W WASHINGTON AS A CHRISTIAN E recall today not the notable achievements but the Christian character of the man. The familiar story of the hatchet is no doubt legendary, for it has been traced to its source; but why did such a legend arise? Legends are often as true as expressions of the characters of those of whom they are told as the things they have really said or done. The legends that gather about any great hero of the past reveal the impression made by him upon his contemporaries. They often gather together and express in epigrammatic form the general effect of his character. It was so with Washington. Men felt that he could not tell a lie. Truthfulness is a fundamental trait of Christian character; but looked at in larger perspective what do we know of the Christianity of Washington? What type of Christian was he? Though he did much, he said little. Much has been written of his deeds but there is only a meagre record of his thoughts and ambitions, his faith and his piety. What were his own inner feelings in the great moments of his lifewhen he stood with Braddock in the wilderness witnessing the confusion and defeat wrought by obstinacy and over-confidence; in the dark and lonely days at Valley Forge; as he faced his task and entered the untrodden path as first President; when he had retired to the quiet of Mount Vernon; in the hour of triumph and in the days of gloom? Washington was a Christian by inheritance. He came of a family not only of Christians but of clergymen. The clergy are, perhaps, no better than other men; but where many members of a family through several generations enter the Christian ministry there must at least be present a strong religious conviction. Men do not give up their lives. to a work in which they do not believe. "The only profession," says President Wilson, "which consist in being something is the ministry of our Lord and Saviour-and it does not consist in anything else." The first essential in a minister is that he "be a Christian." The great, great grandfather of George Washington was a minister of the Church of England. He was the Rev. Lawrence Washington, who was deprived of his living at Purleigh by Cromwell. It is not unlikely that it was the poverty into which the family was thrown by this act of Cromwell's -An Address given before the Daughters of the Revolution at Taunton, Mass., 1915. government that led his two sons to try their fortunes in America. Three generations before another Lawrence Washington had received from Henry VIII a priory at Sulgrave, where there is still a tablet commemorating the Washington family. Beside these two clergymen there were, as Dr. John S. Littell in his interesting monograph* has pointed out, several other direct ancestors of George Washington who were ministers of the Church of England-the Rev. Lawrence Washington, University preacher in 1570; the Rev. Lawrence Washington, Vicar of Stotesbury in 1619; another of the same name vicar of Colmer; besides a Rev. George Washington, a Rev. Adam Washington, a Rev. Robert Washington, a Rev. Marmaduke Washington and a Rev. Henry Washington. These men were all loyal to the Church of England. Surely this was a fine inheritance. Dr. Holmes has told us that a man's education begins generations before he is born. Washington at birth was already by promise an earnest Christian and a good church man. So far as the outward profession of religion is concerned, Washington followed the customary path. He was baptized when a few weeks old and confirmed in early youth. He was an exceptionally regular attendant at church, one rector declaring that he had never seen so constant an attendant at church as was Washington. There were regular services for the army wherever he was in command. He himself read the burial service over the body of General Braddock. The story is told how someone seeking him on a Sunday was directed to the church with the words, "Look for the man who kneels." He would be known by his devout attitude. From Portsmouth in New Hampshire to Savannah in Georgia, there are a score of churches in which it is recorded that Washington worshipped there. In Portsmouth and Boston; in Cambridge, Newport and at New Haven; in New York and Philadelphia; in several places in Virginia; in Charleston and Savannah, the record may be found. Whenever possible it was in his own beloved Episcopal Church that he knelt in prayer; but he was not an exclusive churchman and went occasionally to both Protestant and Catholic churches. More than once dispatches were given him in church, where he would read them, but continue his worship until the service closed. *George Washington: Christian, by the Rev. John Stockton Littell, D.D., Keene, N. H. The writer is also indebted to Dr. Littell for other facts cited in the address. This record is particularly significant in view of the prevailing neglect of worship at that time. It was a dark period in the history of the Church in America. In 1801 there were only six professing Christians among the students at Yale; at Harvard there are said to have been One denomination, today the largest among Protestants, was losing at the rate of three thousand members a year. Chief Justice Marshall said the Episcopal Church was too far gone ever to be revived. But Washington worshipped every Sunday. none. Deeper than any outward expression of religion is the personal faith of a man. Worship may be conventional. What was the inner life of Washington? He was a man of few words; of a naturally reserved and silent temperament. Yet when such a man speaks of religion his words carry the more weight, in contrast to the customary reserve. It is like a man's tears; they do not come easily, but when they do they express great emotion. We may judge something from Washington's occasional utterances. The orders of a commanding general are not usually burdened with religious admonitions, yet Washington in his general orders to the army in 1778 said: "While we are zealously performing the duties of citizens and soldiers, we certainly ought not to be inattentive to the higher duties of religion. To the distinguised character of patriot it should be our highest glory to add the more distinguised character of Christian." Again in a letter to the governors of the states in 1783, he writes: "I make it my earnest prayer that God would have you and the state over which you preside in his holy protection; that he would incline the hearts of the citizens to cultivate a spirit of subordination and obedience to government; to entertain a brotherly affection for one another, for their fellow-citizens of the United States at large, and particularly for their brethren who have died in the field; and finally that he would most graciously be pleased to dispose us all to do justice, to love mercy, and to demean ourselves with that charity, humility and pacific temper of mind which were the characteristics of the divine Author of our blessed religion; without our humble imitation of whose example in these things we can never hope to be a happy nation." Where will we find a state paper in which religion occupies so conspicuous a place? In resigning his command as general he said: "I consider it my indispensable duty to close this last solemn act of my official life by commending the interests of our dearest country to the protection of Almighty God, and those who have the superintendence of them to his holy keeping." Then there are the more familiar words of his Farewell Address: "Let us with caution indulge the supposition that morality can be maintained without religion. Whatever may be conceded to the influence of refined education on minds of peculiar structure, reason and experience both forbid us to expect that national morality can prevail in exclusion of religious principle." The personal religion of Washington seems to have been marked by a deep humility and to have been permeated with the evangelical piety which was the chief expression of the religious life of his time. The following prayer taken from one of his note-books might well have been composed by Charles Wesley, so characteristic is it of the evangelical spirit: "Remark, not, O God, I beseech thee, what I have done. amiss; remember I am but dust and remit my transgressions, negligences and ignorances and cover them all with the absolute obedience of thy dear Son." Washington records his remembrance of his mother's advice: "My son do not neglect the duty of secret prayer." Nor did he hesitate, notwithstanding his natural reserve, to pray in public. These prayers will perhaps seem formal to a more emotional nature, but they are direct and self-forgetful. Like Lincoln, Washington was apparently not so much concerned to have God on his side as that he should be found on God's side. On one occasion he prays in the words of Joshua: "The Lord God of gods, the Lord God of gods, he knoweth, and Israel he shall know; if it be in rebellion, or if in transgression against the Lord, save us not this day." To prayer Washington added faith. Nothing less could have kept him hopeful during the dark days of the Revolution. It took faith also to refuse to yield to popular clamor and to stand well-nigh alone for the course he believed to be right. His faith was real to him in hours of danger. When ill, so that death threatened, he could say; "I am not afraid to die. Whether to night or twenty years hence makes no difference." What then was Washington's character as a Christian? The nature of his religion was apparently in harmony with the prevailing traits of temperament which Napoleon's estimate so well portrays. "A man solid rather than brilliant, wise rather than enthusiastic, the prevailing character of his mind was judgment rather than enthusiasm; he was moved by forethought rather than rapture." The moral rather than the mystical expression of religion was foremost. Washington was quick to express his disapproval of all violations of the moral standard even on such matters as swearing and gambling, which were so general among men at that day that objection to them must have appeared to many as approaching moral fastidiousness. He characterizes swearing as "wanton and shocking;" he refers to gambling as "an abominable practice." In the moral expression of his religion three notes seem to the writer predominant. First, self-respect. Self-respect is based on the ability to be what one believes one ought to be. Before it is "The task of making real That duty up to its ideal; A purpose of the human soul." But no man can live wholly up to his ideal, and such self-respect cannot be maintained without help from God, without some justification which takes the motive for the deed. George Washington maintained his self-respect. It is an evidence of the depth of his religion. Another moral trait was his sincerity. He surprised the opposing generals by doing what he apparently intended to do. By such sincerity he disarmed political opponents and discredited their methods. He would not court popularity. He was the captain of his soul. "A man, who, lifted high, Conspicuous object in a nation's eye, Where what he most doth value must be won." There was also the note of loyalty. For the traitor he had the utmost loathing. Nothing so aroused Washington's anger as the suggestion of any action that was tainted with disloyalty. When some of his followers would have made him king he felt it as a burning insult. Never was a national leader more completely at his country's call. Professor Royce assures us that loyalty is the chief thing in religion and that it is the ultimate measure of character. Christ made loyalty to himself the test of discipleship; an intensity of devotion from which one might not even look back. George Washington was loyal. |