American Minute

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Son of a butcher, his family died when a plague swept England, leaving him an estate. He attended Emmanuel College, was ordained, married and sailed for Massachusetts where he pastored the First Church of Charlestown. At age 31, he died of tuberculosis on SEPTEMBER 14, 1638. His name was Rev. John Harvard. The College at Cambridge was renamed for him. Ten of the twelve Harvard presidents prior to the Revolution were ministers, as were 50 percent of 17th-century graduates. Harvard's founders wrote: "After God had carried us safe to New England, and we...rear'd convenient places for God's worship...dreading to leave an illiterate Ministry to the Churches, when our present Ministers shall lie in the Dust...it pleased God to stir up the heart of one Mr. Harvard, a godly gentleman and a lover of learning...to give the one half of his estate...towards the erecting of a college and all his Library." As 106 of the first 108 schools in America were founded on Christianity, Harvard's Rules & Precepts, September 26, 1642, stated: "Let every Student be plainly instructed, and earnestly pressed to consider well, the main end of his life and studies is, to know God and Jesus Christ which is eternal life. Jn 17:3."

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The only U.S. President to also serve as Chief Justice of the Supreme Court, he had previously been appointed by President McKinley to be the first governor of the Philippines after the Spanish-American War, and by President Theodore Roosevelt as Secretary of War. The largest President, weighing 300 lbs, a bathtub was installed for him in the White House big enough to hold four men. His name was William Howard Taft, and he was born SEPTEMBER 15, 1857. On Thanksgiving, November 7, 1912, President Taft proclaimed: "A God-fearing nation, like ours, owes it to its inborn and sincere sense of moral duty to testify its devout gratitude to the All-Giver for the countless benefits its has enjoyed." Speaking at a missionary conference, 1908, William Howard Taft stated: "No man can study the movement of modern civilization from an impartial standpoint and not realize that Christianity, and the spread of Christianity, are the basis of hope of modern civilization in the growth of popular self government." Taft concluded: "The spirit of Christianity is pure democracy. It is equality of man before God - the equality of man before the law, which is the most God-like manifestation that man has been able to make."

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SEPTEMBER 16, 1620, according to the Gregorian Calendar, 102 Pilgrims set sail on the Mayflower. The 66-day journey of 2,750 miles encountered storms so rough the beam supporting the main mast cracked and was propped back in place with an iron screw of a printer's press. One youth, John Howland, was swept overboard by a wave and rescued. His descendants include Ralph Waldo Emerson, Humphrey Bogart, Franklin D. Roosevelt, and George W. Bush. On the Pilgrims' voyage, a boy died, and a mother gave birth. Intending to land in Virginia, they were blown off-course. Of their landing, Governor William Bradford wrote: "Being thus arrived in a good harbor, and brought safe to land, they fell upon their knees and blessed the God of Heaven who had brought them over the vast and furious ocean, and delivered them from all the perils and miseries thereof, again to set their feet on the firm and stable earth, their proper element." Though half died that first bitter winter, Governor Bradford wrote: "Last and not least, they cherished a great hope and inward zeal of laying good foundations...for the propagation and advance of the gospel of the kingdom of Christ in the remote parts of the world."

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"Done...the SEVENTEENTH DAY of SEPTEMBER, in the year of our LORD one thousand seven hundred and eighty seven." This was the last line of the U.S. Constitution. A study done by Professors Donald S. Lutz and Charles S. Hyneman, titled "The Relative Influence of European Writers on Late Eighteenth-Century American Political Thought" published in American Political Science Review, 1984, revealed after examining nearly 15,000 writings of the 55 writers of the Constitution, including newspaper articles, pamphlets, books and monographs, that the Bible, especially the book of Deuteronomy, contributed 34 percent of all direct quotes of the Founders. When indirect Bible citations were included, the percentage increased even more. Just ten days after his Inauguration, President George Washington wrote regarding the Constitution to the United Baptist Churches of Virginia, May 10, 1789: "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."

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A member of the Continental Congress, he led military expeditions in the Revolutionary War, paying for them at his own expense. He built ships to raid the British, signed the Constitution, and was the first President pro tem of the Senate. His name was John Langdon, and he died SEPTEMBER 18, 1819. As Governor of New Hampshire, Langdon was visited by President James Monroe in 1817, as the newspaper reported: "While at Portsmouth, the President spent that part of the Sabbath which was not devoted to public divine service, with that eminent patriot and Christian, John Langdon. His tarry...was probably longer than the time devoted to any individual in New England." A founder and the first President of the New Hampshire Bible Society, whose goal was to place a Bible in every New Hampshire home, Governor Langdon wrote in a Proclamation, October 21, 1785: "It therefore becomes our indispensable Duty, not only to acknowledge, in general with the rest of Mankind, our dependence on the Supreme Ruler of the Universe, but as a People peculiarly favoured, to testify our Gratitude to the Author of all our Mercies, in the most solemn and public manner."

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"The Lord of the Rings" by J.R.R. Tolken, tells of man's lust for the "ring of power." George Washington had that power twice, and gave it up. He led the Continental Army to victory and resigned, then served two terms as President and returned to farming. This was like the Roman leader Cincinnatus, who twice led the Roman Republic to victory in battle and twice voluntarily gave up his power to return to his farm. In an age of political ambition, the world stood in awe as George Washington voluntarily gave up his powerful position and delivered his Farewell Address, SEPTEMBER 19, 1796. He stated: "Of all the dispositions and habits which lead to political prosperity, Religion and Morality are indispensable supports. In vain would that man claim the tribute of Patriotism who should labor to subvert these great Pillars...Let us with caution indulge the supposition that morality can be maintained without religion." Washington continued: "Reason and experience both forbid us to expect that national morality can prevail in exclusion of religious principle...Morality is a necessary spring of popular government...Who that is a sincere friend to it can look with indifference upon attempts to shake the foundation of the fabric?"

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He helped ratify the U.S. Constitution and authored the House language of the First Amendment. At age 46, he was elected Harvard's president, but declined due to an illness which led to his death on July 4, 1808. An orator, Fisher Ames stated no one could be eloquent "without being a constant reader of the Bible and an admirer of the purity and sublimity of its language." In January 1788, Fisher Ames stated: "The known propensity of a democracy is to licentiousness which the...ignorant believe to be liberty." In his "Dangers of American Liberty," February 1805, Fisher Ames warned that democracy without morals would eventually reduce the nation to the basest of human passions, swallowing freedom: "A democracy is a volcano which conceals the fiery materials of its own destruction." In Palladium magazine, SEPTEMBER 20, 1789, Fisher Ames wrote: "We have a dangerous trend beginning to take place in our education. We're starting to put more textbooks into our schools...containing fables and moral lessons...We are spending less time in the classroom on the Bible, which should be the principal text in our schools." Fischer Ames concluded: "The Bible states these great moral lessons better than any other manmade book."

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On SEPTEMBER 21, 1924, America's 30th President, Calvin Coolidge, addressed the Holy Name Society in Washington, D.C., saying: "The worst evil that could be inflicted upon the youth of the land would be to leave them without restraint and completely at the mercy of their own uncontrolled inclinations. Under such conditions education would be impossible, and all orderly development intellectually or morally would be hopeless." Coolidge continued: "The Declaration of Independence...claims...the ultimate source of authority by stating...they were...'appealing to the Supreme Judge of the World for the rectitude of' their 'intentions.'...The foundations of our independence and our Government rests upon basic religious convictions. Back of the authority of our laws is the authority of the Supreme Judge of the World, to whom we still appeal." President Coolidge concluded: "It seems to me perfectly plain that the authority of law, the right to equality, liberty and property, under American institutions, have for their foundation reverence for God. If we could imagine that to be swept away, these institutions of our American government could not long survive."

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"I only regret that I have but one life to lose for my country" were the last words of 21-year-old American patriot Nathan Hale, who was hanged by the British without a trial, SEPTEMBER 22, 1776. A Yale graduate, he almost became a Christian minister, as his brother Enoch did, but instead became a teacher at Union Grammar School. He fought in the siege of Boston, capturing a boat of provisions from under the gun of a British man-of-war. After the British left Boston for New York, General Washington was desperate for information. Hale volunteered to penetrate the British line at Long Island, but was captured upon return. General Howe ordered him to be hanged the next morning. He wrote a letter to his mother and brother, but the British destroyed them, not wanting it known a man could die with such firmness. Hale asked for a Bible, but was refused. He was marched out and hanged from an apple-tree in Rutgers's orchard, near the present streets of East Broadway and Market in New York City. His nephew, well-known author Edward Everett Hale, wrote: "We are God's children, you and I, and we have our duties...Thank God I come from men who are not afraid in battle."

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"I have not yet begun to fight!" shouted John Paul Jones when the captain of the British ship Serapis asked if he was ready to surrender. Their ships were so close their cannon muzzles touched and masts entangled, yet the American ship Bonhomme Richard, named for Ben Franklin's Poor Richard's Almanac, refused to give up. When two cannons exploded and his ship began sinking, Jones lashed his ship to the enemy's to keep it afloat. After 3 more hours of fighting, the British surrendered. This was SEPTEMBER 23, 1779. Called the "Father of the American Navy," John Paul Jones commanded the Continental Navy's first ship, Providence, in 1775. With 12 guns, it was the most victorious American vessel in the Revolution, capturing or sinking 40 British ships. In 1778, sailing the Ranger, Jones raided the coasts of Scotland and England. On February 13, 1905, President Theodore Roosevelt wrote: "The remains of Admiral John Paul Jones were interred in a certain piece of ground in the city of Paris...used...as a burial place for foreign Protestants... The great service done by him toward the achievement of independence...lead me to...do proper honor to the memory of John Paul Jones."

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"The power to tax is the power to destroy," wrote John Marshall, 4th Chief Justice of the Supreme Court, who was born SEPTEMBER 24, 1755. No one had a greater impact on U.S. Constitutional Law than Marshall. Sworn in on February 4, 1801, he served 34 years on the bench and helped write over 1,000 decisions, including supporting the Cherokee Indian nation in their effort to stay in Georgia. During the Revolution, he fought under Washington and endured the terrible winter at Valley Forge. According to tradition, the Liberty Bell cracked tolling at his funeral, July 8, 1835. Chief Justice John Marshall wrote to Jasper Adams, May 9, 1833: "The American population is entirely Christian, and with us Christianity and Religion are identified. It would be strange indeed, if with such a people, our institutions did not presuppose Christianity and did not often refer to it and exhibit relations with it." A hundred years after Marshall's death, the present Supreme Court Building was completed in 1935. Engraved above the Chief Justice are the Ten Commandments. Moses is included among the great lawgivers in Herman A. MacNeil's marble relief on the east portico, and every session of the Supreme Court opens with an invocation: "God save the United States and this Honorable Court."

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"Congress shall make no law respecting the establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof." Thus began the first Ten Amendments, or Bill of Rights, which were approved SEPTEMBER 25, 1789. George Mason, known as "The Father of the Bill of Rights," wrote the Virginia Declaration of Rights from which Jefferson drew to write the Declaration of Independence. George Mason was one of 55 founders who wrote the U.S. Constitution, but was also one of sixteen who refused to sign it because it did not abolish slavery and did not limit the power of the Federal Government. He joined with Patrick Henry and Samuel Adams to prevent the Constitution from being ratified, as the abuses of King George's concentrated power were still fresh. It was in large part through George Mason's insistence that in the first session of Congress ten limitations were put on the new Federal Government. George Mason had suggested the wording of the First Amendment be: "All men have an equal, natural and unalienable right to the free exercise of religion, according to the dictates of conscience; and that no particular sect or society of Christians ought to be favored or established by law in preference to others."

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Daniel Boone served with George Washington in 1755 during the French and Indian War. He explored Florida in 1765 and was sent by Patrick Henry to survey Kentucky. In 1775, the Pennsylvania Company had Daniel Boone lay out lands in Kentucky and erect a fort on the Kentucky River, which he named Boonesboro. In 1778, during the Revolution, Daniel Boone went to Blue Licks to get salt for the settlement but was captured by Shawnee Indians and taken to Detroit. He learned that the British had incited Indians to attack his settlement, so he escaped and ran nearly 400 miles in 5 days to warn Boonseboro. He became a Major in the militia and served in Virginia's legislature. He bought land in Kentucky but lost it due to poorly prepared titles, so he left in 1799 and bought land from Spain west of the Mississippi River. He lost this land in 1803 with the Louisiana Purchase, but six years before his death on SEPTEMBER 26, 1820, Congress gave him back the land. On October 17, 1816, Daniel Boone wrote to his sister-in-law Sarah Boone: "The religion I have is to love and fear God, believe in Jesus Christ, do all the good to my neighbor, and myself that I can, do as little harm as I can help, and trust on God's mercy for the rest."

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Crying "no taxation without representation," he instigated the Stamp Act riots and the Boston Tea Party. After the "Boston Massacre," he spread Revolutionary sentiment with his Committees of Correspondence. "The Father of the American Revolution," Samuel Adams, who was born SEPTEMBER 27, 1722, called for the first Continental Congress and signed the Declaration. A cousin of second President John Adams, Samuel Adams wrote in The Rights of Colonists, 1772: "Among the natural rights of Colonists are: First, a right to life; Secondly, to liberty; Thirdly, to property; together with the right to defend them...The supreme power cannot justly take from any man any part of his property, without his consent." As Governor of Massachusetts, Samuel Adams wrote to James Warren, February 12, 1779: "A general dissolution of the principles and manners will more surely overthrow the liberties of America than the whole force of the common enemy. While the people are virtuous they cannot be subdued; but once they lose their virtue, they will be ready to surrender their liberties to the first external or internal invader." Samuel Adams concluded: "If we would enjoy this gift of Heaven, let us become a virtuous people."

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He developed vaccines for rabies and anthrax, revolutionized medicine with his germ theory of disease, and laid the foundation for the control of tuberculosis, cholera, diphtheria, and tetanus. While Dean of the faculty of sciences at Lille University in France, he developed the process of "Pasteurization" of milk. This was Louis Pasteur, who died SEPTEMBER 28, 1895. President Eisenhower wrote January 8, 1954: "Pasteurization of milk has prevented countless epidemics and saved thousands of lives." President Johnson stated April 7, 1966: "Years ago Louis Pasteur said, 'I hold the unconquerable belief that science and peace will triumph over ignorance and war; that nations will come together not to destroy, but to construct; and that the future belongs to those who accomplish most for humanity.'" President George H.W. Bush stated February 13, 1989: "You know, Louis Pasteur once said: 'Chance favors only the prepared mind.'...For America to be prepared for the future, our children must be educated." Dr. Louis Pasteur wrote: "The more I study nature, the more I stand amazed at the work of the Creator...There is something in the depths of our souls which tells us that the world may be more than a mere combination of events."