Five Sermons Part 1

Five Sermons.

by H.B. Whipple.

I. SERMON AT THE OPENING SERVICES OF THE GENERAL CONVENTION, OCTOBER 2, 1889.

"We have heard with our ears, O G.o.d, our fathers have told us, what work Thou didst their days, in the times of old."--PSALM xliv. I.

Brethren: I shall take it for granted that there is a visible Church; that it was founded by Our Lord Jesus Christ, and has His promise that the gates of h.e.l.l shall never prevail against it. We believe that ours is a pure branch of the apostolic Church; that it has a threefold ministry; that its two sacraments--Baptism and the Supper of the Lord--are of perpetual obligation, and are divine channels of grace; that the faith once delivered to the saints is contained in the Catholic creeds, and has the warrant of Holy Scripture which was written by inspiration of G.o.d. On this centennial day I shall speak of the history and mission of this branch of the Church of our Lord Jesus Christ.

It was a singular providence that this continent, laden with the bounty of G.o.d, was unoccupied by civilization for thousands of years. America was discovered by a devout son of the Latin Church, whose name-- Christopher, Christ-bearer, and Columbus, the dove--ought to have been the prophecy that he would bear the Gospel to the New World. It was at a time when Savonarola, with the zeal of a prophet of G.o.d and the eloquence of a Chrysostom, was laboring to awaken the Church to a new life. No nation ever had a n.o.bler mission than Spain. That mission was forfeited by unholy greed and untold cruelty. It was lost forever.

Other nations claimed the continent for their own. In the providence of G.o.d; this last of the nations was founded by the English-speaking race.

I reverently believe that it was because they recognize as no other people the two truths which underlie the possibility of const.i.tutional government, i.e., the inalienable rights of the individual citizen, and loyalty to government as a delegated trust from G.o.d, who alone has the right to govern. These lessons are intertwined with two thousand years of history. They reach back to the days when the savage Briton came in contact with Roman civilization and Roman law, and have been deepened by centuries of Christian influences which have changed our savage fathers into truth-speaking, liberty-loving Christian men.

More marvellous are the providences intertwined with the history of the Church. It was planted by apostolic men, and numbered heroes like St.

Patrick and St. Alban before the missionary Augustine came to Canterbury. Through all of its history it has been the Church of the English-speaking race. The liturgy contains the purest English of any book, except the English Bible, which was translated by her sons. The ritual which Augustine found in England came from the East; and the liturgy which he introduced was, by the advice of Gregory, taken from many national Churches. The Venerable Hooker said: "Our liturgy was must be acknowledged as the singular work of the providence of G.o.d." In its services it represents the Church of the English-speaking race. The exhortation to pray for the child to be baptized, the direction to put pure water into the font at each baptism, the sign of the cross, the words of the reception of the baptized, the joining of hands in holy matrimony, the "dust to dust" of the burial,--are peculiar to the offices of the English-speaking people. In the Holy Communion, the rubric found in all western Churches, commanding the priest, after consecration, to kneel and wors.h.i.+p the elements, never found a place in any service-book of the Church of England. The Book of Common Prayer has preserved for us Catholic faith and Catholic wors.h.i.+p.

The first English missionary priest in America of whose services we have record was Master Wolfall, who celebrated the Holy Communion in 1578 for the crews of Martin Forbisher on the sh.o.r.es of Hudson Bay, amid whose solitudes Bishop Horden has won whole heathen tribes to Jesus Christ.

At about the same time the Rev. Martin Fletcher, the chaplain of Sir Francis Drake, celebrated the Holy Communion in the bay of San Francisco, a prophecy that these distant sh.o.r.es should become our inheritance. A few years later (1583), divine service was held in the bay of St. John's, Newfoundland, for Sir Humphrey Gilbert, and when his ill-fated s.h.i.+p foundered at sea, the last words of the hero-admiral were, "We are as near heaven by sea as by land." The mantle of Gilbert fell on Sir Walter Raleigh, who was commissioned by Queen Elizabeth to bear the evangel of G.o.d's love to the New World. The faith behind the adventures of these men is seen in a woodcut of Raleigh's vessels at anchor; a pinnace, with a man at the mast-head bearing a cross, approaching the sh.o.r.e with the message of the Gospel. To some of us whose hearts have been touched with pity for the red men, its is a beautiful incident that the first baptism on these sh.o.r.es was that of an Indian chief, Mateo, on the banks of the Roanoke. In May, 1607, the first services on the sh.o.r.e of New England were held by the Rev. Richard Seymour. Missionary services in the wilderness were not unlike those of our pioneer bishops. "We did hang an awning to the trees to s.h.i.+eld us from the sun, our walls were rails of wood, our seats unhewed trees, our pulpit a bar of wood--this was our 'church.'" It was in this church that the Rev. Robert Hunt celebrated the first communion in Virginia, June 21, 1607. The missionary spirit of the times is seen when Lord De la Warr and his companions went in procession to the Temple Church in London to receive the Holy Communion. The Rev. Richard Crashaw said in his sermon: "Go forward in the strength of the Lord, look not for wealth, look only for the things of the kingdom of G.o.d--you go to win the heathen to the Gospel. Practise it yourselves. Make the name of Christ honorable. What blessings any nation has had by Christ must be given to all the nations of the earth." The first act of Governor De la Warr, on landing in Virginia, was to kneel in silent prayer, and then, with the whole people, they went to church, where the services were conducted by the Rev. Richard Burke. In 1611 the saintly Alexander Whittaker baptized Pocahontas. Disease and death often blighted the colonies, and yet the old battle cry rang out--"G.o.d will found the State and build the Church." The work was marred by immoral adventurers, and it was not until these were repressed with a strong hand by Sir Thomas Dale that a new life dawned in Virginia.

The first elective a.s.sembly of the New World met in 1619. It was opened by prayer. Its first enactment was to protect the Indians from oppression. Its next was to found a university. In the first legislative a.s.sembly which met in the choir of the Church in Jamestown, more than one year before the Mayflower left the sh.o.r.es of England, was the foundation of popular government in America. Time would fail me to tell the story inwrought in the lives of men like Rev. William Clayton of Philadelphia, the Rev. Atkin Williamson of South Carolina, and the Rev. John Wesley and the Rev. George Whitefield, also sons of the Church in Georgia.

The Church of England had no rights in the English colony of Ma.s.sachusetts. The Rev. William Blaxton, the Rev. Richard Gibson, and the Rev. Robert Jordan endured privation and suffering, and were accused "as addicted to the hierarchy of the Church of England," "guilty of offence against the Commonwealth by baptizing children on the Lord's Day," and "the more heinous sin of provoking the people to revolt by questioning the divine right of the New England theocracy." An new life dawned on the Church in America when, in 1701, there was organized in England "The Society for the Propagation of the Gospel in Foreign Parts." It awakened a new missionary spirit. Princess Anne, afterward Queen of England, became its lifelong patron. The blessed work among the Mohawks was largely due to her, and when these Indians were removed to Canada and left sheperdless, their chief, Joseph Brant, officiated as lay reader for twenty years. The men sent out by the society--the Rev.

Samuel Thomas, the Rev. George Keith, the Rev. Patrick Gordon, the Rev.

John Talbot, and others--were Christian heroes. No fact in the history of the colonial Church had so marked influence as the conversion of Timothy Cutler, James Wetmore, Samuel Johnson, and Daniel Brown to the Church. Puritans mourned that the "gold had become dim." Churchmen rejoiced that some of the foremost scholars in Connecticut had returned to the Church. I pa.s.s over the trials of the Church in the eighteenth century, to the meeting of the Continental Congress in 1774. It was proposed to open Congress with prayer. Objections were made on account of the religious differences of the delegates. Old Samuel Adams arose, with his white hair streaming on his shoulders,--the same earnest Puritan who, in 1768, had written to England: "We hope in G.o.d that no such establishment as the Protestant episcopate shall ever take place in America,"--and said: "Gentlemen, shall it be said that it is possible that there can be any religious differences which will prevent men from crying to that G.o.d who alone can save them? I move that the Rev. Dr.

d.u.c.h.e`, minister of Christ Church in this city, be asked to open this Congress with prayer." John Adams, writing to his wife, said: "Never can I forget that scene. There were twenty Quakers standing by my side, and we were all bathed in tears." When the Psalms for the day were read, it seemed as if Heaven was pleading for the oppressed: "O Lord, fight thou against them that fight against me." "Lord, who is like Thee to defend the poor and the needy?" "Avenge thou my cause, my Lord, my G.o.d." On the 4th of July 1776, Congress published to the world that these colonies were, and of right ought to be, free. We believe that a majority of those who signed this declaration were sons of the Church.

The American colonists were not rebels; they were loyal, G.o.d-fearing men. The first appeal that Congress made to the colonies was "for the whole people to keep one and the same day as a day of fasting and prayer for the restoration of the invaded rights of America, and reconciliation with the parent State." They stood for their inalienable rights, guaranteed to them by the Magna Charta, which n.o.bles, headed by Bishop Stephen Langton, had wrung from King John. The English clergy had at ordination taken an oath of allegiance to the British Crown. Many who sympathized with their oppressed country felt bound to pray for King George until another government was permanently established. Others, like Dr. Provost, retired to private life. For two hundred years an Episcopal Church had no resident Bishop. No child of the Church received confirmation. No one could take orders without crossing the Atlantic, where one man in five lost his life by disease or s.h.i.+pwreck.

At one time the Rev. William White was the only clergyman of the Church in Pennsylvania. Even after we had received the episcopate, the outlook was so hopeless that one of her bishops said, "I am willing to do all I can for the rest of my days, but there will be no such Church when I am gone." When William Meade told Chief Justice Marshall that he was to take orders in the Episcopal Church, the Chief Justice said, "I thought that this Church had perished in the Revolution." Of the less than two hundred clergy, many had returned to England or retired to private life. In some of the colonies the endowments of the Church had been confiscated. There was no discipline for clergy or laity, and it did seem as if the vine of the Lord's planting was to perish out of the land.

On the Feast of the Annunciation, 1783, ten of the clergy of Connecticut met in the glebe house at Woodbury to elect a bishop. They met privately, for the Church was under the ban of civil authority, and they feared the revival of bitter opposition to an American episcopate which might alarm the English bishops and defeat their efforts. They did not come to make a creed, or frame a liturgy, or found a Church. They met to secure that which was lacking for the complete organization of the Church, and thus perpetuate for their country that ministry whose continuity was witnessed through all the ages in a living body, which is the body of Christ. I know of no greater heroism than that which sent Samuel Seabury to ask of the bishops of the Church of England the episcopate for the scattered flock of Christ. You remember the fourteen months' weary waiting, and when his prayer was refused in England, G.o.d led him to the persecuted Church of Scotland. Now go with me to Aberdeen; it is an upper room, a congregation of clergy and laity are present. The bishops and Robert Kilgour, Bishop of Aberdeen, Arthur Petrie, Bishop of Moray, and John Skinner, Coadjutor Bishop of Aberdeen, who preached the sermon. The prayers were ended; Samuel Seabury, a kingly man, kneels for the imposition of apostolic hands, and, according to the G.o.dly usage of the Catholic Church, is consecrated bishop, and made the first apostle for the New World. None can tell what, under G.o.d, we owe to those venerable men. They signed a concordat binding themselves and successors to use the Prayer of Invocation in the Scottish Communion Office, which sets forth that truth which is inwrought in all the teachings of our blessed Lord and His apostles, that the communion of the Body and Blood of Christ is limited to the worthy receiver of this blessed sacrament. The consecration of Seabury touched the heart of the English Church.

In 1783 the Church of England did not have one bishop beyond its sh.o.r.es.

There are to-day fifteen bishops in Africa, six in China and j.a.pan, and twenty-three in Australia and the Pacific Islands, ten in India, seven in the West Indies, and eighty-five in British North America and the United States. Every colony of the British Empire and every State and Territory of the United States has its own bishop, except the Territory of Alaska.

On February 4th, 1787, the Rev. Dr. Samuel Provost, D.D., were consecrated bishops in Lambeth Chapel, by John Moore, Archbishop of Canterbury, William Markham, Archbishop of York, Charles Moss, Bishop of Bath and Wells, and John Hinchcliffe, Bishop of Peterborough. The sermon was preached by the chaplain of the primate. Our minister to England, Hon. John Adams, urged the application of Drs. Provost and White, and in after years wrote: "There is no part of my life I look back with more satisfaction than the part I took--daring and hazardous as it was to myself and mine--in the introduction of episcopacy to America."

Samuel Provost was a devoted patriot and one of the ripest scholars of America. In the convention which elected him Bishop of New York were John Jay, Was.h.i.+ngton's chief justice, Marinus Willet, one of Was.h.i.+ngton's favorite generals, James Duane, John Alsop, R.R.

Livingston, and William Duer, members of the Continental Congress, and David Brooks, commissary-general of the Revolution, and personal friend of Was.h.i.+ngton. If less prominent in his episcopal administration, Bishop Provost's name as a patriot was a tower of strength to the infant Church.

Of Bishop White we can say, as John Adams said of Roger Sherman, "He was pure as an angel and firm as Mount Atlas." He was beloved and reverenced by all Christian people. When Congress declared the colonies independent States in 1776, he at once took the oath of allegiance to the new government. When a friend warned him that he had put his neck in a halter, he replied: "I know the danger; the cause is just; I have put my faith in G.o.d." In 1777 he was elected chaplain of Congress, and held the office (except when Congress met in New York) until the capital was removed to Was.h.i.+ngton. Francis Hopkinson, a distinguished signer of the Declaration of Independence, and other loyal sons of the country, were among those who elected him Bishop of Pennsylvania.

One hundred years ago today the representatives of the Church in the different States met to adopt a const.i.tution. There had been tentative efforts to effect an organization and adopt a Book of Common Prayer, all of which were overruled by the good providence of G.o.d. Many not of our fold desired a liturgy. Benjamin Franklin published at his own expense a revised copy of the English liturgy. The House of Bishops was composed of Bishop Seabury and Bishop White. Bishop Provost was absent.

In the House of Clerical and Lay Deputies were the Rev. Abraham Jarvis, the Rev. Robert Smith, and the Rev. Samuel Parker, who became bishops.

They met to show the world that the charter of the Church is perpetual, and that the Church has the power to adapt herself to all the conditions of human society. They met to consolidate the scattered fragments of the Church in the thirteen colonies into a national Church, and secure for themselves and children Catholic faith and wors.h.i.+p in the Book of Common Prayer. They builded wiser than they knew. They secured for the Church self-government, free from all secular control. They preserved the traditions of the past, and yet every feature of executive, legislative, and judicial administration was in harmony with the Const.i.tution of the Republic. They gave the laity a voice in the council of the Church; they provided that bishops and clergy should be tried by their peers, and that the clergy and laity of each diocese should elect their own bishop subject to the approval of the whole Church. There was the most delightful fraternal intercourse between the two bishops. In the words of our Presiding Bishop, "The blessed results of that convention were due, under the guidance of the Holy Spirit, to the steadfast gentleness of Bishop White and the gentle steadfast--of Bishop Seabury." A century has pa.s.sed. The Church which was then everywhere spoken against is everywhere known and respected; the mantle of Seabury, White, Hobart, Ravenscroft, Eliot, De Lancey, and Kemper has fallen on others, and her sons are in the forefront of that mighty movement which will people this land with millions of souls. While we say with grateful hearts, "What hath G.o.d wrought!" we also say, "Not unto us, O Lord, not unto us, but unto Thy Nave give the praise."

Surely, an awful responsibility rests upon a Church whose history is so full of the mercy of G.o.d. We are living in the great missionary age of the Church. There is no nation on the earth to whom we may not carry the Gospel. More than eight hundred millions of souls for whom Christ died have not heard that there is a Saviour. One of the hinderances to the speedy evangelization of the world is the division among Christians,--alas! both within and without the Church. Our Saviour said: "By this shall all men know that ye are my disciples, if ye have love one to another." Christians have been separated in hostile camps, and often divisions have ripened into hatred. The saddest of all is that the things which separate us are not necessary for salvation. The truths in which we agree are part of the Catholic faith. In the words of Dr. Dollinger, "we can say each to the other as baptized, we are on either side, brothers and sisters in Christ. In the great garden of the Lord, let us shake hands over these confessional hedges, and let us break them down, so as to be able to embrace one another altogether.

These hedges are doctrinal divisions about which either we or you are in error. If you are in the wrong, we do not hold you morally culpable; for your education, surroundings, knowledge, and training made the adherence to these doctrines excusable and even right. Let us examine, compare, and investigate the matter together, and we shall discover the precious pearl of peace and unity; and then let us join hands together in cultivating and cleansing the garden of the Lord, which is overgrown with weeds." There are blessed signs that the Holy Spirit is deepening the spiritual life of widely separated brothers. Historical Churches are feeling the pulsation of a new life from the Incarnate G.o.d. All Christian folk see that the Holy Spirit has pa.s.sed over these human barriers and set His seal to the labors of separated brethren in Christ.

The ever-blessed Comforter is quickening in Christian hearts the divine spirit of charity. Christians are learning more and more the theology which centres in the person of Jesus Christ. It is this which worldwide is creating a holy enthusiasm to stay the flood of intemperance, impurity, and sin at home, and gather lost heathen folk into the fold of Christ. In our age every branch of the Church can call over the roll of its confessors and martyr, and so link its history to the purest ages of the Church. We would not rob them of one sheaf they have gathered into the garner of the Lord. We share in every victory and we rejoice in every triumph. There is not one of that great company who have washed their robes white in the blood of the Lamb, who is not our kinsman in Christ. Brothers in Christ of every name, shall we not pray for the healing of the wounds of the body of Christ, that the world may believe in him?

We are perplexed by the unbelief and sin of our time. The Christian faith is a.s.sailed not only with scoffs of old as Celsus and Julian, but also with the keenest intellectual criticism of Divine revelation, the opposition of alleged scientific facts, and a Corinthian worldliness whose motto is "Eat and drink, for to-morrow we die." In many places Christian homes are dying out. Crime and impurity are coming in as a flood, and anarchy raises its hated form in a land where all men are equal before the law. The lines between the Church and the world are dim. Never did greater problems confront a council of the Church. An Apostolic Church has a graver work than discussion about its name or the amending of its canons and rubrics. I fear that some of this unbelief is a revolt from a caricature of G.o.d. These mechanical ideas about the universe are the outcome of a mechanical theology which has lost sight of the Fatherhood of G.o.d. There is much honest unbelief. In these yearnings of humanity, in its clubs, brotherhoods, and orders, in their readiness to share all things with their brothers, I see unconscious prophecies of the brotherhood of all men as the children of one G.o.d and Father. Denunciation will not silence unbelief. The name infidel has lost its terrors. There in only one remedy. It is in the spirit, the power, and the love of Jesus Christ. Philosophy cannot touch the want.

It offers no hand to grasp, no Saviour to trust, no G.o.d to save. When men see in us the hand, the heart, and the love of Christ, they will believe in the brotherhood of men and the Fatherhood of G.o.d.

There was nothing which impressed your bishops in the late visit to England more than the service in the cathedral at Durham. The church, with its thousand years of history was thronged. The chants were sung by two thousand choristers in surplices. The sermon was preached by the Bishop of Western New York. This grand service was to set apart some Bible readers and lay-preachers to go into the collieries to tell these toilers of the love of Jesus Christ. The same awful problems stare us in the face,--the centralization of swarms of souls in the cities; the wealth of the nation in fewer hands; compet.i.tion making a life-and-death struggle for bread; the poorest sinking into hopeless despair; and the richest often forgetting that Lazarus at his gate is a child of the same G.o.d and Father. We, too, must send our best men and women wherever there is sin, sorrow, and death, to work and suffer, and, if need be, die for Christ.

We are living in the eventide of the world, when all things point toward the second coming of our King. G.o.d has placed the English-speaking people in the fore-part of the nations. They number one-tenth of the human family, and I believe G.o.d calls them to do the work of the last time. The wealth of the world is largely in Christian hands. There never have been such opportunities for Christian work. Never such a harvest awaited the husbandman.

You may tell me of difficulties and dangers. We have only one answer.

Sin, sorrow, and death are not the inventions of a Christian priest.

"There is only one Name under heaven whereby any man can be saved." We have nothing to do with results. It is ours to work and pray, and pray and work and die. So falls the seed into the earth, and so G.o.d gives the harvest. When the Church sends out emba.s.sies commensurate with the dignity of our King, it will be time to talk of failure. Is the kingdom of Christ the only kingdom which has not the right to lay tribute on its citizens? The only failure is the failure to do G.o.d's work. Was it failure when Dr. Hill of blessed memory laid the foundation for that Christian school which the wisest statesmen say is the chief factor in the regeneration of Greece? Was it failure when James Lloyd Breck, our apostle of the wilderness, carried the Gospel to the Indians? Did Williams, Selwyn, and Patteson fail in Polynesia? Was it failure when Hoffman and Auer died for Christ in Africa? Have your great-hearted sons failed who have followed in the footsteps of the saintly Kemper, and laid with tears and prayers foundations for Christian schools which are the glory of the West? Has the Gospel failed in j.a.pan, where a nation is awakening into the life of Christian civilization? Never has G.o.d given His Church more blessed rewards. The century which has pa.s.sed is only our school of preparation. The voice of G.o.d's Providence says: "Speak to the children of Israel that they go forward." We have some problems peculiar to ourselves. Twenty-five years ago four millions of slaves received American citizens.h.i.+p. The nation owes them a debt of grat.i.tude. During all the horrors of our civil war they were the protectors of Southern women and children. Knowing the failure of their masters would be the guarantee of the freedom, there was not one act that master or slave might wish to blot. We ought not to forget it, and G.o.d will not. To-day there are eight millions. They are here to stay.

They will not be disfranchised. Through them Africa can be redeemed.

They ought to be our fellow-citizens in the kingdom of G.o.d. In a great crisis of missions the Holy Ghost sent Philip on a long journey to preach Christ to one man of Ethiopia. The same blessed Spirit of G.o.d calls us in the love of Christ to carry the Gospel in the Church to the millions of colored citizens of the United States.

Brethren, the time is short. Since our last council nine of our n.o.blest bishops have died. Since I was consecrated, fifty-four bishops have entered into the rest if the people of G.o.d. It is eventide. A little more work, a few more toils and prayers, and we who have lived and loved and worked together shall have a harvest in heaven.

II. SERMON AT THE FARIBAULT CELEBRATION OF THE CENTENNIAL OF THE INAUGURATION OF GEORGE WAs.h.i.+NGTON, 1789-1889.

"Then Samuel took a stone and set it between Mizpeh and Shen, and called the name of it Ebeneser, saying, Hitherto hath the Lord helped us."-- 1 SAMUEL vii. 12.

No words are more fitting on this Centennial day. One hundred years ago George Was.h.i.+ngton was inaugurated the first President of the United States. Words are powerless to express the grateful thoughts which swell patriot hearts. Save that people whom G.o.d led out of Egypt with His pillar of fire and His pillar of cloud, I know of no nation whose history is so full of the bounty of G.o.d. This country was settled by Englishmen. They were bound by ties of affection to the mother country.

They were not rebels, they were loyal, G.o.d-fearing men. The English crown had violated rights which were guaranteed to them by the Magna Charta, which brave barons, headed by Bishop Stephen Langton, had wrung from King John and which under G.o.d has made English-speaking people the representatives of const.i.tutional government throughout the world. It was not until every plea for justice had been spurned, their sacred rights trampled upon, and the warnings of the wisest English statesmen unheeded, that the American colonies resolved to be independent and free. On the 5th of September, 1774, fifty-five delegates, from eleven colonies, met in Smith's tavern, Philadelphia, and at the invitation of the carpenters of that city adjourned to their hall. Questions arose as to the numerical influence of the colonies. Patrick Henry voiced the sentiment of Congress, "I am not a Virginian, I am an American." John Jay, who represented the conservative element said, "We have not come to make a const.i.tution; the measure of arbitrary power is not full, it must run over before we undertake to frame a government." It was proposed to open Congress with prayer. Objections were made on account of the religious differences of the delegates. Old Samuel Adams rose, with his long white hair streaming on his shoulders (the same earnest Puritan who in 1768 had written to England, "We hope in G.o.d that no such establishment as the Protestant Episcopate shall ever take place in America,") and said, "Gentlemen, shall it be said that it is possible that there can be any religious difference which will prevent men from crying to that G.o.d who alone can save them? Puritan as I am, I move that the Rev. Dr. d.u.c.h.e`, minister of Christ Church in the city, be asked to open this Congress with prayer." John Adams, writhing to his wife, said, "Never can I forget that scene. There were twenty Quakers standing by my side and we were all bathed in tears. When Psalms for the day were read, it seemed as if Heaven itself was pleading for the oppressed: 'O Lord, fight thou against them that fight against me.

Lord, who is like unto Thee to defend the poor and needy. Avenge Thou my cause, my Lord and my G.o.d.'" Although filled with indignation at the blood which had been shed in Boston, Congress nevertheless issued an appeal to the people of England: "You have been told that we are impatient of government and desire independency. These are calumnies.

Permit us to be free as you are, and our union with you will be our greatest glory. But if your ministers sport with human rights, if neither the voice of justice, the principles of the const.i.tution, nor humanity will restrain them from shedding human blood in an impious cause, 'we will never submit.' We ask peace, liberty and safety, and for this we have laid our prayer at the feet of the king as a loving father." The battles at Lexington, Concord and Ticonderoga preceded the second meeting of Congress in May, 1775. Their plea for justice had been spurned. The outlook was dark as midnight. These brave men represented no government, they had no power to make laws, they had no officers to execute them, they could not impose customs, they had no army, they did not own a foot of land, they owed the use of their hall to the courtesy of the artisans of Philadelphia. On the 12th of June Congress made its first appeal to the people of twelve colonies, ( Georgia was not represented). It was a solemn call for the whole people to observe one and the same day as a day of fasting and prayer "for the restoration of the invaded rights of America and reconciliation with the parent state." They who sought the protection of G.o.d knew that under G.o.d they must protect themselves. All hearts turned to George Was.h.i.+ngton, a delegate from Virginia, and he was unanimously chosen to be commander-in-chief. When Congress met in July, 1776, the people had been branded as traitors; the slaves of Virginia had been incited to insurrection, the torch and tomahawk of the savage had been let loose on frontier settlements, an army of foreign mercenaries had landed on their sh.o.r.es, their ports were blockaded, an the army under Was.h.i.+ngton for their defence only numbered 6,749 men. On the second day of July, 1776, without one dissenting colony, the representatives of the thirteen colonies resolved that "these United Colonies are, and of right ought to be, free and independent States; that they are absolved from all allegiance to the British crown, and that all political connection between them and the State of Great Britain is and ought to be totally dissolved." Two days later Benjamin Harrison, the great-grandfather of our present president, the chairman of the committee of the whole, reported to Congress the form in which that resolution was to be published to the world, and the reasons by which it was to be justified.

It was the work of Thomas Jefferson, then aged thirty-three, and never did graver responsibility rest on a young man than the preparation of that immortal paper, and never was the duty more n.o.bly fulfilled. In the original draft of the declaration there was the allegation that the king "had prost.i.tuted his negative by suppressing every legislative attempt to prohibit or restrain this execrable commerce in human beings." This was struck out, as Mr. Jefferson tells us, in "complaisance to South Carolina and Georgia, not without tenderness to Northern Brethren who held slaves." Time forbids my calling over the roll of these n.o.ble patriots who signed their names to our Magna Charta.

There is John Adams, of whom Jefferson said, "He was our Colossus on that floor, and spoke with such power as to move us from our seats."

Benjamin Franklin, printer philosopher and statesman. Roger Sherman, of whom John Adams said, "He is honest as an angel and firm as Mount Atlas." Charles Carroll, who, when a member said, "Oh, Carroll, you will get off, there are so many Carrolls," stepped back to the desk and wrote after his name, "of Carrollton." John Hanc.o.c.k, who, when elected speaker, Benjamin Harrison had playfully seated in the speaker's chair and said, "We will show Mother Britain how little we care for her, by making a Ma.s.sachusetts man our president, whom she has by proclamation excluded from pardon." A friend said to John Hanc.o.c.k, "You have signed your name large." "Yes," he replied, "I wish John Bull to read it without spectacles." Robert Morris, the financier and treasurer of the Revolution. Elbridge Gerry, the youngest member, the friend of Gen.

Warren, to whom Warren had said the night before the battle of Bunker Hill, "It is sweet to die for our country." What a roll of names! the silver-tongued Rutledge, brave Stockton, wise Rush, Lee--fifty-five n.o.ble names, not one of whom who did not know that, as one member said, "If we do not hang together, we shall hang separately." It was not timidity which made any of the delegates hesitate to take the irrevocable step.

All the a.s.sociations of their lives, all the traditions and memories of the past bound them by ties of kindred and affection to the mother country. They were venturing on an unknown sea; there were no charts to guide them, no precedents to follow. The truth was, as Jefferson so tersely said, "The people wait for us to lead the way. The question is not whether by a declaration of independence we shall make ourselves what we are not, but whether we shall declare a fact which exists." So also John Adams said, "The Revolution was effected before the war commenced."

I cannot tell the story of the seven year's war. The articles of confederation were sent to the States in 1778, but the last of the thirteen States, Maryland, did not adopt them until March, 1781.

Congress under he confederacy dealt with the States and did not have the confidence or the love of the people. It required nine States to pa.s.s any measure of importance. During the war the confederacy was a pitiable failure. It issued bills which no one would take, its certificates of indebtedness and promises to pay were so worthless that it gave rise to the proverb, "Not worth a continental." Robert Morris, the financier, pleaded hopelessly for help. Alexander Hamilton denounced the confederation as "neither fit for war nor peace." Even Was.h.i.+ngton, always hopeful, wrote in 1781: "Our troops are fast approaching nakedness; our hospitals are without medicine; our sick are without meat; our public works are at a standstill; in a word, we are at the end of our tether, and now or never deliverance must come." At last victory came--thanks to the generous a.s.sistance of France, to the heroism of leaders like Lafayette, Baron Steuben, and hosts of others, who gave us their fortunes and hazarded their lives for America, the war was ended by the surrender of Lord Cornwallis. Victor Hugo said, "Napoleon was not defeated at Waterloo by the allied forces. It was G.o.d who conquered him." Who that remembers Trenton, Valley Forge, Saratoga and Yorktown, will not say G.o.d fought for our Was.h.i.+ngton? In 1777 a Quaker had occasion to pa.s.s through the woods near the headquarters of the army; hearing a voice, he approached the spot, and saw Was.h.i.+ngton in prayer. Returning home, he said to his wife: "All's well! All's well!

Was.h.i.+ngton will prevail. I have thought that no man can be a soldier and a Christian. George Was.h.i.+ngton has convinced me of my mistake."

Peace was declared in 1783. I have a water-color of the building used as the Department of State, in which the treaty of peace was signed--it was a building 12 feet by 30.

In May,1787, delegates from all the States, except Rhode Island, met in the state house in Philadelphia, with George Was.h.i.+ngton as president, to draft a const.i.tution for these United States. All the delegates were convinced of the utter failure of the articles of confederation, all were convinced of the need of a stronger government. Two parties honestly differed and were determined to fight it out to the bitter end.

At one time it looked as if the convention must disband without effecting its object. Franklin arose and said: "Mr. President, the small progress we have made after five weeks is a melancholy proof of the imperfection of human understanding--we have gone back to ancient history for models of government--we have viewed modern states--we find none of their const.i.tutions suitable to our circ.u.mstances--we are groping in the dark to find political truth, and are scarcely able to distinguish it when presented to us. How has it happened, sir, that we have not once thought of humbly applying to the Father of Lights to illumine our understandings? In the beginning of the contest with Britain, when we were sensible of danger, we had daily prayers in this room for Divine protection. Our prayers, sir, were heard and they were graciously answered. All of us have observed frequent instances of a superintending Providence in our favor. To that kind Providence we owe this happy opportunity of consulting in peace on the means to establish our nation. Have we forgotten our powerful Friend? Do we imagine that we no longer need His a.s.sistance? I have lived, sir, a long time, and the longer I live the more convinced I am that G.o.d governs in the affairs of men. If a sparrow cannot fall to the ground without His notice, is it probable that an empire can rise without His aid? We are told, sir in the sacred writings, that 'except the Lord build the house, they labor in vain that build it.' I firmly believe this, and I also believe that without His aid we shall succeed in our political building no better than the builders of Babel. We shall be divided by our little, partial, local interests, our projects will be confounded, and we ourselves shall become a reproach and a byword to future ages. I therefore beg leave to move that henceforth prayers imploring the a.s.sistance of Heaven an its blessing on our deliberations be held in this a.s.sembly every morning before we proceed to business, and that one or more of the clergy of this city be requested to officiate." When the Const.i.tution was adopted, Franklin rose, and pointing to the speaker's chair, on which was carved a sun half-hid by the horizon, said: "Gentlemen, I have long watched that sun and wondered whether it was a rising or a setting sun--G.o.d has heard our prayers, it is a rising sun."

This convention adopted the famous ordinance of 1787, which guaranteed that slavery should never enter the north-west territory, and this, under G.o.d, saved the nation in the hour of trial. The Const.i.tution was ratified by eleven of the States in 1788, and the first Wednesday in January, 1789, electors were chosen in all the ratifying States, except New York, where a conflict between the senate and a.s.sembly prevented a choice. In Rhode Island and North Carolina no election was held. The person receiving the highest number of votes was to be president, the man receiving the next highest number was to be vice-president.