The Republican. [volume] (Oakland, Md.) 1877-current, 1931-02-26
WASHINGTON'S WRITINGS
SHOWRELICIOUS ATTITUDE
Had High Regard For Religious
Practices and Encouraged Rec
, OgnitiOn of Gods Goodness

AS a boy, George Washington prob
ably thought as much about religion
as did the average normal, healthy
boy of that age. AS he grew older, he
steadily developed deeply religious
turn of mind, according to the Divis-
ion of Information and Publication of
the George Washington Bicentennial
Commission.
At the age of twenty-three, he
counted the bullet holes in his coat
after Braddock's defeat and acknowl-
edged, with common-sense practical
ity, that power higher than man
had saved him. The Revolutionary
War taught him Lessons he was too
honest to deny, and as result Wash
ington's belief in God became the
simple faith of a child, confirmed and
strengthened by the actual living ex-
perience of man.
The personal record of church at
tendance, his estimate of the value of
religious practices among the people
at large; his desire and effort to en-
courage and to inculcate in the peo-
pei a spirit of gratitude toward the
Deity, and his own expressions of
opinion respecting God, give concrete
evidence of his faith.
His religious record practically
starts with the time when he was
commanding the Virginia troops on
the western frontier after Braddock's
defeat. At Fort Loudon, Winchester,
at the age Of twenty-four, this Col
onel of Virginia militia, on Saturday,
September 10, 1855, ordered that "the
men parade tomorrow morning at
beating the long roll, with their arms
and ammunitions clean and in good
order, and to be marched by the Ser
geants of the respective companies to
the Fort, there to remain until pray
ers are over"
After his marriage, Washington at
tended Pohick Church at Pohick, Vir-
ginia, and later, Christ Church, Alex
andria, Virginia. Both churches were
distant from Mount Vernon, so that
it was something of journey to reach
them by coach. An important point
established by a close check-up of
Washington's church attendance is
that throughout his public life, in
times of political stress and strain,
he went to church oftener than he did
in times of national calm and quiet.
On October 10, 1765, there is a rec
ord of his taking the oath to conform
to the doctrines and discipline of the
Church of England Gas by law estab-
1ished," and during the year 1774,
when political relations with the
mother country were becoming dan
gerously strained, and no one in the
colonies was able to foresee the out
come, he went to church twice, and
sometimes three times a month. It
was on June 1, 1774, the day the Bos-
ton Port Bill went into effect, that he
"went to church and tasted all day."
In the hectic days of the outbreak
of the Revolutionary War, Washing
ton, in letter to his wife, stated that
he "relied confidently on that Prov
idence which has heretofore preserv-
ed and been bountiful to me-"
In the manly speech with which he
accepted the appointment of comman-
der-in-chief of the army he made no
reference to God or to heaven; but
one month after taking command of
the army the matter of prayers and
church service appears in the gen
eral orders for August 5, IT'S, at
Cambridge. These orders directed
that "the Church be cleaned tomor-
row and the Rev. Mr.. Doyle will per-
form Divine Service therein at ten
o'clock"
Then comes personal note of soul
humility in his letter to Joseph Reed
in January 1776: 81 have scarcely
emerged from one difficulty" wrote
Washington, "before I have plunged
into another. How it will end, God
in His great goodness will direct. /
am thankful for His protection to this
time" One thing that speedily be-
came clear in the mind of George
Washington was that the military and
governmental difficulties of America
were not, and could not, be properly
met without the help of God. They
were too great and America was too
feeble, in Washington's Judgment, to
admit of their successful solution
without help from on high, and GER
tainly the verdict of history as to
the magnitude of these difficulties has
confirmed Washington's political
judgment. And also, instead of be-
coming opinionated, instead of devel-
oping an ego, instead of becoming
confident of his abilities as he sue
ceeded in surmounting one difficulty
after another, George Washington be-
came more and more convinced that
the hand of God was in those trr.
umphs and greater and greater be-
came his snirit1a1 humility