CHAPTER 33

1     WGW, vol. 26, 3-22-1783.

2     Steiner “The Religious Beliefs Of Our Presidents” (1936).

3     Hughes, George Washington: The Human Being & The Hero, vol. 1, p. 555.

4     WGW: Reverend Charles Green, 5-28-1755 (to John Augustine Washington); 11-13-1757; (to Sally Cary Fairfax) 11-15-1757; 3-26-1761; 8-26-1761; Reverend Lee Massey, 7-10-1784; Reverend Thomas Davis, 4-7-1793 (to Samuel Hanson); 11-19-1794 (to Lund Washington); 1-17-1796 (to William Pearce); Diaries, 2-22-1799.

5     There are some 30 letters in the WGW from Washington to Reverend Jonathan Boucher, tutor of Jack Custis, Washington’s stepson, 5-30-1768; 9-4-1768; 2-3-1771; 2-20-1771; 4-20-1771; 6-5-1771; 9-4-1768; 1-26-1769; 10-14-1769; 2-3-1770; 5-13-1770; 6-2-1770; 7-30-1770; 12-16-1770; 1-2-1771; 2-3-1771; 2-20-1771; 4-20-1771; 6-5-1771; 7-9-1771; 2-21-1772; 5-4-1772; 5-21-1772; 8-18-1772; 12-18-1772; 1-7-1773; 8-2-1773; 8-5-1773; 10-6-1773 (to Robert Cary & Co.); 2-15-1774; 8-15-1798. Other Washington family Tutors who were ordained clergyman at the time were Reverend Samuel Stanhope Smith, 5-24-1797; 10-9-1797; Reverend Myles Cooper, 5-31-1773 (to Robert Cary & Co.); 12-15-1773; 4-15-1774; 9-24-1782; Reverend Stephen Bloomer Balch, 10-30-1784; 6-26-1785; 11-22-1785; Reverend David Griffith, 8-29-1784; Reverend William McWhir, 12-25-1787; 10-12-1789; 2-17-1793; Reverend Jacob Van Vleck, 12-7-1796; 6-14-1797; Rev Dr. Smith Provost, 12-5-1790 (to George Steptoe Washington). Two other Washington family tutors, Walter McGowan, 10-12-1761 (to Robert Cary & Co.), 5-30-1768 (to Reverend Jonathan Boucher); 7-20-1784 and Zechariah Lewis (7-17-1797; 8-14-1797; 9-28-1798) would later become clergyman as well.

6     There are more than 20 letters either to or that mention Reverend Bryan Fairfax. These letters touch deaths in the family (3-6-1793; 4-9-1793); the conveyance of letters (5-18-1798); news from America while Fairfax was abroad (1-20-1799); surveying questions (5-17-1795; 11-26-1799; 11-30-1799); legal matters of an estate (2-19-1789; 4-6-1789); introduction of Fairfax to friends of Washington’s in England (5-15-1798). Several of them are in regard to an estate problem of Mrs. Charles Green, the widow of Washington’s childhood pastor, Reverend Chares Green. (See note #12.)

7     Reverend Dr. William Smith provided his home for a meeting of Washington’s officers, 8-6-1777, General Orders. Reverend Lebrecht Herman provided President Washington a study in Germantown, during the yellow fever epidemic for several weeks in 1793. Reverend Joseph Eckley was asked to assist in canceling a newspaper (5-10-1786). Reverend Mr. Bracken was given a case of pictures to care for that were to be shipped to Washington (2-27-1785.) Washington declined the offer for help in Europe on any matters before Reverend John Gabriel Gebhard came to America, who was also interested in a possible job in the new government, 5-26-1789.

8     Washington introduced young Bryan Fairfax, traveling to New York to catch a ship, to the Reverend Richard Peters of Philadelphia in1757. Twenty-five year old Washington had clearly become acquainted with the Philadelphia clergyman at some earlier point, perhaps when he had been traveling through Philadelphia to address his issue of the relative authority of rank of an officer with a colonial commission versus a royal commission. Washington wrote, “Permit me to recommend Colo. Fairfax, the bearer of this to your Friendly notice, while he stays in Philadelphia. He is Son of our late President [Col. George William Fairfax] ... and being a stranger in your City wanted Introduction; to whom then can I better introduce him than the agreeable Mr. Peters. I hope in doing this I make use of no unwelcome liberty; if I do, your genteel treatment of myself made me assume it and must plead my excuse.” WGW, vol. 2, 9-30-1757 to Reverend Richard Peters.

9     Reverend H. Addison was assisted in traveling through military controlled areas, 11-29-1780. Reverend William Smith was assisted in securing a reimbursement, 2-18-1784 (to James Milligan). Reverend David Griffith was assisted in securing a loan for a building, 4-5-1786; Reverend Francis Adrian Vanderkemp, a Mennonite minister from Holland who had Unitarian inclinations, was welcomed to visit Mount Vernon as a religious refugee, having been referred to Washington’s good graces by Marquis de Lafayette, 5-28-1788 (also see Washington’s Diaries.) Reverend Belknap was assisted with securing information for his American Biography, 6-17-1798; Reverend Walter Magowan was given a pastoral recommendation in an application for a parish ministry, 7-20-1784; Reverend William West and family were served as Washington acted as an executor of a family estate on their behalf, 2-28-1789. Reverend John Witherspoon had been attempting to assist Reverend James Wilson, a Scotch Presbyterian minister, to find a pulpit and had written to Washington. He responded on 8-23-1786, “You have been misinformed respecting the congregation of Pohick. It is of the Episcopal Church and at this time has an incumbent; of which I give you the earliest notice for the information of Mr. Wilson. A Church above this, formerly under the same Ministry, is, I believe, unprovided; but of what Religion the people thereabout now are, I am unable to say. Most probably a medley as they have had Methodist, and Baptist preachers of all kinds among them.”

10   WGW, vol. 21, 2-13-1781, To Mrs. Susan Blair (wife of Reverend Samuel Blair) et al,.

11   Ibid., vol. 28, 2-17-1785 to George William Fairfax, Mrs. Morton, wife of Reverend Andrew Morton.

12   Mrs. Charles Green, the widow of Washington’s childhood pastor, Reverend Chares Green, married Dr. William Savage, which turned out to be a troubled marriage and left a troubled estate. Washington described the problems of the estate as “an affair which originated in an evil hour, by an injudicious and unhappy marriage, and will end, it is to be feared, in vexation and loss to all those who have had any concern in the affairs of the unfortunate Mrs. Savage.” (to Peter Trenor, 9-6-1794.) To follow Washington’s role in this affair, see 4-25-1767 (to Dr. William Savage); 5-27-1767 (to Dr. William Savage); 8-28-1774 (to Mrs. Sarah Bomford); 10-11-1783 (to Francis Moore); 11-15-1786 (to Mrs. Anne Ennis); 1-6-1790 (to Reverend Bryan Fairfax); 3-18-1792 (to Reverend Bryan Fairfax); 3-19-1792 (to Reverend Bryan Fairfax); 12-25-1792 (to Thomas Newton, Jr.); 3-6-1793 (to Reverend Bryan Fairfax); 9-6-1794 (to Peter Trenor); 9-8-1794 (to Reverend Bryan, Lord Fairfax); 1-3-1796 (to Reverend Bryan, Lord Fairfax); 8-20-1797 (to Reverend Newburgh Burroughs); 4-22-1798 (to George Deneale). The wrangling over the estate of Mrs. Savage prompted Washington to write to Reverend Bryan Fairfax on 3-6-1793, who was also responsible for helping the widow’s estate. “Before I conclude, permit me to ask if anything is done, or likely to be done in the case of Savage. I am extremely anxious to see all matters in which I have had any agency, brought to a close, altho’ the issue therof should be unfavorable, before I quit the stage of life.” Washington’s final word on the matter on 4-22-1798 to George Deneale declared, “...Doctr. Savage while living, and his followers since, have had recourse to all the chicane and subterfuge which could be practiced, to wrong the above Lady and defraud her creditors; of whom I am one for money lent her.” It is perhaps this experience that prompted Washington to say. as he wrote to Burgess Ball. who was helping Washington with the estate of his deceased mother: “I hope you have got through your difficulties on account of your surety-ship for Major Willis, and without loss. When you engaged in this business you neglected the advice of the Wise man, than which no better I believe is to be found in his whole book, or among all his sayings, ‘Beware of surety-ship’” WGW, vol. 30, 1-18-1790.

13   General Washington was favorable to Reverend John Rodgers’ proposal to give to the American Army copies of the newly published and congressionally sanctioned American Bible, 6-11-1783. See the following for examples of Washington’s various charitable gifts: Reverend William Smith, 8-18-1782; 8-25-1784; Reverend John Henry Livingston, 12-24-1789; Reverend Mr. Muir, 2-24-1794; 1-22-1798; 2-24-1794; Reverend Hezekiah Balch, see WGW note on 12-16-1795; Reverend John Rodgers, 11-28-1789; 8-39-1790; Reverend Auley Macauley, 11-14-1791; Reverend William White, 12-31-1793; 1-1-1794;1-2-1794.

14   See note #5 on the Washington family’s tutors above.

15   The word “chaplain” occurs in Washington’s writings well over 100 times. Reverend Mr. Doyles, 8-5-1775 (General Orders). In the chapter on “Washington and Prayer,” we discussed Washington’s appreciation for Chaplain Abiel Leonard, 12-15-1775 (to Gov. Jonathan Trumbull.) Reverend Timothy Dwight, Jr. was a chaplain of Parson’s brigade, 3-18-1778 (to Brig. Gen. Samuel Holden Parsons). Dwight would later become President of Yale College. Revd. Doctr. Israel Evans, chaplain of the New York Brigade proposed erecting of a public building, which the General approved. Some chaplains required more attention than others: 2-7-1781 (to Maj. Gen. William Heath, “Inclosed is a letter which is one of many I have received upon the same subject from the Revd. Mr. Allen. I refer the matter to you, and if you find that he has the least shadow of right to his claim, pray pay him his demand, or he will write me, and travel himself to death.” Reverend David Jones was involved in a Court Martial wherein he complained that Maj. Murnam took “possession of his quarters”, a complaint which the clergyman lost (to Maj. Gen. John Sullivan, 5-15-1779; 9-21-1780). The General Orders of 2-18-1781 record a Court Martial against a Maj. Reid that included “unofficer and ungentlemanlike conduct” because of the content of a letter he had written about his superior officer to the Reverend Mr. Powers. Reverend William Rogers, 12-13-1778.was written to by Washington about his request for service as a Chaplain, which was referred to Congress. Washington wrote to Congress concerning the Reverend Mr. Tetard, who had “suffered in the extreme,” to present his claim “to a generous notice”, 9-4-1778 (to the President of Congress). Washington addressed questions of the status of chaplains as prisoners of war, the lack of pay of soldiers, the need for horses and land grants for men who served in the military to Reverend John Hurt, Chaplain to the Virginia Brigade, 9-25-1782; 8-28-1789. He wrote on 3-23-1781 to Reverend Jacob Johnson of his inability to appoint him as a chaplain to the Garrison at Wyoming. since he lacked congressional provision, even though he was “disposed to give every species of countenance and encouragement to the cultivation of Virtue, Morality and Religion.” The note of WGW on April 18, 1783 says, “At noon the proclamation of Congress for a cessation of hostilities was proclaimed at the door of the New building, followed by three huzzas; after which a prayer was made by the Reverend Mr. Ganno, and an anthem (Independence, from Billings,) was performed by vocal and instrumental music.”—Heath’s Memories.”

16   Reverend Bishop Samuel Provoost was chaplain in the U.S. Senate; Reverend William Linn was chaplain in the House of Representatives; Reverend. Bishop William White served as Chaplain to the Continental Congress and then again as chaplain to Congress, when the new government convened in Philadelphia. Washington knew each of these men. See Fitzpatrick, Diaries.

17   The best known revolutionary clergyman, who also served as an active military officer, was General Peter Muhlenberg, who we discussed in the chapter on “Washington the Soldier.” An unsung hero in this category was Reverend James Caldwell, chaplain of the Third New Jersey Regiment, but who was also an active military officer serving as Assistant Quartermaster. Reverend Caldwell was killed by a sentinel in November 1781. Caldwell first appears in Washington’s letters on 12-6-1776 with his humorous quote of Reverend Caldwell, written to the President of Congress: “By a letter of the 4th Inst. from a Mr. Caldwell, a Clergyman and a staunch friend to the Cause, and who has fled from Elizabeth Town and taken refuge in the Mountains about Ten Miles from thence, I am informed, that Genl. or Lord Howe was expected in that Town, to publish pardon and peace. His words are, ‘I have not seen his proclamation, but only can say, he gives 60 days of Grace and Pardons from the Congress down to the Committee. No one man in the Continent is to be denied his Mercy.’ In the language of this Good Man, the Lord deliver us from his Mercy.” Writing to Maj. Gen. Israel Putnam on 2-3-1777, Washington said about the need to secure forage, “On the success of this business, very much depends; let me therefore, call your utmost attention to it. Doctr. Caldwell will be the best person you can apply to, he will give you every possible Assistance.” Other references to Reverend Caldwell are: 5-13-1778 (to Maj. Benjamin Tallmadge); 8-8-1778 (to Brig. Gen. William Maxwell); 8-22-1778 (to Maj. Gen. John Sullivan); 10-29-1778 (to Maj. Gen. Nathanael Greene); 10-31-1779 (to Maj. Gen. John Sullivan); 6-13-1778; 8-8-1778; 1-10-1780; 1-21-1780; 2-1-1780; 2-7-1781.

18   Reverend Samuel Kirkland, 9-28-1775 (to the Massachusetts Legislature); 2-26-1779 (to Maj. Gen. Philip Schuyler); 1-29-1778 (to the Committee of Congress with the Army); Reverend John Carroll, 5-15-1776 (to Maj. Gen. Philip Schuyler); 4-10-1792; Reverend John Ettwein, 3-28-1778; 5-2-1788; Reverend Mr. De La Motte, 12-17-1779 (to the President of Congress); Reverend John C. Kunze, 1-12-1790.

19   Reverend Alexander McWhorter, Chaplain of the Artillery brigade, 10-12-1778.

20   Reverend Charles Green, 11-13-1757.

21   Reverend Dr. John Wheelock, President of Dartmouth College, 12-18-1775 (to Maj. Gen. Philip Schuyler); 6-9-1781; Reverend Mr. Madison, 8-8-1776 (to the President of Congress); Reverend Dirck Romeyn, 11-3-1780.

22   Reverend Thornton Fleming, 1-30-1793; Reverend James Madison, 9-23-1793.

23   Reverend William Smith, 11-15-1780, was thanked as secretary of the American Philosophical Society for Washington’s election to membership in the society. Reverend David Zeisberger, Moravian missionary, provided Washington with a list of Indian words for Marquis de Lafayette, 1-10-1788 (to Marquis de Lafayette). Reverend Jedidiah Morse’s American Geography was discussed, 6-19-1788 (to Richard Henderson). Reverend Morse was also thanked for gifts of his works, 7-17-1793; 6-20-1797. Reverend George Skene Keith’s work on weights, measures, and coins was received with thanks and with the declaration that his “Book is of high importance to society in general, and particularly to the Commercial World”, 6-22-1792. Reverend John Lathrop’s publications of the Humane Society were read with “singular satisfaction”, 6-22-1788; 2-22-1788. He thanked Reverend Joseph Willard for his election as a member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, 3-22-1781. He acknowledged the good work in educating the Indians done by Reverend John Wheelock, President of Dartmouth College. He thanked Reverend Jeremy Belknap for his history of New Hampshire, 1-5-1785. He also thanked Reverend Belknap for his American Biography and promised him that he would assist in the effort to secure additional subscribers, 5-9-1794; 7-12-1798. He thanked and commended Reverend Jonathan Edwards for providing scholarly information on Indian languages, 8-28-1788. Reverend William Maunsell was congratulated for a publication that detailed a new method of cultivating potatoes, 2-20-1795. Reverend Samuel Knox was congratulated on his study on a “Uniform System of Education, adapted to the United States,” 10-14-1798.

24   Reverend Clement Cruttwell was thanked for sending Bishop Wilson’s Bible (published in 1785) and his Works (published in 1781), 7-10-1795. WGW note on this date says, “Reverend Thomas Wilson’s (Bishop of Sodor and Man) Works were published in 1781, the Bishop having died in 1755. Reverend Thomas Wilson, son of Bishop, died in 1784....Washington’s copy of the Bishop of Sodor and Man’s Bible, which accompanied the Bishop’s Works, is now in the Library of Congress.” Washington bequeathed this Bible to his lifelong clergy friend, Bryan Fairfax. Washington’s will says, “To the Reverend, now Bryan, Lord Fairfax, I give a Bible in three large folio volumes, with notes, presented to me by the Right Reverend Thomas Wilson, Bishop of Sodor and Man.” WGW, vol. 37, Last Will and Testament. WGW note says, “Washington’s mistaken recollection that it had been presented to him by Reverend Thomas Wilson, Bishop of Sodor and Man, was due to the fact that it had been bequeathed to him by the son of the bishop, the Reverend Thomas Wilson, Prebendary of Westminster.” We will consider Washington’s endorsement of Reverend Mason Weem’s The Immortal Mentor in a subsequent chapter. See also, WGW, vol. 32, 10-20-1792. To Dr. William Davies Shipley.

25   Reverend Dr. John Witherspoon, President of Princeton, Member of Congress, only Clergyman to sign the Declaration of Independence, Presbyterian minister, was written to concerning “partial exchanges” and a written memorial, 10-8-1782; 9-8-1783.

26   Clergymen were interested in writing histories of the American Revolution, such as Reverend William Smith, 5-8-1792. But it was especially Reverend William Gordon who pursued the matter, corresponding extensively with Washington throughout the War and after: the note on 9-16-1776 (to the President of Congress); 1-23-1778; note on 4-22-1779 (to Burwell Bassett); 5-2-1780 (to Lt. Col. Alexander Hamilton); 1-20-1786 (to James Mercer); 5-13-1776; 6-29-1777; 1-23-1778; 2-15-1778; 8-2-1779; 5-3-1780; 3-9-1781; 10-23-1782; 7-8-1783; 5-8-1784; 11-3-1784; 12-20-1784; 3-8-1785; 8-31-1785; 12-5-1785; 4-20-1786; 4-10-1787; 1-1-1788; 12-23-1788; 2-23-1789; 2-25-1791; 10-15-1797. Reverend Dr. John Witherspoon had a student named John Bowie who was willing to write the memoirs of Washington’s life, but Washington, at first willing, subsequently declined because, when checking his papers for this project, he “found a mere mass of confusion (occasioned by frequently shifting them into trunks and suddenly removing them from the reach of the enemy)” 3-8-1775, (to John Witherspoon).

27   Reverend Charles Inglis, 12-16-1776 (to Maj. Gen. William Heath); Reverend Jonathan Boucher see note on 5-30-1768.

28   Reverend Jacob Duché, 8-10-1783; Reverend Jonathan Boucher, 8-15-1798.

29   See Lane, Washington Collection, Boston Athenaeum, for a listing of these.

30   WGW, vol. 26, 3-22-1783.

31   Meade, Old Churches, Ministers, and Families of Virginia, vol. I, p.22
“ ... When there was no service at the chapel or we were prevented from going, my father read the service and a sermon; and whenever a death occurred among the servants he performed the burial service himself, and read Blair’s Sermon on Death the following Sunday. Of the character and conduct of the old clergy generally I have often heard them speak in terms of strong condemnation. My father, when a young man, was a vestryman in Price George county, Virginia, but resigned his place rather than consent to retain an unworthy clergyman in the parish. Of two clergymen, however, in King George county, – the Stewarts, – I have heard my mother, who lived for some time under the ministry of one of them, speak in terms of high condemnation, as exceptions to the general rule....(Ibid., p.25)
...” I think this a proper time for some notice of the character of the sermons which were preached and the books which were read among the Episcopalians of Virginia. This was the period when the poet Cowper upbraided the clergy of the English Church with substituting morality for religion saying ‘How oft, when Paul has served us with a text, Has Plato, Tully, Epictetus preached!’ In the Church of Virginia, with the exception of Mr. Jarrett and perhaps a few others, I fear the preaching had for a long time been almost entirely of the moral kind.”

The books most in use were Blair’s Sermons, Sterne’s Works, The Spectator, The Whole Duty of Man, sometimes Tillotson’s Sermons, which last were of the highest grade of worth then in use. But Blair’s Sermons, on account of their elegant style and great moderation in all things, were most popular.”
The Washington family possessed Blair’s sermons and bought them from Parson Mason L. Weems. See Lane, The Boston Athenaeum Washington Collection, p. 503.

32   See Stephen DeCatur Jr., Private Affairs of George Washington (Boston: Houghton Mifflin Col, 1933) p. 90. See Custis, Recollections, p. 508.

33   See Lane, Washington Collection, Boston Athenaeum, pp. 498, 502, 503.

34   A careful review of The Boston Athenaeum’s Catalogue of the Washington Collection will show the vast number of printed sermons that were part of Washington’s library.

35   See the chapter on Washington’s education.

36   Thus Parson Mason L. Weems as a book seller, or colporteur, sold sermons to the Washington family, the specific example able to be documented is Blair’s Sermons. See Lane, Washington Collection, Boston Athenaeum, and the Washington Papers of the Library of Congress under Weems.

37   Examples of printed funeral sermons in Washington’s library include Mrs. Samuel Magaw, Benjamin Franklin, Governor James Bowdoin, Lord Pepperell. See Lane, Washington Collection, Boston Athenaeum.

38   WGW, vol. 32, 10-20-1792. To Dr. William Davies Shipley. “Sir: I have been honored with your polite Letter of the 23d. of May, together with the works of your late Right Reverend father Lord bishop of St. Asaph, which accompanied it. For the character and sentiments of that venerable Divine while living, I entertained the most perfect esteem, and have a sincere respect for his memory now he is no more. My best thanks are due to you for his works, and the mark of your attention in sending them to me; and especially for the flattering expressions respecting myself, which are contained in your letter.” Reverend Jacob Duché dedicated “Stand Fast Therefore In The Liberty With Which Christ Has Made You Free” to Washington in 1775. Bishop William White dedicated Sermon on The Reciprocal Influence of Civil Policy and Religious Duty Delivered in the City of Philadelphia, the 19th day of February, 1795, Day of General Thanksgiving by William White, D.D. Bishop of the Episcopal Church, in the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania. Philadelphia: Ormrod & Conrad.

Dedication to the President of the United States

Sir,

The liberty which I take, of sending the following Sermon from the press, with a dedication to the first Magistrate, is not from the thought, that I can, in any way, add to a reputation, so high as his, in our own country and throughout the world; but for a use, which arises out of my argument.

The relation which I have asserted of religion to civil policy, is well known to be considered as chimerical by some; while it is contemplated by others, as involved in whatever relates to the prosperity of the commonwealth. If a question should be raised, concerning the sense of the governments under which we live, it cannot be denied, that persons of the latter description may appeal to many particulars, in law and in practice, which can be defended on no other ground, than that of the propriety of the states availing itself of the religious principle in the minds of its citizens, in order to answer the purposes of its institution. When, therefore, in addition to constantly operating sanctions, we hear the voice of our country calling on us to assemble, for the express design of offering our acknowledgments to the Almighty Ruler of the Universe, for his prospering of its counsels, and of involving the continuance of his mercies; it is another sanction of the latter opinion, which the advocates of it cannot fail to notice, as being to their purpose; especially if it be aided by the reputation of those, from whose authority it proceeds.

It cannot have escaped the notice of any, that, since your elevation to the seat of supreme Executive authority, you have, in your official capacity, on all fit occasions, directed the public attention to the Being and Providence of God: And this implies a sense, as well of the relation, which nations, in their collective capacities, bear to him, their Supreme Ruler; as of the responsibility to him of earthly Governors, for the execution of the truths committed to them. Even had such acknowledgements come from any one, whose conversation or whose conduct were in opposition to the principle implied; still they might have been pleaded, as an homage to the truth, extorted by existing circumstances, or by some selfish views; at the expence of the violation of theory, or else of the crimination of the person. In the present instance, it is to my purpose to remark; and, but for this circumstance I should not now remark it; that an unimpeached sincerity of character, accompanied by the public acknowledgment of a Divine Being, not attached to station but evidenced throughout life, warrants, on every rule of evidence, a much stronger construction. We have a right, to apply the testimony of such a character, as the result of an enlightened conscience; and to think it an advantage to our cause, to pronounce, that a mind, which has embraced all the civil interests of the American people, has not overlooked the relation which they all bear, to the great truths of religion and of morals.

On this ground, Sir, I presumed, in the following discourse, delivered in your presence, to apply the summons under which we were assembled, to the doctrine which it was my object to establish: In doing which, it could not escape my recollection, that the sanction would come, with especial weight, before a Congregation, who have been witnesses of a correspondent conduct of the person, in his attendance on divine worship among them, during the frequent occasions of his temporary residence in this city, within the twenty years last past. For the truth of the construction of the act of government, the preacher only is responsible: The right of making the construction, if it be done with decency, seemed to come within his privileges as a citizen: And for any censure he might hazard, as to the propriety of the reasoning, he was willing to commit himself in that respect; considering, as he did, that the point intended to be established, was not mere matter of speculation, but involved important duties of civil rulers and equally important rights of Christian ministers: The former, as a conformity to professions brought forward to the public eye; and the latter, as giving us an opportunity to remind our civil superiors, when occasion and prospect of usefulness occur, of practicing duties, which with a view to the happiness of the civil state, they, officially and with great propriety, recommend to us and to our congregations.

From this statement of circumstances, the design, and I hope, the propriety of the Dedication, must be evident. It is, Sir, that in proof of a point, which I believe to be essential to the duties and to the felicities of public and of private life, I may, in the most explicit and pointed manner that occurs to me, avail myself of the aids which I think I discover, in the measures of your administration and in the weight of your character: A use of human authority, which cannot be objected to, as inapplicable to the subject; because it is of the essence of my argument, that, in every permanent government, civil rulers will be drawn to confess the principle asserted; either, as in the present instance, by a declaration of truths believed and felt; or, as may happen, by a compliance with what they suppose to be popular prejudices and weakness. And this is a circumstance, which I apply in proof, that my doctrine is involved in, and inseparable from social order.

The time, Sir, may come, and I believe it must come, when the doctrine here maintained will be held a much more important subject, than it has yet been, of political investigation; and when the acknowledging of it will be demonstrated by facts, to be a trait in the character of the enlightened statesman and in that of the virtuous citizen. In the event, it will be no small part of the praise of the chief magistrate of the present day, that, as the result of his own judgment and consistently with his own practice, he made acknowledgements, which are in contrariety to a theory, that sets open the flood-gates of immorality....

That you may enjoy that best reward of your present labors; and that the remainder of your life may be crowned with a measure of felicity, proportioned to the glory of the past period of it; is, Sir, the sincere wish and the devout prayer, of your respectful, affectionate and obliged humble servant,

WILLIAM WHITE

Feb. 28th, 1795.

See Lane, Washington Collection, Boston Athenaeum.

39   Reverend Samuel Davies, “Religion and patriotism the constituents of a good soldier.” A sermon preached to Captain Overton’s Independent Company of Volunteers, raised in Hanover County, Virginia, August 17, 1755. By Samuel Davies, A.M. Minister of the Gospel there. (Philadelphia: Printed by James Chattin, 1755.).

40   We saw this in the case of Uzal Ogden’s request for Washington to endorse his critique of Thomas Paine’s Age of Reason. Also, Reverend Knox mentioned above, who had written on a uniform system of education, had requested Washington’s endorsement. Washington declined in both instances. But that is what makes his endorsement of Parson Weem’s Immortal Mentor so remarkable, because it was not the practice of Washington to issue an endorsement. We will consider the Weem’s publication in a subsequent chapter.

41   For the history of the Stith family, see Meade, Old Churches, p.137-138:
William Stith was the only son of Captain John Stith, of the county of Charles City, and of Mary, a daughter of “William Randolph, gentleman,” of Turkey Island, in the adjoining county, Henrico, in the Colony of Virginia : their son William was born in the year 1689. On the death of her husband, Mrs. Stith, at the instance of her brother, Sir John Randolph, removed to Williamsburg and placed her son in the grammar-school attached to the College of William and Mary, where he pursued his academic studies and graduated. His theological studies were completed in England, where he was ordained a minister of the Episcopal Church. On his return to Virginia, in the year 1731, he was elected master of the grammar-school in the College and chaplain to the House of Burgesses. In June, 1738, he was called rector to Henrico parish, in the county of Henrico. He marred his cousin Judith, a daughter of Thomas Randolph of Tuckahoe, the second son of William Randolph, of Turkey Island, and resided in the parsonage on the glebe near Varina, the seat of justice for the county of Henrico. There he wrote his History of Virginia, which was printed and bound in the city of Williamsburg, at the only printing-press then in the Colony. In August, 1752, he was elected President of William and Mary College, to which he removed and over which he presided until his death, in 1755....A third married William Stith, and was the mother of Reverend Mr. Stith, the historian of Virginia, minister of Henrico, and afterward President of William and Mary College. His sister married Commissary Dawson, and he himself married Miss Judith Randolph of Tuckahoe. Another of the family married the Reverend Mr. Keith, who settled in Fauquier, and was the ancestor of Judge Marshall. ... Bishop Randolph, of the latter part of the last century, was first Archdeacon of Jersey, then Bishop of Oxford, and then of London, in all which stations he was most highly esteemed. His collection of tracts for the benefit of young students for the ministry show him to have been a Bishop of sound doctrines and of a truly catholic spirit.”

42   See the chapter entitled, “Washington the Low Churchman.”

43   WGW, vol. 36, 9-25-1798. To Reverend G. W. Snyder.

44   Twohig, The Diaries of George Washington, vol. 5, November, Sunday 8th, 1789. “It being contrary to Law & disagreeable to the People of this State (Connecticut) to travel on the Sabbath day and my horses after passing through such intolerable Roads wanting rest, I stayed at Perkins’s Tavern (which by the bye is not a good one) all day—and a meeting House being with in a few rod of the Door, I attended Morning & evening Service, and heard very lame discourses from a Mr. Pond.”

45   Twohig, Diaries, Monday October 10, 1785.

46   Twohig, Diaries, Sunday July 3, 1791. “Received, and answered an address from the Inhabitants of York town—& there being no Episcopal Minister present in the place, I went to hear morning Service performed in the Dutch reformed Church—which, being in that language not a word of which I understood I was in no danger of becoming a proselyte to its religion by the eloquence of the Preacher.” PGW vol. 6.

47   WGW, vol. 31, 3-28-1791. To Tobias Lear.

48   Ibid., vol. 3, 7-9-1771. To Jonathan Boucher.

49   Ibid., vol. 28, 7-25-1785. To David Humphreys.

50   See for example, GWP, Series 8 Miscellaneous Papers, where Washington’s extensive personal notes on various topics, such as farming, history and constitutional forms of government are copied by him from various books he had read.

51   WGW, vol. 36, 12-21-1797. To James Anderson. “If a person only sees, or directs from day to day what is to be done, business can never go on methodically or well, for in case of sickness, or the absence of the Director, delays must follow. System to all things is the soul of business. To deliberate maturely, and execute promptly is the way to conduct it to advantage. With me, it has always been a maxim, rather to let my designs appear from my works than by my expressions. To talk long before hand, of things to be done, is unpleasant, if those things can as well be done at one time or another; but I do not mean by this to discourage you from proposing any plans to me which you may conceive to be beneficial, after having weighed them well in your own mind; on the contrary, I request you to do it with the utmost freedom, for the more combined, and distant things are seen, the more likely they are to be turned to advantage.”

52   Custis writes in Recollections, pp. 162-163, “General Washington, during the whole of both his public and private life, was a very early riser; indeed, in the maternal mansion, at which his first habits were formed, the character of a sluggard was abhorred. Whether as chief magistrate, or the retired citizen, we find this man of method and labor seated in his library from one to two hours before day, in winter and at daybreak in summer. We wonder at the amazing amount of work which he performed. Nothing but a method the most remarkable and exemplary, could have enabled him to accomplish such a world of labor, an amount which might have given pretty full employment to half a dozen ordinary, and not idle men, all their lies. When we consider the volume of his official papers—his vast foreign, public, and private correspondence—we are scarcely able to believe that the space of one man’s life should have comprehended the doing of so many things and doing them so well.”

53   WGW, vol. 30, 4-1789. “I will only say, that, during and since the Session of the Convention, I have attentively heard and read every oral and printed information of both sides of the question that could readily be procured. This long and laborious investigation, in which I endeavoured as far as the frailty of nature would permit to act with candour has resulted in a fixed belief that this Constitution, is really in its formation a government of the people.” Washington’s concern for the constitutional crisis looming in America is well seen in WGW, vol. 29, 11-15-1786, To Bushrod Washington. “Among the great objects which you took into consideration at your meeting at Richmond, how comes it to pass, that you never turned your eyes to the inefficacy of the Federal Government, so as to instruct your Delegates to accede to the propositions of the Commrs. at Annapolis; or to devise some other mode to give it that energy, which is necessary to support a national character? Every man who considers the present constitution of it, and sees to what it is verging, trembles. The fabrick which took nine years, at the expense of much blood and treasure, to rear, now totters to the foundation, and without support must soon fall.” Washington’s written study notes on constitutional forms are found in The George Washington Papers of the Library of Congress, Series 8, “Miscellaneous Papers,” images 344-366.

54   As for example, the sermons by Stith, “The Nature and Extent of Christ’s Redemption” and Clark, “An Answer to the Question of Why I Am a Christian,” and the study by Berrington that have been included as illustrations in this study.

55   See, for example, Lane, Washington Collection, Boston Athenaeum, pp. 76-77, 132, 145, 162-163, 195.

56   Lane, Washington Collection, Boston Athenaeum, p. 502.

57   Ibid., p. 503.

58   Ibid., p. 510.

59   Ibid., p. 500.

60   Ibid., p. 39.

61   Ibid., p. 221.

62   WGW, vol. 33, 8-29-1793.

63   Ibid., vol. , 9-9-1797

64   “The divine mission of Jesus Christ evident from his life, and from the nature and tendency of his doctrines.” A sermon preached at Stamford, October 11, 1796, before the Consociation of the Western District in Fairfield County. By Isaac Lewis, D.D., Pastor of a consociated church in Greenwich. New Haven] Printed by T. and S. Green—New-Haven., [1796]
“The political advantages of godliness.” A sermon preached before His Excellency the governor, and the honorable legislature of the state of Connecticut, convened at Hartford on the anniversary election. May 11, 1797. By Isaac Lewis, D.D., Pastor of a church in Greenwich. Hartford: Printed by Hudson & Goodwin., 1797.

65   WGW, vol. 7, 3-31-1777 to BRIGADIER GENERAL GEORGE CLINTON “I congratulate you most cordially on your late appointment to a command in the Continental Army. I assure you it gave me great pleasure when I read the Resolve, and wishing that your exertions may be crown’d with a suitable success. I am etc.” Ibid., vol. 16, 8-5-1779 to Reverend Uzal Odgen, “ Reverend. Sir: I have received, and with pleasure read, the Sermon you were so obliging as to send me. I thank you for this proof of your attention. I thank you also for the favourable sentiments you have been pleased to express of me. But in a more especial mannr. I thank you for the good wishes and prayers you offer in my behalf.” Ibid., vol. 24, 5-29-1782 to Governor Jonathan Trumbull, “Your Excellency’s reply to Deans Letter I read with great Satisfaction, and this pleasure was hightened by findg. that it contained not only your own Sentiments, but also conveys the Sense of the Legislative Body of your State. From a variety of circumstances I view the present, as the most critical moment, that we have almost ever experienced throughout the present contest.”; Ibid., vol. 26, 3-10-1783 to Jame Mitchell Varnum, “Dear Sir: I have had the honor to receive your favor of the 21st. Ulto. and beg your acceptance of my particular acknowledgments for the honorauble and flattering manner in which you have spoken of me, in the dedication to your Oration, delivered before our Brethren at Providence. The Sentiments which you have expressed in your Oration I have read with pleasure, and am with great esteem etc. [WGW Note: “An Oration: delivered in The Episcopal Church in Providence (Rhode-Island) Before the Most Ancient and Honorable Fraternity of Free and Accepted Masons, On the American Festival of St. John the Evangelist, December 27, 1782, Providence: Printed by John Carter.]”; Ibid., vol. 26, 3-30-1783 to President Boudinot of Congress, “Dear Sir: I was upon the point of closing the Packet which affords a cover to this Letter when the Baron de Steuben arrived and put your obliging favor of the 17th. Instt. into my hands. I read it with great pleasure and gratitude, and beg you to accept my sincere thanks for the trouble you have taken to communicate the several matters therein contained many parts of which ‘till then were altogether New to me.”; Ibid., vol. 28, 2-5-1785 to Benjamin Vaughn, “ Sir: I pray you to accept my acknowledgment of your polite letter of the 31st. of October, and thanks for the flattering expressions of it. These are also due in a very particular manner to Doctr. Price [by Reverend Richard Price, an English nonconformist minister], for the honble mention he has made of the American General in his excellent observations on the importance of the American revolution addressed, “To the free and United States of America,” which I have seen and read with much pleasure.”; Ibid., vol. 28, 10-30-1785 to Daivd Humphreys “My dear Humphreys: ... I am very much obliged to you for the poem you sent me, I have read it with pleasure, and it is much admired by all those to whom I have showed it.”; Ibid., vol. 33, 7-20-1794 to Sir John Sinclair, “I have read with peculiar pleasure and approbation, the work you patronise, so much to your own honor and the utility of the public. Such a general view of the Agriculture in the several Counties of Great Britain is extremely interesting; and cannot fail of being very beneficial to the Agricultural concerns of your Country and to those of every other wherein they are read, and must entitle you to their warmest thanks for having set such a plan on foot, and for prosecuting it with the zeal and intelligence you do. I am so much pleased with the plan and execution myself, as to pray you to have the goodness to direct your Book-seller to continue to forward them to me, accompanied with the cost which shall be paid to his order or remitted so soon as the amount is made known to me. When the whole are received I will promote, as far as in me lays, the reprinting of them here.” There are many others as well.

66   Washington rarely gave this glowing phrase, “read with pleasure.” On the 19 instances when he did, it was always with an implied or expressed approval. This included sermons, books on history, and books on agriculture. See Lane, Catalogue of the Washington Collection, pp. 90-91,: “Account of the Origin of the Board of Agriculture, and its Progress for three Years after its Establishment. By the President. (London, 1796), and “Agricultural survey of the Counties of Great Britain; William Heath, Memoirs of Major-General Heath. (Boston, 1798), Lane, Washington Collection, Boston Athenaeum, p. 99. For other examples, see Ibid., pp. 105, 126, 137, 146, 169.

67   See the chapter on “George Washington and Prayer.” See WGW, vol. 36, To REVEREND WILLIAM LYNN, June 4, 1798. “Revd. Sir: I received with thankfulness your favour of the 30th. Ulto., enclosing the discourse delivered by you on the day recommended by the President of the United States to be observed as a general Fast. I have read them both with pleasure; and feel grateful for the favourable sentiments you have been pleased to express in my behalf; but more especially for those good wishes which you offer for my temporal and eternal happiness; which I reciprocate with great cordiality, being with esteem and respect....”

68   Ibid, p. 78.

69   Ibid, p. 78.

70   WGW Note: “Of Newton, Sussex County, N. J. He was elected Protestant Episcopal Bishop of New Jersey in 1798, but consecration was refused him in 1799; later he became a Presbyterian. The sermon was “A sermon on practical religion. Inscribed to Christians of every denomination. No. I. (Chatham: Printed by Shepard Kollock).” Copies of nos. II and III are in the Washington Collection in the Boston Athenaeum.”

71   This sermon was delivered in the evening, and spoken extemporaneously. A few weeks after its delivery it was committed to writing and as nearly verbatim as the author’s memory would serve. The sermon in its fuller form:

In all the compass of language, there is not, perhaps, a word that speaks greater terror, more dread to the impious sons of jollity and mirth, than death. How doth it damp every evil joy, embitter the impure draught of sensual pleasure, and fill the wicked with dreadful forebodings of what shall be hereafter!

As disagreeable as the subject of death is to the ungodly, it is the duty of the sincerest, best friends, the faithful ministers of the gospel, frequently to dwell upon it; to remind of it’s certainty; it’s necessary preparation, it consequences; and to use such arguments as shall have a tendency to cause sinners to escape all the exquisite, the inconceivable pains of death-eternal.

Be this our attempt this night, and be our text the following words of sacred writ:

Psalm 89:48

What man is he that liveth and shall not see death?

Suppose a person blessed with a most healthy constitution; breathing the air of some friendly and in the practice of exercise and temperance, the great promoters and preservers of health; imagine him not smitten with the sword of war, wasted by famine, nor consumed by pestilence, but year after year to roll, and he still be possessed of the enjoyment of life, yet the fatal line is drawn over which he cannot pass; the awful, the important moment must arrive, when he, in his own person, shall have verified the truth contained in the text, “that there is no man that liveth who shall not see death.”

The historic as well as sacred page, fully evinces the truth of this assertion. Where are all those illustrious heroes, famed orators, sage philosophers, celebrated poets, whose names grace the volumes of antiquity? Where, indeed all the posterity of Adam, the noble and ignoble? All, all have paid their last great debt of nature, have, in the language of the Psalmist, seen death two only excepted, and those also whose existence hath been only as of a day.

“Dust thou art, and to dust shalt thou return” said God to Adam on his transgression.

“Man that is born of a woman,” saith Job, “is of few days and full of trouble. He cometh up like a flower and is cut down; he fleeth also as a shadow and continueth not.”

“It is appointed, “saith St. Paul, unto men once to die.” Unto all men that shall ever live, except those who shall be found alive at the second advent of the Redeemer, such, faith the same apostle, “shall not sleep, but shall be changed in a moment, in the twinkling of an eye, at the last trump.”

But why cite we authorities to prove that which none pretend to deny? Since we all confess the mortality of man, it must be of the utmost moment to be informed of the preparation that death requires.

It was the observation of a certain Pagan, that when the Supreme called into being the heavens and the earth, he transformed himself into Love. True it is, “That God is Love,” and that all nature exhibits a rich display of the divine munificence. But in nothing did the goodness of the Almighty Creator shine forth more conspicuous, than in the formation and state of Man. How majestic, how beauteous his person! How noble, now divine his soul! Placed in the fairest part of all the fair creation, possessing the heavenly image, and enjoying communion with the most bounteous Author of his Being, nothing was wanting to consummate his felicity; nothing necessary for ever to perpetuate it, but a due observance of that easy and good law which God had given him. Had Adam paid proper respect to the divine command, it is the opinion of the best writers, both Jewish and Christian, that after his obedience had been sufficiently tried, he would have been translated from an earthly to a heavenly paradise.

By his apostasy, what did he not lose?

He lost the immortality of his person; or his body became mortal.

He lost the favour and friendship of heaven.

He lost the divine image, or the moral restitute of his nature, and consequently his happiness: And he became subject to miseries here, to endless and intolerable torments hereafter.

Unhappy Adam, thou sole father of mankind! Happy was it for thee, and for thy progeny, that thy Creator’s goodness was not exhausted in thy formation, but that mercy infinite yet remained for thy redemption!

The divine Jesus was appointed by the Father of Mercies to interpose in our favor. He most graciously undertook to restore to man all that he had left, and to deliver him from all the evils to which he is exposed. The Son of God is, therefore, emphatically stiled our Redeemer, our Deliverer, our Saviour.

The human body became mortal; but shall it not be restored to immortality by the omnipotence of the Redeemer? Although it shall be laid, it shall not be lost in the grave. For “the hour is coming when the Dead shall hear the voice of the Son of God, and shall live.” “The trumpet shall sound,” we are told, “and the dead shall be raised incorruptible, and we shall be changed, for this corruptible must put on incorruption, and this mortal must put on immortality.”

Man lost the divine favour and friendship. No sooner had he violated the sacred precept, but war, as it were, was declared between heaven and earth. Our first great friend, most justly became our enemy. We were exposed to vanquishment, ruin, death. This we fully merited; this we should have fatally experienced had not the Almighty ceased to contend. Unsolicited, the sword of vengeance, is sheathed, and O astonishing! The Omnipotent himself; He before whom all the Angels of heaven bow with the profoundest reverence, and at whose mighty name all the devils of hell tremble, deigns to sue for peace; most mercifully condescends to lay aside the robes of celestial glory; to take upon him the humble garb of humanity, and to labour, and toil, and bleed, to effect the Reconciliation.

“The Word was made flesh and dwelt among us, and we beheld his glory, the glory as of the only begotten of the Father, full of grace and truth.” This divine Logos “bore our griefs, carried our sorrows, was wounded for our transgressions, bruised for our iniquities. The chastisement of our peace was upon him; and with his stripes we are healed.”

It being most reasonable that the offending party should manifest some signs of contrition, previous to future favor and friendship, to this they were excited by the Prince of Peace, upon his entrance on his mediatorial office. “Repent,” saith he, “for the kingdom of heaven is at hand.”

“Recollect, O ye sons of men! Your ungrateful, repeated, unjustifiable offences against your Almighty Father; let a due sense of them fill you with remorse, cover you with shame, and cause you to be willing to accept the divine clemency; for now it is proclaimed; the gospel dispensation hath taken place; the doors of heaven are open to every repenting, returning offender.”

Thus did the merciful Saviour endeavour to dispose men to be reconciled with their offended Maker. Thus, “was God in Christ reconciling the world unto himself; restoring us to his favour and friendship.

The medium of reconciliation, is the blood of Jesus, apprehended by faith, with a disposition of penitence and sincere obedience.

With what fervor of affection are we entreated by the apostle to accept of this favour? “We are ambassadors for Christ,” says he “as though God did beseech you by us: We pray you, in Christ’s stead, be ye reconciled to God; for he hath made him to be sin for us, who knew no sin, that we might be made the righteousness of God in him.”

And how highly are those honoured who are obedient to the voice of the Redeemer, who suffer themselves to be redeemed by him. No longer are they stiled enemies, but friends of God. “Ye are my Friends, if ye do whatsoever I command you.”

By the fall we lost also the divine image, and, of course, our happiness; for when we ceased to resemble God, we became incapable of the enjoyment of him. Without a similarity of temper and disposition between two beings, there cannot be any affection, agreement, or felicity. Man was at first created holy, that he might be happy; that he might possess, in some sort, the happiness which God himself enjoys. So absolutely necessary is purity of soul, to render us capable of celestial enjoyments, that we are assured in the most peremptory manner, that “without holiness no man shall see the Lord,” or can be qualified for the enjoyment of him.

The great Mediator affords the means to regain the heavenly temper we lost. His holy ordinances are ordained for this very end. They are rendered efficacious through the assistance of the divine Spirit; and it’s powerful aid, it’s sanctifying saving graces, together with every other favor, we are assured of upon our due application to the throne of grace. “If men,” says he, “being evil, know how to give good gifts unto their children, how much more will their heavenly father give his Holy Spirit to those that ask it.” If mankind, who possess the principles of affection for their children in an imperfect degree, are yet most readily inclined to confer favours on them, How much more readily will the Father of Heaven bestow blessings on his offspring; even with as much greater freedom as he is better, more perfect than the sons of men?” “Ask” every spiritual and necessary blessing, “and it shall be given you; seek and ye shall find; knock and it shall be opened to you. For every one that asketh,” in a proper manner “receiveth; and he that seeketh findeth; and to him that knocketh, it shall be opened.” This gracious permission to supplicate divine benefits, with a most kind promise of having our petitions heard, our saviour was pleased thus to repeat to his disciples. “If ye shall ask anything in my name,” for the sake of my merits and mediation, “I will do it,” it shall be granted you.

72   “A Sermon Preached at Charlestown November 29, 1798 On the Anniversary Thanksgiving In Massachusetts—With An Appendix Designed to illustrate some parts of the discourse; exhibiting proof of the early existence, progress, and deleterious effects of French intrigue and influence in the United States. By Jedidah Morse, D.D. Pastor of the Church in Charlestown Published by Request, Second Edition. Printed by Samuel Hall, No. 53, Cornhill, Boston, 1799.

73   Boller, George Washington & Religion, p. 78. says, “He expressed similar satisfaction with a thanksgiving sermon delivered by Jedidiah Morse, Congregational minister, staunch Federalist, and ‘father of American geography,’ to celebrate the passing of the French crisis in 1798. But what Washington particularly liked was the appendix, which Morse had added to the sermon, ‘exhibiting proofs of the early existence, progress and deleterious effects of French intrigue and influence in the United States.’ Washington told Morse that he had read the appendix ‘with pleasure’ and wished that it ‘could meet a more general circulation’ because it contained ‘important information.’ What he thought of the sermon itself he did not say.” It is true that Washington seemingly approved the sermon. But note that the argument misses the point, since the appendix is thoroughly Christian as well as the sermon. Either Boller suppresses this fact, or has not read the sermon and the appendix. Either way, this is substandard research.

74   The text continues, “Foreign intrigue, the bane of our independence, peace, and prosperity, has been operating, in this country, in various ways, for more than twenty years past, in insidious efforts to diminish our national limits, importance, and resources, &c.” (Preceding Discourse, p. 15)

“It is the object of this appendix to substantiate, from facts, the truth of that article in the preceding Discourse, of which the above is a part. In doing this, I consider myself as discharging an important duty of my profession. The interests of religion and good government, in the present state of the world, if we may judge from the condition of France, and her conquered countries, Holland, Geneva, and Switzerland, are inseparably interwoven, and must prosper or decay together. Anarchy is fatal to the religion and morals, as well as to the political health and prosperity of a nation; and so, I believe, for the same reason, is French influence. To develop and oppose it, therefore, is to espouse the cause of the Church as well as of the State.

“The intrigues, and consequent influence of France, in this country, I conceive, have corrupted, to an incalculable extent, all the sources of our true happiness. Our political divisions and embarrassments, and much of that Atheistical infidelity and irreligion, which, during the last twenty years, have made such alarming progress among us, are probably but the poisonous fruits of our alliance and intimate intercourse with the French nation. Her schemes and views concerning us, through all our vicissitudes, have been uniformly hostile to our dearest rights and interests. In proof of this, I appeal to the facts hereafter related.

“At a time when our holy religion and our government are formidably assailed, by the secret and subtle artifices of foreign enemies, it is incumbent on every friend to Christianity, and to his country, to unite in opposing their insidious and wicked designs. He is unworthy the name of a Christian or a patriot, who, in such a crisis as the present, is silent or inactive. Surely the ministers of religion ought not to be considered as deviating from the duties of their profession, while they unveil those political intrigues, which, in their progress and operation, are undermining the foundations, and blasting the fair fruits of that holy religion, which they preach, and which they are under the oath of God to vindicate against every species of attack....

“I confess that I have been one of the many thousands of my countrymen, who have felt an honest esteem for, and a sincere gratitude to France, for the aid she afforded us during our war with Great Britain, and who unfeignedly rejoiced with her at the commencement of her revolution, in the prospect of her enjoying the sweets of freedom, and the blessings of an equal government. But I am not ashamed now to acknowledge, (and thousands have done the same) that this esteem, gratitude, and joy, were the offspring of ignorance. A development of the motives and designs of France, in respect to her alliance and intercourse with us, and of the real nature and object of her revolution, has produced an entire change in my own feelings and opinions. I can no longer consider her government, at any period, either under the monarchy or the republic, as having been truly friendly to the interests of the United State; . . .
“....infidelity and licentiousness are too numerous, they are yet the minority of the nation, as we will hope and are now on the decline, both in numbers and influence. The lamentable issue of the great experiment, made in France, of governing a civilized people without the aids of religion, has procured for Christianity many able advocates, and furnished many strong motives to the Christian to cherish his faith. While France, both in a political and religious view, exhibits an awful example for us to shun, we cannot but feel for her present deplorable wretchedness, and the tremendous calamities, which, in all probability, still await this profligate nation. Although the “prejudices of philosophers (philosophists) and systemists”, have been pronounced “incorrigible,” we will indulge the hope, that the uncommon afflictions and miseries which the atheistical conspirators against religion and government have brought upon France, and those under her control, will operate conviction and regret in the blindest understanding and the hardest heart; and thus all this “wrath of man” be made ultimately to “praise God.” How much soever we detest the principles and the conduct of the French, we shall most sincerely wish them well; that they may speedily enjoy the fruits of true repentance and reformation; the blessings of good government, peace, and pure Christianity. Then we will embrace them as FRIENDS; till then, we ought to hold them as ENEMIES.”

75   Boller, George Washington & Religion, p. 78. says, “In the second instance, however, we can speak with some precision. In 1789, a few months after Washington’s inauguration, Reverend Joseph Buckminster of New Hampshire sent the new President a sermon which presumably might be of particular interest to Washington as he assumed the highest office in the new federal government. It was an old sermon. It had been preached by Benjamin Stevens, pastor of the first church in Kittery, Maine, on the occasion of the death of Sir William Pepperell in 1759. . . . Washington voiced his hearty ‘approbation of the doctrine therein inculcated.’ Whether it was the humility or the conscientiousness enjoined upon men in high office that appealed to Washington we have no way of knowing. Probably it was both. In any case, the doctrine which he approved was primarily of political significance and does not enlighten us as to his attitude toward the tenets of the Christian faith.”
Paul Boller here follows the cut and paste presentation of this sermon given initially by Moncure Conway. Reverend Conway was the editor of The Works of Thomas Paine, the leading Deist of Washington’s day. Conway was quoted by Lane in The Catalogue to the Washington Library at the Boston Athenaeum, p. 194, “This letter to Dr. Buckminster is especially notable, because, though the larger part was dictated, Washington has added in his own hand his approbation of the doctrine of the discourse. It is doubtful if in all his writings similar approval of any statement of doctrine can be found. . . . The text selected for [this sermon] was from the 82nd Psalm, ‘But ye shall die like men.’ Referring to the previous part of the verse (7), ‘I have said ye are Gods,’ the preacher said that rulers might in a sense be properly so styled, because governments being appointed of God, magistrates were his representatives, He defined God as a moral governor, engaged in a great plan of wisdom and benevolence. As this world is not a state of retribution, it is requisite that these earthly Gods should be removed by Death as well as other men, in order to compleat the Plan of the Divine government. Indeed the great ends of the moral administration of God seem to require this, to suppress the progress of vice and promote virtue and goodness in the present state, but especially for the final adjustment of all things with equity.’ This, probably, is the doctrine of which Washington intimates his approval.”
Steven’s sermon, edited and summarized by Conway, is presented in such a way that one would have thought it was a sermon preached by a Deist. Nevertheless, if one is permitted actually to see the words of the sermon, it is clear that Steven’s sermon is an orthodox Christian sermon. One would never know that fact from Conway’s careful cutting and pasting of the message. Further, this method of parsing out the sections that Washington would have agreed with is not only entirely prejudicial and unscientific, it is inconsistent with the glowing affirmation that Washington wrote in his own hand. The sermon was addressed as a whole. The sermon as a whole was Christian. How could there not be Christian doctrine in view? This was a Christian funeral sermon, which as a whole was filled with Christian doctrine. The method employed here by Reverend Conway and Professor Boller is an overt act of deflection to keep the reader from knowing what Washington actually had read and approved. Astonishingly, the generally skeptical Professor Boller apparently can set aside all doubt and tell us what parts of the sermon Washington liked, although Washington’s letter did not limit his approval to any specific doctrinal teaching. We believe this approach by Conway and Boller is an expression of a method of desperation to cover over the obvious Christian views that Washington had to possess to approve this sermon.

76   “A Sermon occasioned by the death of the Honorable Sir William Pepperell, Bart. Lieutenant-General in his Majesty’s Service.” Who died at his seat in Kittery, July 6th, 1759, aged 63. Preached the next Lord’s-Day after his funeral by Benjamin Stevens, A.M. Pastor of the First Church in Kittery.

77   A Funeral Sermon. Psalm 82:7. But ye shall die like men.

As the benevolent Author of our Being, who knows our weakness, and wishes our welfare, is represented by the great Prophet of the Jews, saying to his people, O that they were wise, that they understood this, that they would consider their latter end! We have hereby plainly intimated, that serious reflections on our mortality, and the issue of things at death, would ... excite us faithfully to act the parts assigned us here, and daily solicitous to focus on the happiness of the world to come. ...

...The words are, I have said ye are Gods, and all of you are children of the most High: It follows, But ye shall die like men. ... Civil rulers are here, and in several other places in the sacred oracles, stiled Gods, not only on account of their authority and dominion, or the dignity of their character and office: but to point out the end and design for which they are exalted to power, viz. That they might in their limited sphere, imitate Him, who is the Supreme Ruler of the Universe, who governs the whole in infinite wisdom, perfect righteousness and goodness. ....Christ also says, John 10, 35 – He called them Gods to whom the Word of the Lord came, i.e. God, in his Word, has called those Gods, to whom he had delegated Power, and who were commissioned by Him, to the Office of Magistrates and Rulers....Now since in this sense civil Rulers are of God, and his Establishment and Appointment, ...they may without Impropriety be stilled Gods. But such, however dignified by Titles of Honor and Respect—And by that which is given to the sovereign Majesty of Heaven and Earth—Such, I say, however elevated their Station or extensive their Power and Usefulness, must die like other Men...

This is a Truth taught in our Text, and a Truth too evident to admit of any laboured Proof....In a Word, “The Lord Jehovah, only hath Immorality”—“He is the living God” “and an everlasting King” “His Throne remaineth from Generation to Generation while the Gods that have not made the Heavens and the Earth, even they shall perish from the Earth, and from under the Heavens.” ...

Now as the most exalted in Dignity, whatever may be their boasted Pedigree, tho’ they may lay Claim to noble, royal or divine Extraction, are Descendents of Adam: by whom “Sin entered into the World, and Death by Sin;” Death passes upon them as well as others. And however they may be distinguished in other Respects, they equally share with others in the Consequences of the first Transgression: and are involved in the same general Sentence of Death, with the whole Posterity of Adam....Infinite Wisdom cannot err, nor perfect Rectitude do wrong. Farther let it be observed that Immortality here was not the Right of Mankind, not even of Adam in Innocency:... however some of them may be distinguished and exalted above the Rest of his Posterity, yet they too, in Respect of their Mortality, must be equal Sharers with the common Parent of all. ...

... this Part of the divine Government may be, to prevent an undue Trust and Dependence in Men, and to lead us to place it in Him, to whom it belongs, and on whom alone, it can be placed with Safety. As this Appointment tends to suppress the Pride of those who may arrogate Divinity to themselves, so also to check the Impiety of those who idolize such false Gods.

... It is equally apparent that his moral Administration is not perfect here, but that it extends to a future State, in which all are to be dealt with according to their respective Characters.—Here there is often one Event to the Righteous and to the Wicked. But as all are to be removed hence by Death, and as Death stands in Connection with the Judgment of the great Day: Since the Great as well as the Small are to stand before the Tribunal of the universal Judge; they shall be judged in like Manner without Respect of Persons, and receive according to the deeds done in the Body. And the Kings of the Earth, and the great Men, and the rich men, and the chief Captains and mighty Men, were told, shall be struck with Terror and Amazement at the Appearance of Him that sitteth on the Throne, and the Wrath of the Lamb.

... If such Persons behave well in Life, and view Death in the Light the Gospel represents it to the Righteous; not as the End of our Being, but the Commencement of a happy Immorality: such being conformed to Him who is the Resurrection and the Life, have Reason with Thankfulness to adore that gracious Plan of Things which removes them from this World to a better; although the dark Valley of Death be the Passage thereto.— For then, instead of being abased, they shall be exalted to true Dignity. Then they shall be crowned with everlasting honors. Tho’ their Bodies lie down in the Dust and see Corruption; tho’ they mingle with the common Earth, and with the Dust of the lowest of Men; yet shall they be raised again in the Resurrection of the Just. And at the Judgment of the great Day, those who in this Life faithfully acted the Parts assigned them, shall meet with the Approbation of the universal Judge;—The unerring Discerner of true Worth—and whose Approbation is an Honor infinitely superior to the united Applause and Homage of all Mankind.—And those, who have been faithful over a few Things, shall be made Ruler over many, and enter into the Joy of their Lord.

...But before I finish, it deserves Notice, that in these degenerate Days in which too many are asham’d of Christ and his Cross, especially among those who are in high Life, he [Pepperell] consider’d the Christian Character as truly honourable.—And as he was favor’d with a Christian Education; so he made a public and open Profession of the Religion of Christ: and his regular Attendance on his holy Institutions, both in his Family, and in the House of God;—his becoming Seriousness and Gravity when engaged in solemn Acts of Worship;—and his Disposition to maintain peace and Order, and to support the Gospel, shew, that he was not insensible of the sacred Obligations of Christianity. And tho’ he ever openly avowed, and steadily adhered to his religious Sentiments, he was far from being Ostentatious in his Religion—And, I believe, abhorred the Practice of cloaking wicked and sinister Intentions under the specious Disguise of Piety. Being also firmly attached to our Ecclesiastical Constitution, and a Friend to Learning, he always treated the Ministers of the Gospel with peculiar Marks of Distinction.

... My Little Children, Be concerned to remember your Creator in the Days of your Youth; let it be your first Concern to be good: In order to which acquaint yourselves with God, with his Son Christ Jesus, and with his Gospel; and live as the Word of God directs you....and you will be Blessings in this World, and happy to all Eternity.... find Consolation in him who so tenderly sympathized with his afflicted Friends in the Days of his Flesh! – In him who is the Resurrection and the Life! – And believing in him may they have Life eternal!
...May we be taught hereby to cease from Man, and to put our Trust in and expect our Happiness from him who is the ever-living God! – the Voice of this Providence speaks aloud to all to prepare for Death; – to prepare to follow him who is gone before us.— Every instance of Mortality enforces with peculiar Energy that important Admonition of our great Instructor Jesus Christ, Be ye also ready for in such on Hour as you think not, the Son of Man cometh. None we see are exempted from Death; – its Approach is intirely uncertain, it can be but at a little Distance at farthest, and is besides such an important and interesting Event, that it demands our most serious Consideration and our greatest Solicitude to prepare for it, that so it may be joyful and happy.

The life of Sir William Pepperell, as highlighted by Reverend Stevens, must have impressed Washington as well. The many striking parallels between Washington’s and Pepperell’s lives must have been the impetus for Lady Pepperell to send this sermon to Washington just before she died. Washington had made his presidential tour of the area only a short time before and had then met Reverend Buckminster, the clergyman who sent the sermon to the President. See Washington’s Diaries. We add a few other quotes from the sermon that fill out the fascinating life of Sir Pepperell.

 

... a just Character of Sir WILLIAM PEPPERELL; yet I shall attempt some Sketches thereof, and a brief Detail of those Services which render’d him so conspicuous both at Home and Abroad. In which Nothing, I trust, will be said, but what those who truly knew him, and are unprejudic’d, would readily subscribe to.

... So high was he in the Esteem of his Country at that important Crisis, when the Scheme was laid by the New-England Governments for the Reduction of Louis-bourg, that He was wisely made Choice of by his Excellency our Governor, and commissioned by Him, ...Every Circumstance consider’d, it was a Conquest heard of by all with Surprise, and will be transmitted to future Ages with Wonder.

It is true, there was a most remarkable Series of Providences concurring in this whole Affair, and tho’ Praise is ever to be ascrib’d to God who did marvelous Things for us, yet a grateful Memorial is due to him who was the principal Agent in obtaining this glorious Acquisition; ... he ought ever to be accounted honourable, because by him the Lord hath given Deliverance to us.

As there was so remarkable an Interposition of Heaven conspiring to bring this Enterprize to its happy Issue, so our General not only, as became an heroic spirit, was modest in Victory, but as became a Christian ever ascrib’d, even to his dying Breath, the Honor and Praise to the Lord of Hosts and the God of Armies: And as in the Undertaking and Prosecution of this important Affair, he was concern’d by Prayer and Supplication to engage the divine Blessing, and like the pious Heroes of old went forth in the Name of the Lord; so likewise did he acknowledge with Gratitude to the honor of the great Governour of the Universe, that His right Hand and his holy Arm had gotten him the Victory. He had a due Sense likewise of “the heroic Resolution, and exemplary Bravery of the Officers and Soldiers who were with him, and always estem’d it his great Honor to have commanded them.

This illustrious Undertaking being thus happily accomplished, and such important Consequences having been the Result of that Conquest of Lewisbourg; as it has already caus’d the Name of Sir William Pepperrnell to spread far and wide, so will it occasion it to be remembered with Gratitude and Respect by all succeeding Generations....It was upon this great Action’s being so bravely attempted, and so happily accomplish’d, that our gracious Sovereign conferr’d the Title and Dignity of a BARONET of Great-Britain upon our deceased Friend; —An Honor never before or since confer’d on a Native of New-England...

78   Robert Davidson, D.D., A Sermon, on the Freedom and Happiness of the United Sates of America, preached in Carlisle, on the 5th Oct. 1794. Published at the request of the Officers of the Philadelphia and Lancaster Troops of Light Horse. By Robert Davidson, D.D. Pastor of the Presbyterian Church in Carlisle, and One of the Professors in Dickinson College. (Philadelphia: printed by Samuel H. Smith for Robert Campbell. 1794), 29 pp. See Lane, The Washington Collection, pp. 64-65.

79   Twohig, Diaries, October 5, 1794.

80   Davidson, Sermon on the Freedom and Happiness.

81   Davidson, Sermon on the Freedom and Happiness: As a Divine Providence, then, must be acknowledged over the affairs of men; and something may be learned on this subject even from the light of nature, and the general voice of nations;—how thankful should we be for the light of revelation, by which our views are so greatly enlarged, and our thoughts are carried back to the creation and forward to the consummation of all things! For the representations which are every where given of God, in the Jewish writings, lead us to conceive of him as the creator, Preserver, and Lord of heaven and earth; as having all nations under his direction; and employing all the shining armies of heaven as his ministers, in the government of this lower world.... They had also the moral law, written by the finger of God himself, which gives a full view of all those duties which we owe to God and to one another. For the sum of the commandments is, To love the Lord our God with all our hearts, and our neighbour as ourselves.” “...in the second pace, consider the great goodness of the Divine Being to our state and nation in particular;–our high privileges; the gratitude which we owe to God for them; and the wise improvement which we ought to make of them.”

82   Ibid., ...He then added, “And as to Religion, the choicest blessing of heaven to men, and without which no nation can be truly happy;–is she not left at liberty, to display to every advantage her celestial charms, and to exert her renovating powers on the minds of men, free both from the aids and the restraints of the civil arm? What would the people of these States have or wish for more? Are not these the very objects for which our patriots bled? And to obtain which the greatest sacrifices have been made by all ranks of citizens?” ....This then brought Dr. Davidson to address the reality of the officers of the federal army worshiping in his presence along with the Commander in Chief and President, George Washington. Dr. Davidson said, “But when I look around me, and see multitudes of men in the garb of soldiers, and handling the instruments of war,—I cannot but feel the most painful emotions, and ask,—What these things mean?...These preparations are ...to teach those who will not otherwise be taught,—that we ought all to be obedient to lawful authority; that we ought to respect the government which ourselves have made, and whose protection we have enjoyed; that in a pure republic the will of the majority must be submitted to, and no lawless attempts made to weaken the energy of good government....what heart, that is not hardened into an entire insensibility, does not bleed at the thought of an unprovoked insurrection, by some of our deluded fellow-citizens, against the mildest and freest government under heaven!”

83   Ibid.

84   Cited in Lane, The Washington Collection, p. 3.

85   The Albany Centinal, 1798-06-05; vol. I; Iss. 97; p. 3.

86   Reverend Alexander Addison, An Oration on the Rise and progress of the United States of America, to the Present Crisis; and on the Duties of the Citizens. (Philadelphia: Printed by John Ormrod, no. 41, Chesnut-Street, 1798.).

87   Reverend M. L. Weems, The Philanthropist; or A Good Twelve Cents Worth of Political Love Power, for the Fair Daughters and Patriotic Sons of America. Dedicated to that great Lover and Love of his Country, George Washington, Esq (Alexandria: John & James D. Westcott, 1799).

88   WGW, vol. 37, 8-29-1799. To Reverend Mason L. Weems.

89   Weems, The Philanthropist. ....it is not good for man to be alone; that alone, he is a feeble helpless wretch...that alone, he is but as a poor shipwrecked sailor cast on a desolate island, ... our associated state, we are like a great family of brothers whom God has placed together as mutual aids, ...Is it not as much a law of nature that we should love one another, as it is that the members of the body should love one another? As that the eyes should love the feet for carrying them to gaze on the dear objects of their affections? Or, that the feet should love the eyes for directing them to flowery walks to ramble in? Do the members of the body ever repine at each others perfections? Does the foot repine because the eye is quick sighted to see a thousand charming objects; because the ear with admirable nicety can distinguish enchanting sounds; or because the arms are strong and able to get an abundance of good things? No: they rejoice in each other’s perfections, as in the instruments of their own glory and happiness. In like manner ought not every member of the great body of society to rejoice in the perfections of his brother member?

...how then must it affect, how torture the soul of humanity to see us men, whom God placed here to live in love, thus dreadfully abusing our powers to curse each others existence, and to crush one another into an untimely grave! ...Thus, as in the natural body no member could be amputated without great detriment to the whole, so in the social body no class of the citizens could be taken away without great detriment to the rest. Thus has God, the common Parent, removed far from us all ground of pride on the part of the rich, and of dejection on the part of the poor, “the rich and the poor, says Solomon, meet together, the Lord is the maker of them all.”....

Thus, secure in each others protection, thus abundant and happy in the sweet rewards of their mutual labours, they can eat, drink, and rejoice together like brothers, under the shade of their own vine and fig-tree, none daring to make them afraid. O how goodly a thing it is to see a whole nation living thus together in unity! ...

O blessed land of well secured liberty, of equal laws, of moderate taxes, and of universal toleration!... O that we did but know in this our day the many felicities we enjoy under this our government, and did but love the government as we ought!

But how shall we manifest our love? By splitting into parties and mortally hating one another? No, God forbid, for a furious party spirit is the greatest judgment, the heaviest curse that can befall our country. It extinguishes loves....

“Honor all men – Love the brotherhood – Fear God – Honor the king.”

Let us, honor all men; yes, even those who differ from us in political sentiments.

To make this more easy and pleasant; Love the brotherhood.... one great political body.... Let us fear God. That is the only firm base on which the happiness of individuals, the prosperity of nations can rest securely. It is the only root from which every branch of duty can spring in full vigor, be fed and enlivened.

Wise and blessed above all nations should we be if we would but adopt such a conduct, a conduct honorable to human nature, and worthy of Christianity, which represents men to each other as children of one parent, as members of one family, journeying together through the chequer’d scenes of this transitory world, towards a region where all the distinctions of rich and poor, high and low are unknown, and where virtue alone shall be exalted and vice degraded for ever.

90   WGW, vol. 32, 10-20-1792. To Dr. William Davies Shipley.

91   Jonathan Shipley Bishop of St. Asaph, 1714-1788. Shipley’s Works, 2 vols., Reverend Jonathan Shipley. Works. 2 vols., London. 1792. Presentation copy “From the Reverend Wm. Davies Shipley Dean of St. Asaph,” the son of the author. Washington acknowledged the gift in a letter dated Philadelphia, 20 Oct., 1792. Lane, Catalogue of the Washington Collection, p. 500.

92   WGW, vol. 16, 9-8-1779. Note: The eulogium was “An Eulogium of the brave men who have fallen in the contest with Great Britain,” delivered July 5, 1779, in the German Calvinist Church in Philadelphia. A copy is in the Library of Congress.

93   WGW, vol. 37, 11-6-1781. To Jonathan Trumbull, Jr. See The Works & Life of Laurence Sterne, 2 volumes (New York: J. F. Taylor and Co., 1904). Sterne’s collection of sermons was also in Washington’s library. See Lane, Catalogue of the Washington Collection, p. 192.

CHAPTER 34

1     WGW, vol. 30, 6-20-1773.

2     G.W.P. Custis, Recollections, p. 477

3     Ellis, His Excellency, p. 151.

4     Boller, George Washington & Religion. In fact, it is the only work that is cited in the article on Religion in the Washington Biographical Companion written by the University of Virginia Professor, Frank E. Grizzard, Jr., the editor of the Washington Papers.

5     Ibid., p. 114.

6     Ibid., p. 111. Frank E. Grizzard, Jr. writes on pp. 270-71, “Although Washington often wrote about the intervention of Providence in human affairs, he only rarely mentioned his beliefs about an afterlife. When a friend named a son after him, Washington wrote to express the hope that ‘he will live long to enjoy it, long after I have taken my departure for the world of Spirits.” On the eve of his leaving Mount Vernon for Philadelphia for the Constitutional Convention, he confided in Robert Morris of his internal conflict about whether to become involved again in a public life: ‘My first remaining wish being, to glide gently down the stream of life in tranquil retirement till I shall arrive at the world of sperits.’ When his mother died in August 1789, at the age of 83, he wrote to console his sister, Betty, expressing the ‘hope that she is translated to a happier place.’ To another he referred to being ‘translated to a happier clime.’ How literally Washington meant these references to a ‘happier clime’ and a ‘land of Spirts’ is unclear. Certainly there is a detached and almost fatalistic tone about them. In short, he did believe in immortality, but it is unclear whether he held the classical version of one’s life and deeds living on in the effects and memory of subsequent generations or the more literal land of spirits, so totally ‘other worldly’ as to be unknowable and hence not worth troubling oneself over. The mention of a happier clime and meeting in the future indicates that he leaned more in favor of some sort of literal afterlife.”

7     Thomas Paine, Age of Reason, Part II. Paine explains the rational basis for belief in immortality as follows:

That the consciousness of existence is not dependent on the same form or the same matter is demonstrated to our senses in the works of the creation, as far as our senses are capable of receiving that demonstration. A very numerous part of the animal creation preaches to us, far better that Paul, the belief of a life hereafter. Their little life resembles an earth and a heaven—a present and a future state, and comprises, if it may be so expressed, immortality in miniature.

The most beautiful parts of the creation to our eye are the winged insects, and they are not so originally. They acquire that form and that inimitable brilliancy by progressive changes. The slow and creeping caterpillar-worm of today passes in a few days to a torpid figure and a state resembling death; and in the next change comes forth in all the miniature magnificence of life, a splendid butterfly. No resemblance of the former creature remains; everything is changed; all his powers are new, and life is to him another thing. We cannot conceive that the consciousness of existence is not the same in this state of the animal as before; why then must I believe that the resurrection of the same body is necessary to continue to me the consciousness of existence hereafter?

In the former part of the Age of Reason I have called the creation the only true and real word of God; and this instance, or this text, in the book of creation, not only shows to us that this thing may be so, but that it is so; and that the belief of a future state is a rational belief, founded upon facts visible in the creation; for it is not more difficult to believe that we shall exist hereafter in a better state and form than at present, than that a worm should become a butterfly, and quit the dunghill for the atmosphere, if we did not know it as a fact.

8     “True religion is a system of moral theism, which Herbert elaborates in five propositions: (1) there is a supreme God; (2) this supreme God ought to be worshipped; (3) virtue joined with piety is the best method of divine worship; (4) vices and crimes and all sorts of wickedness must be expiated by repentance; and (5) there is reward or punishment after this life. The practice of true religion is supposed to result in eternal life, and all our cognitive faculties have been designed to this end. This explains the two main parts of Herbert’s philosophy: a theory of knowledge and a philosophy of comparative religion.” From www.thoemmes.com/encyclopedia/herbert.htm. See also, www.luminarium.org/sevenlit/chirbury/chirbio.htm.

9     As to Thomas Jefferson’s belief in immortality, consider, theamericanrevolution.org/ipeople/tjeff.asp. “In another strictly private communication to Dr. Rush, made in his first term as president, Jefferson revealed his own religious opinions. He believed in God and immortality ...” For Benjamin Franklin’s belief in immortality and the resurrection of the body, consider the following: The epitaph that Franklin wrote for himself, but which was not used reads, “The body of Benjamin Franklin, printer, like the cover of an old book, its contents torn out and stripped of its lettering and gilding, lies here, food for worms. But the work shall not be lost; for it will, as he believed, appear once more in a new and more elegant edition, revised and corrected by the Author.” See www.fi.edu/franklin/timeline/epitaph.html.

10   Washington wrote in his Diary on February 12, 1785, “Received an Invitation to the Funeral of Willm. Ramsy, Esqr. Of Alexandria, the oldest Inhabitt. Of the Town; and went up. Walked in a procession as a free mason, Mr. Ramsay in his life being one, and now buried with the ceremonies and honors due to one.” Jackson, Twohig, Diaries of George Washington.

11   GWP Series 4. General Correspondence. 1697-1799 Pennsylvania Grand Lodge Masons to George Washington, December 27, 1796, image 438.

12   Ibid., Series 2 Letterbooks George Washington to Pennsylvania Grand Lodge Masons, January, 1797 Letterbook 40 Image 257.

13   Schaff, Creeds of Christendom, III, p. 499.

14   On this text, Chief Justice Hale wrote: “Most certainly the wise consideration of our Latter End, and the employing of our selves, upon that Account ... renders [this] life the most contenting and comfortable life in the World. For as a Man... [He] takes his opportunity to gain a stock of Grace and Favour with God, [he] has made his peace with his Maker through Christ Jesus, [he] has done a great part of the chief business of his life, and [he] is ready upon all occasions, for all conditions whereunto the Divine Providence shall assign him, whether of life or death, or health or sickness, or poverty or riches... If God lend him longer life in this World, he carries on his great business to greater degrees of perfection, with ease, and without difficulty, trouble, or perturbation: But if Almighty God cut him shorter, and call him to give an account of his Stewardship, he is ready... Blessed is that Servant whom his Master when he comes shall find so doing. As thus this Consideration makes Life better, so it makes Death easie. 1. By frequent consideration of Death and Dissolution, he is taught not to fear it; he is, as it were, acquainted with it afore-hand, by often preparation for it....2. By frequent consideration of our Latter end, Death becomes to be no surprise unto us.” Sir Matthew Hale, Contemplations Moral and Divine (London: Printed for William Shrowsbery at the Bible in Duke-Lane, and John Leigh at Stationers-Hall, MDCLXXXV), pp. 5-6.

15   WGW vol. 2, 10-20-1761. To Richard Washington.

16   We discussed this text in the chapter on Washington’s childhood education. See Lane, The Washington Collection, p. 52.

17   Custis, Recollections, p. 21.

18   WGW, vol. 27, 7-10-1783, To George William Fairfax.

19   For example, WGW, vol. 32, 3-6-1793. To Reverend Bryan Fairfax, “I thank you for your kind condolence on the Death of my Nephew. It is a loss I sincerely regret, but as it is the will of Heaven, whose decrees are always just and wise, I submit to it without a murmur.” See WGW vol. 35, 3-30-1796. To Tobias Lear. Washington recognized how difficult it was to bring consolation to a grieving family. He actually expresses this sentiment by quoting from a Christian sermon by Reverend Laurene Sterne: WGW, vol. 16, 9-8-1779. To Reverend Hugh Henry Brackenridge. “Sir: I have to thank you for your favor of the 10th of August, and your Eulogium. [WGW Note: The eulogium was “An Eulogium of the brave men who have fallen in the contest with Great Britain,” delivered July 5, 1779, in the German Calvinist Church in Philadelphia.] You add motives to patriotism, and have made the army your debtor in the handsome tribute which is paid to the memory of those who have fallen in fighting for their country. I am sensible that none of these observations can have escaped you, and that I can offer nothing which your own reason has not already suggested on this occasion; and being of Sterne’s opinion, that “Before an affliction is digested, consolation comes too soon; and after it is digested, it comes too late: there is but a mark between these two, as fine almost as a hair, for a comforter to take aim at.” I rarely attempt it, nor shall I add more on this subject to you, as it would only be a renewal of sorrow, by recalling a fresh to your remembrance things which had better be forgotten.” (Emphasis added.)

20   WGW, vol. 32, 4-9-1793. To Reverend Bryan Fairfax. “Dear Sir: At One o’clock in the afternoon on Thursday next, I mean to pay the last respect to my deceased Nephew, by having the funeral obsequies performed. If you will do me the favor to officiate on the occasion, it will be grateful to myself, and pleasing to other friends of the deceased. No sermon is intended, and but few friends will be present: for these dinner will be ready at half after two Oclk, at which I should be happy and shall expect to see you.”

21   Ibid., vol. 30, 9-13-1789 to Elizabeth Washington Lewis. “My dear Sister: Colonel Ball’s letter gave me the first account of my Mother’s death. Since that I have received Mrs. Carter’s letter, written at your request, and previous to both I was prepared for the event by some advices of her illness communicated to your Son Robert.
Awful, and affecting as the death of a Parent is, there is consolation in knowing, that Heaven has spared ours to an age, beyond which few attain, and favored her with the full enjoyment of her mental faculties, and as much bodily strength as usually falls to the lot of fourscore. Under these considerations and a hope that she is translated to a happier place, it is the duty of her relatives to yield due submission to the decrees of the Creator. When I was last at Fredericksburg, I took a final leave of my Mother, never expecting to see her more.”

22   Ibid., vol. 37, 9-22-1799. To Burgess Ball.

23   Ibid., vol. 32 4-9-1793. To Reverend Bryan Fairfax.

24   From the 1662 Book of Common Prayer:

When they come to the Grave, while the Corps is made ready to be laid into the earth, the Priest shall say, or the Priest and Clerks shall sing: Man that is born of a woman hath but a short time to live, and is full of misery. He cometh up, and is cut down, like a flower; he fleeth as it were a shadow, and never continueth in one stay.

In the midst of life we are in death: of whom may we seek for succour, but of thee, O Lord, who for our sins art justly displeased?

Yet, O Lord God most holy, O Lord most mighty, O holy and most merciful Saviour, deliver us not into the bitter pains of eternal death.

Thou knowest, Lord, the secrets of our hearts: shut not thy merciful ears to our prayer; but spare us, Lord most holy, O God most mighty, O holy and merciful Saviour, thou most worthy Judge eternal, suffer us not, at our last hour for any pains of death, to fall from thee.

Then, while the earth shall be cast upon the body by some standing by, the Priest shall say,

Forasmuch as it hath pleased Almighty God of his great mercy to take unto himself the soul of our dear brother here departed, we therefore commit his body to the ground; earth to earth, ashes to ashes, dust to dust; in sure and certain hope of the resurrection to eternal life, through our Lord Jesus Christ; who shall change our vile body, that it may be like unto his glorious body, according to the mighty working, whereby he is able to subdue all things to himself.

Then shall be said or sung,

I heard a voice from heaven, saying unto me, Write, From henceforth blessed are the dead which die in the Lord: Even so, saith the Spirit, for they rest from their labours. Reverend 14.13.

Then the Priest shall say,

Lord, have mercy upon us.

Christ, have mercy upon us.

Lord have mercy upon us

Another book found in Washington’s library when he died was the 1744 edition of The Sick Man Visited: And Furnished with Instructions, Meditations, and Prayers, for putting him in mind of his Change; for supporting him under his Distemper; and for preparing him for, and carrying him through, his last conflict with Death by Nathanael Spinckes, Late Prebendary of Sarum. Printed in London. We cannot be sure to what extent Washington ever used this particular book. But its message certainly was relevant because of the many serious illnesses that Washington had that nearly took his life at various times: Small pox in Barbados, a serious illness just before Braddock’s defeat; the illness connected with his “grim King” reference. One illness was so severe that he wrote to his Pastor/Physician Reverend Charles Green, “Reverend Sir: Necessity (and that I hope will Apologize for the trouble I must give you), obliges me to ask the favour of a visit; that I may have an opportunity of consulting you on a disorder which I have linger’d under for three Months past. It is painful to me to write, Mr. Carlyle will say the rest, I shall only add, that I am with very great esteem, ...”(WGW, vol. 2, 11-13-1757. To Reverend Charles Green. See also WGW, vol. 2, 8-26-1761. Washington also survived two very severe illnesses while President (a case of near fatal pneumonia, a near fatal abscess on his thigh). Having lost her first husband, and her two children, death was never far from the mind of Martha Washington either, as she experienced many illnesses as well. (WGW, vol. 27, 7-10-1783. To George William Fairfax. Washington wrote, “Mrs. Washington enjoys an incompetent share of health; Billious Fevers and Cholic’s attack her very often, and reduce her low; at this moment she is but barely recovering from one of them; at the same time that she thanks Mrs. Fairfax and you for your kind suggestion of Doctr. James’s Annaliptic Pills, she begs you both to accept her most Affectionate regards; she would have conveyed these in a letter of her own, with grateful acknowledgements of Mrs. Fairfax’s kind remembrance by Mr. Lee, if her health would have allowed it.” The prayers from Spinkes include: “A Prayer for Patience and Resignation to the Divine Will”, “A Prayer for a Sanctifies Use of Sickness,” “A Prayer for Victory over Death.” pp. 187-188, 289.

Washington’s words describing Lord Fairfax were nearly as true of himself: “Lord Fairfax (as I have been told) after having bowed down to the grave, and in a manner shaken hands with death, is perfectly restored, and enjoys his usual good health, and as much vigour as falls to the lot of Ninety.”(WGW, vol. 11, 3-11-1778. To George William Fairfax. Thus an intrepid recognition of his own mortality is evident throughout Washington’s writings. The letters of the twenty-three year old soldier spoke of “almost certain death”, (WGW, vol. 1, 7-18-1755. To Mrs. Mary Washington; to Robert Dinwiddie.) and humorously noted the report of “a circumstantial account of my death and dying speech.” (WGW, vol. 1, 7-18-1755. To John Augustine Washington) We find the older Washington using the imagery of “wearied traveler” (WGW, vol. 27, 2-20-1784. To Maj. Gen. Henry Knox; 3-2-1797.) and “pilgrim”(WGW, vol. 10, 1-23-1778. To Reverend William Gordon) en route to a “haven of hope” (WGW, vol. 10, 1-23-1778. To Reverend William Gordon.) or a “haven of security and rest.”(WGW vol. 21, 3-26-1781. To Maj. Gen. John Armstrong.
vol. 36, 3-2-1797. To John Luzac.) Washington, mindful that his pilgrimage would one day end, wrote to John Francis Mercer on September 26, 1792:

If nothing impeaching my honor, or honesty, is said, I care little for the rest. I have pursued one uniform course for three score years, and am happy in believing that the world have thought it a right one: of it’s being so, I am so well satisfied myself, that I shall not depart from it by turning either to the right or to the left, until I arrive at the end of my pilgrimage.(WGW vol. 32, 9-26-1792. To John Francis Mercer)

25   WGW, vol. 26, 4-5-1783. To Marquis de Lafayette.

26   Ibid., vol. 30, 9-8-1789. To Dr. James Craik. vol. 32, 9-21-1792. To Tobias Lear.

27   See Lane note re: Lathrop, Lane, Washington Collection, Boston Athenaeum p. 119.

28   WGW, vol. 30, 6-22-1788.

29   John Lathrop, “Discourse Before the Humane Society in Boston” (1787), p. 33.

30   WGW vol. 35, 1-12-1797. To Benjamin Walker. “It would be a singular satisfaction to me to learn, who was the Author of these letters; and from what source they originated. [Note: So far as is known the “singular satisfaction” of discovering who wrote the spurious letters was denied Washington.]”; WGW, vol. 2, February, 1757. To the right Honorable John, Earl of Loudoun: General and Commander in Chief of All His Majesty’s Forces in North America; and Governor and Commander in Chief of His Majesty’s Most Antient Colony and Dominion of Virginia February, 1757, “We, the Officers of the Virginia Regiment, beg leave to congratulate your Lordship on your safe arrival in America; and to express the deep sense We have of His Majesty’s great Wisdom and paternal care for His Colonies, in sending your Lordship to their protection at this critical Juncture. We likewise beg leave to declare our singular satisfaction and sanguine hopes, on your Lordships immediate appointment over our Colony; as it in a more especial manner Entitles Us to your Lordships patronage.” WGW vol. 23, 1-29-1782. To Philip Schuyler. “Every information tending to prove that the affairs respecting the Grants may be speedily and happily accommodated, gives me singular Satisfaction. I will flatter myself, both the Articles of intelligence you have recd. are well grounded, ...”; WGW, vol. 27, 12-13-1783. To the Trustees and Faculty of the University of the state of Pennsylvania. “I experience a singular satisfaction in receiving your congratulations on the establishment of Peace and the security of those important interests which were involved in the fate of the War.” WGW, vol. 30, 8-28-1788. To George Richards Minot. “I will only add that I always feel a singular satisfaction in discovering proofs of talents and patriotism, in those who are soon to take the parts of the generation, [Minot was then 30 years of age] which is now hastening to leave the stage,...”

31   WGW, vol. 29, 2-22-1788. To Reverend John Lathrop.

32   Ellis, His Excellency, p. 269.

33   Craik’s account of Washington’s death was published as an appendix to a sermon entitled, “A Sermon Occasioned by the Death of Gen. George Washington, Commander in Chief of the Armies of the United Sates of America. Who departed this life, on Saturday the 14th December, 1799, after an illness of about 24 hours. Preached December 29, 1799. by the Reverend Hezekiah N. Woodruff A.M. Pastor of the First Church of Christ in Stamington. To which is Added, An Appendix Giving a particular account of the behaviour of Gen. Washington, during his distressing illness, also of the nature of the complaint of which he died, By Doctors James Craik and Elisha C. Dick, attending Physicians. Printed by Samuel Trumbull, For Messsrs. Edward & Nathan Smith, Stonington Prot, January, 1800. p. 16.

34   Meade, Old Churches and Families of Virginia, 1857, II, pp. 254-55.

35   WGW, vol. 37 Last Will and Testament. In his will he wrote: “The family Vault at Mount Vernon requiring repairs, and being improperly situated besides, I desire that a new one of Brick, and upon a larger Scale, may be built at the foot of what is commonly called the Vineyard Inclosure, on the ground which is marked out. In which my remains, with those of my deceased relatives (now in the old Vault) and such others of my family as may chuse to be entombed there, may be deposited. And it is my express desire that my Corpse may be Interred in a private manner, without parade, or funeral Oration. [Note: The new vault (the present one) was built in 1830-31 by Lawrence Lewis and George Washington Parke Custis.]

36   WGW, vol. 32, 2-24-1793. To Frances Bassett Washington. There are several other examples of Washington’s strong calls for a religious and philosophical Christian-stoicism. Consider the following: WGW, vol. 36 To WILLIAM AUGUSTINE WASHINGTON, February 27, 1798.
My dear Sir: Mr. Rice called here in his way to Alexandria, and delivered me your letter of the 15th. instant. Of the recent afflicting event, which was related therein, we had received previous accounts; and on that as on former occasions of a similar nature, sympathised sincerely in your sorrows. But these are the decrees of an Allwise Providence, against whose dictates the skill, or foresight of man can be of no avail; it is incumbent upon him therefore, to submit with as little repining as the sensibility of his nature will admit. This will have its course, but may be greatly ameliorated by philosophical reflection and resignation. As you have three children left, I trust they will be spared to you, and sincerely hope that in them you will find consolation and comfort.
vol. 33, 5-25-1794 To WILLIAM PEARCE
“Mr. Pearce: I learn with concern from your letter of the 18th. instant, that your crops were still labouring under a drought, and most of them very much injured. At disappointments and losses which are the effects of Providential acts, I never repine; because I am sure the alwise disposer of events knows better than we do, what is best for us, or what we deserve.”
vol. 3, 4-25-1773 To BURWELL BASSETT
“Dear Sir: The interruption of the post for several weeks, prevented our receiving the melancholy account of your loss until within these few days. That we sympathize in the misfortune, and lament the decree which has deprived you of so dutiful a child, and the world of so promising a young lady, stands in no need, I hope, of argument to prove; but the ways of Providence being inscrutable, and the justice of it not to be scanned by the shallow eye of humanity, nor to be counteracted by the utmost efforts of human power or wisdom, resignation, and as far as the strength of our reason and religion can carry us, a cheerful acquiescence to the Divine Will, is what we are to aim; and I am persuaded that your own good sense will arm you with fortitude to withstand the stroke, great as k is, and enable you to console Mrs. Bassett, whose loss and feelings are much to be pitied.”
vol. 9, 8-11777 To SAMUEL WASHINGTON
“Dear Brothr: Your letter by Capt. Rice, without date came to my hand last night. Where my last was dated, or from whence, I cannot at this time recollect; but with truth can assure, that it is not owing to a want of Inclination that you do not hear from me oftener, nor is it altogether to be ascribed to the hurry of business in which I am immerc’d: but to your living out of the Post Road, and my want of knowledge of accidental or Casual Conveyance. I most sincerely condole with you on your late loss; and doubt not your feeling it in the most sensible manner; nor do I expect that human Fortitude, and reason, can so far overcome natural affection, as to enable us to look with calmness upon losses wh. distress us altho they are acts of Providence, and in themselves unavoidable, yet acquiescence to the divine will is not only a duty, but is to be aided by every manly exertion to forget the causes of such uneasiness.”
vol. 35, 6-8-1796 To HENRY KNOX
“My dear Sir: I wou’d not let Mr. Bingham (who says he is about to Visit you) depart without acknowledging the receipt of several letters from you; and offering Mrs. Knox and yourself, my sincere condolence on your late heavy loss. Great and trying, as it must be to your sensibility, I am persuaded after the first severe pangs are over you both possess fortitude enough to view the event, as the dispensation of providence, and will submit to its decrees, with philosophical resignation.”
vol. 35, 3-2-1797 To HENRY KNOX
“From the friendship I have always borne you, and from the interest I have ever taken in whatever relates to your prosperity and happiness, I participated in the sorrows which I know you must have felt for your late heavy losses. [The death of three children.] But is not for man to scan the wisdom of Providence. The best he can do, is to submit to its decrees. Reason, religion and Philosophy, teaches us to do this, but ‘tis time alone that can ameliorate the pangs of humanity, and soften its woes.”

37   Fields, Worthy Partner, p. 371. For Martha Washington’s commitment to faith in divine providence and its connection to Christian and spiritual strength in the context of the lives of her family and friends, consider the following. All of these are from Fields, Worthy Partner, as noted.
p. 3 From Robert Carter Nicholas, Williamsburg, 7th August, 1757
“...how great Christian patience and resignation you submitted to your late misfortune;...”
p. 152, From John Parke Custis Kings-College July 5th (1773).
“I generally get up about Six or a little after, dress myself & go to chappel, by the time that Prayers are over Joe has me a little Breakfast to which I sit down very contended after eating heartyly. I thank God, and go to my Studys, with which I am employed till twelve then I take a walk and return about one dine with the professors, & after dinner study till Six at which time the Bell always rings for Prayers they being over college is broak up, and then we take what Amusement we please.

“Things My dear Mother were going on in this agreeable Manner, till last Thursday, the day I receiv’d Pappa’s melancholy Letter, giveing an account of my dear & only Sister’s Death. I myself met the Post, & brought the sad Epistle to Doctor Cooper who I beg’d to open his Letter immediately, the Direction I did not know, but the Seal I knew too well to be deceived. My confusion & uneasiness on this occasion is better conceiv’d that expresst. Her case is more to be envied than pitied, for if we mortals can distinguish between those who are deserveing of grace & who are not, I am confident she enjoys that Bliss prepar’d only for the good & virtuous, let these consideration, My dear Mother have their due weight with you and comfort yourself with reflecting that she now enjoys in substance what we in this world enjoy in imagination & that there is no real Happiness on this side of the grave. I must allow that to sustain a shock of this kind requires more Philosophy than we in general are (possest) off, my Nature could not bear the shock. (illegible) sunk under the load of oppression, and hindered me from administering any consolation to my dear and nearest relation, this Letter is the first thing I’ve done since I received the melancholy News, & could I think my Presence wou’d be condusive to the Restoration of your Tranquility neither the distance nor the Fatigue of traveling could detain me a moment here. I put myself & Joe into deep Mourning & shall do (all) Honour in my power to the Memory of a deceas’d & well belov’d Sister, I will no longer detain you on a subject which is painful to us both but conclude with beging you to remember you are a Christian and that we ought to submit with Patience to the divine Will and that to render you happy shall be the constant care of your effectionate and dutiful son.
John Parke Custis”
p.159 From George Washington, Philadelphia June 18, 1775.
“I shall rely therefore, confidently, on that Providence which has heretofore preservd, & been bountiful to me, not doubting but that I shall return safe to you in the fall...”
p. 161 From George Washington, Phila. June 23rd. 1775.
“... I go fully trusting in that Providence, which has been more bountiful to me than I deserve, & in full confidence of happy Meeting with you sometime in the Fall-“
p. 175 To Burwell Bassett, My Dear Sir, Mount Vernon December 22d 1777.
“... she has I hope a happy exchange – and only gone a little before us the time draws near when I hope we shall meet never more to part-if to meet our departed Friends and know them was scertain we could have very little reason to desire to stay in this world where if we are at ease one hour we are in affliction days...

“... my dear sister in her life time often mentioned my taking my dear Fanny if should be taken away before she grew up- If you will lett her come to live with me, I will with the greatest pleasure take her and be a parent and mother to her as long as I live—and will come down for her as soon as I come from the northward, ...”
p.223-224 To Mercy Otis Warren, New York December the 26th 1789
“...for you know me well enough to do me the justice to believe that I am only fond of what comes from the heart....
.... it is owing to this kindness of our numerous friends in all quarters that my new and unwished for situation is not indeed a burden to me. ...With respect to myself, I sometimes think the arrangement is not quite as it ought to have been, that I, who had much rather be at home should occupy a place with which a great many younger and gayer women would be prodigiously pleased.—As my grand children and domestic connections made a great portion of felicity which I looked indemnify me for the Loss of a part of such endearing society. I do not say this because I feel dissatisfied with my present station—no, God forbid:—for everybody and everything conspire to make me as contented as possable in it; yet I have too much of the vanity of human affairs to expect felicity from the splendid scenes of public life. – I am still determined to be cheerful and to be happy in whatever situation I may be, for I have also learnt from experianence that the greater part of our happiness or misary depends upon our dispositions, and not upon our circumstances; we carry the seeds of the one, or the other about with us, in our minds, wherever we go.”
p.339 To Jonathan Trumball Mount Vernon January 15, 1800
“...the good Christian will submit without repining to the Dispensations on Divine Providence and look for consolation to that Being who alone can pour balm into the bleeding Heart and who has promised to be the widows god -... your kind letter of condolence of the 30th of December was greatfull to my feeling....

...the loss is ours the gain is his....

“For myself I have only to bow with humble submission to the will of that God who giveth and who taketh away looking forward with faith and hope to the moment when I shall be again united with the Partner of my life But while I continue on Earth my prayers will be offered up for the welfare and Happiness of my Friends among who you will always be numbered being.”
p.364 To Catherine Livingston Garretson Mount Vernon, March 15t, 1800
“The kind sympathy which you expressed for my affictive loss – and your fervent prayers for my present comfort and future happiness, impress my mind with gratitude. The precepts of our holy Religion have long since taught me, that in the severe and trying scenes of life, our only sure Rock of comfort and consolation is the Divine Being who orders and directs all things for our good.

“Bowing with humble submission, to the dispensations of his Providence, and relying upon that support which he has promised to those who put their trust in him, I hope I have borne my late irreparable loss with Christian fortitude. – To a feeling heart, the sympathy of friends, and the evidences of universal respect paid to the memory of the deceased, - are truly grateful. – But while these aleviate our grief, we find that the only sense of comfort is from above.

“It give me great pleasure to hear that your good Mother yet retains her health and faculties unimpaired, - and that you experience those comforts which the Scriptures promise to those who obey the Laws of God. – That you may continue to enjoy the blessings of this life – and receive hereafter the portion of the Just is the prayer of your sincere friend & obt Serv.”
p.368 To Theodore Foster Mount Vernon, March 28, 1800
“While these evidences of respect and veneration paid to the memory of our illustrious Chief, make the most grateful impression on the heart of Mrs. Washington, she finds that the only source of Consolation is from that Divine Being who sends Comfort to the Afflicted, and has promised to be the Widow’s God. Your prayers for her health and happiness are received with gratitude, and reciprocates with sincerity.”
p. 371 To Janet Livingston Montgomery Mount Vernon, April 5th
“... your affliction I have often marked and as often have keenly felt for you but my own experience has taught me that griefs like these can not be removed by the condolence of friends however sincere – If the mingling tears of numerous friends – if the sympathy of a Nation and every testimony of respect of veneration paid to the memory of the partners of our hearts could afford consolation you and myself would experience it in the highest degree but we know that there is but one source from whence comfort can be derived under afflictions life ours To this we must look with pious resignation and with that pure confidence which our holy religion inspires.
...but as you justly observe it is certainly a consolation and flattering to poor mortality to believe that we shall meet here after in a better place.”

38   Sparks, The Writings of George Washington, vol. XII, pp. 405-407. See John Eidsmoe, Christianity and the Constitution, (Grand Rapids: Baker Book House, 1987), p. 140-141.

39   Lathrop, Discourse Before the Humane Society in Boston, p. 5. A summary of the sermon is provided here:

Lathrop begins by asserting that “Publick institutions, founded on the general principles of benevolence, and calculated either to promote the happiness or to alleviate the sufferings of human life, are honoured and encouraged among all the civilized nations of the world.” The establishment of the Humane Societies was based on the insight “That the total suspension of the vital functions of the animal body, is by no means incompatible with life....the success which has attended the exertions of societies formed for the recovery of persons visibly dead, particularly such as were drowned, has far exceeded expectation.” But the Humane Society, although medical in focus, decided to “be introduced with a Religious Exercise, and that the first Discourse be rather on the general object of the society, than confined to the Medical Science.” In other words, these were Christian physicians and Christian leaders coming together to do this good work in the very spirit of Christ Himself: “the words of our LORD, placed at the head of the Discourse, naturally lead us to consider the value of human life, and the duty of preserving it by every method in our power. The holy Evangelists who have faithfully recorded the life of JESUS CHRIST, abundantly testify that his actions perfectly corresponded with he declaration it the text: He constantly went about doing good.” [Emphasis is in the original.] Lathrop’s continuing explanation points out Jesus’ resurrections of the widow’s daughter, Jairus’ daughter and Lazarus. He points to the man as the highest creature of God who bears the image of God and so is to rule over all creation, including in areas of science and medicine. Useful knowledge and knowledge of the heavenly regions are all to be part of man’s scientific enterprise. In so doing, man is only being “the head of the creatures which dwell on the face of the earth...he longs to converse with superiour beings, and feels the highest pleasure in contemplating the perfections of his Creator, in the boundless Universe.”

Thus Lathrop concludes, “From all that has been said, human life appears highly valuable: It is our duty to preserve our own life, and the life of others. ‘The Son of Man came not to destroy men’s lives, but to save them.” And thus the existence of the Humane Societies. Next Reverend Lathrop details stories of rescued drowning victims who had been under water for up to two hours; of the rescuing of a convict who had been hung, after the performance by a physician of what we would call today a tracheotomy—apparently the man rapidly revived and was able to successfully elude the law. The Humane Society in Great-Britain in the first ten years had 796 lives that had been “restored from apparent death.” Lathrop adds examples of those spared after being hit by lightning, and in one case, of someone even being rescued on the third day laying in their coffin when he had died in France, but was then living in Philadelphia nearly six years after the event. The organizations that had performed these great works had actually had assemblies of those rescued and made sure that they were being instructed “at stated periods for religious worship, and devotional books, suited to their circumstances are distributed among them.”

The conclusion of this most remarkable medical sermon that Washington read with “singular satisfaction” declares “let us present our grateful acknowledgments to the FATHER of LIFE, that he hath, in this age of rapid improvement, led to those important discoveries, by which many of the human race may be saved from an untimely end. The tender feelings of our heart, and the Spirit of our holy Religion, happily unite in the cause of Humanity. The Son of God came into the world to save the life, and promote the happiness of the children of men. Let it be our determination to follow his most amiable example. Let us be constant and unwearied in works of humanity, and we shall receive the full reward of our labours, when those who found relief from our hand, when ready to perish, shall rise up and call us BLESSED.”

Did this medical sermon impact Washington? Clearly it did. He did not want to be placed in his tomb until he had been dead for three days. But was Washington’s hesitancy for burial a potential rejection of Christianity as implied by Ellis? Not at all, it was an affirmation of the compassionate Christian Medical spirit that Washington had read with “singular satisfaction” twelve years earlier. Had the tracheotomy been done on Washington, instead of only on the convict mentioned in Lathrop’s discourse, he might have lived too. Apparently, Washington’s “singular satisfaction” was not diminsished by the Reverend Dr. Lathrop’s Gospel hope expressed in the words, “...they had tasted death, and sunk into a state of insensibility, from which, if left without assistance, they could not have awoke, ‘till the morning of the resurrection.” Given the serious science coupled with the sincere Christian faith combined in Lathrop’s Discourse, there was no need for a man of faith and reason like Washington to abandon Christianity for Deism.

40   WGW, vol. 29, 8-15-1787.

41   Ibid., vol. 28, 7-25-1785.

42   Ibid., vol. 34, 12-16-1795.

43   Ibid., vol. 15-28-1755.

44   Ibid., vol. 1, 9-6-1756.

45   PGW, Letterbook 38, Image 147.

46   WGW, vol. 35, 3-3-1797.

47   Ibid., vol. 5, 5-31-1776.

48   Ibid., vol. 32, 1-27-1793.

49   Ibid., 28, 1-5-1785.

50   Ibid., vol. 30, 8-29-1788.

51   Ibid., 4, 3-31-1776.

52   Ibid., 28, 9-5-1785.

53   Ibid., vol. 24, 8-7-1782. To John Price Posey.

54   Ibid., vol. 30, 8-31-1788. To Annis Boudinot Stockton.

55   Ibid., vol. 27, 8-21-1783. To the Magistrates and Inhabitants of the Borough of Elizabeth.

56   Ibid., vol. 13, 10-12-1778. To Reverend Alexander McWhorter. “Besides the humanity of affording them the benefit of your profession, ...it serves to prepare them for the other world....”

57   Ibid., vol. 25, 11-16, 1782. To the Reformed Protestant Dutch Church. “In return for your kind concern for my temporal and eternal happiness, permit me to assure you that my wishes are reciprocal.” WGW, vol. 36, 6-4-1798. To Reverend William Linn. “...grateful for the favourable sentiments you have been pleased to express in my behalf; but more especially for those good wishes which you offer for my temporal and eternal happiness; which I reciprocate with great cordiality....”

58   Washington here refers to his step-daughter Patsy Custis. WGW, vol. 3, 6-20-1773. To Burwell Basett.

59   Ibid., vol. 27, 1-5-11784. To Jonathan Trumbull, Jr. This passage implies continuing fellowship with a friend who was a Christian clergyman in the “happier clime.”

60   Ibid., vol. 30, 9-13-1789 To Elizabeth Washington Lewis.

61   Ibid., vol. 28, 3-30-1785. To Lucretia Wilhemina Van Winter. vol. 28, 10-1-1785. To Jonathan Trumbull; vol. 30, 12-23-1788. To Reverend William Gordon. vol. 36, 8-29-1797. To George Washington Parke Custis.

62   Ibid., vol. 27, 11-2-1783. Farewell Orders to the Armies of the United States. At the death of Gov. Jonathan Trumbull, Washington wrote to his son Jonathan Trumbull Jr. on October 1, 1785: “My dear Sir:... You know, too well, the sincere respect and regard I entertained for your venerable fathers public and private character, to require assurances of the concern I felt for his death; or of that sympathy in your feelings for the loss of him, which is prompted by friendship. Under this loss however, great as your pangs may have been at the first shock, you have every thing to console you. A long and well spent life in the Service of his Country, placed Govt. Trumbull amongst the first of Patriots. In the social duties he yielded to none. and his Lamp, from the common course of Nature, being nearly extinguished, worn down with age and cares, but retaining his mental faculties in perfection, are blessings which rarely attend advanced life. All these combining, have secured to his memory universal respect and love here, and no doubt immeasurable happiness hereafter.” WGW vol. 28, 10-1-1785. Washington had “no doubt” that the “immeasurable happiness” of the “hereafter” was secured for his respected and loved fellow friend and patriot.

63   Ibid., vol. 35, 3-30-1796. To Tobias Lear.

64   PGW Series 2 Letterbooks Philadelphia United Episcopal Church to George Washington, March 2, 1797 Letterbook 40, Image 290-291 of 307

65   See letters between Washington and the Reformed Church of Kingston. In chapter on “Washington and Prayer.”

66   WGW vol. 29, 2-11-1788 to Benjamin Lincoln.

67   Ibid., vol. 34, 12-16-1795 to Citizens of Frederick County, VA.

68   Ibid., vol. 35, 3-3-1797.

69   PGW 2:179-181.

70   WGW, vol. 30, 6-22-1788. To Reverend John Lathrop.

71   Ibid., vol. 1, 9-6-1756 to Lt. Col. Adam Stephen; vol. 25, 11-16-1782; to ministers of the Reformed Church in Kingston.

72   Ibid., vol. 37, 3-25-1799.

73   Ibid., vol. 29, May 5, 1787.

74   Ibid., vol. 29, 2-25-1787. To Marquis de Lafayette.

75   Rhodehamel, George Washington: Writings, 1050.

76   Hale, Contemplations Moral and Divine, p. 10.

77   Reverend Nathanael Spinkes, The Sick Man Visit ed. (London, 1745), p. 395-96.

78   1662 Book of Common Prayer.

79   George Washington’s will was signed on July 9, 1799. A contemporary copy, made by Albin Rawlins, one of his secretaries, also bears the same date. See, Prussing, The Estate of George Washington, Deceased, (Boston, 1927) pp. 36, 40.

80   Martha Washington was ill during this period. Her illness necessitated visits by Dr. James Craik on September 1st and the 6th. Diaries, 6: 363,366. The text is taken from Lossing, Mary and Martha, p 324-326. Lossing states the letter was sent to a “kinswoman in New Kent,” and that he obtained the text from the letter at Arlington House. The letter seems consistent with the facts.” Joseph E. Fields, A Worthy Partner, pp. 321-22. Lossing’s account of this says:

The long and eventful period of the sweet earthly companionship enjoyed by Martha Washington with her husband was now drawing to a close. At near the end of the year in which the happy wedding occurred at Mount Vernon, the spirit of Washington departed from the earth. The story of that departure is familiar to all my readers, and I will not repeat it here in detail.

For several months before that event Washington appears to have had at times a presentiment of near approaching death. In July he executed his last will and testament. He also prepared, in minute details, a system for the management of his estate, for the guidance of whomsoever might have charge of it. That paper was complete four days before he died, and was accompanied by a letter to his manager, Mr. Lear, giving him special direction, as if the writer was about to depart on a long journey. He seems to have communicated his forebodings to Mrs. Washington, who, early in the autumn, when she was recovering from a severe illness, wrote a kinswoman in Kent:

“At midsummer the General had a dream so deeply impressed on his mind that he could not shake it off for several days. He dreamed that he and I were sitting in the summer-house, conversing upon the happy life we had spent, and looking forward to many more years on the earth, when suddenly there was a great light all around us, and then an almost invisible figure of a sweet angel stood by my side and whispered in my ear. I suddenly turned pale and then began to vanish from his sight and he was left alone. I had just risen from the bed when he awoke and told me his dream saying, ‘You know a contrary result indicated by dreams may be expected. I may soon leave you.’ I tried to drive from his mind the sadness that had taken possession of it, by laughing at the absurdity of being disturbed by an idle dream, which, at the worst, indicated that I would not be taken from him; but I could not, and it was not until after dinner that he recovered any cheerfulness. I found in the library, a few days afterwards, some scraps of paper which showed that he had been writing a Will, and had copied it. When I was so very sick, lately, I thought of this dream, and concluded my time had come, and that I should be taken first.” (Autograph letter at Arlington House, dates “September 18, 1799)

81   WGW, vol. 37, 11-12-1799.

82   An important fact that we must consider is why Washington did not do what his mother and various others of his progenitors had done, namely, place a testimony of trust in Christ in their last will and testament. Washington did not do this. From this some would infer that he was not a Christian, and that it thus stands as a proof of a belief in Deism. And as to his death without the presence of a clergyman, and thus the reception of the Eucharist, we find that this question was raised by Washington’s grandson, George Washington Parke Custis. GWP Custis in Recollections asks the question, “It may be asked, Why was the ministry of religion wanting to shed its peaceful and benign luster upon the last hours of Washington? Why was he, to whom the observances of sacred things were ever primary duties throughout life, without their consolations in his last moments? We answer, circumstances did not permit. It was but for a little while that the disease assumed so threatening a character as to forbid the encouragement of hope; yet, to stay that summons which none may refuse, to give still farther length of days to him whose ‘time-honored life’ was so dear to mankind, prayer was not wanting to the throne of Grace. Close to the couch of the sufferer, resting her head upon that ancient book, with which she had been wont to hold pious communion a portion of every day, for more than a half a century, was the venerable consort, absorbed in silent prayer, and from which she only arose when the mourning group prepared to lead her from the chamber of the dead. Such were the last hours of Washington.” p. 477.

83   Consider here Washington’s approval of Benjamin Stephens’ sermon that was preached at Lord Pepperell’s funeral, that taught that even though great men are called “gods” in the Bible, they are reminded by the Scriptures that will also die like men. Stephens sermon has already been mentioned in chapter two, note 14 and was considered in the chapter on Washington’s Clergy and Sermons.

84   Various examples of Washington’s severe illnesses can be offered: WGW, vol. 2, note 11-5-1757, “Colonel Washington was now laboring under an indisposition, which shortly increased to an alarming illness. He left the army at the pressing request of Doctor Craik, his physician and intimate friend through life, and retired to Mount Vernon, where he was reduced so low by dysentery and fever that it was more than four months before he was able to resume his command. Dinwiddie wrote to Captain Stewart (November 15): “The violent complaint Col. Washington labors under gives me great concern, it was unknown to me or he shou’d have had leave of absence sooner, and I am very glad he did not delay following the Doctrs. advice, to try a change of air. I sincerely wish him a speedy recovery.”
Fields, Worthy Partner p. 224, Footnote 1 offers another example: “About the middle of June, 1789, the President developed a fever, followed by tenderness over the left thigh. Swelling and inflammation soon followed. Dr. Bard and two other consultants were unable to make a diagnosis. Consideration was given to the fact that the President might have contracted anthrax. As the swelling progressed, so did the discomfort until as last he was in excruciating pain. Cherry Street, in front of his home, was roped off to prevent the noisy wagons and carts from disturbing his rest. By the 20th the swelling “pointed” into an abscess or carbuncle. It was lanced and drained, whereupon the fever began to subside. For about three weeks it was difficult for him to move about or sit without discomfort. His condition gradually improved, but still continued to drain during September.”

Washington wrote to Dr. James Craik concerning this malady on September 8, 1789: “Dear Sir: The letter with which you favored me on the 24th ultimo came duly to hand, and for the friendly sentiments contained in it, you have my sincere and hearty thanks. My disorder was of long and painful continuance, and though now freed from the latter, the wound given by the incision is not yet closed. Persuaded as I am that the case has been treated with skill, and with as much tenderness as the nature of the complaint would admit, yet I confess I often wished for your inspection of it. During the paroxysm, the distance rendered this impracticable, and after the paroxysm had passed I had no conception of being confined to a lying posture on one side six weeks, and that I should feel the remains of it more than twelve. The part affected is now reduced to the size of a barley corn, and by Saturday next (which will complete the thirteenth week) I expect it will be skinned over. Upon the whole, I have more reason to be thankful that it is no worse than to repine at the confinement. The want of regular exercise, with the cares of office, will, I have no doubt hasten my departure for that country from whence no Traveller returns; but a faithful discharge of whatsoever trust I accept, as it ever has, so it always will be the primary consideration in every transaction of my life be the consequences what they may. Mrs. Washington has, I think, better health than usual, and the children are well and in the way of improvement.” WGW, vol. 30, 9-8-1789.

Similarly, on May 10, 1790, The President complained of “a bad cold.” The cold increased in severity within the next two days. He then developed symptoms of pneumonia and for the next several days his physical condition rapidly deteriorated. Four physicians were called into attendance. They despaired of his life, and it became widely known throughout the city that he was dangerously ill, that he might not survive. On the morning of May 15th his breathing became labored. Those nearest him felt the end was near. Suddenly about 4:00 P.M. his fever suddenly dropped and he developed profuse perspiration. His condition improved rapidly and by the 20th of May he was considered out of danger. His convalescence continued for a period of six weeks.” Fields, Worthy Partner, pp. 226-27 note 1.

85   We considered several instances of Washington’s exposure to danger and death as a military officer in the chapter on Washington the soldier.

86   Letters & Recollections of George Washington, Being letters to Tobais Lear and others...With a diary of Washington’s last days, kept by Mr. Lear. (Garden City, New York: Doubleday, Doran & Company, Inc., 1932), pp. 129-141.

87   See G.W.P. Custis, Recollections and Private Memoirs of Washington, p. 477.

88   Letters & Recollections of George Washington, Being letters to Tobais Lear and others...With a diary of Washington’s last days, kept by Mr. Lear. (Garden City, New York: Doubleday, Doran & Company, Inc., 1932), p. 135.

89   Letters & Recollections of George Washington, p. 141.

90   This account of Washington’s death helps to explain why he did not call for a clergyman and did not receive the Sacrament. It is true that there were no clergy present. But one of Washington’s closest lifelong friends was present, namely, Dr. James Craik. Dr. Craik was a devout Scotch-Irish Presbyterian who was later buried in the Presbyterian Church yard in Alexandria. Dr. Craik’s assessment of Washington’s last day of life is significant. Dr. Craik’s simple description of Washington’s death says, “During the short period of his illness, he oeconomised his time, in the arrangement of such few concerns as required his attention, with the utmost serenity; and anticipated his approaching dissolution with every demonstration of that equanimity for which his whole life has been so uniformly and singularly conspicuous.” Dr. Craik who had known Washington throughout his adult life saw no change in his dying moments from his whole life. What was the secret of Washington’s “equanimity” or calmness? Craik knew, as we saw in the chapter on “Washington the Soldier,” that Washington possessed an unwavering trust in divine providence. As Washington was dying, Martha Washington was praying with her Bible open at the foot of the bed. It is true that there were no Christian rituals offering the solace of everlasting life.... There are two reasons for this. It should be remembered that Washington’s illness only lasted a short 24 hours. Washington’s illness was a swollen throat that was so severe that he could not swallow, and eventually could not even breathe. The point here is that even if Washington could have swallowed, as a Low Churchman in the Virginian tradition, he would not have sought the Eucharist on his sickbed. But perhaps most importantly, he was not afraid to die, and was ready to die. Ibid.

91   Fields, Worthy Partner, p. 265.

92   Ibid., p. 368.

93   Ibid., Worthy Partner p. 364.

94   WGW, vol. 34, 12-16-1795 To THE CITIZENS OF FREDERICK COUNTY, VIRGINIA “Next to the approbation of my own mind, arising from a consciousness of having uniformly, diligently and sincerely aimed, by doing my duty, to promote the true interests of my country, the approbation of my fellow citizens is dear to my heart. In a free country, such approbation should be a citizen’s best reward; and so it would be, if Truth and Candour were always to estimate the conduct of public men. But the reverse is so often the case, that he who, wishing to serve his country, is not influenced by higher motives, runs the risk of being miserably disappointed. Under such discouragements, the good citizen will look beyond the applauses and reproaches of men, and persevering in his duty, stand firm in conscious rectitude, and in the hope of [an] approving Heaven.”

95   Consider here the exchange between Washington, the Earl of Buchan and Martha Washington. To EARL OF BUCHAN Philadelphia, May 26, 1794.
“My Lord: It is no uncommon thing to attempt, by excuses, to atone for acts of omission; and frequently too at the expense of as much time as (seasonable employed) would have superceded the occasion of their presentment. Sensible as I am of this, and ashamed as I am of resorting to an apology so common; yet I feel so forcibly the necessity of making one for suffering your Lordship’s very polite and obliging favor of the 30 of last June, to remain so long unacknowledged, that I cannot avoid falling into the error I am reprobating.

“The truth is, the malignant fever which raged in this City during the months of August, September and October of last year (of which at least 5,000 of its inhabitants were swept off) occasioned my retreat therefrom on the 10th of September, and prevented my returning until sometime in November; between which and the meeting of Congress (the first Monday in December) I had hardly time to prepare for the session. The session has been long and interesting, and is not yet closed. Little leisure therefore have I had, during the period of its continuance, for the indulgence of private correspondences.

“I did however, from Germantown in the early part of November, give your lordship the trouble of receiving a few lines from me introductory of my friend Mr. Lear; and am exceedingly flattered by the polite attention with which he was honored, on my account, by your Lordship and the Countess of Buchan. He speaks of it (in a letter I have lately received from him in London) in the highest terms of respect and gratitude.

“The sentiments which are expressed in your lordship’s letter of the 30th of June, do honor to the goodness of your heart, and ought to be engraved on every man’s heart. And if, instead of the provocations to war, bloodshed and desolation, (oftentimes unjustly given) the strife of nations, and of individuals, was to excel each other in acts of philanthropy, industry and oeconomy; in encouraging useful arts and manufactures, promoting thereby the comfort and happiness of our fellow men, and in exchanging on liberal terms the products of one Country and clime, for those of another, how much happier would mankind be.

“But providence, for purposes beyond the reach of mortal scan, has suffered the restless and malignant passions of man, the ambitious and sordid views of those who direct them, to keep the affairs of this world in a continual state of disquietude; and will, it is to be feared, place the prospects of peace too far off, and the promised millenium at an awful distance from our day. Whether you have, upon any occasion, expressed yourself in disrespectful terms of me, I know not: it has never been the subject of my enquiry. If nothing impeaching my honor, or honesty, is said, I care little for the rest. I have pursued one uniform course for three score years, and am happy in believing that the world have thought it a right one: of it’s being so, I am so well satisfied myself, that I shall not depart from it by turning either to the right or to the left, until I arrive at the end of my pilgrimage. I am etc.” WGW, vol. 33, 5-26-1794. After Washington’s death, the Earl of Buchan wrote the following to Martha Washington,
The Earl of Buchan to Mrs. Washington Dryburgh Abbey, Jan, 28, 1800.
Madam:

“I have this day received from my brother, at London, the afflicting tidings of the death of your admirable husband, my revered kinsman and friend. I am not afraid, even under this sudden and unexpected stroke of Divine Providence, to give vent to the immediate reflections excited by it, because my attachment to your illustrious consort was the pure result of reason, reflection, and congeniality of sentiment. He was one of those whom the Almighty, in successive ages, has chosen and raised up to promote the ultimate designs of his goodness and mercy, in the gradual melioration of his creatures and the coming of his kingdom, which is in heaven.

“It may be said of this great and good man who has been taken from among us, what was written by the wise and discerning Tacitus concerning his father-in-law Agricola, that, “though he was snatched away while his age was not broken by infirmity or dimmed by bodily decay of reason, yet that, if his life be measured by his glory, he attained to a mighty length of days; for every true felicity, namely, all such as arise from virtue, he had already enjoyed to the full. As he has likewise held the supreme authority of the state with the confidence and applause of all wise and good men in every part of the world, as well as among those he governed, and had enjoyed triumphal honors in a way undertaken for the defense of the inalienable rights of mankind, what more humanly speaking, could fortune add to his luster and renown?

“After enormous wealth he sought not; a honorable share he possessed. His course he finished in the peaceful retreat of his own election, in the arms of a dutiful and affectionate wife, and bedewed with the tears of surrounding relatives and friends, with the unspeakably superior advantage to that of a Roman general, in the hopes afforded by the Gospel of pardon and peace! He therefore, Madam, to continue my parallel, may be accounted singularly happy, since by dying according to his own Christian and humble wish expressed on many occasions, while his credit was nowise impaired, his fame in all it splendor, his relations and friends not only in a state of comfort and security, but of honor, he was probably to escape many evils incident to declining years. Moreover, he saw the government of his country in hands conformable to our joint wishes and to the safety of the nation, and a contingent succession opening, not less favorable to the liberties and happiness of the people.

“Considering my uniform regard for the American States, manifested long before their forming a separate nation, I may be classed as it were among their citizens, especially as I am come of a worthy ancestor, Lord Cardross, who found refuge there in the last century, and had large property in Carolina, where Port Royal is now situated. I hope it will not be thought impertinent or officious, if I recommend to that country and nation of America at large the constant remembrance of the moral and political maxims conveyed to its citizens by the Father and Founder of the United States, in his farewell address, in that speech which he made to the Senate and House of Representatives, where the last hand was put to the formation of the Federal Constitution; and may it be perpetual.

“It seems to me that such maxims and such advice ought to be engraved on every forum or place of common assembly among the people, and read by parents, teachers, and guardians to their children and pupils, so that true religion, and virtue, its inseparable attendant, may be imbibed by the rising generation to remote ages; and the foundations of national policy be laid and continued in the superstructure, in the pure and immutable principles of private morality, since there is not truth more thoroughly established than that there exists in the economy and course of nature an indissoluble union between virtue and happiness, between duty and happiness, between duty and advantage, between the genuine maxims of an honest and magnanimous people, and the solid rewards of public prosperity and felicity; since we ought to be no less persuaded that the propitious smiles of heaven can never be expected on a nation that disregards the eternal rules of order and right which Heaven itself has ordained; and since the preservation of the sacred fire of liberty and the destiny of the Republican model of government are justly considered as deeply, perhaps finally, staked on the experiment entrusted to the hands of the American people....I am, Madam, with sincere esteem, Your obedient and faithful servant Buchan.”
In Margaret Conkling, Memoirs of the Mother and Wife of George Washington (Auburn: Derby, Miller and Company, 1851), pp. 241-245.

96   Ibid.

97   Fields, Worthy Partner, p. 355.

98   Ibid., p. 389.

99   Ibid., Worthy Partner pg. 331 From Jonathon Trumbull Lebanon, Dec. 30, 1799.

100 WGW, vol. 28, 10-1-1785.

101 Fields, Worthy Partner, p. 339.

102 Washington’s commitment to immortality is absolutely necessary to make sense of his dialogue in the following exchange. The Hebrew Congregation of Newport Rhode Island believed in immortality, and expected that Washington did as well, as their blessing sent to him indicates,

For all the blessings of civil and religious liberty which we enjoy under an equal and benign administration, we desire to send up our thanks to the antient of days, the great preserver of men beseeching him that the angel who conducted our forefathers through the wilderness into the promised land may graciously conduct you through all the dangers and difficulties of this mortal life and when like Joshua full of days, and full of honor, you are gathered to your fathers, may you be admitted into the heavenly paradise to partake of the water of life and the tree of immortality.
Done and signed by order of the Hebrew Congregation in Newport Rhode Island, August 8, 1789. (PGW: Series 2 Letterbooks, Newport, Rhode Island, Hebrew Congregation to George Washington, August 17, 1790 Letterbook 39, images 19-20 of 222.) In light of the remarkable letter and blessing, Washington responded:
May the children of the stock of Abraham who dwell in this land continue to merit and enjoy the goodwill of the other inhabitants while every one shall sit in safety under his own vine and fig tree and there shall be none to make him afraid.

May the father of all mercies scatter light and not darkness in our paths, and make us all in our several vocations useful here and in his own due time and way everlastingly happy. (PGW: Series 2 Letterbooks George Washington to Newport, Rhode Island, Hebrew Congregation, August 17, 1790 Letterbook 39, Image 22 of 222.)

Washington clearly expressed a belief in everlasting life by the mercies of God’s grace.

CHAPTER 35

1     PGW, Retirement Series, July 3, 1799, to Mason Locke Weems, Last Volume, pp. 173-74.

2     Weems. The Life of Washington. Ed. Marcus Cunliffe. Cambridge, Mass.: Belknap Press of Harvard University Press, 1962.

3     The account of the cherry tree was not included in Life and Memorable Actions of George Washington until the ninth edition in 1809.

4     Weems, The Life of Washington p. 22.n.1.

5     Ibid., pp. 7, 21

6     Ibid., p. 21.

7     Fitzpatrick, The Diaries of George Washington, vol. II., pp. 80, 81, 88, 89.

8     Ibid., I. 150, 352.

9     Weems, The Life of Washington, p. 9.

10   On the title page in the Cunliffe reprint.

11   Henry Cabot Lodge, George Washington (New Rochelle: Arlington House, 1898) p. 41, 48. Lodge continues his excoriation of Weems: “There has been in reality a good deal of needless confusion about Weems and his book, for he was not a complex character, and neither he nor his writings are difficult to value or understand. By profession a clergyman or preacher, by nature an adventurer, Weems loved notoriety, money, and a wandering life. So he wrote books which he correctly believed would be popular, and sold them not only through the regular channels, but by peddling them himself as he traveled about the country. In this way he gratified all his propensities, and no doubt derived from life a good deal of simple pleasure. Chance brought him near Washington in the closing days, and his commercial instinct told him that here was the subject of all others for his pen and his market. He accordingly produced the biography which had so much success. Judged solely as literature, the book is beneath contempt. The style is turgid, overloaded, and at times silly. The statements are loose, the mode of narration confused and incoherent, and the moralizing is flat and commonplace to the last degree. Yet there was a certain sincerity of feeling underneath all the bombast and platitudes, and this saved the book. The biography did not go, and was not intended to go, into the hands of the polite society of the great eastern towns. It was meant for the farmers, the pioneers, and the backwoodsmen of the country. It went into their homes, and passed with them beyond the Alleghenies and out to the plains and valleys of the great West. The very defects of the book helped it to success among the simple, hard-working, hard-fighting race engaged in the conquest of the American continent. To them its heavy and tawdry style, its staring morals, and its real patriotism all seemed eminently befitting the national hero and thus Weems created the Washington of the popular fancy. The idea grew up with the country, and became so ingrained in the popular thought that finally everybody was affected by it and even the most stately and solemn of the Washington biographers adopted the unsupported tales of the itinerant parson and book-peddler.

In regard to the public life of Washington, Weems took the facts known to every one, and drawn for the most part from the gazettes. He then dressed them up in his own peculiar fashion and gave them to the world. All this, forming of course nine tenths of his book, has passed despite its success, into oblivion. The remaining tenth described Washington’s boyhood until his fourteenth or fifteenth year, and this, which is the work of the author’s imagination, has lived. Weems, having set himself up as absolutely the only authority as to this period, has been implicitly followed, and has thus come to demand serious consideration. Until Weems is weighed and disposed of, we cannot even begin an attempt to get at the real Washington.

Weems was not a cold-blooded liar, a mere forger of anecdotes, He was simply a man destitute of historical sense, training, or morals, ready to take the slenderest fact and work it up for the purpose of the market until it became almost as impossible to reduce it to its original dimensions as it was for the fisherman to get the Afrit back into his jar. In a word, Weems was an approved myth-maker. No better example can be given than the way in which he described himself. It is believed that he preached once, and possibly oftener, to a congregation which numbered Washington among its members. Thereupon he published himself in his book as the rector of Mount Vernon parish. There was, to begin with, no such parish. There was Truro parish, in which was a church called indifferently Pohick or Mount Vernon Church. Of this church Washington was a vestryman until 1785, when he joined the church as Alexandria. The Reverend Lee Massey was the clergyman of the Mount Vernon church, and the church at Alexandria had nothing to do with Mount Vernon. There never was, moreover, such a person as the rector of Mount Vernon parish, but it was the Weems way of treating his appearance before the great man, and of deceiving the world with the notion of an intimacy which the title implied.

Weems, of course, had no difficulty with the public life, but in describing the boyhood he was thrown on his own resources, and out of them he evolved the cherry-tree, the refusal to fight or permit fighting among the boys at school, and the initials in the garden. This last story is to the effect that Augustine Washington planted seeds in such a manner that when they sprouted they formed on the earth the initials of his son’s name, and the boy being much delighted thereby, the father explained to him that it was the work of the Creator, and thus inculcated a profound belief in God. This tale is taken bodily from Dr. Beattie’s biographical sketch of his son, published in England in 1799, and may be dismissed at once. As to the other two more familiar anecdotes there is not a scintilla of evidence that they had any foundation and with them may be included the colt story, told by Mr. Custis, a simple variation of the cherry-tree theme, which is Washington’s early love of truth. Weems says that his stories were told him by a lady, and “a good old gentleman,” who remembered the incidents, while Mr. Custis gives no authority for his minute account of a trivial event over a century old when he wrote. To a writer who invented the rector of Mount Vernon, the further invention of a couple of Boswells would be a trifle. I say Boswells advisedly, for these stories are told with the utmost minuteness, and the conversations between Washington and his father are given as if from a stenographic report. How Mr. Custis, usually so accurate, came to be so far infected with the Weems myth as to tell the colt story after the Weems manner, cannot now be determined. There can be no doubt that Washington, like most healthy boys, got into a good deal of mischief, and it is not at all impossible that he injured fruit-trees and confessed that he had done so. It may be accepted as certain that he rode and mastered many unbroken thoroughbred colts, and it is possible that one of them burst a blood-vessel in the process and died, and that the boy promptly told his mother of the accident. But this is the utmost credit which these two anecdotes can claim. Even so much as this cannot be said of certain other improving tales of like nature. That Washington lectured his playmates on the wickedness of fighting, and in the year 1754 allowed himself to be knocked down in the presence of his soldiers, and thereupon begged his assailant’s pardon for having spoken roughly to him, are stories so silly and so foolishly impossible that they do not deserve an instant’s consideration.

There is nothing intrinsically impossible in either the cherry-tree or the colt incident, nor would there be in a hundred others which might be readily invented. The real point is that these stories, as told by Weems and Mr. Custis, are on their face hopelessly and ridiculously false. They are so, not merely because they have no vestige of evidence to support them, but because they are in every word and line the offspring of a period more than fifty years later. No English-speaking people, certainly no Virginians, ever thought or behaved or talked in 1740 like the personages in Weems’s stories, whatever they may have done in 1790, or at the beginning of the next century. These precise anecdotes belong to the age of Miss Edgeworth and Hannah More and Jane Taylor. They are engaging specimens of the “Harry and Lucy” and “Purple Jar” morality, and accurately reflect the pale didacticism which became fashionable in England at the close of the last century. They are as untrue to nature and to fact at the period to which they are assigned as would be efforts to depict Augustine Washington and his wife in the dress of the French revolution discussing the propriety of worshiping the Goddess of Reason.” Pp. 41-48.

12   PGW Diaries, vol. 5, p. 112.

13   Slaughter, The History of Truro Parish, pp. 101-02.

14   Ibid.

15   See www.loper.org/~george/archives/2000/Feb/39.html “George Washington’s Birthday: Mason Locke Weems and the Cherry Tree Legend,” Mason Weems (1760 - 1825). Clergyman, author, bookseller (Excerpts taken from “Footnote People in U.S. History”, People’s Almanac, David Wallechinsky, N.Y: Doubleday & Co, pp. 113-114).

16   GWP Diaries, 5:112. The note there directs to: 6 July 1792, PHi: Gratz Collection.

17   Fitzpatrick, The Diaries of George Washington, vol. III. p. 174.

18   Ibid. p. 112.

19   This volume was written by Hugh Blair, D.D., a minister of the “High Church” and a professor at the University of Edinburgh. It was originally published in London, but “Re-printed for the Reverend M. L. Weems” in Baltimore in 1792 by “Samuel and John Adams, Book-Printers, in Market-Street, between South and Gay-Streets.”

20   George Washington Papers at the Library of Congress, 1741-1799: Series 4. General Correspondence. 1697-1799 Mason L. Weems to George Washington, 1795, Image 745.

21   Washington had been included in the estate of Dr. Wilson, Prebendary of Westminster & Rector of S. Stephens Walbrook in London. He was Bishop Thomas Wilson’s son. The son of the Bishop also bequeathed his father’s study Bible as well as his father’s works to Washington. These were sent to Washington by Clement Cruttwell, the famous compiler of the Biblical Concordance that bears his name. (See Lane, Catalogue of the Washington Collection, pp. 63, 498, 501-02.) Washington in turn, in his own will, passed the Bible on to his dear friend, the Reverend Bryan Fairfax: “To the Reverend, now Bryan, Lord Fairfax, I give a Bible in three large folio volumes, with notes, presented to me by the Right reverend Thomas Wilson, Bishop of Sodor and Man.” [Actually it was the Bishop’s son who bequeathed them to Washington.]

22   Washington was interested in the subject of the evidences of Christianity. In Washington’s cash accounts, dated Sept. 12, 1787, we discover that he purchased Evidences of the Christian Religion Briefly and Plainly Stated (London, 1786) by James Beattie. See Lane, A Catalogue of the Washington Collection in the Boston Athenaeum, Boston: 1897, p. 502. The book was a great success: An 1804 publisher wrote, “Of the Evidences of Christianity, an Edition is generally sold every 12 to 18 months.” from the “Introduction” to the 1996 Routledge/Thoemmes Press reprint, p. xiv. The simple structure of Beattie’s work is, “Revelation is useful and necessary,” “The Gospel History is true,” and “Objections answered.”

23   The letter states: His Excellency Genl. Washington, Very Honored Sir: I was the other day in Norfolk where a very particular friend of mine Capt. James Tucker, a man of merit and money, begged me to ask a favor of you which we both concluded your goodness would readily grant. Capt. Tucker is a wealthy merchant of Norfolk, largely in the importing line. He has lately been applied to for a quantity of merchandise on credit by a gentleman who calls himself Major James Welch and who says moreover that he is the man who purchased your Excellency’s western lands of which a post says you sold so much some time ago. Capt. Tucker wishes to know whether a Major Welch did purchase your Excellency’s lands or a part of them, and whether he met your Excellency’s expectations in the way of payment. If your Excellency will condescend to honor me with a line on this subject it will be very gratefully acknowledged both by Capt. Tucker and your Excellency’s most obliged M. L. Weems.” See under March 26, 1799 in George Washington Papers at the Library of Congress.

24   Washington answered from Mount Vernon, “Sir: Your letter of the 26th instt came duly to hand. In answer thereto, I inform you that, my sale to Mr. James Welch, of the Lands I hold upon the Great Kanhawa, is conditional only. He has a Lease of them at a certain annual Rent, which if punctually paid, for Six years, and at the end thereof shall pay one fourth of the sum fixed on as the value of them; and the like sum by Instalments the three following years, and this without any let or hindrance that then, and in that case only, I am to convey them in Fee simple, not else. This is the nature of the agreemt. between Mr. Welch and Sir Your etc. PS. It may not be amiss to add that the first years Rent (due in Jan. last) is not yet paid.” See under on March 31, 1799, in George Washington Papers at the Library of Congress.

25   WGW, vol. 37, 8-29-1799.

26   Weems, The Immortal Mentor; or Man’s Unerring Guide to a Healthy, Wealthy and Happy Life. In Three Parts. By Lewis Cornaro, Dr. Franklin, and Dr. Scott. Philadelphia: Printed for the Reverend Mason L. Weems, by Francis and Robert Bailey, no. 116 High-Street, 1796.

27   This letter is not found in the Writings of George Washington, but it is in The Papers of George Washington, Retirement Series, July 3, 1799, to Mason Locke Weems, Last Volume, pp. 173-74.

28   Washington was careful to thank people when they dedicated their works to him. See for example WGW vol. 35, 1-21-1797 to Richard Peters; Ibid., vol. 36, 2-6-1798, to the Secretary of state; Ibid., vol. 36, 8-15-1798, to Reverend Jonathan Boucher. But he usually did not give permission to those who requested his permission to dedicate their works to him. See Ibid., vol. 28, 6-20-1786, to Nicholas Pike; Ibid., vol. 36, 7-4-1798, to Ferdinand Fairfax; Ibid., vol. 36, 10-14-1798, to Reverend Samuel Knox; and Ibid., vol. 29, 1-9-1787, to Dr. John Leigh. An example of an exception to this was for Reverend Timtothy Dwight, Jr., see Ibid., vol. 11, 3-18-1778.

Similarly, compare here his general unwillingness to give endorsements. See, for example, his silence with respect to Uzal Odgen’s request for an endorsement (Lane, Washington Collection, Boston Athenaeum, p. 154-155); His approbation (or approval of a work) was a high honor and rarely given. Examples include Reverend Jedidiah Morse, WGW, vol. 37, 2-18-1799; Nicholas Pike, Ibid., vol. 30, 6-20-1788; and Reverend Benjamin Stevens, Ibid., vol. 30, 12-23-1789. This makes Washington’s support for Weems’ work most exceptional.

29   For Washington’s consistent use of the word “peruse” or “perusal” in its sense of “examining with great care” or “to read intensively”, see WGW, vol. 1, 11-26-1753, Speech to Indians at Logstown; WGW, vol. 14, 4-14-1779, to John Jay; WGW, vol. 29, 9-30-1786, to Bushrod Washington; WGW, vol. 32, 6-20-1792, to Dr. James Anderson; WGW, vol.. 37, 4-23-1799, to the Secretary of War. For a clear example of this, consider Washington’s letter to Mercy Warren, WGW, 31, 11-4-1790, “Madam: My engagements, since the receipt of your letter of the 12th of September, with which I was honored two days ago, have prevented an attentive perusal of the book that accompanied it, but from the reputation of its author, from the parts I have read, and a general idea of the pieces, I am persuaded of its gracious and distinguished reception by the friends of virtue and science.”

30   Dr. Thomas Scott (1747-1821) was an Anglican clergyman and well-known biblical scholar from England. His conversion from Unitarianism to Calvinism was recorded in The Force of Truth (1779). His most notable work was a many times reissued commentary on the Bible in 4 volumes (1788-1792). He was also author of a work against Thomas Paine entitled A vindication of the Divine inspiration of the Holy Scriptures, and of the doctrines contained in them: being an answer to the two parts of Mr. T. Paine’s Age of Reason. By Thomas Scott, Chaplain to the Lock Hospital. ]([New York] London, printed: New-York, reprinted by G. Forman, for C. Davis, book-seller, no. 94, Water-Street., —1797.—)

31   Weems, The Immortal Mentor, pp. 57-60.

32   Ibid., p. 116.

33   Ibid., p. 123-24.

34   Ibid.

35   Ibid., p. 130.

36   Ibid., pp. 133-34.

37   Ibid., pp. 150-51.

38   Ibid., p. 151.

39   Ibid., pp. 172-175.

40   Ibid., pp. 177-79.

41   Ibid., pp. 232-233.

42   Ibid., pp. 312-13.

43   WGW, vol. 30, 6-22-1788. To Reverend John Lathrop.

CHAPTER 36: CONCLUSION

1     WGW, vol. 30, First Inaugural Address.

2     Journals of the Continental Congress, 1774.

3     Weems, Life of Washington, first edition, 1880.

4     Paul Johnson, A History of the American People (Great Britain: Weidenfield & Nicolson, 1997).

5     Author Peter Marshall notes: “But the sad truth, today, is that this lie about the founding fathers all being a bunch of Deists is taught by the secularist professors in our universities and colleges, who don’t do much original research. I think a lot of them don’t want to be disturbed by the reality of this situation to find out they’ve been teaching wrong. They simply repeat each other’s lies, and this has become, sort of, a common sense, “Well, of course,” idea in modern America and it’s flatly untrue.” Peter Marshall in D. James Kennedy, One Nation Under God (Ft. Lauderdale: Coral Ridge Ministries, 2005), a video.

6     John Rhodehamel, ed., George Washington: Writings (New York: The Library of America, 1997), 279.

7     WGW, vol. 5, 7-9-1776, General Orders.

8     Benson J. Lossing, The Pictorial Field-Book of the Revolution (1886), vol. II, p. 140.

9     Rhodehamel, George Washington: Writings, p. 526

10   Ibid., p. 34.

11   Ibid., p. 33.

12   Johnson, George Washington The Christian, pp. 251-252.

13   WGW vol. 27, 12-1-1783.

14   Johnson, Geroge Washington The Christian, p.255.

15   Sparks, The Writings of George Washington, vol. XII, pp. 405-407. See Eidsmoe, Christianity and the Constitution, p. 140-141. “Did Washington embrace Christianity? His adopted daughter thought so. Nelly Custis was Martha Washington’s granddaughter, and when Nelly’s father died, George and Martha Washington adopted her and she lived in their home for twenty years. In 1833 she wrote to the historian Jared Sparks, expressing indignation that anyone would question Washington’s Christianity.”

16   WGW, vol. 1, 4-2-1747/48. (there is some question as to whether this was written in 1747 or 1748.)

17   Ibid., vol. 26, 6-8-1783. Circular to the States.

18   Ibid., vol. 27, 6-15-1783. To John Augustine Washington.

19   Ibid., vol. 30, 1-8-1790. First Annual Address to Congress.

20   Ibid., vol. 27, 1-22-1784. To Charles Thompson.

21   Ibid., vol. 3, 7-18-1775, To Governor Jonathan Trumbull.

APPENDIX 1

1     Frank E. Grizzard, George Washington: A Biographical Companion (Santa Barbara: ABC-CLIO, Inc. 2002) pp 361-365; For a contemporary take, see :George Washington, Georgeisms (New York: Atheneum Books for young Readers, 2000)

APPENDIX 4

1     Hughes, George Washington The Human Being & The Hero pp. 552-559.

2     As found in:
W. Herbert Burk, B.D., Washington’s Prayers. Norristown: Washington Memorial Chapel, 1907. John Eidsmoe, Christianity and the Constitution;. William J. Federer, America’s God and Country Encyclopedia of Quotations. Coppell: FAME Publishing, Inc., 1994, pp. 656-659.

3     Hughes, George Washington The Human Being & The Hero, pp. 555ff.

4     Ibid.

5     Ibid.

6     Ibid

7     Ibid.

APPENDIX 5

1     Dr. Donald S. Lutzin D. James Kennedy, One Nation Under God (Ft. Lauderdale: Coral Ridge Ministries-TV, 2005), a video.

2     WGW, vol. 33, 8-29-1793. See Lane, Washington Collection, Boston Athenaeum, p. 142.

3     WGW, vol. 29, 2-23-1787. Lane, Washington Collection, Boston Athenaeum, p. 194.

4     See WGW, vol. 30, 7-6-1789. It is unclear which of Ogden’s Sermons this may have been from the evidence available here. See Lane, Washington Collection, Boston Athenaeum, p. 153-54.

5     See WGW, vol. 34, 4-14-1795. See Lane, Washington Collection, Boston Athenaeum, p. 195-196.

6     See WGW, vol. 36, 6-15-1798. See Lane, Washington Collection, Boston Athenaeum, p. 20-21.

7     See Lane, Washington Collection, Boston Athenaeum, p. 500.

8     WGW, vol. 32, 10-20-1792. To Dr. William Davies Shipley.

9     See Lane, Washington Collection, Boston Athenaeum, p. 70.

10   See Lane, Washington Collection, Boston Athenaeum, p. 226.

11   WGW, vol. 31, 3-28-1791.

12   Lane, Washington Collection, Boston Athenaeum, p. 118-119. See WGW vol. 30, 9-28-1789.

13   Ibid., p. 146-147. See WGW, vol. 37, 5-26-1799.

14   Ibid., p. 226. See WGW, vol. 37, 5-30-1799.

15   Ibid., p. 25.

16   Ibid., p. 195.

17   Ibid., p. 86-87.

18   Ibid., p. 184. See also WGW, vol. 35, 7-23-1797. To George Washington Parke Custis. “Dear Washington: Your letter of the 14th instant has been duly received, and gives us pleasure to hear that you enjoy good health, and are progressing well in your studies. Far be it from me to discourage your correspondence with Dr. Stuart, Mr. Law, or Mr. Lewis [Zechariah Lewis], or indeed with any others, as well-disposed and capable as I believe they are to give you speciments of correct writing, proper subjects, and if it were necessary, good advice. With respect to your epistolary amusements generally, I had nothing further in view than not to let them interfere with your studies, which were of more interesting concern; and with regard to Mr. Z. Lewis, I only meant that no suggestions of his, if he had proceeded to give them, were to be interposed to the course pointed out by Dr. Smith, or suffered to weaken your confidence therein. Mr. Lewis was educated at Yale college, and as is natural, may be prejudiced in favor of the mode pursued at that seminary; but no college has turned out better scholars, or more estimable characters, than Nassau. Nor is there any one whose president is thought more capable to direct a proper system of education than Dr. Smith; for which reason, Mr. Lewis, or any other, was to prescribe a different course from the one you are engaged in by the direction of Dr. Smith, it would give me concern. Upon the plan you propose to conduct your correspondence, none of the evils I was fearful of can happen, while advantages may result; for composition, like other things, is made more perfect by practice and attention, and just criticism thereon.”

19   Lane, Washington Collection, Boston Athenaeum, p. 142.

20   Ibid., p. 154.

21   Ibid., p. 16.

22   Philadelphia: Printed by James Chattin., 1755.

23   Israel Evans. A discourse, delivered, on the 18th day of December, 1777, the day of public thanksgiving, appointed by the Honourable Continental Congress, by the Reverend Israel Evans, A.M. Chaplain to General Poor’s brigade. And now published at the request of the general and officers of the said brigade, to be distributed among the soldiers, gratis (Lancaster [Pa.]: Printed by Francis Bailey., M,DCC,LXXVIII. [1778]).

24   WGW, vol. 11, 3-13-1778.

25   Printed by Shepard Kollock, at his office in Chatham., [1779]

26   WGW, vol. 16, 8-5-1779.

27   printed by JJohn Colerick, 1798.

28   Lane, Washington Collection, Boston Athenaeum, p. 3; WGW, vol. 36, 6-3-1798.

29   Ibid., p. 126.

30   Ibid., p. 146.

31   WGW, vol. 37, 2-28-1799

32   Lane, Washington Collection, Boston Athenaeum, p. 226-227.

33   WGW, vol. 10, 12-20-1777.

34   WGW, vol. 37, 8-29-1799.

35   This letter is not found in the Writings of George Washington, but it is in The Papers of George Washington, ed. Dorothy Twohig (University of Virginia), Retirement Series, July 3, 1799, to Mason Locke Weems, Last Volume, pp. 173-74.

36   Lane, Washington Collection, Boston Athenaeum, p. 193; WGW, vol. 30, 12-23-1789.

37   By Isaac Lewis, D. D. Pastor of a Church in Greenwich. Hartford: Printed by Hudson & Goodwin. 1797. ELECTION SERMON “The Political Advantages of Godliness.” By Isaac Lewis, D. D. Pastor of a Church in Greenwich. Hartford: Printed by Hudson & Goodwin. 1797. At a General Assembly of the State of Connecticut, holden at Hartford on the second Thursday of May, Anno Domini 1797.

38   See WGW, vol. 36, 8-14-1797. These sermons are not in Lane, Washington Collection, Boston Athenaeum.

39   Lane, Washington Collection, Boston Athenaeum, p. 119.

40   WGW, vol. 29, 2-22-1788;

41   Ibid., vol. 30, 6-22-1788.

42   WGW, vol. 16, 9-8-1779. Note: The eulogium was “An Eulogium of the brave men who have fallen in the contest with Great Britain,” delivered July 5, 1779, in the German Calvinist Church in Philadelphia. A copy is in the Library of Congress. See Lane, Washington Collection, Boston Athenaeum, p. 192.

43   WGW, vol. 37, 11-6-1781. To Jonathan Trumbull, Jr. See The Works & Life of Laurence Sterne, 2 Volumes (New York: J. F. Taylor and Co., 1904). Sterne’s collection of sermons was also in Washington’s library. See Lane, Catalogue of the Washington Collection, p. 192.

44   Boston: Printed by Samuel Hall, in School-Street., 177., Lane, Washington Collection, Boston Athenaeum p. 118.

45   By Isaac Lewis, D. D. Pastor of a Church in Greenwich. Hartford: Printed by Hudson & Goodwin. 1797. ELECTION SERMON “The Political Advantages of Godliness.” By Isaac Lewis, D. D. Pastor of a Church in Greenwich. Hartford: Printed by Hudson & Goodwin. 1797. At a General Assembly of the State of Connecticut, holden at Hartford on the second Thursday of May, Anno Domini 1797.

46   See WGW, vol. 36, 8-14-1797. These sermons are not in Lane, Washington Collection, Boston Athenaeum

47   Lane, Washington Collection, Boston Athenaeum, p. 71.

48   Abiel Leonard, A prayer, composed for the benefit of the soldiery, in the American army, to assist them in their private devotions; and recommended to their particular use. By Abiel Leonard, A.M. Chaplain to General Putnam’s regiment, in said army.,(Cambridge [Mass.]: Printed and sold by S. & E. Hall., 1775).

49   Lane, Washington Collection, Boston Athenaeum, p. 75.

50   Philadelphia: Printed by James Chattin., 1755

51   Philadelphia. Printed and sold by James Humphreys, Junior, the corner of Black-Horse Alley, Front-Street., M,DCC,LXXV. [1775], Lane, Washington Collection, Boston Athenaeum, p. 70

52   Philadelphia: Printed by Ormrod & Conrad, at the Old Franklin’s Head, no. 41, Chesnut-Street., March, 2d. 1795. Lane, Washington Collection, Boston Athenaeum, p. 226.

53   Philadelphia: Printed by John Ormrod, no. 41, Chesnut-Street,, 1799., Lane, Washington Collection, Boston Athenaeum, p. 226.

54   Chatham, N.J. Printed by Shepard Kollock, at his office in Chatham., [1779]

55   Boston: Printed by Edes and Gill, in Queen-Street,, M,DCC,LIX. [1759], Lane, Washington Collection, Boston Athenaeum p. 193.

56   Philadelphia: Printed by William Young, bookseller, no. 52, Second-Street, corner of Chesnut-Street., M,DCC,XCV. [1795]

57   New-York— Printed by Thomas Greenleaf., [1793]

58   See Lane, Washington Collection, Boston Athenaeum, p. 154.

59   Robert Davidson, D.D., A Sermon, on the Freedom and Happiness of the United Sates of America, preached in Carlisle, on the 5th Oct. 1794. And published at the request of the Officers of the Philadelphia and Lancaster Troops of Light Horse. By Robert Davidson, D.D. Pastor of the Presbyterian Church in Carlisle, and One of the Professors in Dickinson College. (Philadelphia: printed by Samuel H. Smith for Robert Campbell. 1794), 29 pp. See Lane, The Washington Collection, pp. 64-65.

60   Twohig, Diaries, October 5, 1794.

61   Twohig, The Diaries of George Washington, volume 5, November, Sunday 8th, 1789. “It being contrary to Law & disagreeable to the People of this State (Connecticut) to travel on the Sabbath day and my horses after passing through such intolerable Roads wanting rest, I stayed at Perkins’s Tavern (which by the bye is not a good one) all day—and a meeting House being with in a few rod of the Door, I attended Morning & evening Service, and heard very lame discourses from a Mr. Pond.”

62   Twohig, Diaries, Sunday July 3, 1791. “Received, and answered an address from the Inhabitants of York town—& there being no Episcopal Minister present in the place, I went to hear morning Service performed in the Dutch reformed Church—which, being in that language not a word of which I understood I was in no danger of becoming a proselyte to its religion by the eloquence of the Preacher.” PGW, vol. 6.

63   The Diaries of George Washington, vol. 5. Donald Jackson and Dorothy Twohig, eds. The Papers of George Washington. Charlottesville: University Press of Virginia, 1979. [November 1789]

64   The Diaries of George Washington, vol. 6. Donald Jackson and Dorothy Twohig, eds. The Papers of George Washington. Charlottesville: University Press of Virginia, 1979. [ January 1797]

65   Lane, Washington Collection, Boston Athenaeum, p. 502.

66   Ibid., p. 503.

67   Ibid., p. 39.

APPENDIX 6

1     Abiel Leonard, A prayer, composed for the benefit of the soldiery, in the American army, to assist them in their private devotions; and recommended to their particular use. By Abiel Leonard, A.M. Chaplain to General Putnam’s regiment, in said army. (Cambridge [Mass.]: Printed and sold by S. & E. Hall., 1775.)

2     WGW, vol. 4, 12-15-1775. To Governor Jonathan Trumbull

APPENDIX 7

1     Reverend Bryan Fairfax, Sermon by the Reverend Bryan Fairfax. Virginia Historical Society Rare BV 4500 P14, pp. 261-276.

APPENDIX 8

1     Johnson, George Washington The Christian, p. 67.

2     Fields, Worthy Partner, p. 371.

3     Fields, Worthy Partner, p. 339.

APPENDIX 9

1     Martin I. J. Griffin, Jr., Latitudinarianism in the Seventeenth- Century Church of England, Brill’s Studies in Intellectual History (Leiden: E.J.Brill, 1992) From Introduction by Lila Freedman.
This study by the late Martin Griffin, written between 1958 and 1962, was conceived as a definition of the seventeenth-century English Latitudinarians, from their origins in the thought of the Great Tew circle to the diffusion of their beliefs in the eighteenth-century Church of England.
Projected both as an historical survey and as an essay in definition and analysis, the study was done at a time when very little attention had as yet been given to the individuals comprising the group here called Latitudinarian. The essay single out the group of divines – John Tillotson (1630-94), Edward Stillingfleet (1635-99), Gilbert Burnet (1643-1715), Simon Patrick (1626-1707), Thomas Tenison (1636-1715), William Lloyd (1627-1717), Joseph Glanvill (1636-90), and John Wilkins (1614-72) – and from their writings isolates the characteristics of their thought that distinguish them from their contemporaries. These Griffin lists as: “(1) orthodoxy in the historical sense of acceptance of the contents of the traditional Christian creeds; (2) conformity to the Church of England as by law established, with its episcopal government, its Thirty-Nine Articles, and the Book of Common Prayer; (3) an advocacy of ‘reason’ in religion; (4) theological minimalism;
(5) an Arminian scheme of justification; (6) an emphasis on practical morality above credal speculation and precision; (7) a distinctive sermon style; (8) certain connections with seventeenth-century science and the Royal Society.” Next, Griffin distinguishes the Latitudinarians from the Cambridge Platonists, with whom they had many personal connections, and locates them instead within the tradition of Falkland’s circle at Great Tew, tracing their conception of “moral certainty,” on which they based the assurance of the truth of Christianity, to the influence of William Chillingworth. With their speculative theology they attempted to meet specifically the challenges of Hobbism, Deism, and Roman Catholic apologetics, and in both their speculative and moral theology they aimed to combat “practical atheism,” emphasizing in their sermons that they chief design of Christianity was “to make men good.” They also rejected the Calvinist notion of predestination, which they thought led to antinomianism, and though they were charitable to those who differed from them in opinions, they opposed the principle of Nonconformity. “Their solution to the problem of tender consciences was comprehension, not toleration in the modern sense of the word; in the attempts of 1668, 1675, and 1689 to achieve some scheme of comprehension, the Latitudinarians therefore played prominent roles.”

2     WGW, vol. 30, 8-18-1789.

3     Martin I. J. Griffin, Jr., Latitudinarianism in the Seventeenth- Century Church of England, Brill’s Studies in Intellectual History (Leiden: E.J.Brill, 1992), p. 5.

4     “The moderation of the Latitudinarians in matters of Church government suggested to Dryden that they might be crypto-Presbyterians.” Martin I. J. Griffin, Jr., Latitudinarianism in the Seventeenth- Century Church of England, Brill’s Studies in Intellectual History (Leiden: E.J.Brill, 1992), p. 7.

5     “A dictionary published in 1699 defined “Latitudinarian” in these uncategorical terms: “a Churchman at large, one that is no slave to rubrick, canons, liturgy, or oath of canonical obedience, and in fine looks toward Lambeth, and rows to Geneva.” Martin I. J. Griffin, Jr., Latitudinarianism in the Seventeenth- Century Church of England, Brill’s Studies in Intellectual History (Leiden: E.J.Brill, 1992), p. 7.

6     “The Papists,” Burnet wrote, “set themselves against them to decry them as atheists, deists, or at best Socinians.” Socinianism was, in fact, a favorite charge from all sides. Sometimes it referred literally to alleged Trinitarian herterodoxy, but more often, the Latiudinarians were “suspect of Socinianism, for [they] magnify reason, and are often telling how rational a thing Christian religion is.” This charge, that the Latitudinarians made “Reason, Reason, Reason, their only holy Trinity,” was a cherished weapon of their enemies’ arsenal. Martin I. J. Griffin, Jr., Latitudinarianism in the Seventeenth- Century Church of England, Brill’s Studies in Intellectual History (Leiden: E.J.Brill, 1992), p. 7.

7     Further, their doctrine of justification turned “the grace of God into a wanton notion of morality.” Their rejection of the doctrine of predestination gained for them the epithets of “Arminians.” Martin I. J. Griffin, Jr., Latitudinarianism in the Seventeenth- Century Church of England, Brill’s Studies in Intellectual History (Leiden: E.J.Brill, 1992), p. 8.

8     “Their doctrine of grace and their scheme of salvation were Pelagian.” Martin I. J. Griffin, Jr., Latitudinarianism in the Seventeenth- Century Church of England, Brill’s Studies in Intellectual History (Leiden: E.J.Brill, 1992), p. 9.

9     “…the Nonjurors bitterly complained that the Latitudinarians were conscienceless Erastians who for the sake of preferment had betrayed the divinely-constituted spiritual and sacredotal privileges of the Church of England. From all sides, for whatever reason, the quality of their Christianity was impugned by their enemies as being heretical or at best heterodox.” Martin I. J. Griffin, Jr., Latitudinarianism in the Seventeenth- Century Church of England, Brill’s Studies in Intellectual History (Leiden: E.J.Brill, 1992), p. 9.

10   Martin I. J. Griffin, Jr., Latitudinarianism in the Seventeenth- Century Church of England, Brill’s Studies in Intellectual History (Leiden: E.J.Brill, 1992), p. 9.

11   “In the middle of the nineteenth century, ‘Latitudinarian’ fell out of style, its technical and religious meanings being expressed in common usage by the phrase “Broad Churchman.” Since then, the pejorative connotations which the word had almost always carried with it have virtually disappeared.” Martin I. J. Griffin, Jr., Latitudinarianism in the Seventeenth- Century Church of England, Brill’s Studies in Intellectual History (Leiden: E.J.Brill, 1992), p. 10.

12   “In ecclesiology and liturgy, ‘Low Church’ and ‘Latitudinarian’ for our period were equivalent terms. . . .Though all Latitudinarians were Low Churchmen, not all Low Churchmen were full-fledged Latitudinarians.” Martin I. J. Griffin, Jr., Latitudinarianism in the Seventeenth-Century Church of England, Brill’s Studies in Intellectual History (Leiden: E.J.Brill, 1992), p. 44.

13   Martin I. J. Griffin, Jr., Latitudinarianism in the Seventeenth- Century Church of England, Brill’s Studies in Intellectual History (Leiden: E.J.Brill, 1992), p. 15.

14   Martin I. J. Griffin, Jr., Latitudinarianism in the Seventeenth- Century Church of England, Brill’s Studies in Intellectual History (Leiden: E.J.Brill, 1992), p. 40.

15   Martin I. J. Griffin, Jr., Latitudinarianism in the Seventeenth- Century Church of England, Brill’s Studies in Intellectual History (Leiden: E.J.Brill, 1992), p. 40.

16   Martin I. J. Griffin, Jr., Latitudinarianism in the Seventeenth-Century Church of England Brill’s Studies in Intellectual History (Leiden: E. J. Brill, 1992). p. 40-41.

17   WGW, vol. 3, 4-25-1773.

18   Ibid., vol. 29, 2-11-1788.

19   Ibid., vol. 34, 12-24-1795.

20   Ibid., vol. 35, 3-30-1796.

21   Worthy Partner, p. 152.

22   WGW, vol. 3, 6-20-1773.

23   WGW, vol. 3, 4-25-1773.

24   Ibid., vol. 2, 9-24-1767.

25   Ibid., vol. 17, 12-15-1779.

26   Ibid., vol. 26, 3-22-1783.

27   Ibid., vol. 27, 12-13-1783.

28   See the chapter, “George Washington And Communion.”

29   WGW, vol. 24, 6-28-1782.

30   Ibid., vol. 30, 10-9-1789.

31   Ibid., vol. 30, 10-23-1789,

32   Ibid., vol. 3, 9-14-1775.

33   Ibid., vol. 30, 5-26-1789.

34   Ibid., vol. 35, 3-30-1796.

35   Ibid., vol. 30, 6-20-1788.

36   Ibid., vol. 29, 2-11-1788.

37   Ibid., vol. 29, 8-15-1787.

38   Ibid., vol. 31, 8-14-1790.

39   Ibid., vol. 4, March 1776.

40   Ibid., vol. 26, 6-8-1783.

41   Ibid., vol. 30, 10-3-1789.

42   Ibid., vol. 26, 6-8-1783.

43   Ibid., vol. 37, 5-13-1776.

44   Ibid., vol. 12, 8-20-1778.

45   Ibid., vol. 30, 9-28-1789.

46   Ibid., vol. 35, 9-19-1796.

APPENDIX 10

1     Johnson, George Washington The Christian, p.250.

2     Ibid., pp. 250-251.

3     Ibid., pp. 251-252.

4     Ibid., p. 253.

5     Ibid., p. 253.

6     Ibid., p. 253-254.

7     Ibid., p. 254.

8     Ibid., pp. 254-255.

9     Ibid., p. 255.

10   Ibid., p. 256.

11   Ibid., p. 256-257.

12   Ibid., p. 257.

13   Ibid., p. 258.

14   Ibid., p. 258.

15   Ibid., p. 258-259.

16   Ibid., p. 260.

17   Ibid., p. 260.

18   Ibid., p. 260.

19   Ibid., p. 260.

20   Ibid., p. 260.

21   Ibid., p. 261.

22   Ibid., p. 262.

23   Ibid., p. 263-265.

24   Ibid., p. 266-267.

25   Ibid., p. 267-268.

26   Weems, Life of Washington, p.172.

27   Johnson, George Washington The Christian, p.269.

28   Hart, Albert Bushnell. Tributes to Washington, Pamphlet No. 3 (Washington, D.C.: George Washington Bicentennial Commission, 1931, pp.31-32.

29   Hart, Tributes to Washington, p. 32.

30   Ibid., p. 32.

31   Ibid., p. 31.

32   Ibid., p. 31.

33   Ibid., p. 31.

34   Ibid., p. 32.

35   Ibid., p. 31.

36   Ibid., p. 31.

37   Ibid., p. 32.

38   Ibid., p. 30.

39   Ibid., p. 31.

40   Ibid., p. 31.

41   Ibid., p. 32.

42   Ibid., p. 32.

43   Ibid., p. 32.

44   Ibid., p. 30.

45   Ibid., p. 31.

46   Ibid., p. 31.

47   Griffin, Appleton P.C. comps. A Catalogue of the Washington Collection in the Boston Athenaeum. Cambridge: University Press, 1897, p. 65.

48   Hart, Albert Bushnell. Tributes to Washington, Pamphlet No. 3 (Washington, D.C.: George Washington Bicentennial Commission, 1931, p. 34.

49   Ibid., p. 33.

50   Ibid., p. 33.

51   Ibid., p. 32.

52   Ibid., p. 33.

53   Ibid., p. 35.

54   Ibid., p. 33.

55   Ibid., p. 35.

56   Ibid., p. 33.

57   Ibid., p. 35.

58   Ibid., p. 33.

59   Ibid., p. 33.

60   Ibid., p. 33.

61   Ibid., p. 35.

62   Ibid., p. 35.

63   Ibid., pp. 35-36.

64   Ibid., p. 33.

65   Ibid., p. 34.

66   Ibid., p. 34.

67   Ibid., p. 35.

68   Ibid., p. 35.

69   Ibid., p. 33.

70   Ibid., p. 34.

71   Ibid., pp. 34-35.

72   Ibid., p. 35.

73   Ibid., p.34.

74   Ibid., p. 37.

75   Ibid., p. 37.

76   Ibid., p. 36.

77   Ibid., p. 38.

78   Ibid., p. 37.

79   Ibid., p. 36.

80   Ibid., p. 37.

81   Ibid., p. 38.

82   Ibid., p. 38.

83   Ibid., pp. 36-37.

84   Ibid., p.38.

85   Ibid., p. 38.

86   Ibid., p. 38.

87   Ibid., p. 38-39.

88   Ibid., p. 36.

89   Ibid., p. 37.

90   Ibid., p. 39.

91   Ibid., p. 37.

92   Ibid., p. 38.

93   Ibid., p. 38.

94   Ibid., p. 37.

ILLUSTRATION CREDITS

Front Cover	George Washington portrait by Gilbert Stuart from Corbis Images
Page 57	Virginia Almanack with George Washington’s signature–George Washington Papers at the Library of Congress, 1741-1799: Series 1b. George Washington, Diary, January 1–December 31, 1769, Image 5 of 134
Page 74	Selina Hastings, Countess of Huntingdon–Library of Congress, Reproduction Number: LC-USZ62-93956, c1830-80
Page 80	Plaque in George Washington’s crypt–Photo by Jerry Newcombe
Page 96	Map of Washington’s Extended Neighborhood by Judy Mitchell. Also see color insert page X.
Page 97	George Washington and the cherry tree mug–R.T. Haines Halsey, Pictures of Early New York on Dark Blue Staffordshire Pottery (Dover Publications, 1974) p. 2
Page 101	Reverend Mason Locke Weems–Benson J. Lossing, The Pictorial Field-Book of the Revolution (New York: Harper & Brothers, 1852
Page 103	George Washington’s parents’ signatures–Courtesy of The Boston Athenaeum
Page 108	George Washington’s surveyor’s notebook–George Washington Papers at the Library of Congress, 1741-1799: Series 1b. George Washington, Diary, March 11–April 13, 1748, Image 2 of 7
Page 113	Geometry notes–George Washington Papers at the Library of Congress, 1741-1799: Series 1a. George Washington, School Copy Book: Volume 1, 1745, Image 2 of 112
Page 115	Field School–Photo by Jerry Newcombe
Page 116	Record of George Washington’s baptism–Benson J. Lossing, Mary and Martha: The Mother and Wife of George Washington (New York: Harper & Brothers, 1886)
Page 120	“True Happiness” poem–George Washington Papers at the Library of Congress, 1741-1799: Series 1a George Washington, Forms of Writing, and The Rules of Civility and Decent Behavior in Company and Conversation, ante 1747, Image 26 of 36
Page 123	“On Christmas Day” poem–George Washington Papers at the Library of Congress, 1741-1799: Series 1a George Washington, Forms of Writing, and The Rules of Civility and Decent Behavior in Company and Conversation, ante 1747, Image 25 of 36
Page 125	“Rules of Civility”–George Washington Papers at the Library of Congress, 1741-1799: Series 1a George Washington, Forms of Writing, and The Rules of Civility and Decent Behavior in Company and Conversation, ante 1747, Images 27 & 36 of 36
Page 131	“Contemplations Moral and Divine”–Contemplations Moral and Divine. In Two Parts (Printed for William Shrowsbury [etc.], London, 1675/6)
Page 129	George Washington’s Childhood will - George Washington Papers at the Library of Congress, 1741-1799: Series 1a George Washington, Forms of Writing, and The Rules of Civility and Decent Behavior in Company and Conversation, ante 1747, Image 9 of 36
Page 133	Childhood doodles–Courtesy of The Boston Athenaeum
Page 143	Book plate–Benson J. Lossing, The Home of Washington: or Mount Vernon and its Associations, Historical, Biographical, and Pictorial (Hartford, Conn.: A. S. Hale 1870)1
Page 151	Signature through the years–Joseph Dillaway Sawyer, Washington (New York: The Macmillan Company, 1927), vol. I, p. 75
Page 152	Painting of Washington and Lafayette–Library of Congress, Reproduction Number: LC-USZC4-6877, c1907
Page 158	“Dissertations on the Mosaical Creation . . .”–Courtesy of The Boston Athenaeum
Page 167	George Washington in military uniform–Library of Congress, Reproduction Number: LC-USZ62-96753, c1918 (painting by Charles Willson Peale 1741-1827)
Page 181	Braddock’s Defeat–engraving by Félix Emmanuel Henri Philippoteaux (1815-1884), Library of Congress
Page 205	Badge of Merit & Purple Heart–Courtesy of The Military Order of the Purple Heart, Springfield, VA
Page 213	George Washington’s Watermark–Benson J. Lossing, The Home of Washington: or Mount Vernon and its Associations, Historical, Biographical, and Pictorial (Hartford, Conn.: A. S. Hale 1870)
Page 220	President George Washington following his inaugural worship service at St. Paul’s Chapel, painted by Jennie Augusta Brownscombe–Courtesy of Trinity Church, New York, NY
Page 244	Letters from George Washington - George Washington Papers at the Library of Congress, 1741-1799: Series 2 Letterbooks, George Washington to Mary Ball Washington, February 15, 1787, Letterbook 14, Images 19 & 25 of 352
Page 247	The Washington family–Library of Congress, Reproduction Number: LC-USZ62-117745, c1889
Page 251	Etching of Alfred the Great–Courtesy of Mt. Vernon Ladies Association
Page 273	Map of The Mt. Vernon Neighborhood by Judy Mitchell. Also see color insert page XI.
Page 315	Brown’s Self Interpreting Bible–Reproduced with permission from Readex, a division of NewsBank, Inc., and the American Antiquarian Society
Page 345	Statue of George Washington Praying – Photo by Peter Lillback, Courtesy of Freedoms Foundation at Valley Forge
Page 396	George Washington Praying at Valley Forge–Library of Congress, Reproduction Number: LC-USZ62-4036, c1866
Page 381	Painting of Washington at Valley Forge by E. Percy Moran– Library of Congress, Reproduction Number: LC-USZC2-3793, c1911
Page 413	Painting of George Washington receiving Communion–Photo by Ralf Augstroze, Courtesy of The Presbyterian Church in Morristown, NJ. Also see color insert page XV.
Page 421	Elizabeth Schuyler Hamilton–Benson J. Lossing, The Pictorial Field-Book of the Revolution (New York: Harper & Brothers, 1852)
Page 422	President Alexander and Elizabeth Hamilton’s tombs – Photo by Ralf Augstroze, Courtesy of Trinity Church, New York, NY
Page 433	President Washington’s pew at St. Paul’s Chapel – Photo by Ralf Augstroze, Courtesy of Trinity Church, New York, NY
Page 451	Bishop Samuel Seabury–William Jones Seabury, D.D., Memoir of Bishop Seabury (New York, Edwin S. Gorham, Publisher; London, Rivingtons 1908)
Page 457	Bishop William White–Library of Congress, Reproduction Number: LC-USZ62-116941, c1846-1849
Page 461	Bishop Samuel Provoost–Library of Congress, Reproduction Number: LC-USZ6-1739, c1850-1900
Page 486	John Adams–Copy of painting by or after John Singleton Copley, ca. 1783, National Archives and Records Administration
Page 489	1774 Prayer in Congress–Library of Congress, Reproduction Number: LC-DIG-pga-03229, c1848
Page 503	George Washington Laying the Cornerstone of the National Capital, 18 September 1793. Allyn Cox, Alexandria, Virginia, 1952. Permission by and Copyright The George Washington Masonic National Memorial Association. Also see color insert page XIV.
Page 519	Mt. Vernon slave quarters–Courtesy of Mt. Vernon Ladies Association
Page 534, 535	Virginia Almanack–George Washington Papers at the Library of Congress, 1741-1799: Series 1b. George Washington, Diary, May 24 - October 22, 1761, Images 3 & 47 of 54
Page 554	Great Seal of the United States (back)–Library of Congress, Reproduction Number: LC-USZ62-45509, c1786
Page 559	Providence Forum Press publisher’s mark – courtesy of Providence Forum Press
Page 598, 599	George Washington writings–George Washington Papers at the Library of Congress, 1741-1799: Series 1a. George Washington, School Copy Book: Volume 1, 1745, Images 50 & 53 of 112
Page 605	George Washington’s signature in book - John Clarke, An answer to the question, why are you a Christian? (Boston: printed at the Apollo Press, by Joseph Belknap, 1795). 43 pp. 8vo, disbound.
Page 643	Washington and family after Easter services by Jean Leon Gerome Ferris – Library of Congress, Reproduction Number: LC-USZC4-10298, c1908
Page 679	The Christian (Death)–from series: The life of George Washington by Junius Brutus Stearns–Library of Congress, Reproduction Number: LC-USZC4-10341, c1853
Page 701	Washington’s endorsement–Reproduced with permission from Readex, a division of NewsBank, Inc., and the American Antiquarian Society
Page 806	Written prayers - B.D. Burk, W. Herbert, Washington’s Prayers. (Norristown: Washington Memorial Chapel, 1907)
Page XIII	Stained glass window depicting Washington communing at Morristown–Photo by Ralf Augstroze, Courtesy of the Presbyterian Church in Morristown, NJ
Page XII	Masonic stained glass window–Photo by Ralf Augstroze, Courtesy of Mother Bethel A.M.E. Church, Philadelphia, PA
Page XVI	Washington family at home, painting by E. Percy Moran–Library of Congress, Reproduction Number: LC-USZC4-6420, c1911
Page 290	Sermon by William Stith, reproduced with permission from Readex, a division of NewsBank Inc. and the American Antiquarian Society
Page XVII	The Prayer at Valley Forge, copyright by Arnold Friberg c1976 and used by permission from Friberg Fine Art.