The French rulers, under the reign of atheism, during the Administration of John Adams, plied every art to bring the Government of the United States into political alliance with the French nation, and we were on the eve of a war with our ancient ally and friend. So imminent was the danger that Washington was appointed again commander-in-chief of the American armies, and accepted the appointment, with the understanding that he was not to take the field till actual war had begun. The President, during this crisis of our nation, received, from all parts of the country, numerous addresses, urging him to resist all influences and machinations, either at home or abroad, which aimed to make the United States an ally with atheistical France, who was "grasping at universal domination, had abandoned every moral and religious principle, trampled on sacred faith, sported with national laws, and demanded pecuniary exactions which would bankrupt our nation and render us slaves instead of a free, sovereign, and independent people." Among other addresses was the following:

We, the Congregational ministers of Massachusetts, met in annual Convention, feel ourselves called upon, as men, as American citizens, and as public professors and teachers of Christianity, to address you at this solemn and eventful crisis.

While the benevolent spirit of our religion and office prompts our fervent wishes and prayers for the universal extension of rational liberty, social order, and Christian piety, we cannot but deeply lament and firmly resist those atheistical, licentious, and disorganizing principles which have been avowed and zealously propagated by the philosophers of France, which have produced the greatest crimes and miseries in that unhappy country, and, like a moral pestilence, are diffusing their baneful influence even to distant nations. From these principles, combined with boundless avarice and ambition, have originated, not only schemes of universal plunder and domination, but insidious attempts to divide the American people from their rulers and involve them in a needless, unjust, and ruinous war; arbitrary and cruel depredations on their unoffending commerce; contemptuous treatment of their respected messengers and generous overtures of peace; rapacious demands and insulting threats in answer to the most fair and condescending proposals.

In this connection, we offer to you, sir, our tribute of affectionate esteem and gratitude, and to Almighty God our devout praise, for the wise, temperate, and benevolent policy which has marked your conduct towards the offending Power, and which has given a new and splendid example of the beauty and dignity of the Christian spirit contrasted with the base and profligate spirit of infidelity. We also bless God for your firm, patriotic, and important services to your country from the

dawn of its glorious Revolution, and for the conspicuous integrity and wisdom which have been constantly displayed both by you, sir, and your excellent and beloved predecessors.

As ministers of the Prince of peace, we feel it our duty both to inculcate and exemplify the pacific spirit which adorns his character and doctrine. We remember his injunction to forgive and love our most injurious enemies. But neither the law of Christianity nor of reason requires us to prostrate our national independence, freedom, prosperity, and honor at the feet of proud, insatiable oppressors, especially of a Government which has renounced the gospel and its sacred institutions and has transferred to imaginary heathen idols the homage due to the Creator and Redeemer of the world. Such a prostration would be treason against the Being who gave us our inestimable privileges, civil and religious, as a sacred deposit to be defended and transmitted to posterity. It would be criminal unfaithfulness and treachery to our country, our children, and the whole human race.

The fate of Venice, and other countries subdued by France, though held up to intimidate us to degrading submission, shall teach us a far different lesson: it shall instruct us to shun that insidious embrace which aims not only to reduce us to the condition of tributaries, but to strip us of the gospel, the Christian Sabbath, and every pious institution. These privileges we consider the chief glory of our country, the main pillars of its civil order, liberty, and happiness; as, on the other hand, we view its excellent political institutions as, under God, the guardians of our religious and ecclesiastical privileges. This intimate connection between our civil and Christian blessings is alone sufficient to justify the decided part which the clergy of America have uniformly taken in supporting the constituted authorities and political interests of their country. While we forgive the censure which our order has received from some persons on this account, we will still, by our prayers and examples, by our public and private discourses, continue the same tenor of conduct which has incurred this malevolent or misguided abuse.

Amidst the fashionable skepticism and impiety of the age, it is a matter of consolation and gratitude that we have a President who, both in word and action, avows his reverence for the Christian religion, his belief in the Redeemer and Sanctifier of the world, and his devout trust in the Providence of God. May that Being, whose important favor you recently led us to implore, graciously answer our united prayers in behalf of our common country. May he preserve your valuable life and health, your vigor, firmness, and integrity of mind, and your consequent public usefulness, and at length transfer you, full of days and honor, to the possession of an eminent and everlasting reward.

The President replied as follows:

This respectful and affectionate address from the Convention of the clergy of Massachusetts, not less distinguished for science and learning, candor, moderation, liberality of sentiment and conduct, and for the most amiable urbanity of manners, than for unblemished morals and

Christian piety, does me great honor, and must have the most beneficial effects upon the public mind at this solemn and eventful crisis.

To do justice to its sentiments and language, I could only repeat it sentence by sentence and word for word: I shall therefore confine myself to a mere return of my unfeigned thanks. JOHN ADAMS.

These facts, so honorable to the patriotism, piety, learning, and zealous labors of ministers of all denominations during the era of the Revolution, and subsequently, fully justify the declaration of Mr. Webster, in the Supreme Court of the United States, expressed in his celebrated argument on the Girard Will Case, in 1844:

"I take upon myself to say that in no country in the world, upon either continent, can there be found a body of ministers of the gospel who perform so much service to men, in such a free spirit of self-denial, under so little encouragement from Government of any kind, and under circumstances almost always much straitened and often distressed, as the ministers of the gospel in the United States, of all denominations. They form no part of an established order of religion; they constitute no hierarchy; they enjoy no peculiar privileges. And this body of clergymen has shown, to the honor of our country and the admiration of the hierarchies of the Old World, that it is practicable in free governments to raise and sustain, by voluntary contributions alone, a body of clergymen which, for devotedness to their calling, for purity of life and character, for learning, intelligence, piety, and that wisdom which cometh from above, is inferior to none, and superior to most others.

"I hope that our learned men have done something for the honor of our literature abroad. I hope that the courts of justice and members of the bar have done something to elevate the character of the profession of law. I hope that the discussions above [in Congress] have done something to ameliorate the condition of the human race, to secure and strengthen the great charter of human rights, and to strengthen and advance the great principles of human liberty. But I contend that no literary efforts, no adjudications, no constitutional discussions, nothing that has been done or said in favor of the great interests of universal man, have done this country more credit, at home and abroad, than the establishment of our body of clergymen, their support by voluntary contributions, and the general excellence of their character, their piety and learning."

These views of Mr. Webster are confirmed by Dr. Gardiner Spring, for more than forty years a Presbyterian pastor of the city of New York, and whose father, Dr. Samuel Spring, of Massachusetts, was an able and patriotic preacher of the Revolution. In his work on "The Power of the Pulpit," Dr. Gardiner Spring says,-

"The office of religious teacher among the Jews was a noble office. Without them the Hebrew State had been an irreligious, ignorant, disjointed community. The nation was exalted or debased as their religious teachers were honored or dishonored, and as they exerted or failed to exert their appropriate influence. So long as the nation was in its glory, its religious teachers were the glory and strength of the nation. . . .

"The voice of the pulpit," Dr. Spring continues, "has been often heard on subjects of high public interest. Its influence has been felt in scenes which 'tried men's souls.' That great event in the history of the world, the American Revolution, never would have been achieved without the influence of the pulpit. Political society 'moved on the axis of religion. The religious movement gave its character to the social movement.''

The facts in this chapter fully vindicate the patriotism and piety of the American clergy, and reveal one of the great sources of the Christian life and character of the civil institutions of the United States. They prove the mighty and beneficent power of the pulpit on the progress, prosperity, and true glory of the republic, and their essential relations to its very life and perpetuity. The pulpit, in every age, and in the battles and conflicts of truth and liberty with error and despotism, has always been on the side of the right. It has stood forth as the champion of the oppressed, and has ever been, with all the darkness that has enveloped the nations, the educator of the world in all the arts, refinements, and charities which adorn Christian civilization, and has, during the course of these ages, diffused the spirit and precepts of the Christian religion into the science of politics and the government and legislation of nations.

CHAPTER XVII.

THE INFLUENCE OF CHRISTIAN WOMEN ON LIBERTY-AGENCY IN FORMING OUR CIVIL INSTITUTIONS-THE ORIGIN OF THE REVOLUTION IN AMERICAN HOMESVIEWS OF ADAMS-HEROISM OF THE WOMEN OF THE REVOLUTION-THEIR PIETY AND FAITH-FORM FREEDOM-ASSOCIATIONS-PLEDGES NOT TO DRINK TEAMEET TO SPIN FOR THE ARMY-SUPPLY THE ARMY WITH CLOTHING-LAFAYETTE IN BALTIMORE-A BALL-ROOM TURNED INTO A SEWING-ROOM-WOMEN OF PHILADELPHIA-THEIR CORRESPONDENCE WITH WASHINGTON-HIS TRIBUTE TO THEIR PATRIOTISM-LETTER OF A PHILADELPHIA LADY TO A BRITISH OFFICER ADDRESS OF THE AMERICAN WOMEN TO THE FEMALES OF THE COUNTRY CONCERTS OF PRAYER-AN INTERESTING INCIDENT-CHRISTIAN WORK OF THE WOMEN OF THE REVOLUTION—ABIGAIL ADAMS-HER LABORS, CHARACTER, AND INFLUENCE-THE MOTHER OF WASHINGTON-THE WIFE OF WASHINGTON A MODEL PRESIDENT'S WIFE-REQUEST OF CONGRESS FOR THE REMAINS OF WASHINGTON-MRS. WASHINGTON'S ANSWER-PIETY HER CROWNING EXCELLENCE-TRIBUTE OF WASHINGTON TO THE FEMALES OF TRENTON-HIGH CHARACTER AND USEFULNESS OF AMERICAN WOMEN.

AMONG the Christian agencies that commenced and completed the work of American civilization and freedom, that of the influence of woman was pre-eminent and controlling. Her piety, home-culture, prayers, and personal labor and sacrifices, were among the chief causes that contributed to the progress and elevation of the nation, and which assisted largely in the triumphs of liberty and the results of the Revolution. They have ever been the most effective and polished workmen on the edifice of society and on the temple of human freedom. "All history, both sacred and profane, both ancient and modern, bears testimony to the efficacy of female influence and power in the cause of human liberty. From the time of the preservation by the hands of women of the great Jewish lawgiver in his infantile hours, and who was preserved for the purpose of freeing his countrymen from Egyptian bondage, has woman been made a powerful agent in breaking to pieces the rod of the oppressor. With a pure and uncontaminated mind, her actions spring from the deepest recesses of the human heart."

In an address to the ladies of Richmond, at a public reception which they gave to Mr. Webster, on the 5th of October, 1840, he said,