe this happy \nopportunity of consulting in peace on the means of \nestablishing our future national felicity. And have \nwe now forgotten that powerful Friend ? Or do we \nimagine that we no longer need his assistance? \n\n*\' I have lived, sir, a long time, and the longer I \nlive the more convincing proofs I see of this truth : \nthat God governs in the affairs of men. And if a \nsparrow can not fall to the ground without his no- \ntice, is it possible that an empire can rise with- \nout his aid? We have been assured, sir, in the \nsacred writings that, \' except the Lord build the \nhouse, they labor in vain that build it." I firmly \nbelieve this, and I also believe that without his \nconcurring aid we shall succeed, in this political \nbuilding, no better than the builders of Babel." \n\nThough the motion was not adopted, and the \nsecret sessions were not opened and closed with \n\n\n\nChristianity and the Nation. 159 \n\ninvocation and benediction, influential members \nwere careful to assign other reasons than indiffer- \nence to religion or lack of faith in the superin- \ntending providence of God. \n\nNow inasmuch as in the constitution of the \nUnited States the name of God is not mentioned, \nand the references to religion are rather negative \nthan positive, it has been charged that the Amer- \nican commonwealth has an atheistical organic law. \nThat question we will now investigate, for the \nChristian character of our nation is involved there- \nin. And in the study of the same one fact should \nbe borne in mind : \' \' The constitution did not create \na nation or its religion and institutions,^\'\' It was \nframed for the better protection of those already \nexisting, and under a government of the people, \nby the people, and for the people. \n\nThe constitution of the United States provides \nthat \'"\'No religious test shall ever he required as \na qualification to any office or -public trust under \nthe l/jtited States J\' ^ \n\nThe first amendment to that constitution reads \nas follows: \'\'\'Congress shall make no law respect- \ning an establishment of religion^ or prohibiting \n\n\n\nA \n\n\n\n1 60 Christianity and the American Commonzvealth. \n\nthe free exercise thereof; or abridging the free- \ndom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the \npeople peaceably to assemble, and to petition the \ngovernment for a redress of grievance." \n\nThis Article VI., paragraph 3, abolishes all re- \nligious tests in the conduct of civil affairs, and se- \ncures the freedom and independence of the State \nfrom ecclesiastical domination and interference. \nBut the first amendment, adopted in response to \nthe demand of many of the states as a condition \nof their ratifying the constitution itself, is a more \npositive declaration, and constitutes what is known \nas a bill of rights. This is the full and absolute \nguarantee of perfect religious liberty. Many of \nithe principles embodied in the constitution have \nbeen handed down from the days of Magna \nCharta, but, as Dr. Philip Schaff has observed, \n**it was left for America to abolish forever the \ntyranny of a State religion, and to secure the most \nsacred of all rights and liberties to all her citizens \n\xe2\x80\x94 the liberty of religion and the free exercise \nthereof." Thus the right of individuality and the \nsovereignty of the conscience were vindicated and \nprotected from outside interference, and the power \n\n\n\nChristianity and the Nation. i6i \n\nwas forever withheld from the federal government \nto invade the inner sanctuary of the human soul. \n\nThe purpose of that article was not to renounce \nChristianity or give countenance to infidelity or \nany pagan religion, but to exclude all rivalry \namong Christian denominations and ** prevent any \nnational ecclesiastical establishment which should \ngive to a hierarchy the exclusive patronage of the \nnational government." It was not antichristian, \nbut antisectarian. It would not favor one branch \nof the Church of Christ over another. The Epis- \ncopalians were the predominant sect in some \nstates, the Presbyterians in others, the Congrega- \ntionalists in others, the Quakers in at least one, \nwhile several were nearly evenly balanced numer- \ni-cally in others. It was eminent statesmanship, \ntherefore, to eliminate ecclesiastical ambitions and \nsectarian jealousies from the civil government, \nby giving the same reverent recognition and sacred \nprotection to all alike. All Churches were put on \nan equal footing before the supreme law of the \nnation. ** Liberty of all is the best guarantee of \nthe liberty of each." \n\nI know of no more critical and luminous state \n11 \n\n\n\n1 62 Christianity and the American Commonwealth. \n\nment of the true religious purpose of the framers \nof the constitution than these words by an able \nwriter on constitutional law: ** Consistent with \nthemselves, the people of 1787 meant by the Fed- \neral arrangement nothing but a new and larger \norganization of government on -principles already \nfa7niliar to the country. The state governments \nwere not broad enough for national purposes, and \nthe old confederation was deficient in central \npower. It was only to remedy these two defects, \nnot of principle but of distributive adjustment, that \nthe public mind addressed itself; innovation, to \nany other end, was never thought of, least of all \nin reference to religion, a thing utterly apart from \nthe whole design. So that, admitting that the \nconstitution framed on that occasion does not in \nterms proclaim itself a Christian document, what \nthen? Does it proclaim itself unchristian? For \nif it is merely silent in the matter, law and reason \nboth tell us that its religious character is to be \nlooked for by interpretation among the people who \nfashioned it, a people Christian by profession and \nby genealogy; what is more, by deeds of funda- \nmental legislation that can not deceive." \n\n\n\nChristianity and the Nation. 163 \n\nAnd from the highest authorities, that might be \nmultiplied almost indefinitely, we are left in no \ndoubt that this was the view taken by all the con- \nstitutional fathers, and which found clear expres- \nsion in our organic law. The supreme care was \nnot to restrain, but to encourage and increase the \nrapid spread and lasting sway of our Christian \nreligion throughout the American commonwealth. \n\nThe only limitation ever placed upon the largest \nassertion of religious liberty by the national gov- \nernment was the passage of a law against plural \nmarriage which is a tribute to Christian religion. \nThis law, so necessary to the sanctity of the home \nand the purity of society, has its origin and divine \nimperative only in the New Testament. So the \nenactment of that prohibition is an inspiration of \nthe ethics of Christianity. And no appeal to any \nreligious tenet or belief is allowed to contravene \nthat express statute which came first from the Man \nof Galilee. \n\nThe validity and constitutionality of that law has \nbeen tested before the Supreme Court of the \nUnited States, and sustained at every point. The \ncase came up from the territory of Utah, the ac- \n\n\n\n164 Christianity and the American Commonwealth. \n\ncused pleading the doctrines of the Mormon \nChurch and the constitutional guarantee of relig- \nious liberty as his defense. As the opinion rendered \nis the first judicial definition of the bounds of the \nreligious liberty guaranteed by the constitution, I \nshall quote a few passages therefrom. The opin- \nion of the court was delivered by Chief Justice \nWaite, and is as follows; \n\n\'* Laws are made for the government of actions; \nand while they can not interfere with mere relig- \nious beliefs and opinions, they may with prac- \ntises. Suppose one believed that human sacrifices \nwere a necessary part of religious worship. Would \nit be seriously contended that the civil govern- \nment under which he lived could not interfere to \nprevent a sacrifice? Or if a wife religiously be- \nlieved it was her duty to burn herself upon the \nfuneral pile of her dead husband, would it be be- \nyond the power of the civil government to prevent \nher carrying her belief into practise ? \n\n** So here, as a law of the organization of socie- \nty under the exclusive dominion of the United \nStates, it is provided that plural marriages shall \nnot be allowed. Can a man exercise his practises \n\n\n\nChristianity and the Nation. 165 \n\nto the contrary, because of his religious belief? \nTo permit this would be to make the professed \ndoctrines of religious belief superior to the law of \nthe land, and in effect to permit every citizen to \nbecome a law unto himself. Government could \nexist only in name under such circumstances." \n\nIt is an interesting historic fact also that the Na- \ntional Congress has officially favored and ap- \nproved the Holy Scriptures, and the authorized \nProtestant version and revision of the same. \n\nThe Continental Congress in 1782 and the \nUnited States 1882, just one century apart, passed \nspecific resolutions in regard to the Holy Scrip- \ntures. Bibles becoming very scarce during the \nwar of the Revolution, Congress was petitioned \nto publish the book. The petition was not grant- \ned, on account of the difficulty in procuring types \nand paper, but authority was given to import twen- \nty thousand copies from Europe. And that same \nCongress appointed a committee to examine the \nfirst English Bible published in America. The \ncommittee submitted it to examination by the two \nchaplains, Rev. W. White and Rev. George Duf- \nfield, and, on their recommendation, Congress ap- \n\n\n\n1 66 Christianity and the American Commonwealth. \n\nproved "the pious and laudable undertaking" \nand recommended it *\'to the inhabitants of the \nUnited States." \n\nIn 1882 Congress passed an act exempting from \ncustomary duties over two thousand copies of the \nRevised Version of the Holy Scriptures, printed \non the university presses of Oxford and Cam- \nbridge. \n\nAnd in an ordinance adopted by Congress July \n13, 1787, for the government of the Northwest \nterritory, a section then under entire control of \nthe federal authority, it is declared that ^^ Religion, \nmorality, and knowledge are necessary to good \ngovernment and the happiness of mankind." \n\nThis, then, is a Christian nation, constructed by \na Christian people, and for Christian ends, their \nreligion the common law of the land. The \nChristian religion is so inwrought into the laws of \nthe United States that they can only be wisely in- \nterpreted by the light of revelation. A distin- \nguished American jurist has said that "the best \nfeatures of the common law, if not derived from, \nhave at least been improved and strengthened by, \nthe prevailing religion and the teachings of the \n\n\n\nChristianity and the Nation. 167 \n\nsacred Book, especially those that regard the fam- \nily and social relations." And Chief Justice \nCooley, in his great work on \'* Constitutional Lim- \nitations," has given this opinion, which has all the \nweight of the highest judicial authority: *\'The \nChristian religion was always recognized in the \nadministration of the common law; and so far as \nthat law continues to be the law of the land, the \nfundamental principles of that religion must con- \ntinue to be recognized in the same sense and to \nthe same extent." \n\nDaniel Webster, the great \'* expounder of the \nconstitution," in the celebrated Girard will case \nbefore the Supreme Court of the United States, \nin February, 1844, most ably advocated the doc- \ntrine that Christianity is the common law of this \nnation. He sought to set aside the munificent de- \nvise of Stephen Girard for the establishment of a \ncollege in Philadelphia, on the ground that the \ntestator had discriminated against the Christian \nreligion, even going so far as to provide that no \nminister of the gospel should ever be admitted with- \nin the walls of the institution. With imperial elo- \nquence he discussed the vital connection between \n\n\n\n1 68 Christianity and the American Commonwealth. \n\nreligion and education, and triumphantly showed \nthat he who would profanely divorce the two made \na ruthless assault upon the common law of the \nland. Though somewhat lengthy, I must quote \nthe following splendid passage : \n\n" It is the same in Pennsylvania as elsewhere: \nthe general principles and public policy are some- \ntimes established by constitutional provisions, some- \ntimes by legislative enactments, sometimes by ju- \ndicial decisions, sometimes by general consent. \nBut however they may be established, there is \nnothing that we look for with more certainty than \nthe general principle that Christianity is a part of \nthe law of the land. This was the case among \nthe Puritans of New England, the Episcopalians \nof the Southern States, the Pennsylvania Quakers, \nthe Baptists, the mass of the followers of White- \nfield and Wesley, and the Presbyterians; all \nbrought and all adopted this great truth, and all \nhave sustained it. And where there is any relig- \nious sentiment amongst men at all, this sentiment \nincorporates itself with the law. Everything de- \nclares it. The massive cathedral of the Catholic ; \nthe Episcopalian church, with its lofty spire point- \n\n\n\nChristianity and the Nation. i6^ \n\ning heavenward; the plain temple of the Quaker; \nthe log church of the hardy pioneer of the wilder- \nness; the mementoes and memorials around and \nabout us; the consecrated graveyards, their tomb- \nstones and epitaphs, their silent vaults, their mold- \nering contents \xe2\x80\x94 all attest it. T/ie dead f rove it as \nwell as the living. The generations that are gone \nbefore speak it, and pronounce it from the tomb. \nWe feel it. All, all proclaim that Christianity, \ngeneral, tolerant Christianity, Christianity inde- \npendent of sects and parties, that Christianity to \nwhich the sword and fagot are unknown, general, \ntolerant Christianity, is the law of the land." \n\nIn a celebrated case in the state of New York, \nin which a man was charged with blasphemy, the \nSupreme Bench held the validity and constitu- \ntionality of the law. Chief Justice Kent, the dis- \ntinguished author of the *\' Commentaries on Amer- \nican Law," delivered the opinion of the court. \nHe said: . . . ^^We are a Christian feo^le, \nand the morality of the country is deeply ingraft- \ned upon Christianity. . . . This declaration \n(of the New York constitution in favor of relig- \nious liberty) never meant to withdraw religion in \n\n\n\n1 yo Christianity and the American Commonzvealth. \n\ngeneral, and with it the best sanctions of moral \nand social obligation, from all consideration and \nmotion of law. To construe it as breaking down \nthe common law barriers against licentious, wan- \nton, and impious attacks upon Christianity itself \nwould be an enormous perversion of its mean- \ning." \n\nJudge Theodore W. Dwight, a distinguished \njurist, and for man}^ years the learned dean of the \nColumbia Law School, New York, gave this able \nopinion on the subject: *\' It is well settled by de- \ncisions in the courts of the leading states of the \nUnion \xe2\x80\x94 e.g-., New York, Pennsylvania, and Mas- \nsachusetts \xe2\x80\x94 that Christianity is a part of the com- \nmon law of the state. Its recognition is shown in \nthe administration of oaths in the courts of justice, \nin the rules which punish those who wilfully blas- \npheme, in the observance of Sunday, in the prohi- \nbition of profanity, in the legal establishment of \npermanent charitable trusts, and in the legal prin- \nciples which control a parent in the education and \ntraining of his children. One of the American \ncourts (that of Pennsylvania) states the law in this \nmanner: \'Christianity is and always has been a \n\n\n\nChristianity and the Nation. 171 \n\npart of the common law of this state \xe2\x80\x94 Christianity \nwithout the spiritual artillery of European countries \n\xe2\x80\x94 not Christianity founded on any particular relig- \nious tenets, not Christianity with an established \nchurch and tithes and spiritual courts, but Chris- \ntianity with liberty of conscience to all men.\' \nThe American states adopted these principles \nfrom the common law of England, rejecting such \nportions of the English law on this subject as were \nnot suited to their customs and institutions. Our \nnational development has in it the best and -purest \nelements of historic Christianity, as related to the \ngovernment of states. Should we tear Christianity \nout of our law, we would rob our law of its fairest \njewels, we would deprive it of its richest treasures, \nwe would arrest its growth, and bereave it of its \ncapacity to adapt itself to the progress in culture, \nrefinement, and morality of those for whose benefit \nit properly exists." \n\nThe influence of Christianity is of final authorit}^ \nin the proceedings and decisions of our courts of \njustice. The testimony of witnesses is rejected if \nthe solemnity of an oath is not sustained by belief \nin the God of heaven. The judge is compelled to \n\n\n\n172 Christianity and the American Commonzvealth. \n\ninquire: *\'Do you believe in a God? Do you be- \nlieve in a future state of rewards and punish- \nments?" If the witness answers in the negative, \nhis testimony is incompetent in the determination \nof any judicial question, however trivial or impor- \ntant. Thus the administration of law depends \nupon our holy religion \xe2\x80\x94 confidence in human ve- \nracity \xe2\x80\x94 a confidence necessary to the business of \nthe state and the judicial determination of ques- \ntions in controversy \xe2\x80\x94 grounds upon religious char- \nacter. The state has to resort to the individual \nconscience. A judicial oath supposes a conscience \nsensitive to the issues of an eternal judgment, to \ngive it solemnity and moral weight. \n\nAnd this doctrine has been fundamental in the \njurisprudence and governmental administration \nof all nations. It is a fact that when infidelity \nhad destroyed the national faith of Greece, and \n** there was no god to swear by," her officials \nbecame corrupt, and the proud republic tottered \nto its ruin. Rome prospered as the religious con- \nvictions of the people were most acute and the \nauthority of conscience was most respected. If a \nRoman soldier violated his oath, even death in \n\n\n\nChristianity and the Nation. 173 \n\nbattle did not arrest judgment against him. His \ncrime was thought to pursue him into the spirit \nworld and there " confront him at the tribunal of \nhis infernal judges, Minos, Rhadamanthus, and \n^acus, whose sentence it would receive to eternal \nperdition." No wonder, under the discipline of \nsuch faith in the rewards of the future, Rome at- \ntained to imperial grandeur. \n\nAnd the official acts of the Presidents of the \nUnited States, in their proclamations appointing \ndays of thanksgiving or fasting, and in their ad- \ndresses to the people, have paid reverent tribute to \nour national faith. \n\nThe inaugural address of George Washington, \nas the first President of this young republic, \nbreathes the humblest and holiest spirit of depend- \nence upon God, and expresses the nation\'s faith \nin his all- wise guidance and care. He recognizes \nthe hand of God in the formation of the govern- \nment, and prays for his continued direction and \nperpetual benediction. He says: **It would be \npeculiarly improper to omit, in this first official act, \nmy fervent supplication to that almighty Being \nwho rules over the universe, who presides in the \n\n\n\n1 74 Christianity and the American Commonwealth. \n\ncouncils of nations, and whose providential aid can \nsupply every human defect, that his benediction \nmay consecrate to the liberties and happiness of \nthe people of the United States a government in- \nstituted by themselves for these essential purposes, \nand may enable every instrument employed in its \nadministration to execute with success the func- \ntions allotted to his charge. In tendering this \nhomage to the great Author of every public and \nprivate good, I assure myself that it expresses your \nsentiments not less than my own, nor those of my \nfellow citizens at large less than neither. No peo- \nple can be bound to acknowledge and adore the \ninvisible Hand which conducts the affairs of men \nmore than the people of the United States. Every \nstep by which they have advanced to the character \nof an independent nation seems to have been dis- \ntinguished by some token of providential agency." \nAnd in the closing sentences of this able and \npatriotic address the \'\'father of his country" \nthus refers again to the subject which seemed to \nbe the burden of his great soul \xe2\x80\x94 the nation\'s de- \npendence upon Almighty God for past achieve- \nments and all future glory: \'\' Having thus impart- \n\n\n\nChristianity and the Nation. 175 \n\ned to you my sentiments as they have been av\\^a- \nkened by the occasion which brings us together, I \nshall take my present leave; but not without re- \nsorting once more to the benign Parent of the hu- \nman race, in humble supplication that, since he \nhas pleased to favor the American people with op- \nportunities for deliberating in perfect tranquillity, \nand dispositions for deciding with unparalleled \nunanimity on a form of government for the secu- \nrity of their union, and the advancement of their \nhappiness; so his divine blessing may be equally \nconspicuous in the enlarged views, the temperate \nconsultations, and the wise measures on which the \nsuccess of this government must depend." \n\nAnd in his matchless farewell address, a master- \nful state paper that will be read with increasing \nreverence and appreciation to the last generation \nof American patriots, an address which had all the \nsanctity and solemnity of a last will and testament, \nhe speaks again with the favor of an apostle of his \ncountry\'s indebtedness to our holy religion. He \nsays: \'\'Of all the dispositions and habits which \nlead to political prosperity, religion and morality \nare indispensable supports. In vain would that \n\n\n\n1 76 Christianity and the American Commonwealth. \n\nman claim the tribute of patriotism who should \nlabor to subvert these great pillar^ of human hap- \npiness, these firmest props of the duties of men \nand citizens. The mere politician, equally with \nthe pious man, ought to respect and cherish them. \nA volume could not trace all their connections \nwith private and public felicity. Let it simply \nbe asked: Where is the security for property, \nfor reputation, for life, if the sense of religious \nobligation desert the oaths which are the instru- \nments of investigation in courts of justice? And \nlet us with caution indulge the supposition that \nmorality can be maintained without religion. \nWhatever may be conceded to the influence of re- \nfined education on minds of peculiar structure, \nreason and experience both forbid us to expect \nthat national morality can prevail in exclusion of \nreligious principle.\'\' \n\nDays of thanksgiving have been officially and \nregularly appointed, by all the Presidents from \nWashington to McKinley, except Jefferson and \nJackson, who, not from a sense of indifference but \nbecause of expressed doubt as to whether they had \nauthority, under, the constitution, declined to make \n\n\n\nChristianity and the Nation. 177 \n\nsuch appointments. So b}^ this and other official de- \nliverances, and by the legislative history of the na- \ntional and state governments, we are impressed with \nthe utterance of Gold win Smith: *^ Not democracy \nin America, but free Christianity in America, is the \nreal key to the study of the people and their insti- \ntutions." \n\nAnd that the faith of our fathers yet abides \namong the sons of the mighty is happily illustrated \nin this suggestive incident: When a committee of \nthe Lake Mohawk Conference visited President \nCleveland, a few years ago, in the interest of the \nIndians, the President, among other things, gave \nexpression to this wise sentiment: "No matter \nwhat I may do ; no matter what you may do ; no \nmatter what Congress may do; no matter what \nmay be done for the education of the Indian, after \nall, the solution of the Indian question rests in the \ngospel of Christ." * \n\nAnd to this volume of convincing testimony, the \ntestimony of American statesmen, scholars, histo- \nrians, and divines, I beg to give the calm judg- \nment of two great political writers on the other \n\nside of the Atlantic. \n12 \n\n\n\n1 7^ Christianity and the American Commonwealth. \n\nAlexis de Tocqueville, in his "Democracy in \nAmerica," one of the ablest and most philosophic \ndiscussions of our political institutions by any \nforeigner, thus refers to Christianity as the forma- \ntive and mightiest influence in our national life: \n*\' There is no country in the whole world in \nwhich the Christian religion retains a greater in- \nfluence over the souls of men than in America, \nand there can be no greater proof of its utility, \nand of its conformity to human nature, than that \nits influence is most powerfully felt over the most \nenlightened and freest nation of the earth. . . . \nReligion in America takes no direct part in the \ngovernment of society, but it must, nevertheless, \nbe regarded as the forefnost of the -political insti- \ntutions of that country, for if it does not impart a \ntaste for freedom, it facilitates the use of free in- \nstitutions. I am certain that the Americans hold \nreligion to be indispensable t9 the maintenance of \nrepublican institutions. This opinion is not pe- \nculiar to a class of citizens or to a party, but it \nbelongs to the whole nation and to every rank of \nsociety." \n\nAnd a more recent foreign student of our na- \n\n\n\nChristianity and the Nation. 179 \n\ntional institutions, the distinguished statesman, \nProf. James Bryce, of England, in his "American \nCommonwealth," reaffirms with emphasis the \ngenerous judgment of the eloquent Frenchman. \nHe says: "It was religious zeal and religious \nconscience which led to the founding of the New \nEngland colonies two centuries and a half ago \xe2\x80\x94 \nthose colonies whose spirit has in such large \nmeasure passed into the whole nation. Religion \nand conscience have been a constantly active force \nin the American commonwealth ever since." \n\nI return, therefore, to the proposition announced \nat the beginning of this lecture \xe2\x80\x94 the separation of \nChurch and State was not the separation of the \nnation from religion. Christianity is now, and \never has been, the firmest pillar of our civil and \npolitical institutions. The State needs far more \nthe protection of the Church than the Church \nneeds the protection of the State. On the faith \nof our fathers, I do believe, rests the hope of this \nrepublic. \n\n\n\nLECTURE V. \n\n\n\nChristian Education in the American Common- \nwealth. \n\n(181) \n\n\n\nLECTURE V. \n\nCHRISTIAN EDUCATION IN THE AMERICAN \nC OMMON WEAL TH. \n\nI SHALL now speak on a subject not strictly \nnecessary to the logical connection of the line \nof argument we have pursued, but strikingly illus- \ntrative of the principles advocated and the conclu- \nsions reached. Our studies have disclosed the \nfact that this is a Christian nation \xe2\x80\x94 that Christian- \nity is wrought into the very bone and fiber and \nblood of our civil and social institutions, and, in- \ndeed, has become the common law of the land. \nIn this lecture we will proceed with our investiga- \ntion of Christian influences upon our national in- \nstitutions, and study Christian Education in the \nAmerican Commonwealth. \n\nThis will not be a plea for Christian education \nor a discussion of the great principles involved \ntherein, which should always have the preemi- \nnence in Church and State. I shall not consider \nthe claims of education upon American Christians \nand patriots, and its vital relation to the progress \n\nand prominency of our grand republic. It is \n\n(183) \n\n\n\n184 Christianity and the American Commonzvealth. \n\ntrue that the economic, industrial, political, and \nmoral well-being of the nation are largely de- \npendent upon the character and extent of the edu- \ncation provided for the people. But into that \nbroad and inviting field we will not enter to-da3^ \nThe purpose of this lecture is to briefly sketch \nthe history of Christian education in the Ameri- \ncan commonwealth, and let the eloquent facts be \ntheir own convincing argument. It is well for us \nto be reminded whence came our great education- \nal systems and enterprises, and by whom they \nhave been so carefully nurtured and guided. We \nshould know to whom the America of to-day is so \ngreat a debtor. If it shall appear that the much- \nlauded educational spirit of our country was gen- \nerated and nourished by the Christian Church, \nand that the right training of American youth \nhas been almost entirely promoted by the Church \nand ministry, that fact ought to serve as an effi- \ncient corrective of certain fatal tendencies among \nsome modern educators and their friends. We \nought to be very hesitant in consenting to an elim- \nination of the influences that have created and or- \nganized the vast educational system of this nation. \n\n\n\nChristian Education. 185 \n\nThe spirit of Protestantism is the spirit of en- \nlightenment, and has ever been the promoter and \npioneer of education. It is a fact of history, that \nwith every revival of religion there has been a re- \nvival of letters. A quickened spiritual life in the \nChurch has inspired the nation with an i.^creased \nmental activity. Dr. Dorchester has suggestively \nobserved that: \'\'The great Reformation allied \nitself with the universities. Wyclif, Tyndale, \nLuther, Melanchthon, Farel, and Calvin turned \ntheir lecture-rooms into preaching-places, and \nWittenburg, Heidelburg, the great Sorbonne, \nOxford, Cambridge, and Edinburgh, with their \nthousands of students, made those countries Prot- \nestant." \n\nWe had reason to expect, therefore, that the \nsturdy reformers who became the first colonists of \nAmerica would be the ardent friends of the best \neducation. A large proportion of the m.inisters \nwho accompanied the brave pioneers were men of \nthe highest culture, and some had become distin- \nguished in scholarship and literature. Within ten \nyears after the coming of Winthrop and his noble \ncompany not less than twenty thousand English- \n\n\n\nI S6 Christianity and the American Commonwealth. \n\nmen made their homes in this new world. Among \nthem were about eighty ministers, fully one-half \nof whom were graduates of Oxford and Cam- \nbridge. These men, of course, became the lead- \ners in all educational movements, and to them and \ntheir colaborers and successors this great republic \nis indebted for the ardent spirit and the elaborate \nschemes of our national enlightenment. They \nvery early championed a system of schools, as \nthey said, \'* to the end that learning may not be \nburied in the graves of our forefathers in Church \nand commonwealth." \n\nThe fathers were wise enough to discern the \ncertain peril of divorcing learning from religion. \nThey accepted the maxim of Bacon, that "In \nknowledge without love there is ever something of \nmalignity," and provided that the schools they \nestablished should be the homes of serious and \nsanctified learning. They insisted that intellec" \ntual culture and spiritual principle must be bound \nin immortal wedlock. God hath joined them \ntogether, and it is fatal profanity to put them \nasunder. \n\nThose were very straightforward and luminous \n\n\n\nChristian Education. 187 \n\nwords of Prof. Huxley on this momentous subject. \nA better statement I have not seen: *\'I hold that \nany system of education which attempts to deal \nonly with the intellectual side of a child\'s nature, \nand leaves the rest untouched, will prove a delu- \nsion and a snare, just as likely to produce a crop \nof unusually astute scoundrels as anything else. \nIn my belief, unless a child be taught not only \nmorality but religion, education will come to very \nlittle. I believe, further, that, in the present cha- \notic state of men\'s thoughts on these subjects, the \nonly practical method of not altogether excluding \nreligion from the education of the masses is to let \nthem read the Bible, and permit the many noble \nthoughts and deeds mirrored there to sink into \ntheir hearts." \n\nThe purpose of this lecture is to show that edu- \ncation in the American commonwealth, whether \nin primary, secondary, or collegiate schools, \n** owes," as a historian has properly acknowl- \nedged, ** almost everything to religion." \n\nThe common school system of the United \nStates, now so highly prized and so distinguish- \ning a feature of the educational scheme of the na- \n\n\n\niS8 Christianity and the American Commonwealth. \n\ntion, owes its origin to the Church. The Chris- \ntian colonists first devised and fostered it, and \nmade distinctive religious teaching therein the \nchiefest concern. At Dorchester, where the plan \nwas adopted in 1645, elaborate rules were given \nfor the government of the school. A few must be \nhere given : \n\n** 4. Evry second day in the weeke he shall \ncall his schollers togeither betweene 12 and one of \nthe Clock to examine them what they have learned \non the Saboath day preceding at wch tyme also \nhe shall take notice of any misdemeanor or out- \nrage that any of his schollers shall have committed \non the Saboath, to the end that at somme conve- \nnient tyme due Admonition and Correction may be \nadministered by him according as the nature and \nqualitie of the offence shall require, at wch sayd \nexamination any of the Elders or other Inhabit- \nants that please may bee present, to behold his re- \nligious care herein, and to give there Counten- \nnance and approbation of the same. \n\n** 7. Every six day of the weeke at 2 of the \nClock in the afternoone, he shall catechise his schol- \nlers in the principles of the Christian religion, \n\n\n\nChristian Education. 189 \n\neither in some catechisme wch the Wardens shall \nprovide and present, or in defect thereof in some \nother. \n\n*\'8. And because all man\'s indeavor wthout \nthe blessing of God must needs bee fruitlesse and \nunsuccessful, theirfore, It is to be a chief prte \nof the schoolmrs religious cars to commend his \nschollers and his Labours amongst them unto God \nby prayer morning and evening, taking care that \nhis schollers doe revrendly attend during the \nsame." \n\nThis is said to be the first public provision in \nthe world for a free school supported by a direct \ntaxation on the inhabitants of the town. The \nteacher was required to equally and impartially \nreview and instruct the children who had a right \nto attend, ** whither there parents bee pore or \nrich ;" and it was left to the \'* discretion of the Eld- \ners and * seven men \' for the time being whether \nmaydes shall he taught vjith the boyes or not^ \n\nThe New Haven colony, through the " general \ncourt,\'*\' as early as 1641, voted \'*that a free \nschoole be set up this towne, and our pastor, Mr. \nDavenport, together with the magistrates, shall \n\n\n\n1 90 Christianity and the American Commonwealth. \n\nconsider whatt yearly allowance is meet to be \ngiven to itt out of the common stock of the towne, \nand allso whatt rules and orders are meet to be \nobserved in and about the same." In a recent \nhistory of education in Connecticut there is this \nreference to that religious beginning of public \nschools in the colony: \'* We note here, in this \nearly record of a Connecticut school, the super- \nvision by the clergyman which has continued until \nthe present, causing even now the clergymen in \na village to be chosen school visitors." Other \ntowns followed this good example. In 1646 \nGuilford had a school, with Rev. John Higginson \nas teacher, and shortly thereafter Milford \'\' made \nprovision in a comfortable way." \n\nA plan for public education was adopted in the \nvery beginning of the Pennsylvania colony. It \nfound conspicuous mention in the first draft of \nproprietary government drawn up by William Penn \nin 1682. The founding of Philadelphia the next \nyear was signalized by the establishment of a \nschool. To an amended charter granted by Penn \nin 1711 there is this preamble: ^\'\xe2\x80\xa2Whereas, the \nprosperity and welfare of any people depend, in a \n\n\n\nChristian Education . 191 \n\ngreat measure, upon the good education of youth \nand their early introduction in the -princifles of \ntrue religion and virtue, and qualifying them to \nserve their country and themselves by breeding \nthem in reading, writing, and learning of languages \nand useful arts and sciences, suitable to their sex, \nage, and degree, which can not be effected, in any \nmanner, so well as by erecting public schools for \nthe purpose aforesaid." \n\nAnd so, if time allowed, I could show that a \nsimilar religious spirit, like another angel of the \nannunciation, proclaimed the being and mission of \nthe schools in all the colonies. The story of one \nis the history of all. To the Church, the school \nowed its birth ; and to the minister, the children of \nalmost every parish had to look for intellectual \ntraining as well as spiritual instruction. \n\nThe academic schools of the colonies sprang \nfrom the same powerful religious conviction. In \n1647, less than twenty-seven years after its settle- \nment, the General Court of the Massachusetts Bay \ncolony passed the following order, the preamble \nof which indicates the high Christian purpose of \nthese devout sons of a pure Protestantism: \n\n\n\n1 92 Christianity and the American Commonwealth. \n\n*\'It being one chief object of the old deluder, \nSatan, to keep men from the knowledge of the \nScriptures, as in former times by keeping them in \nan unknown tongue, so in these latter times by per- \nsuading from the use of tongues, that so at least the \ntrue sense and meaning of the original might be \nclouded by false glosses of saint-seeming devices; \nthat learning may not be buried in the grave of our \nfathers in the Church and commonwealth, the \nLord assisting our endeavors. \n\n** It is therefore ordered that every township in \nthis jurisdiction, after the Lord has increased them \nto the number of fifty householders, shall then \nforthwith appoint one within their town to teach \nall such children as shall resort to him to write \nand read; whose wages shall be paid, either by \nthe parents or masters of such children or by the \ninhabitants in general, by way of supply, as the \nmajor part of those that order the prudentials of \nthe town shall appoint; provided, those that send \ntheir children be not oppressed by paying much \nmore than they can have them taught for in other \ntowns; and it is further ordered^ that when any \ntown shall increase to the number of one hundred \n\n\n\nChHstian Education. 193 \n\nfamilies or householders, they shall set up a gram- \nmar-school, the master thereof being able to in- \nstruct youth so far as they may be fitted for the \nuniversity; provided, that if any town neglect the \nperformance hereof above one year, that every \nsuch town shall pay five pounds to the next school \ntill they shall perform this order." \n\nSuch was the original spiritual purpose of gram- \nmar-schools, now so important a feature of the \nelaborate educational system of the United States. \nAnd for two centuries or more most all of such \nsecondary institutions of the country were under \nthe direction and instruction of ministers of the \ngospel representing the different evangelical de- \nnominations. \n\nThe Virginia colony, as early as 1619, recom- \nmended *\'that each town, borough, and hundred \nshould procure by just means a certain number of \nchildren (natives), to be brought up; that the most \ntowardly of these should be fitted for college." \nThus it will be seen that almost at the beginning \nof the Jamestown settlement efforts were made to \nprovide ample educational facilities for the grow- \ning colony, and that these efforts were largely mis- \n13 \n\n\n\n194 Christianity and the American Commonwealth. \n\nsionary. That these schools did not multiply more \nrapidly, as among the towns of New England, was \nbecause of the scattered agricultural population, \nand not from lack of appreciation of the largest \nand best culture. But the conditions making it \nimpossible to have so many town schools, the want \nwas largely supplied by the employment of private \ntutors. \n\nNor was the first of these schools planted in the \nEast, as has been persistently claimed. The first \nfree grammar-schools \xe2\x80\x94 that is, schools in which \nLatin was taught, and which were supported, in \npart, at least, by the proceeds of land, etc. \xe2\x80\x94 were \nestablished in Charlestown, Va., in 1621; in Bos- \nton, 1636; in Salem, 1641; and in most towns of \nNew England within a few years after their settle- \nment. \n\nI wish, in this connection, to correct a false \nstatement of history and deny the unfounded de- \nduction from such misrepresentation. The reply \nof Sir William Berkeley, the governor, to a petition \nof the Virginia colonists has been quoted as the \neducational expression of the *\' lords of planta- \ntions" themselves, and made to type all the colo- \n\n\n\nChristian Education . 195 \n\nnies of the South. They are represented as not \nonly being indifferent, but hostile to general educa- \ntion, while the pioneers of New England were \ngiving equal and careful attention to the school \nand the Church. Now, as a matter of fact, the \ncolonists presented a petition to the governor, Sir \nWilliam Berkeley, praying that liberal and general \nprovision be made for the education of their chil- \ndren. That petition the upstart of a governor, \nrecently arrived from England, resisted and denied \nin the following language: ** I thank God there \nare no schools nor printing, and I hope we shall \nnot have them these one hundred years ; for learn- \ning has brought disobedience and heresy and sects \ninto the world, and printing has divulged them, \nand libels against the best government. God keep \nus from both ! " Now, so far from this being the \nsentiment of the colonists, their *\' apathy or hostil- \nity in regard to popular schools," as one writer \nstates it, was the formal denial of their earnest re- \nquest. But the intelligent and far-seeing pioneers \nwere not to be foiled in their educational demands, \nand steps were at once taken to establish William \nand Mary College. \n\n\n\n196 Christianity and the American Commonzvealth. \n\nIn Maryland and the Carolinas early legislative \nefforts were made ** to establish schools for the \nconvenient instruction of youth," and taxes were \nlevied for their maintenance. The first constitu- \ntion of Georgia provided that every county should \n** establish and keep a school at the public ex- \npense." The preamble of the act establishing the \nfirst free school in Charleston, S. C, set forth \n** the necessity that a free school be erected for \nthe instruction of youth in grammar and other arts \nand sciences, and also in the principles of the \nChristian religion; and that several well-disposed \nChristians, by their last will, had given several \nsums of money for the founding of a free school." \nIt was provided, also, that the teacher ** should be \nof the religion of the Church of England, and \ncapable of teaching the Latin and Greek lan- \nguages." Instructors were legally enjoined to see \nthat the children "receive in their tender years that \nsense of religion which may render it the constant \nprinciple of their lives and actions." \n\nThe first school established in Georgia was by \nthe Moravians, and was chiefly designed for the \nreligious instruction of the Indians, The second \n\n\n\nChristian Education. 197 \n\nwas the famous Orphan House, built by the elo- \nquent George Whitefield, intended to meet " the \neducational wants of the plantation." It was the \ngreat ambition of the wonderful preacher to make \nthat estate \'\'a seat and nursery of sound learning \nand religious education." \n\nAn interesting volume might be written on the \n\'* Famous Academies of America." Equally with \nthe great colleges do they deserve historic recogni- \ntion. But the story of every famous academy would \nbe the life of its great teacher, who, in almost every \ninstance, was a scholarly and self-denying minister \nof the gospel. \n\nIn referring to the fact that secondary instruc- \ntion in America owes almost everything to religion, \nDr. Baird shows also its special indebtedness to \nministers of the gospel. Writing as late as 1843, the \ndistinguished historian says: *\' A large proportion \nof the grammar-schools and academies in the \nUnited States, whether incorporated or not, are \nunder the direction and instruction of ministers of \nthe gospel of different evangelical denominations. \nThese ministers, in some cases, devote their whole \ntime to the work of academical instruction. In \n\n\n\n^^S Christianity and the American Commonwealth. \n\n\n\nother cases they also have the charge of a church or \ncongregation, and as they perform the double du- \nties of pastor and head of a grammar-school, they \nhave usually an assistant teacher in the latter." \n\nBut, if possible, even more remarkable is the \nreligious genesis of American colleges. For more \nthan two hundred years almost every collegiate \ninstitution in the land owed its existence purely to \nreligious motives, and was under the immediate \ncontrol of some religious denomination. And the \nfew established independently or by the state have \nrelied upon Christian sympathy for support, and \nmost of them have been presided over by devout \nministers carrying the credentials of the Church \nof God. \n\nHarvard College, the first institution for the \npromotion of higher education in the American \ncolonies, was born of religious convictions. The \ncolonists said: ** It is an object near our hearts \nto have an able and learned ministry when those \nof the present age are laid in their graves." And \nthe location of the institution was determined by \nthe same sacred consideration. Cambridge was \nselected, as the records show, because ** of the \n\n\n\nChristian Education . 1 99 \n\nenergy and searching character of Mr. Shepherd\'s \npreaching, and his skill in detecting errors." It\'s \nfounder was a minister of the gospel \xe2\x80\x94 the Rev. \nJohn Harvard, whose name it bears \xe2\x80\x94 and to it he \ngenerously gave one-half of his estate, \xc2\xa3800, and his \nlibrary of three hundred and twenty volumes. The \nmottoes upon two of the ancient seals of the college \nare **In gloriam Christo " and ** Christo et Eccle- \nsiae . \' \' As indicating the jealous concern for the spir- \nitual culture of the college, this was adopted among \nthe early rules: ** Let every student be plainly in- \nstructed and earnestly pressed to consider well \nthat the main end of his life and studies is to know \nGod and Jesus Christ, which is eternal life, and, \ntherefore, to lay Christ in the bottom as the only \nfoundation of all sound knowledge and learning." \nIt is a significant fact that during the first one \nhundred years of Harvard\'s history a little more \nthan three-sevenths of its graduates were ministers \nof the gospel. And for the first one hundred and \nthirty-four years of its existence ever}^ President \nwas a minister except one, the Hon. John Lev- \nerett, A.M., F.R.S., who served from 1707 to \n1725, a period of eighteen years. \n\n\n\n300 Christianity and the American Commonwealth. \n\nThe second institution for advanced learning in \nthe colonial period was William and Mary College, \nin Virginia, established in 1693. But that was not \nthe first effort to plant such a school in that in- \nviting section. Shortly after the Jamestown col- \nonists landed and provided humble houses for \ntheir protection from the storms of winter and the \nheat of summer, a movement was inaugurated \nlooking to the establishment of a college. It was \nto have an ambitious name \xe2\x80\x94 the ** University of \nHenrico\'\' \xe2\x80\x94 and ten thousand acres of land were \nlaid off for an endowment. The Bishop of Lon- \ndon heartily approved the worthy project, and \ngave to it the munificent sum of \xc2\xa31,000. The \nRev. Mr. Bargrave, the clergyman at Henrico, \ndonated his library. And, as preparatory to this \nlarger enterprise, plans were devised for building \nan academic school at St. Charles City, to be \nknown as the East India School, in honor of the \nofficers and crew of an East India ship, who made \nto it the first and largest contribution. But these \npraiseworthy enterprises, conceived of a true mis- \nsionary spirit, came to an untimely and tragic end \nby the terrible Indian massacre of March, 1622. \n\n\n\nChristian Education. 201 \n\nAnd so frequent were these savage wars, and so \nmany were the disasters to the struggling colony, \nthat years of disappointment had to pass before \nthe ardent dream of the early cavaliers was real- \nized. \n\nIn 1660 the Colonial Assembly passed an act \n**for the establishment and endowment of a col- \nlege," but not until the coming of another minis- \nter, the Rev. Dr. James Blair, twenty -eight years \nthereafter, did the movement find a successful \nchampion. The statement is that he *\' was deeply \naffected by the low state of learning and piety in \nthe colony, and, as the most effective means of \nelevating both, resolved, if possible, to secure the \nestablishment of a college." Under his leader- \nship active measures were inaugurated, the religi- \nous purpose of the movement being heartily sec- \nonded by the colonists, who resolved ** that for \nthe advance of learning, education of youth, \nsupply of the ministry, and promotion of piety \nthere be land taken upon purchases for a college \nand free school, and that there be, with as much \nspeed as may be convenient, housing erected \nthereon for entertainment of students and schol- \n\n\n\n202 Christianity and the American Commonwealth. \n\nars/* The governor and council headed a sub- \nscription which soon amounted to \xc2\xa32,500, and \nDr. James Blair was commissioned to visit Eng- \nland in its behalf. The General Assembly, in ma- \nking request for a royal endowment of the pro- \nposed college, stated that it was ** to the end that \nthe Church of Virginia may be furnished with a \nseminary for ministers of the gospel, and that the \nyouth may be piously educated in good letters and \nmanners, and that the Christian faith may be \npropagated amongst the Western Indians to the \nglory of Almighty God." \n\nTheir Majesties, William and Mary, received \nDr. Blair most cordially, endorsed the enterprise \nmost heartily, and the crown gave him \xc2\xa32,000 and \ntwenty thousand acres of land and a penny a \npound on tobacco exported from Virginia and \nMaryland." The Colonial Assembly gave, as the \nstatute read, ** a duty on furs for its plentiful en- \ndowment," and Jefferson says that it also gave ** a \nduty on liquors imported." So that ** from these \nsources it received upward of \xc2\xa33,000 communihus \nannisy The charter was granted February 14, \n1692, the Bishop of London being appointed \n\n\n\nChristian Education. 203 \n\nChancellor; Dr. James Blair, President; and, in \nhonor of their Majesties, was given the name of \nWilliam and Mary. The professors were to be \nmembers of the Church of England, and all stu- \ndents were to be taught the catechism. \n\nYale College was founded by the Congrega- \ntionalists, in response to a formal action by a \nsynod of the churches held at New Haven in \n1698, and was afterward given its name in honor \nof Elihu Yale, of London, governor of the East \nIndia Company, who made to the institution a \ngenerous donation. In the preamble of the char- \nter granted by the Colonial Legislature, the high \nspiritual aims of the devout projectors is thus \nstated: \'* Several well disposed and Publick spir- \nited Persons, of their sincere Regard to & zeal \nfor upholding & Propagating of the Christian \nProtestant Religion by a succession of Learned & \nOrthodox men, have expressed by Petition their \nearnest desires that full Liberty and Privilege be \ngranted unto certain Undertakers for the found- \ning, suitably endowing, & ordering a Collegiate \nSchool within his Majties Colony of Connecticut, \nwherein Youth may be instructed in the Arts & \n\n\n\n204 Christianity and the American Commonwealth. \n\nSciences, who through the blessing of Almighty \nGod may be fitted for Public employment both in \nChurch and Civil State." \n\nAnd with exceeding jealous care did the minis- \nters of Connecticut guard and guide the orthodox \nteachings of that college destined to such a mag- \nnificent history. Every President of the college \nfor a hundred j^ears was a minister of the gospel, \nand only a few times to the present has that apos- \ntolic succession been interrupted. \n\nThese were among the rules of Yale College in \n1720: \n\n*\' Seeing God is the giver of all wisdom, every \nscholar, besides private or secret prayer, wherein \nall we are bound to ask wisdom, shall be present \nmorning and evening at public prayer in the hall \nat the accustomed hour, which is to be ordinarily \nat six of the clock in the morning, from the tenth \nof March to the tenth of September, and then \nagain to the tenth of March at sunrising, at be- \ntween four and five of the clock, all the year long. \n\n\'*No scholar shall use the English tongue in \nthe collegiate school with his fellow scholars un- \nless he be called to public exercises proper to be \n\n\n\nChristian Education. 205 \n\nattended in the tongue, but scholars in their cham- \nbers and when they are together shall talk Latin." \n\nColumbia College, known until 1784 as King\'s \nCollege, was founded by the Episcopalians. The \nearly Presidents were largely supported by Trin- \nity Church, being made assistant rectors of the \nsame. In 1735 Trinity Church granted to the \ncollege a valuable piece of ground, and among \nthe conditions stipulated was *\' that the President \nshould always be a member of the Episcopal \nChurch, and that the college prayers should be \ndrawn from the Prayer Book. The consideration \nwas ten shillings and an annual rental of a pepper- \ncorn." \n\nBut into the detailed history of America\'s early \ncolleges, the limits of this discussion will not allow \nme to enter. Each contains most valued facts in \nsupport of my earnest contention. These bare \nstatements confined to the colonial period of \nAmerica, and embracing all the early collegiate \nprivileges provided for the people, indicate the \nmeasure and source of our indebtedness, and are \neloquently suggestive of the educational policy \nthat should be sacredly conserved: \n\n\n\n2o6 Christianity and the American Commonwealth. \n\nCollege. When Founded. By Whom. \n\nHarvard 1638 Congregationalists. \n\nWilliam and Mary 1693 Episcopalians. \n\nYale 1700 Congregationalists. \n\nPrinceton 1746 Presbyterians. \n\nUniversity of Pennsylvania . 1747 Individuals and State. \n\nColumbia 1759 Episcopalians. \n\nBrown University 1764 Baptists. \n\nRutgers 1770 Dutch Reformed. \n\nDartmouth 1770 Congregationalists. \n\nHampden Sydney 1775 Presbyterians. \n\nThe University of Pennsylvania, the first insti- \ntution in the United States not estabhshed by a \nChristian denomination, was largely indebted to \nthe Churches for moral and financial support, and \nhas always been under Christian control. Prof. \nThompson, an alumnus and a member of the Fac- \nulty of that historic institution, thus refers to its \nhistory, *\' Even my own university, the first in \nAmerica without any definite denominational con- \nnection, owed to the Christian ministry both the \nablest of its teachers and the bulk of its students, \nand it recognized its close relations to the Churches \nby giving the senior minister of each denomina- \ntion a seat in its Board of Trustees, while the citv \nchurches took up a collection every year for its \n\n\n\nChristian Education. 207 \n\nsupport;" and Dr. Dorchester, in his history of \n" Christianity in the United States," says that the \nUniversity of Pennsylvania, when first established, \ngathered its resources **by subscription in Eng- \nland, South Carolina, Jamaica, and Philadelphia. \nThomas Penn, one of the proprietors, was the \nlargest contributor." \n\nAnd in the charter of your University of Geor- \ngia, granted in 1785, these words occur: *\'A11 \nofficers appointed to the instruction and govern- \nment of the university shall be of the Christian \nreligion." Alas that in these latter days they \nshould have been stricken from that time-honored \ninstrument!* \n\nThe curricula of these early colleges gave prom- \ninence to theology and the study of the Holy \nScriptures in the original languages. **At Har- \nvard, Hebrew, Chaldee, and Syriac, as well as \nNew Testament Greek and catechetical theology, \nwere taught. ... In Yale, from the first, the \nHebrew of the Old Testament was translated into \nGreek, and the Latin New Testament into Greek at \nthe beginning of every recitation. The Assembly\'s \n\n*They remained until 1877. \n\n\n\n2o8 Christianity and the American Commonwealth . \n\nCatechism in Latin was recited every Saturday \nevening; Ames\'s ** Medulla Theologise " Saturday \nmornings, and his ** Cases of Conscience" Sunday \nmornings. Every student was required to study \nthese things. There were also, from an early day, \ncollege lectures in ecclesiastical history, and a pro- \nfessorship in divinity. At Harvard one had to be \nable to render the originals of the Old and New \nTestaments and resolve them logically, withal be- \ning of godly life and conversation, in order to re- \nceive the first degree. \n\nThe standard of scholarship in those colonial \ncolleges was, with the exception of mathematics, \nnot low. Their founders and first promoters \nbeing graduates of Oxford and Cambridge, they \nsought to make scholars here equal to those in the \nold world. The following, requirement for en- \ntrance into the first college class at Harvard would \nhardly be insisted upon by any university of to- \nday: **When any scholar is able to understand \nTully, or such like classical author, extempore and \nmake and speak true Latin in verse and -prose; \n. and decline perfectly the paradigms of \nnouns and verbs in the Greek tongue, let hiiri \n\n\n\nChristian Education. 209 \n\nthen, and not before, be capable of admission into \nthe college." \n\nThese facts are given to show that the only \nfriends of higher education in the early days of \nAmerica were Church people, and it was Church \nmoney that established and endowed those institu- \ntions. Not only so, but almost every professors\' \nchair for many years was filled by a minister of \nthe gospel. They were our national educators. \nThe academies and \'* old field schools" were \nnearly all taught by clergymen. \n\nBut in these latter days we hear much of \'\' lib- \neral thought," and a growing demand of the peo- \nple that their sons shall be educated in non-de- \nnominational institutions\xe2\x80\x94 colleges unfettered by \n"narrow orthodoxy" and uncontrolled by Chris- \nChurches. Let us see if this is so. In the ad- \nmirable and exhaustive report of the United States \nCommissioner of Education, in 1884, I find these \nfigures : \n\nTotal number of colleges 370 \n\nDenominational colleges 309 \n\nUndenominational colleges 61 \n\nOf the undenominational colleges, 23 are state \n\ninstitutions. \n14 \n\n\n\n2 1 o Christianity and the American Commonwealth. \n\nDenominational students 25,948 \n\nUndenominational students 6,819 \n\nTotal 32,767 \n\nIn 1830 denominational colleges were 71 per \ncent, of the whole; in 1884 they were Si, per cent. \nIn 1830 the denominational students were 74 per \ncent, of the whole; in 1884 they were 79 per cent. \n\nSo that according to these facts the demand \nseems rather for the increased care of the Churches \n\xe2\x80\x94 that the training of American youth shall be un- \nder the guidance of the Christian conscience, and \nunder the immediate supervision of the Christian \ndenominations. This accentuates the duty of the \nChurch, and is an eloquent appeal for redoubled \neffort and increased vigilance and improved equip- \nment. \n\nThe history of education in the American com- \nmonwealth abundantly sustains the statement of \nDr. Candler that \'*from Harvard, the oldest, down \nto the latest established, there is hardly an institu- \ntion of learning in the country that did not have \nits birth in and its growth from Christianity." \nUnder the fostering care of the Church they were \nbuilt \xe2\x80\x94 every stone \'^laid in denominational mor- \n\n\n\nChristian Educatian. 211 \n\ntar." That man, therefore, is innocent of the ele- \nmentary facts of history who declaims against or \nseeks to undervalue education by the Church ; and \nthat legislative assembly evidences a lamentable \nlack of acquaintance with the sacred spirit by \nwhich our early government was baptized which \ndiscriminates against the educational institutions of \nthe Church \xe2\x80\x94 the nurseries of our purest patriot- \nism, the guardians of our dearest rights, the strong- \nholds of our nation\'s destiny. Whatever may be \none\'s opinion as to the sphere of public education, \nthe State can not ignore or deny its educational \nindebtedness to the Church without peril and \nscandal. The more friendly the attitude of the \nState to the institutions of the Church and the more \nliberal her policy in fostering the same, the more \nperfectly will she safeguard the forces that insure \nher increasing prosperity. The State has no worse \nenemy than the small politician who, under the \nplea of guarding the institutions of the common- \nwealth, would embarrass, by hostile legislation, \nthe schools of learning fostered by the Christian \nChurch. \n\nThe cry of liberalism in education is really the \n\n\n\n212 Christianity and the American Commonwealth. \n\nfirst note of the Commune. It is the spirit which, \nif left to grow, will pull down the Vendome col- \numn and lay ruthless hands upon the ark of the \nLord. Christian education is not narrow. It does \nnot fetter thought, but emancipates mind. It does \nnot impede investigation, but flings wide the doors \nof the largest mental hospitality, and gives the \nbroadest commission to \'intermeddle with all \nknowledge." For the small demagogue, whose \ncry is liberalism, and who has \'* no language but \na cry," we ought to have the commiseration due \nto congenital innocence. \n\nThe maxim of the Puritans, **The proper nurse \nfor Moses is Moses\' mother," might be applied \nmost aptly to the cause of education in the Amer- \nican commonwealth. Our school and college sys- \ntems are the creations of Christianity. It was not \nuntil the Christian Church fought and won the \nbattle for education that the world discovered its \nvast excellience and counted its institutions worthy \nof munificent endowment. \n\nVictor Hugo has said that \'\'he who opens the \ndoor of the schoolhouse closes the door of the \njail." That depends on who keeps the school and \n\n\n\nChristian Education. 213 \n\nwhat is taught there. The schoolhouse may be- \ncome a place for polishing fiends and graduating \noutlaws. It is not the number but the character \nof our schools; not how many children attend, \nbut who teaches them, and what they are taught, \nthat tj^pe and measure their influence for good. \n\nI do not think it extravagant to insist that the \nright education of American childhood is to de- \ntermine the destiny of this great republic. There \nis profound philosophy and historic truth in that \nold proverb v/hich says: ^\'What you sow in the \nschool you reap in the nation." Correct princi- \nples sown in the soil of the young mind, cultiva- \nted by wise, well-equipped teachers, and ripened \nby the sun of a gracious Providence, will produce \na manhood and womanhood that will sacredly pre- \nserve the past and guarantee the glory of the fu- \nture. \n\n\n\n% \n\n\n\nDeacidified using the Bookkeeper process. \nNeutralizing agent: Magnesium Oxide \nTreatment Date: April 2005 \n\nPreservationTechnologies \n\nA WORLD LEADER IN PAPER PRESERVATION \n\n1 1 1 Thomson Park Drive \nCranberry Township, PA 16066 \n(724) 779-21 1 1 \n\n\n\n'