USA > Pennsylvania > Franklin County > Chambersburg > History of the Rocky Spring Church : and addresses delivered at the centennial anniversary of the present church edifice, August 23, 1894 > Part 5
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with jealous care their reputation as the special conservators of the faith, the traditions, the interpretations and the cus- toms of our dead progenitors, since to accommodate ourselves with a larger freedom, we have left them to take into their ex- clusive care the ark of that solemn league and covenant, which so securely guards for all time those rich treasures of the church which are so familiar to all of us, and so dear to the Presby- terian heart, the institutes of Calvin and the deliverances of the Westminster divines. That they have well and nobly discharged this high task which we have imposed on them is most evident from the fact, that notwithstanding they have carried that ark through the storms of a century, its contents remain intact, without diminution or enlargement, and are as dry as when first committed to their charge. In view of such a fact as this it would be most ungenerous if we were to expose any of them to a suspicion of latitudinarianism in faitli or practice. In the present instance they have simply conformed to the requirements of the occasion-they were brief, because they had to be. If any of you are not satisfied with this explanation, I am authorized to say that you are at liberty to assemble yourselves in some convenient place apart, and either of these gentlemen will then proceed to conduct a congregational siege of indefinite length that will make you wish that the traditions of the fathers had perished before you were born. They have both the ammunition and the endurance equal to it.
This brings me to the subject of my story, for I am to speak to you about ammunition-not their kind however, and yet the two have often been used together, or to speak more correctly, the one lias often been used to supplement the other in the days when men were accustomed to prove their doctrine orthodox by apostolic blows and knocks. The ammunition with which I have to do, is that which was fired from flint-lock muskets of those Ulster Presbyterians who, true to the traditions of their race and the faith of their church, espoused the cause of American independence and
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fought w nobly for its achievement. The Printeria church militant, not in the theological but political sense, during the period of our revolutionary struggle, is what I am expected to speak about. Not being a clergyman, it was not thought necessary to impose any restriction as to the time to be occupied in my case. The fact that it was to be the last exercise before dinner was thought to be sufficient pretection against one of my profession.
The event of greatest significance in modern history was, undoubtedly, the political separation of the American colo- nies fromn Great Britain, and their federation in one common constitutional government. Though a century has inter- vened between that period and this the full importance of the event has not yet been revealed. Those who shall occupy the higher ground of a later age than ours, will be able with clearer vision to sweep a larger horizon; and dis- cover mighty currents, as yet concealed from view, which take their rise in that historic period. The event gave but little outward sign of its immense importance, and it is not strange that the contemporaneous world but feebly under- stood it. Men are apt to measure the importance of politi- cal events when they occur, by the noise and confusion that attend them. What was the noise made by the rude guns of Lexington's embattled farmers, to the loud reverberations of the great Frederick's artillery at Leuthen and Rossbach, then still echoing throughout the world? What was the assault of a few thousand Continentals at Yorktown, to the bloody engagements which so soon followed on the borders of France and elsewhere in Europe, when the mighty nations of the earth grappled in deadly conflict? And yet issues of vaster moment to humanity, were to be settled in the unequal and apparently insignificant contest of our revo- lution, than any of those which converted Europe into an armed camp, and drenched a continent in blood. These latter changed the boundaries of empires, crowned and dis- crowned kings, but brought no emancipation to the people
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from the tyranny of kingly government. It was of vast consequence to the peace of the world to change the map of Europe, to overthrow a Bourbon dynasty, then a Nepoleonic one which was to share a like fate in its turu; but all these seem of feeble significance, after the lapse of a century, when contrasted with the immense consequence which has resulted from the independence of the American colonies. The issue which precipitated the American revolution, was the right ot the thirteen original colonies to separate and independent existence; but in the issue lay a germ seed, which was to be fruitful in blessings of civil and religious liberty beyond any- thing the world had ever known. Directly involved in the struggle, was the right of the colonies to govern themselves; indirectly involved in it, was the supreme authority .of the people in all questions of government, and the equal right of every man with his fellow to political power and privilege.
To the maintenance and establishment of these principles of civil government, self-evident to you as they were to the early colonists, but rejected and despised by the rulers and privileged classes of the world, our fathers pledged their lives, their fortunes and their sacred honor; a covenant which cost them six years of devastating war in which a British king and ministry exhausted the resources of a king- dom in the mad attempt to conquer them. But through it all, undaunted, inflexible, uncompromising, enduring pov- erty, hunger, nakedness, and the calamities of war, they bore themselves and their cause right on, until in the end they wrought out complete deliverence from political thraldom, and were enabled here in this new world, to crown their labors with a government of their own building and by them- selves dedicated to civil and religious freedom.
I make but passing mention of these things for my pur- pose lies not with them, but rather with the men of a certain race and faith who were here in these colonies when these things occurred, and were witnesses of them. They are the men whose memory we assemble here to-day to honor, the
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and concerns us who are their descendants, or cisim kinship with them by descent from a common ancestry, to know how they regarded this revolution, and what their attitude towards it was. "When the dread crisis came, and the alter- native of servile submission or the horrors of war was pre- rented to the colonies, how stood these Presbyterian fore- fathers of ours? There were colonists who were for submis- sion; there were yet others who wore a neutral garb. Were they among either of these? It would be the marvel of history were it so. Human conduct is often inconsistent, and illog- ical; men are sometimes found opposing when you would expect them to be advocates; and submitting when you would expect resistence; but history records no such extrav- agant inconsistency in human conduct as that would be, were we to find Scotch-Irish Presbyterians in such a contest as this, either advocating submission or standing on neutral ground. Consider the race, its lineage, its faith, the tradi- tions and experience of this people, and ask yourselves where they would likely be found in such a controversy, then make your appeal to history, and you will learn to honor their memory, not only for the noble work they accomplished, but for the sublime consistency of their lives, and their devotion through many generations to the cause of human freedom. Belonging to 110 one nationality, but drawn together from sev- eral into one family, by the attraction of a common faith, they built their firesides and erected their altars in the north of Ireland, and there mixed the blood of the Saxon with that of the Celt and Teuton, until in process of time, were devel- oped traits and characteristics which made them a homo- geneous and distinct race. We are told that in the settle- ment of New England God sifted three kingdoms for the seed of that planting. A sifting process covering a still greater variety than this, was required when he prepared his seed for the Scotch-Irish planting in the American colonies; for his design contemplated their planting not in one lati-
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tude only, but in several, from New Hampshire to Giorgia The product was to be the same whether the red were scattered on the barren hills of New England, the rich val- leys of Pennsylvania or the savannahs of the South; where- ever planted it was to yield hearts of oak. But the plant- ing was not yet. The seed thus gathered was to be sifted and sown, again and again in Ulster, until from these repeated processes there came a distinct and peculiar people. They were to have more than Geneva theology in common; that and other influences were to work an assimilation in thought and speech, in feeling and purpose, in habit and customs, and inspire them with noble conceptions of the riglits of man, and the true object of all just government, which were to be realized later on in another land than that in which they then were. It may seem strange, but so it is and all history attests it, that the soil which best produces a vigorous race is that which is best watered by human blood. Ulster soil was so prepared. This people whose industry had reclaimed it, and made it the fairest portion of the island, were to be harried and torn and plundered, and many of them butchered, because they would submit to all these, rather than surrender their faith at the dictation of a perfid- ious king. Such an experience was required to add to their creed, which already demanded a church without a prelate, the political corollary, which demanded a government with- out a king, and make them the chosen instruments to carry the new evangel to the new world. Then came the fullness of time when both seed and soil were ready. The field was here in these scattered colonies. Thither, across an ocean far more treacherous then than now, came these trained and disciplined Ulstermen, bringing with them the faith and traditions of their fathers, hatred of tyranny and love of free- . dom, with an inheritance of courage, self-reliance and humble trust in the favor of the God they served. They were not many who moored their bark on stern New Eng- land's rock bound coast; but the few were chosen, and
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name they gave it. More were not needed there, for New England was already settled by a prople disciplined and prepared for the struggle in which they were to play so prominent a part. In far larger numbers they crowded the shores of the Carolinas, where they were needed to neutralize and overcome the British influence then at work. Some came to Maryland, others to New Jersey, but in the greatest numbers they came to that colony which most needed them, in view of what was so soon to occur. Shipload after ship- load in quick succession landed at Philadelphia, and the majority of these at once found their way to the southeastern counties of this province, then the border of our western civilization.
I have said that here they were most needed. Mark the Divine strategy that directed and controlled the distribution of these Presbyterian forces, which were then pouring into the colonies; for it was not by chance or accident that they came in greatest numbers to this, rather than to some other colony. If in any movement God's hand is visible, it may be seen in this. He was on the side of the revolution, and . these Scotch-Irish immigrants were to be employed in the accomplishment of His friendly purposes. It was He who emptied Ulster into Pennsylvania, and He did it at the right time. His purpose now seems plain enough. Without the active cooperation of this province, there could have been 110 revolution, and noue would have been attempted. With Pennsylvania hostile, or even neutral, it would have been idle to talk ot separation from Great Britain. Its unfriendly or neutral territory, separating the northern from the south- ern colonies, would have deterred the most rebellious spirits from offering resistance, which, in the nature of things, could. only have brought greater oppression and distress. The government of the province was in the hands of the peace- ful Quakers who had founded it, and they, with the German
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constitute a large my city of the population. These jaar pie by their intelligent enterprise and industry, by the wholesome system of laws they had enacted, and by their generous treatment of friend and foe, had made the province famous above all others. But the era of peace was fast drawing to a close ; the day was not now far off when Patrick Henry and other heralds of the revolution, were to startle the colonics from repose by their appeal to arms. Against the exigency of that day, what was so much needed in Penn- sylvania as the incoming of a people, to whom it had been revealed that resistance to tyrants was obedience to God. We are apt to think of it as a happy circumstance that these Scotch-Irish distributed themselves over these colonies in the way they did, forgetting that it was God's.own ordering, and that He was using the limited supply of the material on hand, in the way that would best accomplish His designs. Into this valley of ours these people came as pioneers. The first white foot that ever made an imprint here belonged to a Scotch-Irish Presbyterian, and close behind him were his brethren with their bibles, their catechisms, their rifles, their axes, and their rude implements of husbandry. Here they built themselves homes, then churches, then schools. They came in such numbers, that at the beginning of the war they constituted a third of the population of the province.
Knowing this much of the history and antecedents of this people, where, I now ask, would you expect to find them, when choice was to be made between submission to the demands of the British ministry, which meant chains and slavery for themselves and their posterity, or the hazard of a doubtful war for political freedom? Surely you would expect all this iron that had been mixed in their blood to count for something. Now make your appeal to history for the facts. You know where these Scotch-Irish were in the colonies ; they were everywhere, but not sufficient in any one colony to give them political control. They were
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strongest in the Car. nas and Pennsylvania. If you were !! catch the first note sounded in the colonies for the cause of independence, you must turn your car to the south that you . may hear what is borac on the winds from the hills of North Carolina. There these people were, and plenty of them. .
The blood shed at Lexington, had scarcely dried on the soil it stained, when the Scotch-Irish Presbyterians of the Mecklenberg district, in solemn assembly, declared that Americans were free and independent people, and proceeded . to annul and vacate all laws and commissions confirmed by or derived from the authority of the king of parliament. This was on May 20th, 1775, and it was the first formulated ex- pression for. political independence which came from any organized assembly of the people. Responses came quick and hot from the Presbyterians of Philadelphia and Baltimore, but these were only voices in the wilderness calling the people of the colonies to prepare for the approaching contest. A whole year was yet to be spent in fruitless expostulation and entreaty. The idea of separation from the mother country was entertained by few. The general voice was for resistance to the tyrannous measures of the ministry, but for continued loyalty to the throne. Separation was thought neither necessary nor desirable; it invited disaster to the colonies and vindictive punishment to its abetters. The influence and example of Pennsylvania were on the side of submission. But persistent and repeated remonstrance brought only increased demands, with an increased display of power to enforce them, upon the colonies, until at last the conviction was burned into the hearts and minds of the people, that their only possible escape from political servitude was in a war for final separation and independence. But this province of Pennsylvania was yet to be won over to the cause. Her Assembly had instructed the delegates in the Continental Congress, not to consent to any step which might cause or lead to a separation from Great Britain. How was the attitude of Pennsylvania to be changed? for changed it
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must be before and destination of independence cred come from the Continental Congress, and change it mathe. it wach declaration, when made, was to be enforced by arms. Two- thirds of her population professed a faith which forbade an appeal to arms; and though there were fighting Quakers and fighting Germans too among them, yet the great body of this population were submissionists, and opposed to any step that would result in war. But the Ulster Irish had multiplied rapidly, and large accessions were constantly pouring in. During the two years immediately preceding the first actual violence here, thirty thousand of them had been driven from Ireland by persecution and eviction, the most of whom found homes here in Pennsylvania, so that when the great question of independence was to be determined these people constituted the one-third of the whole popula- tion of the province. The Scotch-Irish of this valley-and but few of any other race were then here-with their zeal inflamed by the blood shed at Bunker Hill, and their pulses quickened by the memory of the persecution they had suffered in early May 1776, gathered in Carlisle, then the shiretown of a county which included this,-and some of the men who sleep in yonder graveyard were there that day-blessed be their memories,-and with unanimous voice demanded of the Provincial Assembly that the instructions against sepa- ration be withdrawn. If there was any earlier public demand for congressional action looking to independence, history does not record it; certainly this was the first utter- ance of the kind heard in Pennsylvania. The Assembly heard it, and heeded it too. The memorial adopted at Carlisle was laid before that body on the 28th of May. On the 5th of June, after much discussion, it was referred to a com- mittee to bring in new instructions to the delegates in Con- gress. These resolutions were reported, adopted and signed on the 14th of the same month. The divine strategy in emptying Ulster into Pennsylvania was rapidly unfolding. It was Ulster influence that placed Pennsylvania in line with
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her sister colonies, and gave her vote for freedom and inte- pxadence on the ad of July following, when Congress decided upon separation, and solemnly resolved, "that these united colonies are and of right ought to be free and independent states; that they are absolved from allegiance to the British crown, and that all political connection between them and · the state of Great Britain is, and ought to be totally dis- solved." These were brave words from brave men; none braver were ever uttered, and none, if they are to be made good, of deeper significance to the welfare and happiness of posterity. The war which hitherto had been one of resistance by the courageous and freedom loving people of New England, to the unjust and oppressive measures of a headstrong king and stupid ministry, was now to become a war for political independence, in which thirteen scattered and feeble colonies were to engage the most powerful nation of Europe. Well might the brave men who spoke the brave words, pause and hesitate, when, on August 2d, the final step was to be taken, and each was to sign his name to that immortal paper, which was to publish to the world their high resolve, and commit the colonies to an undertaking so desperate as thiis seemed and was. But it was only for a moment. It needed but one note of defiance to break the solemn stillness of that morning's meeting, and revive the courage of the men who so bravely resolved two months before. Jolin Witherspoon, the venerable President of the Presbyterian College of New Jersey, rises in his place, and with a voice trembling with age, not fear, is heard to say, "Mr. President, that noble instrument on your table, which insures immortality to its author, should be subscribed this very morning by every pen in the house. He who will not respond to its accents, and strain every nerve to carry into effect its provisions, is unworthy the name of freeman. Although these gray hairs must descend into the sepulchre, I would infinitely rather they should descend thither by the hand of the public executioner, than desert at this crisis the
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sacred cause of my country." There was he itancy no longer, and of the fifty five historie men who that morning, under the leadership of John Witherspoon, subscribed their names to the declaration of independence, fifteen were of Scotch and Irish birth or ancestry.
And now begins the War of the Revolution, where the lives and fortunes and sacred honor so solemnly pledged are to be given and redeemed. Where now may we expect to find these men of Presbyterian faith, who were so early and constant in their demand for independence at any cost, when it was to be accomplished, if at all, by the sword? We know where you would expect to find them; but appeal again to history. Turn in the direction where these men were; first of all to that little colony of them in New Hampshire. For a whole year already hundreds of them have been in the trenches at Boston, and now hundreds moreare marching thithi- erward under the lead of Sullivan and Stark; both of whom are to become famous as generals in the revolution. Turn to the Carolinas and the South, and view their kindred rally under the chosen leaders, Morgan, and Pickens, and Campbell, and Howard. Their day of severest trial is yet to come, but watch them and you will see them fighting ever so gallantly at Moultrie, at Kings Mountain, at Cowpens and at Yorktown aye, for that matter across New Jersey and at Brandywine too. Turn to Pennsylvania, and what of her? For a whole year she too has had her brave sons in the trenches at Boston, some from this valley, under the lead of Chambers and others. But now a larger demand is to be made on her patriotism. With the declaration of inde- pendence comes a call for men to make it good. Six thous- and men are required of Pennsylvania in addition to those already in the field, and the exigency adinits of no delay. The quota is filled, and filled rapidly, but how? Let one example stand for all. This county of Cumberland, as it then was, was a frontier settlement, remote from the scene of conflict and secure from British invasion. Before the
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leaves had this year fallen from the trees, this single; county, sparsely populated then, ha i given to Washington's anny more than a thousand men, and more than a sixth of the ·entire quota of the province. It gave to that army such officers as Armstrong, and Mercer, and Irwin, and Chambers and Magaw, and others of like service and renown. The number of men contributed to the Continental Army by this valley, during the war was equal to the whole number of its taxables; and the contribution of the Scotchi-Irish of the colony exceeded by one-half of the entire quota of the prov- ince. So true and firm and devoted were the people of this faith and race, that it can be said of Pennsylvania, that she was one of the two colonies that complied with all the requisitions of the Continental Congress, for money and supplies.
And what they did in Pennsylvania they did in every colony, according to the measure of their strength and numbers. There was not a battlefield in which they did not take part. It was a task too great for the occasion, to recall on the names of all the inen of Presbyterian faith and lineage who ren- dered illustrions service in the war. I shall not attempt it. It is enough to know that the contribution of this people to the leadership of it, was as conspicuous as their contribu- tion to the ranks was liberal and generous ; and that all alike rendered faithful, honorable and distinguished service.
The men of that race who first settled this immediate locality, had here on this hill-top, where now we stand, with pious hands and devout hearts, built and dedicated to the service of God their humble sanctuary. Here they gathered on a Sabbath day in July 1776, to hear from him who had been appointed over them in holy things, what duty God required of them, now that independence had been determined on. That man of God and the revolution, John Craighead, sleeps over there in that graveyard, and about him lie the men who returned with him from the war. To your tents O Israel! was the message he brought
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to his people that day, and through the mists of a century and a quarter, we can see the men of Rocky Spring con- gregation wåving a long farewell to homes and families, as they begin their long and toilsome march to Long Island and the war, with brave John Craighead in the lead.
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