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 A SERMON 
 
 BEFORE 
 
 THE COLONIAL DAMES 
 
 IN 
 
 The Bethlehem Chapel of the Cathedral 
 of St. Peter and St. Paul 
 
 WASHINGTON, D. C. 
 
 SUNDAY, MAY 5, 1912 If' 
 
 Rev. Randolph H. McKim, D.D., LL.D., D.C.L. 
 
 PUBLISHED BY REQUEST OF THE SOCIETY 
 
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SIl|? Olotttnbutinn of ti|? Anglo-g^axou 
 
 Oll^urirli tu ll|? iiaklnrj nf 
 
 til? Se|iublir 
 
 "And JosJiiia said unto all the people . . . choose 
 you this day whom ye ivill serve, . . . but as for me 
 and my house, we zvill serve the Lord." Joshua XXIV, 
 part of vv. 2 and 15. 
 
 There is scarce a finer scene in history than that 
 which this chapter presents of the great Hebrew hero 
 and captain standing under the oak in Shechem and 
 giving his Farewell Address to the twelve tribes whom 
 he had led across the Jordan, and, after many hard- 
 fought battles, securely established in the Land of 
 Promise. He was "old and stricken in age," and he 
 felt that the time was near when he would be gathered 
 to his fathers ; but one more blow the great soldier 
 and patriot and father of his country would strike in 
 the holy cause to which he had devoted his life, before 
 he sheathed his sword forever. And so svimmoning 
 all Israel, he challenges them to put away their strange 
 Gods and serve Jehovah alone: "Choose you tins day," 
 he cries, "whom ye zvill serve, . . . but as for me and 
 my house, we zvill serve the Lord." 
 
 Thus did Joshua, the idolized hero and saviour of 
 Israel, throw the whole weight of his illustrious ex- 
 ample into the scale on the side of Revealed Religion. 
 He never rendered a greater service to his people than 
 in that act. Not one of all his victories was of such 
 
moment to the future well-being of the young nation, 
 as that which he gained that clay over the hearts of the 
 men of Israel as they stood around him under the 
 widespreading branches of the oak of Shechem. 
 ^ ^ ^ 
 
 That remarkable scene, my brethren, found its 
 modern counterpart in American History when Wash- 
 ington, having by his sword won the independence of 
 his country, and by his wisdom established its govern- 
 ment upon a firm foundation, gave his Farewell Ad- 
 dress to the people of the United States (the thirteen 
 tribes of our Israel), exhorting them to remember the 
 indispensable necessity of religion and morality as 
 the supports of national happiness and prosperity, and 
 in effect making appeal to his fellow countrymen to 
 choose the service of God. Upon that occasion, like 
 the Hebrew warrior of old, our great hero threw the 
 whole weight of his influence into the scale for the 
 religion of his fathers, and in so doing rendered his 
 country an inestimable service for all time to come. 
 
 Yes, great as were his services to America as a sol- 
 dier, as a statesman, and as a patriot, they were not 
 greater than those which he rendered as a Christian ; 
 and we should have but a partial and incomplete con- 
 ception of his heroic character, if we left out of view 
 the attitude in which he stood, steadfastly through life, 
 to the Religion of Jesus Christ. By his words and by 
 his acts, by his public utterances and by his private 
 demeanor, Washington made his own the words of 
 the Hebrew hero in our text, "As for me and my 
 house, we ztnll serve the Lord." 
 
 I. George Washington was a churchman by inheri- 
 tance and by conviction. He came not of Puritan, but 
 of Church of England ancestry. Like Jefferson and 
 
Madison and Marshall, and George Mason and Patrick 
 Henry, and Benjamin Harrison and Richard Henry 
 Lee, he was descended from those cavaliers who gal- 
 lantly fought for church and king against Cromwell 
 and the Parliament. It was his kinsman, Col. Henry 
 Washington who, even after King Charles had been 
 overthrown and taken prisoner, refused to surrender 
 the town of Worcester without the command of his 
 captive King. 
 
 Washington was reared in the bosom of the 
 Anglican Church. He was trained to sober and godly 
 living by the teachings of her Catechism. He learned 
 his duty toward God, and his duty towards man, in the 
 same words by which our children are tought to-day. 
 The dear old Prayer Book, which we love so well, was 
 one of the potent influences which went to the forma- 
 tion of his -character. 
 
 And he loved the Church. Its noble liturgy was 
 dear to his heart. Devout and dignified, yet so pa- 
 thetic ; free from fanaticism, yet so fervent, it appealed 
 to him and satisfied him. Moreover, the breadth 
 and tolerance of the Church, the simplicity of its doc- 
 trines, so rational yet so scriptural, so liberal, yet so 
 evangelical, "were in harmony with the simplicity of 
 his nature and the catholicity of his sympathies." 
 
 Accordingly he clung to the Church with filial de- 
 votion. Not all the fox hunting parsons, with their 
 lax living and their Tory principles, could obliterate 
 the memory and the power of her blessed influence. 
 Nor could the bitter popular prejudice which obtained 
 against the Church after the Revolutionary War, 
 shake him from his love and his allegiance. 
 
 As to his attendance upon the services of the 
 Church, the Rector of Pohick testifies that he never 
 
knew so constant an attendant as Washington, though 
 the church was six miles from Mt. Vernon. He adds 
 that "no company ever kept him from church," and 
 that his behaviour therein was so reverential that it 
 "produced the happiest effect on the congregation." 
 
 He was a vestryman of old Pohick Church, and 
 afterwards of Christ Church, Alexandria. The Ves- 
 try election in the latter church took place March 28, 
 1765, and the name of Col. Geo. Washington stands 
 fifth on the list of the twelve gentlemen chosen, he 
 receiving 274 votes, and John West 340 — the highest 
 number. When the present church was completed in 
 February, 1773, Col. Washington became the pur- 
 chaser of pew No. 5, for the sum of £36, 5.10 — the 
 highest price paid by any one. 
 
 And after the Revolution the first person to set an 
 example of liberality in support of the now disestab- 
 lished church was George Washington. A formal 
 document appears upon the old Vestry Book in which 
 he and seven other gentlemen agree that the pews 
 owned by them shall be forever charged with an an- 
 nual rental of five pounds sterling. His well known 
 signature is appended — it is the only instance in which 
 it appears in the book. 
 
 All through life he showed his reverential devotion 
 to the services of the Church. When the unfortunate 
 General Braddock fell in battle, it was young Col. 
 Washington who performed the last funeral rites 
 over his body — a soldier holding a lighted torch, while 
 he read the Burial Service of the Church. 
 
 One other instance must suffice.* We read in his 
 private diary that he was informed on a certain Sat- 
 urday evening that small-pox had broken out among 
 
 *Bishop Meade, Old Families, Vol. II, p. 247. 
 
 4 
 
his slaves on a distant plantation. He set out next 
 morning to visit and minister to them, but notes in 
 the diary: "Took church on the way."* 
 
 Washington was, moreover, a devout communicant 
 of the Church. Letters are in existence from two 
 distinguished Revolutionary officers which testify to 
 the writers' having seen him at the Table of the Lord 
 after the Revolution, both in Philadelphia and New 
 York. One of these. Major Popham, speaks of "the 
 seriousness of his manner, the solemn, audible, but 
 subdued tone of voice in which he read and repeated 
 the responses," and "the Christian humility" of his 
 expression. 
 
 IL In speaking of Washington as a churchman, I 
 have necessarily anticipated in part what I would say 
 of him as a Christian. His Christianity, like every- 
 thing else about him, was genuine and sincere. It 
 went down to the roots of his life. It was one of the 
 mainsprings of his conduct. Unseen it fed the powers 
 and energies of his manhood. Simple and unaffected, 
 absolutely free from the cant which mars the utter- 
 ances of Cromwell, the religion of Washington was 
 part of the man, both in public and in private. He was 
 no Puritan in manners ; he was no ascetic ; he re- 
 joiced in life, and freely participated in its innocent 
 pleasures, but this purest of patriots, this most illus- 
 trious of men, was a devout follower of Jesus Christ, 
 and threw all the weight of his example and all the 
 authority of his counsel into the scale in favor of the 
 Christian religion. 
 
 We have heard of the searching scrutiny of the 
 white light "that beats upon a throne," but the whiter 
 light of an hundred years of history has beat upon the 
 
 *Bishop Meade, II, p. 248. 
 
character of Washington, without revealing aught that 
 netracts from the genuineness of his piety. 
 
 True, the artificial, unreal hero of a certain class 
 of orators and writers, a man without a blemish or 
 a flaw, always angelic in temper, superior to the pleas- 
 ures as well as the vices of life, devoid of human frail- 
 ties, victorious always over temptation, "never 
 swerved for a moment by the strong currents that 
 sweep other men off their feet," — this unreal and im- 
 possible Washington has been destroyed by the his- 
 torical critic, — and thank God he has been. 
 
 But the real Washington, in whose veins ran the 
 warm blood and 'the fierce temper of the Norsemen 
 from whom he sprang, the man of strong passions and 
 iron will, indomitable in purpose, terrible in his 
 wrath; not always gentle, but ever just; stands out 
 before us on the page of history an honest believer, 
 and a true Christian, battling bravely with tempta- 
 tion, holding his passions habitually (though not in- 
 variably) under control, governed by Christian prin- 
 ciple, pursuing the Christian ideal. 
 
 I will not detain you by quoting the testimony of 
 men who knew him well to his consistent Christian 
 faith and character — such men as Justice Marshall 
 and General Henry Lee, to name no others. Nor will 
 I relate any of the well known incidents in his life 
 which illustrate his devoutness as a Christian be- 
 liever, such as his conducting prayers in camp on the 
 frontier, or his "fasting all day" upon the public fast 
 day appointed by the House of Burgesses on the eve 
 of the Revolution, or his being found on his knees in 
 his tent by his aide when entering his quarters unex- 
 pectedly, or his frequently resorting to the solitude of 
 the' woods (as was believed for private prayer) during 
 
the winter at Valley Forge, or his strictness in ob- 
 ^ervmg the Sabbath, or his regularity in reading the 
 
 But I call attention to Washington's public utter- 
 ances on behalf of religion and morality. I ask you 
 to observe how frequently he invoked the soldiers of 
 his army and the citizens of the Republic to recognize 
 the imperative claims of the Christian Religion upon 
 their reverence and their obedience. 
 
 Thus upon the very day when he assumed com- 
 mand of the army he issued the following order- "The 
 General requires and expects of all officers and sol- 
 diers, not engaged on actual duty, a punctual attend- 
 ance on Divine service, to implore the blessings of 
 heaven upon the means used for our safety and de- 
 tense. His stringent orders against profane swear- 
 ing and gambling are well known. Throughout the 
 continuance of the long struggle for independence 
 he gave conspicuous evidence of his constant trust 
 in Divine Providence, and ascribed every success 
 of his arms to the blessing of Almighty God 
 Again, when about to resign his commission at the 
 conclusion of the war, he issued an address to the 
 governors of the States, in which he made reference 
 to the many blessing enjoyed by America, "above all 
 the pure and benign light of revelation." He also 
 speaks in the same address of "that humility and pa- 
 cific temper of mind which were the characteristics 
 of the Divine Author of our blessed religion " 
 
 I need scarcely remind you of that supreme in- 
 stance of his solicitude for the interests of religion 
 wh,ch appears in his immortal Farewell Address to 
 he people of the United States, when he said "of all 
 the dispositions and habits which lead to political pros- 
 
perity, Religion and Morality are indispensable sup- 
 ports. In vain would that man claim the tribute of 
 patriotism who should labor to subvert these great 
 pillars of human happiness, these firmest props 
 of the duties of men and citizens." And again: 
 "Reason and experience forbid us to expect that 
 national morality can prevail in exclusion of religious 
 principles." 
 
 Now in order to appreciate the full significance of 
 these and similar utterances of Washington, two things 
 must be borne in mind. First, the absolute sincerity 
 of the man, his abhorrence of shams and of hypocricy ; 
 and secondly the circumstances under which they 
 were uttered — I mean the spirit and temper of the 
 times, in relation to the matter of religion. 
 
 Bear in mind that Washington lived at a period of 
 widespread unbelief. Religion was at a very low ebb 
 both in England and the United States, and the ene- 
 mies of the Christian Faith were very numerous and 
 very active. The teachings of Voltaire and Rousseau 
 had poisoned the minds of large numbers of young 
 men of talent in America, and Tom Paine, who had 
 gained so much reputation as the ardent advocate of 
 liberty and independence, had put forth with great 
 applause his "Age of Reason" (in 1794). 
 
 It was under these circumstances, and in this state 
 of public opinion, when many of the most brilliant 
 men in the colonies, and then in the young Republic, 
 had openly embraced the opinions of unbelief, that 
 Washington stood forth upon every conspicuous pub- 
 lic occasion as the advocate of the Christian religion. 
 How striking is the parallel he presents to the aged 
 Hebrew warrior seeking in his farewell address to 
 the twelve tribes of Israel to call them back to their 
 
allegiance to the God of their fathers. As we read 
 these orders, addresses, speeches, of Washington, 
 above all, his sublime farewell address, we hear again 
 the words of Joshua of old, "Choose ye this day whom 
 ye will serve; but as for me and my house we will 
 serve the Lord." 
 
 My brethren and my fellow citizens, I venture to 
 affirm that in adopting this attitude, upon so many 
 conspicuous occasions, it was the deliberate purpose 
 of Washington to do what he could to stem the tide 
 of unbelief which he saw coming in like a flood. He 
 saw the danger to which his countrymen were ex- 
 posed, and he raised his voice to warn them against 
 it in no hesitating or uncertain tones. It had already 
 swept away some of the leading men of the country. 
 Washington stood like a mighty rock unmoved by 
 its violence. 
 
 Who can estimate the influence that was exercised 
 against infidelity and immorality by the example and 
 the counsel of this sublime man? 
 
 In my opinion, his attitude upon this great question, 
 which underlies all his life and conduct, public and 
 private, constituted one of his most important services 
 to his country. For, when the people saw that he, the 
 most illustrious of the patriots and sages of his time, 
 the Father of his Country, the stainless hero to whom 
 great men in all lands did homage, — was a devout 
 believer in the Christian religion, and a humble fol- 
 lower of its Divine Author, they learned to distrust 
 the arguments put forth so plausibly and with such 
 show of reason by the propagandists of infidelity. And 
 so whenever the name and fame of Washington are 
 publicly celebrated, the Church of the Living God may 
 step forward and say to the 'American people: "Your 
 
orators and poets and historians have justly celebrated 
 the fame of this illustrious American, as a great soldier, 
 a great statesman, a great ruler, — as truly the Father 
 of his Country and the master-builder of the American 
 nation ; now let me add a title and a distinction, with- 
 out which your memorial would be incomplete and 
 inadequate — ^George Washington was a sincere Chris- 
 tian. He did much to save his people from the 
 baneful influence of infidelity, and in all the long 
 catalogue of his services to America and mankind, 
 none is more illustrious than this." 
 
 My countrywomen, members of this illustrious 
 Society, I claim your acquiescence in this tribute and 
 verdict of the Christian Church. If it be true, as 
 Washington himself solemnly reminded the American 
 people, in his farewell address, that "of all the dis- 
 positions and habits which lead to political prosperity" 
 "Religion and morality are indispensable supports" ; 
 if it be true, as he said, that religion and morality are 
 "the great pillars of human happiness ;" if it be true, 
 to quote yet again from that immortal address, that 
 reason and experience both forbid us to expect that 
 "national morality can prevail in exclusion of religious 
 principle" — then it must be also true that the orators 
 and the poets and the historians will not have given 
 us an adequate estimate of Washington's vast serv- 
 ices to his countrymen and the world, until they have 
 taken into account the influence that he exerted by 
 his life and by his words, for religion and morality. 
 That was the crown and consummation of his work. 
 That gave completeness to the orb of his glory. 
 
 Let this significant and pregnant fact be remem- 
 bered to-day. Be it ours to say to our children, and 
 our children's children, that they may hand it down 
 
 10 
 
as a sacred tradition to the generations to come, "Our 
 illustrious hero, whose name and fame we commit to 
 your keeping as a priceless heritage, was not only first 
 in war and first in peace — illustrious commander — 
 tireless and unconquerable patriot — sagacious and un- 
 selfish ruler — farseeing statesman and sage — master 
 builder of the Republic ; but he was also a man of 
 faith, a man of prayer, a mart who feared God and 
 loved his neighbor, in short, he was a sincere Chris- 
 tian and a protagonist against ungodliness and infidel- 
 ity. Honor and revere him as the Father of his Coun- 
 try, not only because he defended and protected it, 
 but also because he led it in the paths of virtue, and 
 bequeathed it the sacred counsels of a Christian 
 Faith." 
 
 I turn now to a different — though a kindred topic. 
 
 We are assembled this afternoon in this beautiful 
 Memorial Chapel, dedicated to the memory of that 
 large-minded Christian man, the first Bishop of 
 Washington, Henry Yates Satterlee. It was his beau- 
 tiful dream and devout endeavour, that the great 
 cathedral to be erected on Mount Saint Alban's should 
 be truly a national cathedral, instinct with the national 
 life, inspired by the national ideals, yet at the same 
 time "an house of prayer for all people." Isa. 56 :7. 
 
 Addressing this distinguished body of the Colonial 
 Dames it may not be amiss for me to point out some 
 reasons why the Protestant Episcopal Church should 
 aspire to the honour of representing the American 
 nation in her great cathedral. 
 
 But first let me say with all emphasis that I do not 
 disparage the great part played in the evolution of 
 our civilization, in the establishment of our independ- 
 
 11 
 
ence, and in the creation of our free institutions, by 
 other churches and other colonies, North and South. 
 The Puritans, the Independents, the Scotch-Irish, the 
 Dutch, the Huguenots, — all contributed nobly and hon- 
 ourably to the upbuilding of the nation. This oc- 
 knowledgment having been made, let me direct at- 
 tention to the fact that it was Christianity in its 
 Anglo-Saxon, not its Roman type, that molded and 
 fashioned the first permanent settlements in that part 
 of the new world ultimately comprised in the thirteen 
 colonies. There is to be, as you know, a great celebra- 
 tion on the 9th of June in connection with the unveiling 
 of a statue to Christopher Columbus in Washington. 
 We have no wish to detract from the honour and the 
 glory which rightly attaches to the name of that illus- 
 trious man, but we must not allow ourselves to forget 
 that Columbus never set foot upon the continent of 
 North America,* nor did his eyes ever behold it ; 
 nor did the nation which he represented (Spain) have 
 any part in the founding of the thirteen colonies which 
 developed into the United States of America. We 
 may devoutly thank God for this, when we remember 
 all that Spanish civilization stood for — its absolutism, 
 its obscurantism, its repression of liberty, its cruelty — 
 when we remember above all that behind the Spanish 
 Church of State loomed up, dark and terrible, the 
 tribunal of the Inquisition. Had the nation and the 
 church which Columbus represented dominated the 
 civilization of America there would have been no 
 Declaration of Independence ; there would have been 
 no Constitution of the United States, as we know it 
 to-day ; there would have been no separation of 
 Church and State; there would have been no indi- 
 
 *Honduras where he once landed belongs to Central America. 
 12 
 
vidiial liberty ; there would have been no free govern- 
 ment. Every one of the American colonies with the 
 single, and partial, exception of Maryland, was a 
 Protestant colony. The Church of England was first 
 upon the ground not only in Virginia, but in New 
 England also, through the Plymouth colony which 
 established itself on the coast of Maine the following 
 year. 
 
 She was predominant also in the Carolinas and 
 Georgia, and influential in New York and other mid- 
 dle States. All along the coast from Maine to 
 Georgia the prevalent religion was representative of 
 some form of Anglo-Saxon rather than Roman Chris- 
 tianity. As England was Protestant to the core at 
 the beginning of the 17th century, her colonies were 
 Protestant also without question or equivocation, — so 
 strongly Protestant that when the rupture with Eng- 
 land came and the colonies became sovereign states 
 many incorporated their Protestant faith in their or- 
 ganic law. 
 
 I may remind you that a Church of England colony, 
 established at Jamestown in 1607, was the fruitful 
 source of the larger part of all that made the be- 
 ginnings of American history luminous and glorious. 
 There was reared the first church on the soil of the 
 thirteen colonies ; there was celebrated for the first time 
 the Holy Communion of the Body and Blood of 
 Christ; there met the first legislative assembly in this 
 western world ; there the English Bible was first given 
 speech on American soil ; there the first English Prayer 
 Book came into use to kindle devotion in the hearts 
 of men in this western world; on that spot, where 
 stands that old ivy clad tower, were planted the 
 seeds of English law, of English representative gov- 
 
 13 
 
ernment, and of the Engilish liberty. At the town of 
 Henrico, not far distant from Jamestown, was built 
 in 1612 a hospital with four-score lodgings for the 
 sick and wounded of limb, with keepers to attend them 
 until their recovery. 
 
 With good reason then it may .be said if you seek 
 the earliest spring and source of American civili- 
 zation, American Christianity and American con- 
 stitutional liberty, you will find it in the soil 
 of the Jamestown colony. I am aware, of course, of 
 the missions of the Franciscan fathers in New Mexico 
 and in Florida and in California previous to the Vir- 
 ginia settlement. I am aware, also, of the attempt 
 to establish a Spanish settlement under Jesuit fathers 
 near Fredericksburg, Virginia, in 1566; but none of 
 these settlements contributed anything to the civiliza- 
 tion or the Christianization of the United States of 
 America. No one of them may be called the spring 
 or source of American Christianity. With scarcely 
 an exception these attempts at colonies were abortive, 
 they were like streams which sink into the earth and 
 disappear, no fertilizing rivers flowed from them ; 
 they were not sources of anything. 
 
 Reverting to the connection of the Episcopal 
 Church with the foundation of American institutions, 
 let me again remind you that the first Congress of 
 American freemen assembled in the choir of the 
 church at Jamestown on Friday, July 30, 1619. 
 It is to that spot and to that day that we must look 
 for the foundation of popular government in America. 
 Thus civil and religious liberty in the new world 
 owe their first debt to broad-minded churchmen, and 
 to the liberality of the Church of England. When we 
 come to the story of the American Revolution we find 
 
 14 
 
that the churchmen of the thirteen colonies in common 
 with their Protestant brethren of other names had 
 felt the impulse of the reformation toward personal 
 liberty in Church and State. We find also that the 
 English Church was looked to as the great bulwark 
 of Protestants, and this naturally intensified their feel- 
 ing as the sons and heirs of liberty. It is certain that 
 the sons of this Anglo-Saxon Church were greatly 
 distinguished by the services they rendered to civil and 
 religious liberty. 
 
 It was George Mason, of Gunston, a loyal son of 
 Virginia, who first enunciated the principle of freedom 
 of conscience and freedom of religious belief, as one 
 of the fundamental rights of every citizen. This he 
 did in that wonderful document the Virginia Bill of 
 Rights. It was Thomas Jefferson, another statesman, 
 born and bred in the Episcopal Church, and a regu- 
 lar attendant and supporter of the same, who cham- 
 pioned the rights of conscience in the Legislature of 
 his State and ultimately put on the statute book the 
 famous statute of religious liberty. These men could 
 not tolerate special privilege, even when their own 
 church was its beneficiary. Their love of freedom — 
 their abhorrence of the injustice of requiring any 
 man to support a religion or church in which he did 
 not believe, was such that they were willing to be 
 considered enemies of their mother church, in de- 
 priving her of all such special privileges — confident 
 that in doing so they were really setting her free and 
 striking from her limbs weights that clogged her 
 progress. Tlie Virginia Church was disestablished by 
 the aid of the lay members of the Episcopal Church ! 
 
 Still more conspicuous were the services of the sons 
 of this Anglo-Saxon church to civil liberty. The great- 
 
 15 
 
est thinkers, orators and organizers, as well as the one 
 supreme soldier, of the revolutionary epoch, were 
 sons of the Episcopal Church. It was a son of the 
 Episcopal Church, that same George Mason, the friend 
 and mentor of Washington, who in June, 1776, drafted 
 that profound and wonderful document, the Virginia 
 Bill of Rights — the first written constitution of a free 
 State — upon which the Massachusetts Bill of Rights 
 was molded, and all succeeding instruments of the 
 kind adopted by the different colonies. It was a son 
 of the Episcopal Church, Thomas Jefferson, who 
 wrote that world famous document, the Declaration 
 of Independence. It was another son of the Episco- 
 pal Church, Richard Henry Lee, who proposed in 
 Congress, and eloquently advocated, that audacious 
 resolution, "That these colonies are, and ought to be, 
 free and independent States." 
 
 It was a son of the Episcopal Church, Peyton Ran- 
 dolph, who presided over that First Congress of 
 Patriots, which organized the Revolution. 
 
 It was a son of the Episcopal Church, Patrick 
 Henry, whose matchless eloquence fired the hearts of 
 Americans, not only in Virginia, but all over the land, 
 to take up arms against the King. 
 
 It was a son of the Episcopal Church, Benjamin 
 Franklin, who was confessed the sage and philosopher 
 of the Revolution and who rendered at the court of 
 France such inestimable service to the struggling 
 colonies. 
 
 It was a son of the Episcopal Church, James Madi- 
 son, who earned the title of Father of the Constitution. 
 
 It was another son of the Episcopal Church, Chief 
 Justice John Marshall, who became the most illustrious 
 interpreter of the Constitution. 
 
 16 
 
It was the Episcopal Church which furnished twen- 
 ty-five out of thirty-nine signers of the Constitution of 
 the United States, about two-thirds of the whole num- 
 ber, not counting- ten or twelve Episcopalians who 
 were necessarily absent at the time of signature. 
 
 It was the Episcopal Church that gave to the Revo- 
 lution and to the young Republic that brilliant finan- 
 cier and illustrious statesman, Alexander Hamilton. 
 
 And finally it was a son of the Episcopal Church, 
 George Washington, the Father of his Country, who 
 first won our independence by his sword, and then, by 
 his patient and farseeing statesmanship, consolidated 
 the Republic under the aegis of the Constitution. 
 
 I will sum up the case for the Anglo-Saxon church 
 in one word, to wit: John Fiske, the Massachusetts 
 historian has told the world that there were five great 
 men of that epoch who may be said to have made the 
 nation — George Washington, Thomas Jefferson, Alex- 
 ander Hamilton, James Madison and John Marshall. 
 Now, all five of these makers of the Republic were 
 sons of the Episcopal Church. It is not, then, too 
 much to say that this Church led the way in the mak- 
 ing of the Republic. It was her voice, through these 
 her sons, that taught the people the first rudiments of 
 liberty. It was her influence that was most puissant 
 through these great men in establishing our free in- 
 stitutions. If the historian would estimate the place 
 which the Anglo-Saxon church ought to occupy in the 
 annals of the Republic, let him look at the stature of 
 the patriots whom the Episcopal Church gave to the 
 Revolution; let him observe that they are not only 
 among the giants of that remarkable epoch, they are 
 the greatest of the giants. 
 And, now, in view of the historical facts which I 
 17 
 
have rehearsed, was not the first Bishop of Washington 
 justified in his purpose to make this cathedral a na- 
 tional cathedral, a great and splendid temple of prayer 
 in which all our fellow citizens might find a spiritual 
 home here in the capital of the nation? 
 
 In concluding, may I without presumption express 
 the hope that when this great cathedral pile shall rise 
 upon this spot, the four great pillars which will sus- 
 tain the lantern tower may be dedicated to the 
 memory of Jefferson, the apostle of religious liberty ; 
 of Madison, the Father of the Constitution ; of Mar- 
 shall, the Interpreter of the Constitutnon ; and of 
 Washington, the Father of his Country. And that 
 when the visitor shall inquire by whom these four 
 pillars, representing religious liberty, and constitutional 
 government, and supreme justice, and peerless patriot- 
 ism, were erected, the answer shall be. These were the 
 gifts of that band of patriotic women known as the 
 Colonial Dames. 
 
 18 
 
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