Rev. Timothy Dwight was born on May 14, 1752. Dwight was the grandson of First Great Awakening Pastor Jonathan Edwards. He was graduated from Yale College at age 17, became a Congregational minister and served as a Chaplain in the Revolutionary War. He also became an educator and author, serving as President of Yale from 1795 to 1817. During his presidency at Yale, Dwight was instrumental in fostering a powerful revival which broke out at the New Haven, Connecticut campus.

On July 4th, 1798, Dwight delivered an address entitled, “The Duty of Americans, at the Present Crisis,” which analyzed the downside of the French Revolution and offered a lesson to America. Dwight declared:

“Where religion prevails…a nation cannot be made slaves, nor villains, nor atheists, nor beasts. To destroy us therefore, in this dreadful sense, our enemies must first destroy our Sabbath and seduce us from the house of God. Religion and liberty are the two great objects of defensive war. Conjoined, they united all the feelings and call forth all the energies of man….

Religion and liberty are the meat and the drink of the body politic. Withdraw one of them and it languishes, consumes, and dies. If indifference to either, at any time, becomes the prevailing character of a people, one half of their motives to vigorous defense is lost, and the hopes of their enemies are proportionally increased. Here, eminently, they are inseparable.

Without religion we may possibly retain the freedom of savages, bears, and wolves, but not the freedom of New England. If our religion were gone, our state of society would perish with it; and nothing would be left, which would be worth defending.”*

Timothy Dwight’s prophetic warning is another lost episode in American history.

*Source Citation: Ellis Sandoz, ed., Political Sermons of the American Founding Era, 1730-1805, 2 vols., (Indianapolis, IN: Liberty Fund, 1998), 2:1380.

On May 12, 1779, a delegation of Delaware Indian Chiefs visited General George Washington at his Middle Brook military encampment. They had brought three of their young men to be trained in the American schools. General Washington received them warmly, offered to help, and gave them advice:

Brothers: I am glad you have brought three of the Children of your principal Chiefs to be educated with us. I am sure Congress will open the Arms of love to them, and will look upon them as their own Children, and will have them educated accordingly.

This is a great mark of your confidence and of your desire to preserve the friendship between the Two Nations to the end of time, and to become One people with your Brethren of the United States….

You do well to wish to learn our arts and ways of life, and above all, the religion of Jesus Christ. These will make you a greater and happier people than you are. Congress will do everything they can to assist you in this wise intention; and to tie the knot of friendship and union so fast, that nothing shall ever be able to loose it….

And I pray God He may make your Nation wise and strong.”*

George Washington’s advice to the Delawares to learn the religion of Jesus Christ “above all” and that Congress would assist them to that end is indeed a lost episode in American history.

*Source Citation: John Clement Fitzpatrick, ed., The Writings of George Washington, from the Original Manuscript Sources 1749-1799, 39 vols. (Washington, D.C.: United States Government Printing Office, 1931-1944), 15:55.