Blog - Watchmen on the Wall

Lost Episode for May 11

May 12, 2012

On May 11, 1918, President Woodrow Wilson issued a Proclamation for a National Day of Humiliation, Prayer and Fasting:

“Whereas the Congress of the United States, on the second day of April last, passed the following resolution:

‘Resolved by the Senate (the House of Representatives concurring), That, it being the duty peculiarly incumbent in a time of war humbly and devoutly to acknowledge our dependence on Almighty God and to implore His aid and protection, the President of the United States be, and he is hereby, respectfully requested to recommend a day of public humiliation, prayer and fasting, to be observed by the people of the United States with religious solemnity and the offering of fervent supplications to Almighty God for the safety and welfare of our cause, His blessings on our arms, and a speedy restoration of an honorable and lasting peace to the nations of the earth;’

And Whereas it has always been the reverent habit of the people of the United States to turn in humble appeal to Almighty God for His guidance in the affairs of their common life;

Now, Therefore, I, Woodrow Wilson, President of the United States of America, do hereby proclaim Thursday, the thirtieth day of May, a day already freighted with sacred and stimulating memories, a day of public humiliation, prayer and fasting, and do exhort my fellow-citizens of all faiths and creeds to assemble on that day in their several places of worship and there, as well as in their homes, to pray Almighty God that He may forgive our sins and shortcomings as a people and purify our hearts to see and love the truth, to accept and defend all things that are just and right, and to purpose only those righteous acts and judgements which are in conformity with His will; beseeching Him that He will give victory to our armies as they fight for freedom, wisdom to those who take counsel on our behalf in these day of dark struggle and perplexity, and steadfastness to our people to make sacrifice to the utmost in support of what is just and true, bringing us at last the peace in which men’s hearts can be at rest because it is founded upon mercy, justice and good will.”*

President Woodrow Wilson’s proclamation for a Memorial Day time of “Humiliation, Prayer, and Fasting” is another lost episode in American history.

*Source Citation: Oliver M. Gale, ed., Americanism: Woodrow Wilson’s Speeches on the War (Chicago: The Baldwin Syndicate, 1918), 116-17.

Lost Episode for May 10

May 11, 2012

On May 10, 1789, President George Washington replied to the General Committee representing the United Baptist Churches of Virginia. Washington wrote:

Gentlemen, I request that you will accept my best acknowledgments for your congratulations on my appointment to the first office in the nation….

After we had, by the smiles of Heaven on our exertions, obtained the object for which we contended, I retired at the conclusion of the war, with an idea that my country would have no farther occasion for my services, and with the intention of never entering again into public life. But when the exigencies of my country seemed to require me once more to engage in public affairs, an honest conviction of duty superseded my former resolution…

If I could have entertained the slightest apprehension that the Constitution framed by the Convention, where I had the honor to preside, might possibly endanger the religious rights of any ecclesiastical Society, certainly I would never have placed my signature to it; if I could now conceive that the general Government might ever be so administered as to render liberty of conscience insecure, I beg you will be persuaded that no one would be more zealous than myself to establish effectual barriers against the horrors of spiritual tyranny, and every species of religious persecution; for you doubtless remember I have often expressed my sentiments, that any man, conducting himself as a good citizen, and being accountable to God alone for his religious opinions, ought to be protected in worshipping the Deity according to the dictates of his own conscience…”*

President Washington’s unequivocal declaration that he would have had nothing to do with a Constitution that restricted religious freedom is a lost episode in American history.

*Source Citation: Jared Sparks, ed., The Writings of George Washington; being His Correspondence, Addresses, Messages, and Other Papers, Official and Private, Selected and Published from the Original Manuscripts, 12 vols. (Boston: American Stationer’s Company, 1837), 12:154-55.

Lost Episode for May 9

May 10, 2012

Pilgrim Governor William Bradford died on May 9, 1657. He was orphaned at a young age and was taken in by William Brewster, Elder of the Scrooby Church that fled to Holland and then to America. Bradford was chosen as governor of the colony in 1621, and was reelected numerous times. Bradford’s journal was published as Of Plymouth Plantation, which chronicled the Pilgrim’s reasons for leaving England, time in Holland, journey to America, and their tragedies and triumphs of surviving and building a settlement in the New World. Bradford wrote:

“Last and not least, they cherished a great hope and inward zeal of laying good foundations, or at least making some ways toward it, for the propagation and advance of the gospel of the kingdom of Christ in the remote parts of the world, even though they should be but stepping stones to others in the performance of so great a work.

Thus out of small beginnings greater things have been produced by His hand that made all things of nothing, and gives being to all things that are; and, as one small candle may light a thousand, so the light here kindled hath shone unto many, yea in some sort to our whole nation; let the glorious name of Jehovah have all the praise….”

At Burial Hill, Plymouth, Massachusetts, Governor William Bradford’s obelisk marker is inscribed as follows:

“Under this stone rests the ashes of William Bradford, a zealous Puritan & sincere Christian. Governor of Plymouth Colony from April 1621 to 1657, aged 69, except 5 years, which he declined. Qua patres difficillime adepti sunt nolite turpiter relinquere [What our fathers with so much difficulty attained do not basely relinquish]*

Governor Bradford’s description of the Pilgrim’s missionary motives in coming to America and of his memorial engraved in stone is another lost episode in American history.

*Source Citation: Harold Paget, ed., Bradford’s History of the Plymouth Settlement 1608-1650: Rendered into Modern English by Valarian Paget (New York: John McBride, 1909), 21, 236. See the picture included from Plymouth’s Burial Hill. Bracketed item added.

Lost Episode for May 8

May 9, 2012

On May 8, 1783, Rev. Dr. Ezra Stiles, President of Yale College, preached an Election Sermon entitled “The United States Elevated to Glory and Honor,” before the Governor and the General Assembly of Connecticut, comparing modern America with ancient Israel:

“I have assumed the text only as introductory to a discourse upon the political welfare of God’s American Israel, and as allusively prophetic of the future prosperity and splendor of the United States. We may, then, consider—

I. What reason we have to expect that, by the blessing of God, these States may prosper and flourish into a great American Republic, and ascend into high and distinguished honor among the nations of the earth. “To make thee high above all nations which he hath made, in praise, and in name, and in honor.”

II. That our system of dominion and civil polity would be imperfect without the true religion; or that from the diffusion of virtue among the people of any community would arise their greatest secular happiness: which will terminate in this conclusion, that holiness ought to be the end of all civil government. ‘That thou mayest be a holy people unto the Lord thy God’…

All forms of civil polity have been tried by mankind, except one, and that seems to have been reserved in Providence to be realized in America…

Who but a Washington, inspired by Heaven, could have conceived the surprise move upon the enemy at Princeton? Who but the Ruler of the winds could have delayed the British reinforcements by three months of contrary ocean winds at a critical point of the war? Or what but “a providential miracle” at the last minute detected the treacherous scheme of traitor Benedict Arnold, which would have delivered the American army, including George Washington himself, into the hands of the enemy?….

But I must desist with only observing that the United States are under peculiar obligations to become a holy people unto the Lord our God.”*

*Source Citation: John Wingate Thornton, The Pulpit of the American Revolution or The Political Sermons of the Period of 1776 with a Historical Introduction, Notes, and Illustrations (Boston: Gould and Lincoln, 1860), 402, 412, 444, 506.

Lost Episode for May 7

May 8, 2012

In a radio address to the nation on May 7, 1983, President Ronald Reagan declared:

“We also first learn at home, and, again, often from our mothers, about the God who will guide us through life….

Now and then I find guidance and direction in the worn brown Bible I used to take the oath of office. It’s been the Reagan family Bible, and, like many of yours, has its flyleaf filled with important events; its margins are scrawled with insights and passages underlined for emphasis. My mother, Nelle, made all those marks in that book. She used it to instruct her two young sons, and I look to it still.

A passage in Proverbs describes the ideal woman, saying: ‘Strength and dignity are her clothing, and she smiles at the future. She opens her mouth in wisdom, and the teaching of kindness is on her tongue. Give her the product of her hands, and let her work praise her in the gates.’”*

President Reagan’s tribute to his mother’s influence on his spiritual formation is a lost episode in American history.

*Source Citation: Fred L. Israel, ed., Ronald Reagan’s Weekly Radio Addresses: The First Term (Wilmington, DE: Scholarly Resources, Inc., 1987), 99, 101.

Lost Episode for May 11

Lost Episode for May 10

Lost Episode for May 9

Lost Episode for May 8

Lost Episode for May 7

Categories

Archives