the assistance of Heaven to support me in my arduous undertaking have, so far as I can learn, met the universal approbation of my countrymen. While I reiterate the professions of my dependence upon Heaven as the source of all public and private blessings, I will observe that the general prevalence of piety, philanthropy, honesty, industry and economy seems, in the ordinary course of human affairs, particularly necessary for advancing and confirming the happiness of our country. While all men within our territories are protected in worshiping the Deity according to the dictates of their consciences, it is rationally to be expected from them in return that they will all be emulous of evincing the sincerity of their professions by the innocence of their lives and the benevolence of their actions. For no man who is profligate in his morals or a bad member of the civil community can possibly be a true Christian or a credit to his own religious society.

"I desire you to accept my acknowledgments for your laudable endeavors to render men sober, honest and good citizens, and the obedient subjects of a lawful government, as well as for your prayers to almighty God for his blessings on our common country and the instrument which he has been pleased to make use of in the administration of its government.**

"GEORGE WASHINGTON."

* The original of this letter is in the possession of the Presbyterian Board of Publication, Philadelphia.

CHAPTER IX.

DECLARATION OF INDEPENDENCE AND DR. JOHN WITHERSPOON.

HE services of Presbyterianism in the

THE

cause of American liberty present two points of special and commanding interest, the one concerning the Declaration of Independence, the other concerning the organization of the national confederacy.

We are apt to think that the Declaration of Independence was so completely a matter of course that there could have been neither question as to its propriety nor opposition to it except from enemies to the patriot cause. In truth, however, the subject was hedged about with difficulties numerous and great. Even for a full year after the martyrs had fallen at Lexington, Concord and Breed's Hill (we venture to give the true name in this last case, as it is well known that neither

was the battle fought, nor does the monument stand, on Bunker Hill), vast numbers of true-hearted patriots shrank from the thought of severance from the mother-country as a true son shrinks from renouncing connection with his parental home.

Yet on the 17th of May, 1776, kept as a national fast, Mr. Bancroft tells us that "George Duffield, the minister of the Third Presbyterian Church in Philadelphia, with John Adams for a listener, drew a parallel between George III. and Pharaoh, and inferred that the same providence of God which had rescued the Israelites intended to free the Americans."

Whoever hesitated, Presbyterians did not. On the day this sermon was preached the provincial assembly of Pennsylvania voted to leave the question of independence to the discretion of their delegates in Congress, knowing that a majority of those delegates were opposed to independence, Dickinson pledging his word that they would vote

against the measure. The next day the most copious and animated debate ever held upon the subject took place in Congress, lasting from ten in the morning till seven in the evening, Robert Livingston of New York, Wilson, Dickinson and Edward Rutledge ardently opposing it.

On Monday the 10th of June Rutledge moved that the question be postponed for three weeks, and it is significant of the state of feeling that this motion, after a whole day's discussion, was carried.

The next day a committee of five, with Jefferson at its head, was appointed to prepare a formal Declaration of Independence and report it to the House.

On Friday the 28th of June the delegation from the provincial Congress of New Jersey appeared in Congress, and among them the only clergyman that sat in that body, Dr. John Witherspoon, Presbyterian minister and president of the College of New Jersey.