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God. On July 4th, 1865, the State of New Jersey erected a beautiful monument, of Quincy granite, over his bones at Hopewell. He is represented as being tall and very prepossessing in person, very kind in his disposition, and he made a great favorite of his negro servant, Jack. Jack committed larceny on some of his master's goods in his absence, and many wished Hart to punish him; but he said that, as he had confided all his movables to Jack's care, he must let the offense pass as a breach of trust. When he was secreted in the Sourland Mountains, in 1776, he rested where he could in the day-time, and slept at night in an out-house, with his companion, the family dog. A marginal note on the journal of the Legislature for 1779, and the probate of his will, show that he died in that year; the first of these being May 11th, and the last May 23d.

These few instances show the general tone of American patriotism amongst the American Baptists, for their ranks were almost unbroken on this subject. Judge Curwen was an ardent Tory; he mentions 926 persons of note who sympathized with the British, and a still more numerous array of Tories exiled by Colonial law; but, so far as is known, there is not the name of one Baptist on the list. 5 Most of the officials of Rhode Island and about two fifths of her people were Baptists. In 1764 she formed a Committee of Correspondence, whose design it was to secure the co-operation of the other Colonies in maintaining their liberties. This chapter may well close with a brief notice of several Baptist ministers who served as chaplains, for out of twenty-one whose names are now known, six of them, or nearly one third of the number, were our own brethren, who rendered marked service, some of them being of national reputation and influence. Mention may be

made of:

HEZEKIAH SMITH, D.D., of Haverhill, Mass. He entered the army in 1776, and so noted did he become as a patriot that he not only attracted the notice of Washington, but became his personal friend, corresponded freely with him after the war, and was visited by him at Haverhill in 1789. Smith set an example of bravery to the soldiers in battle, as well as of devotion to their country and purity of character. His recently published journal throws considerable light upon the movements of Gates in foiling Burgoyne's attempt to join Clinton, and on his overthrow at Stillwater and Saratoga. We have already spoken of

REV. JOHN GANO, who was a patriot of the best order, as well as a noble pastor. He began his services in the army in Clinton's New York Brigade, and was indefatigable in animating his regiment at the battle of Chatterton's Hill. The army was in something of a panic, and with cool courage he took his post in what seemed a forlorn hope. Many were abandoning their guns and flying without firing a shot, so that a mere handful were holding their ground when he sprang to the front. He states that he knew his station in time of action to be with the surgeons, and he half apologizes for his daring, saying: In this battle I somehow got to the front of the regiment, yet I durst not quit my place for fear of dampening the spirits of

the soldiers or bringing on myself an imputation of cowardice.' He was at Fort Montgomery when it was taken by storm, but knew nothing of fear. Webb, Warren, Hall and Washington were all his personal friends. An interesting incident in his chaplaincy is related by Ruttenbeer, in his History of Newburg.' News was received that hostilities had ceased and that the preliminary articles of peace were settled; and on April 19th, 1783, Washington proclaimed peace from the 'New Building,' and called on the chaplains with the several brigades to render thanks to God. Both banks of the Hudson were lined by the patriot hosts, with drum and fife, burnished arms and floating banners. At high noon thirteen guns from Fort Putnam awoke the echoes of the Highlands, and the army fired a volley. At that moment the hosts of freedom bowed before God in prayer, after which a hymn of thanksgiving floated from all voices to the Eternal throne. This building was not Washington's head-quarters, but was a large room for public assemblies, sometimes called the Temple,' located in New Windsor, between Newburg and West Point. Thatcher says in his 'Journal' that when this touching scene occurred the proclamation made from the steps was followed by three huzzas, then prayer was offered to the Almighty Ruler of the world by Rev. JOHN GANO, and an anthem was perAfter these services the army returned to formed by voices and instruments. quarters and spent the day in suitable festivities. Then, at sundown, the signal gun of Fort Putnam called the soldiers to arms and another volley of joy rang all along the line. This was three times repeated, cannon discharges followed with the flashing of thousands of fire-arins, and the beacons from the hill-tops, no longer harbingers of danger,' lighted up the gloom and rolled on the tidings of peace through New England and shed their radiance on the blood-stained field of Lexington.3 Every patriotic Christian heart in the nation joined in the thanksgiving to which this patriot Baptist pastor gave expression in the presence of his immortal Commander-in-chief.

REV. DAVID JONES, born in Delaware, May 12th, 1736, was another eminent Baptist chaplain. He had been a student at the Hopewell Academy for three years, pastor at Freehold, N. J., and missionary to the Shawnee and Delaware Indians. At the outbreak of the war, however, he was pastor at Great Valley, Chester County, Pa. He was a bold and original thinker, and had highly offended many Tories in New Jersey by the free utterance of his Whig sentiments. The Continental Congress appointed a day of fasting and prayer in 1675, when he preached a powerful sermon in defense of the war to Colonel Dewee's regiment, which exerted a powerful influence on the public mind when printed. He became Chaplain to Colonel St. Clair's regiment in 1776, and greatly aroused the patriotism of the soldiers in a sermon just before the conflict at Ticonderoga. He served also under Gates and Wayne, and was so heroic that General Howe offered a reward for his capture, and one or more plots were laid to secure him, but failed. He preached to the army at Valley Forge, when the news came that France had recognized

American independence. It seems to have been his custom to preach as often as possible before going into battle, and he remained in the army until the surrender of Cornwallis, at Yorktown. When Wayne was sent against the Indians, in 1794–96, he accompanied him as chaplain, and again in the same capacity he went through the war with Britain in 1812, under Generals Brown and Wilkinson. He was the father of Horatio Gates Jones, D.D., and grandfather of the present Hon. Horatio Gates Jones, of Philadelphia.

REV. WILLIAM VANHORN was another Baptist chaplain of note. His education had been committed to Dr. Samuel Jones, of Lower Dublin, Pa., and for thirteen years he was pastor of the Church at Southampton, in that State. His life in the army appears to have been marked by consistency, piety and industry, rather than by stirring acts of enterprise and daring. For twenty-one years he was pastor of the Church at Scotch Plains, N. J., where he closed his useful life greatly beloved by his flock.

REV. CHARLES THOMPSON ranked equally with his fellow-chaplains as a man of culture and vigor. He was born in New Jersey in 1748, and was the valedictorian of the first class which graduated from Rhode Island College under the Presidency of Dr. Manning, numbering seven, in 1769; he also succeeded the doctor as pastor at Warren. There he baptized Dr. William Williams, one of his classmates, who afterwards established the Academy at Wrentham. In 1778 the meeting-house and parsonage at Warren were burned by the British and Hessian troops, and Thompson entered the American army as chaplain, where he served for three years. He was a thorough scholar and a finished gentleman, winning great distinction in the army. This exposed him to the special hatred of the enemy, who made him a prisoner of war and kept him on a guard-ship at Newport. He served many years as pastor at Swansea, and died of consumption in 1803. The last, and in some respects the most noted of our chaplains, was

WILLIAM ROGERS, D.D. He was born in Rhode Island in 1751, and graduated in the same class with Thompson. He was the first student received at that college, entering at the age of fourteen, and on the day of his graduation delivered an oration on benevolence. In 1772 he became pastor of the First Baptist Church at Philadelphia, and had been there three years when Pennsylvania raised her quota of soldiers for that province; he was first appointed chaplain, and afterwards Brigade Chaplain in the Continental Army. In 1778 he accompanied General Sullivan in his expedition against the Six Nations, at the head of 3,000 troops gathered at Wyoming. They marched north to Tioga Point, then on the frontier. His eminent ability and refined manners placed him on relations of intimate friendship with General Washington, and made him an ornament in our Churches. For years he served as Professor of English and Oratory in the College of Philadelphia and in the University of Pennsylvania. In battle, in camp, in hospitals or in the pulpit and the professor's chair he was alike at home, and a blessing to all around him.

CHAPTER XII.

THE AMERICAN BAPTISTS AND CONSTITUTIONAL LIBERTY.

DR

R. LEONARD BACON writes of the Baptists in his New England Theocracy' thus: 'It has been claimed for these Churches that from the age of the Reformation onward they have been always foremost and always consistent in maintaining the doctrine of religious liberty. Let me not be understood as calling in question their right to so great an honor.' But until the American Revolution they had scant means, comparatively, to demonstrate the practical soundness of this claim. Yet when the field was open for experimental proof that it was well founded, they were not found faithless in their relations either to the free constitutions of the several States or to that of the United States. They had little to hope from most of their fellow-colonists, who had gone to the verge of their power in using all social and legal forces to persecute and destroy them as a religious body, and that phase of the question was solemnly considered by them. When Dr. Samuel Jones went as one of their committee to present their appeal to the Continental Congress he said: 'It seemed unreasonable to us that we should be called to stand up with them in defense of liberty, if, after all, it was to be a liberty for one party to oppress another.' The little Baptist colony of Rhode Island had more to lose and less to gain by revolution than any of her twelve sister colonies. Unlike Massachusetts and Virginia, she had no Governor appointed by the Crown, who could veto her acts of legislation. Bancroft tells us that this State enjoyed after the revolution, a form of government under its charter so thoroughly republican that no change was required beyond a renunciation of the King's name, in the style of its public acts.' Revolution would imperil her largest liberties, while complete success in the attempt to secure independence of Britain would add little to the rights which she already possessed. But should she be conquered she must relinquish even these, for the Crown would appoint her a Governor and control her legislation, at least by the power of the veto.

Yet no selfish consideration of this sort weighed with the Baptists of Rhode Island. They saw their brethren of other colonies oppressed more than they were, and as their own love of liberty was a genuine growth, they demanded it as the birthright of all. Hence, they were as ready at once to resist encroachment upon the civil liberties of all the colonies as they had been to defy the unjust exactions of a spiritual tyranny upon themselves. They, therefore, carried with them into the struggle against civil oppression the same spirit which had moved them in resisting

RHODE ISLAND AND VIRGINIA.

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all encroachment upon the liberties of the soul. Two months before the Declaration of Independence, and thirty-two days before Virginia renounced allegiance to the Crown, Rhode Island repudiated all allegiance to George III., May 4th, 1776; and immediately after the retreat of General Gage from Concord and Lexington, her Legislature voted to send 1,500 men to the scene of conflict. It is, therefore, a sig nificant testimony to the character of the teaching of Williams and Clarke that the boon which they had given the Rhode Islanders, first the town-meeting and then the Colonial Assembly shorn of all power to touch the question of 'conscience' and shut up to 'civil things,' should in the next century have borne such good fruit. Nearly five generations had passed since the colony was first planted, and now it was willing to imperil its own religious freedom in order to advance the political liberties of other communities. This brought no small strain upon its unselfish patriotism.

The Baptists of Virginia took an equally resolute step in favor of independence, but though under different circumstances, not a jot less honorable. Notwithstanding their persecutions by the Colony itself, the moment that the State Convention met to determine the duty of the Colony, sixty Baptist Churches said to this civil body: Strike the blow! Make military resistance to Great Britain, in her unjust invasion, tyrannical oppression and repeated hostilities,' and we will sustain you, ministers and people. Virginia had no sympathy with Puritanism, and in her old devotion to the Stuarts had refused to recognize the authority of the Commonwealth. For this Massachusetts had prohibited all intercourse with her, and under the administration of George III., when Patrick Henry introduced his famous Fifth Resolution into the Virginia Legislature, containing the doctrine of revolution, denouncing the Stamp Act, and refusing taxation without representation, the leading men of that body cried with horror, Treason! treason!' Campbell, in his history of Virginia, says: Speaker Robinson, Peyton Randolph, Richard Bland, Edward Pendleton, George Wythe, and all the leaders in the House and proprietors of large estates made a strenuous resistance.' True, the wonderful eloquence of Henry secured a majority for the resolution, but the men who voted for it were so alarmed by the cry of treason which it provoked that the next day they secured its erasure from the records. One of the paradoxes of American history has been that, despite the sentiment of many of its leading men thus loyal to the Crown, Virginia should have finally taken front rank amongst the revolting colonies.

Jefferson, in his 'Notes on Virginia,' incidentally supplies the clue to this problem. He states that at the time of the Revolution two-thirds of her population had become Dissenters; for the most part they were Quakers, Presbyterians and Baptists. By the intolerable sufferings and indefatigable labors of the Baptist preachers they had cherished and diffused their own love of liberty throughout the whole colony for half a century. Their memorial to the Convention had deeper root