with his family, and on his return found that his library, furniture and nearly all that he possessed had been sacrificed. Not less unfortunate were Elihu Spencer at Trenton, and David Caldwell and Hugh McAden of North Carolina. On many occasions the soldiers studiously destroyed all that they could not carry away, and the Presbyterian clergy were generally the special objects of

vengeance.

"As might be expected, religion suffered greatly throughout the entire period of the war. The church edifices were often taken possession of by an insolent soldiery and turned into hospitals or prisons, or perverted to still baser uses as stables or ridingschools. The church at Newtown had its steeple sawed off, and was used as a prison or guard-house till it was torn down and its şiding used for the soldiers' huts. The church at Crumpond was burned to save its being occupied by the enemy. That of Mount Holly was burned by accident or design.

The one at Princeton was taken possession of by the Hessian soldiers, and stripped of its pews and gallery for fuel. A fireplace was built, and a chimney carried up through its roof. Supposing it would be defended against him, Washington planted his cannon a short distance off and commenced firing into it. It was subsequently occupied by the American soldiers; and the close of the war found it dilapidated and open to the weather, while its interior was quite defaced and destroyed.

"The church of Westfield was injured by the enemy, and its bell carried off to New York. The church of Babylon, Long Island, was torn down by the enemy for military purposes. That of New Windsor was used as a hospital. This was the case also with the one at Morristown; and repeatedly in the morning the dead were found lying in the pews. The one at Elizabethtown was made a hospital for the sick and disabled soldiers of the American army. Its bell sounded

the note of alarm at the approach of the foe, while its floor was often the bed of the weary soldier, and the seats of its pews served as the table from which he ate his scanty meal. At length it was fired by the torch of the refugee in vengeance for the uses to which it had been devoted. The churches at New York were taken possession of by the enemy. Prisoners were confined in them, or they were used by the British officers for stabling their horses. Ethan Allen describes the filth that had accumulated in the one with which he was acquainted as altogether intolerable. More than fifty places of worship throughout the land were utterly destroyed by the enemy during the period of the war. larger number of these were burned, others were leveled to the ground, while others still were so defaced or injured as to be utterly unfit for use. This was the case in several of the principal cities-at Philadelphia and Charleston as well as New York.

The

"But all did not escape. Caldwell of Eliz

abethtown was shot by a sentinel who is said to have been bribed by the British or the Tories, to whom he was especially obnoxious. Moses Allen, a classmate of President Madison at Princeton, pastor of the Midway church, Georgia, and chaplain of a regiment, was drowned near Savannah, February 8, 1779, in attempting to swim ashore from a prisonship, the barbarous captain of which refused his friends boards for his coffin. And not a few others incurred hardships which, in all probability, shortened their days. It is certainly remarkable, considering their exposure and the almost venomous hatred with which they were regarded by the enemy, that among the Presbyterian ministers the direct victims of the war were so few.'

* "History of the Presbyterian Church in the United States of America." E. H. Gillett, D. D. Vol. i., chap. 10.

CHAPTER VIII.

FORMAL ACTION OF THE PRESBYTERIAN

CHURCH.

F, now, from such records as these we turn

[F, now,

to what may be termed the official action of the Presbyterian Church in the Revolution, we shall find it full of ardent, hightoned patriotism.

Dr. Charles Hodge, in his "Constitutional History of the Presbyterian Church in the United States," writes:

"One of the first exercises of the power claimed by parliament to impose taxes on America was the passage of the Stamp Act in 1764. The opposition to this measure was so general and vehement that the British government thought proper to repeal the act, though they accompanied the repeal with the strongest declarations of their right to tax the colonies at discretion. In the controversy re