TO THE CITIZENS OF THE UNITED STATES WHOSE CIVIL INSTITUTIONS HAVE THEIR Life and Character in the Christian Religion, THIS VOLUME IS RESPECTFULLY DEDICATED. DEVELOPED IN THE OFFICIAL AND HISTORICAL ANNALS OF THE REPUBLIC. BY B. F. MORRIS. "True religion affords to Government its surest support."-WASHINGTON. "The highest glory of the American Revolution was this: it connected in one indissoluble bond "The religion of the New Testament-that religion which is founded on the teachings of Jesus "Righteousness exalteth a nation."-BIBLE. "PHILADELPHIA: GEORGE W. CHILDS, 628 & 630 CHESTNUT ST. CINCINNATI: RICKEY & CARROLL. 1864. 1874, exfril 28. Hon. Charles Themences of Boston. (46.21.1830.) HARVARD Entered, according to Act of Congress, in the year 1863, by B. F. MORRIS, In the Clerk's Office of the District Court of the United States for the Eastern District of Pennsylvania. PREFACE. THIS volume is committed to the American people, in the firm assurance that the invaluable facts which it records will be grateful to every patriotic and pious heart. In it, as from the richest mines, has been brought out the pure gold of our history. Its treasures have been gathered and placed in this casket for the instruction and benefit of the present and future. We have a noble historic life; for our ancestors were the worthies of the world. We have a noble nation, full of the evidences of the moulding presence of Christian truth, and of the power and goodness of Divine wisdom in rearing up a Christian republic for all time. That this was the spirit and aim of the early founders of our institutions the facts in this volume fully testify. The field through which the reader will walk, in this work, must give wider expansion to his political views, quicken the pulses of his loyalty, add to his conscious dignity as an American citizen, strengthen his confidence in our future, and impart a higher tone to his piety. The single object of the compiler was to link, in a connected form, the golden chain of our Christian history, and to reveal the basis on which our institutions stand. The documents and facts are authentic, and have been collected, with laborious diligence, from standard historical works and from the political and Christian annals of the nation. The volume is the voice of the best and wisest men of the republic. It must, therefore, have weight with the American people, and be a political and Christian thesaurus and text-book to the scholar, the teacher, the |