Elections

So, we held an “election” in America yesterday where we elected a new president and numerous elected represenatives. However, you may not know that the very word “election” was coined by the first churches in America and and was taken directly from the Holy Bible. Do read the following narative so that you will know about the very first elections in our country and how they came about. Ron

Theodore Roosevelt stated October 24, 1903 “In no other place and at no other time has the experiment of government of the people, by the people, for the people, been tried on so vast a scale as here in our own country.”  

How did America’s experiment in self-government begin?

At a time when most of the world was ruled by kings, Americans held their first popularly elected legislative assembly.

Jamestown was initially a “company colony,” run by the 1606 Virginia Company Charter, which had by-laws and an appointed governor.

Unforeseen crises, such as famines, diseases, Indian attacks, labor shortages, and struggles to establish a cash crop necessitated the calling of the first meeting of the Virginia House of Burgesses, July 30, 1619.

A burgess was a citizen elected to represent a “borough” (neighborhood).

There were eleven Jamestown boroughs which elected twenty-two representatives.

They met in the church choir loft. Master John Pory was appointed as the assembly’s Speaker. He wrote “A Report of the Manner of Proceeding in the General Assembly Convented at James City, July 30, 1619: “But forasmuch as men’s affairs do little prosper where God’s service is neglected, all the Burgesses took their places in the Quire (choir) till a prayer was said by Mr. Bucke, the Minister, that it would please God to guide and sanctify all our proceedings to his own glory and the good of this Plantation. The Speaker delivered in brief to the whole assembly the occasions of their meeting. Which done he read unto them the commission for establishing the Council of Estate and the general Assembly, wherein their duties were described to life and forasmuch as our intent is to establish one equal and uniform kind of government over all Virginia.”

The House of Burgesses set the price of tobacco at three shillings per pound, and passed prohibitions against gambling, drunkenness, idleness, and made it mandatory to observe the Sabbath.

The freezing winters, epidemics, and the Indian attack of March 22, 1622, where some 400 colonists were massacred, led to the Virginia Company’s Charter being revoked and the king sending over a crown governor.

In 1624, Virginia went from being a “company colony” to a “crown colony” ruled directly by the king through his royal-appointed governor.

As the king did not pay the governor’s salary, the royal-appointed governor instructed the House of Burgesses to provide his funding. As long as they paid that, he did not mind them discussing other issues and otherwise functioning largely on their own.

England went through a Civil War, 1642-1651, and King Charles the First was beheaded.

During this time the House of Burgesses took an increased role in running the Colony.

In 1660, King Charles the Second was brought back from exile and restored to the throne of his father.

Soon, Virginia’s liberties returned to being restricted, leading to Nathaniel Bacon’s rebellion in 1674, which restored their liberties once again.

Virginia’s House of Burgesses served as a legislative model for other colonies.

In Massachusetts, Puritan delegates controlled the legislature, insisting that only Puritans be allowed to vote.

Various pastors thought that voting should be extended to anyone who was a Christian. These pastors led their congregations to leave and found other communities in New England.

It was in these New England communities that pastors had the freedom to apply biblical principles to voting.

  • Rev. Roger Williams founded Providence, Rhode Island, in 1636;
  • Rev. John Wheelwright founded Exeter, New Hampshire, in 1638;
  • Rev. John Lothropp founded Barnstable, Massachusetts, in 1639;

Rev. Thomas Hooker founded Hartford, Connecticut, in 1636.

  • After leading his church congregation through the wilderness they founded Hartford which greatly prospered.

(Then on May 31, 1638 one of the most important episodes in Americh history happened. It did not seem profound at the time, but for sure turned out to be.)

Rev. Thomas Hooker gave a sermon at Hartford which was now the colonies’ capitol city. In it he championed universal Christian suffrage (voting), stating: “The foundation of authority is laid firstly in the free consent of the people.”

This was a blueprint for other New England colonies and eventually the Declaration of Independence, which states: “That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed.”

Hooker’s sermon had the line: “The privilege of election belongs to the people according to the blessed will and law of God.”

One of the first elections in America was in church. In 1629, the Massachusetts Bay Colony needed to select a pastor for the Salem Church. Since they did not have a king-appointed minister, members of the church fasted and prayed, then wrote on pieces of paper the name of who they thought was God’s chosen person to be the next pastor, thus allowing God’s will to expressed through them. The belief was, that God had preordained someone to be their pastor and church members were simply to recognize the one God had chosen.

Being chosen by God was called being “the elect.”

First Peter 1:1-2 “Peter, an apostle of Jesus Christ, to God’s elect.”

Paul wrote in Colossians 3:12 “As the elect of God, holy and beloved, put on tender mercies.”

Second Timothy 2:10: “I endure all things for the elect’s sakes.”

Mark 13:20 described the last days: “And except that the Lord had shortened those days, no flesh should be saved: but for the elect’s sake, whom he hath chosen, he hath shortened the days.”

The process of putting down the name of God’s “elect” was called an “election.”

This election process was revolutionary, as most of the world at the time was ruled by kings, emperors, sultans, czars and chieftains who did not ask people for their consent.

New England was the beginning of a polarity change in the flow of power, instead of government being run top-down, it became bottom-up, a model that eventually turned into the U.S. Constitution, which states: “We the People in order to form a more perfect union and secure the blessings of liberty to ourselves and our posterity do ordain and establish this Constitution.” 

Instead of powerful political leaders forcing their will on the people through emergency mandates, it was the people’s will being carried out by their elected representatives.

Rev. Thomas Hooker’s sermon notes became known as the “Fundamental Orders of Connecticut,” 1639, which was used as the foundation of Connecticut’s government until 1818.

According to Connecticut historian John Fiske, the Fundamental Orders, inspired by Hooker’s sermon, comprised one of the first written constitutions in history that created a government.

Hartford’s Traveller’s Square has a bronze statue of Connecticut’s first settlers and a plaque which reads: “In June of 1635, about one hundred members of Thomas Hooker’s congregation arrived safely in this vicinity with one hundred and sixty cattle. They followed old Indian trails from Massachusetts Bay Colony to the Connecticut River to build a community. Here they established the form of government upon which the present Constitution of the United States is modeled.”

Rev. Thomas Hooker’s statue holding a Bible stands at the Old State House in Hartford, Connecticut.

The base of the statue reads: “Leading his people through the wilderness, he founded Hartford in June of 1636. On this site he preached the sermon which inspired The Fundamental Orders. It was the first written constitution that created a government.”

President Calvin Coolidge stated July 5, 1926: “The principles of our declaration had been under discussion in the Colonies for nearly two generations. In the assertion of the Rev. Thomas Hooker of Connecticut as early as 1638, when he said in a sermon before the General Court that: ‘The foundation of authority is laid in the free consent of the people. The choice of public magistrates belongs unto the people by God’s own allowance.’

This doctrine found wide acceptance among the nonconformist clergy who later made up the Congregational Church.”

Coolidge added:

“The principles which went into the Declaration of Independence are found in the texts, the sermons, and the writings of the early colonial clergy who were earnestly undertaking to instruct their congregations in the great mystery of how to live. They preached equality because they believed in the fatherhood of God and the brotherhood of man. They justified freedom by the text that we are all created in the divine image, all partakers of the divine spirit. Placing every man on a plane where he acknowledged no superiors, where no one possessed any right to rule over him, he must inevitably choose his own rulers through a system of self-government.

In New England, instead of “separation of church and state,” it was churches and pastors who CREATED the State!

Coolidge concluded his address: “But even in that we come back to the theory of John Wise that ‘Democracy is Christ’s government.’ The ultimate sanction of law rests on the righteous authority of the Almighty. Ours is a government of the people. It represents their will. Its officers sometimes go astray, but that is not a reason for criticizing the principles of our institutions. The real heart of the American Government depends upon the heart of the people. It is from that source that we must look for all genuine reform.  It was in the contemplation of these truths that the fathers made their Declaration and adopted their Constitution.”

President Grover Cleveland stated, July 13, 1887: “The SOVEREIGNTY OF 60 MILLIONS OF FREE PEOPLE, is the working out of the divine right of man to govern himself and a manifestation of God’s plan concerning the human race.”

America’s founders set up a democratically-elected Constitutional Republic. The Pledge of Allegiance is “to the Flag and to the Republic for which it stands.” A “Republic” is where the people are king, ruling through their servants, called representatives. The word “citizen” is from the Greek and means “co-ruler” or “co-king.”

In 1832, Noah Webster wrote in his History of the United States: “When you become entitled to exercise the right of voting for public officers, let it be impressed on your mind that God commands you to choose for rulers ‘just men who will rule in the fear of God.’ The preservation of a republican government depends on the faithful discharge of this duty.”

He continued: “If the citizens neglect their duty and place unprincipled men in office, the government will soon be corrupted; laws will be made not for the public good so much as for the selfish or local purposes; corrupt or incompetent men will be appointed to execute the laws; the public revenues will be squandered on unworthy men; and the rights of the citizens will be violated or disregarded.

If a republican government fails to secure public prosperity and happiness, it must be because the citizens neglect the divine commands, and elect bad men to make and administer the laws.”

Columbus – Amazing First Voyge

At the time of Columbus, most everyone thought that the earth was flat. No one had ever sailed as far as Columbus in the open ocean beyond the sight of land. So, after five weeks most of his sailors thougt that thy were for sure going to fall off of the earth. Following is the amazing history of those days.

Yes, others found the “New World” before Columbus, but were never made public, since few believed them. His discovery was made public to the whole world. We gave him great credit and honor for discovering America, though he always thought it was Asia. We even had a holiday to honor him……..”Columbus Day”. Do read the following exact histoy of those times:

Columbus was looking for a SEA route to India and China because nearly 40 years earlier Muslim Turks conquered Constantinople in 1453 cutting off the LAND routes.

A biography of Columbus was written by Washington Irving in 1828, titled A History of the Life and Voyages of Christopher Columbus. In it, Irving created an imaginative dialogue of Europeans arguing over whether the Earth was round or flat. His book was so popular, that people actually thought such a debate took place when it had not.

Washington Irving was known for mixing entertainment with history and legend. He wrote Rip Van Winkle, The Legend of Sleepy Hallow, and Diedrich Knickerbocker’s A History of New-York from the Beginning of the World to the End of the Dutch Dynasty, filled with tales of visits from St. Nick coming to New York City, which he nickname “Gotham.”

Some Europeans knew the Earth was round.

Pythagoras had speculated that the earth was a sphere in the 6th century BC, and Aristotle validated it in the 4th century BC.

In the 3rd century BC, Eratosthenes computed the circumference of the earth with amazing accuracy. He had heard that at Aswan, Egypt, the sun cast no shadow down a well at noon on the summer solstice, June 21, yet at the exact same moment in Alexandria, Egypt, a column cast a shadow with a 7.2 degree angle.

7.2 degrees is 1/50th of a 360 degree circle.

It was known that the distance between Alexandria and Aswan was 5,000 stadia, approximately 500 miles, or 800 kilometers.

All Eratosthenes had to do was multiply 500 miles times 50, which equals 25,000 miles, just 99 miles off from the Earth’s actual circumference of 24,901 miles (or 800 km x 50 to equal 40,000 kilometers, just 75 kilometers less than the actual 40,075 km circumference).

Eratosthenes also calculated distance to the sun and moon, the tilt of the earth, and created the first world map with parallel latitude and meridian longitude lines.

In the 1st century BC, Posidonius used stellar observations at Alexandria and Rhodes to confirm Eratosthenese’s measurements.

In the 2nd century AD, astronomer Ptolemy had written a Guide to Geography, in which he described a spherical earth with one ocean connecting Europe and Asia.

St. Isidore of Seville, Spain, wrote in the 7th century that the earth was round.

Around the year 723 AD, Saint Bede the Venerable wrote in his work Reckoning of Time that the Earth was spherical.

The Book of Isaiah 40:22 states: “It is He that sitteth upon the globe of the earth.” (Douay-Rheims Bible)

Columbus knew the Earth was round, but the question was, how far around. The confusion was over the length of a mile.

Columbus read Cardinal Pierre d’Ailly’s “Imago Mundi,” which gave Alfraganus’ estimate that a degree of latitude (at the equator) was around 56.7 miles.

What Columbus did not realize was that this was expressed in longer Arabic miles rather than in shorter Roman miles. Therefore Columbus incorrectly estimated the Earth to be smaller in circumference, about 19,000 miles, rather than the actual nearly 24,901 miles.

Columbus knew there was land to the west, as he may have read Ptolemy’s account, written in 150 AD, of the Greek sailor named Alexander, who visited the Far East port city of Kattigara, beyond the Malay Peninsula (Golden Chersonese).

He could have heard of the Roman traveler, during the reign of Roman Emperors Antoninus Pius or Marcus Aurelius, who made his way to the court of the Chinese Emperor of the Han Dynasty.

Indeed, Roman glassware and medallions dating from this period were found at Guangzhou along the South China Sea, and at Óc Eo in Vietnam, near the Chinese province of Jiaozhi.

Great amounts of Roman coins were found in India, indicating there was Roman sea trade.

Columbus most likely heard the story of Irish monk St. Brendan, who sailed west in 530 AD to “The Land of the Promised Saints which God will give us on the last day.”

Columbus would have known of the Christian Viking Leif Erickson’s voyage in the year 1000 to Vinland (Newfoundland), called Markland in the Nordic Grœnlendinga Saga.

A Dominican friar in Milan, Italy, named Galvaneus Flamma, wrote an essay titled Cronica universalis, c.1345, in which he referred to the Icelandic description of a wooded land far to the west called Marckalada.

Columbus owned a copy of Marco Polo’s travels to China and India in 1271.

Columbus may have possibly seen maps, rumored to have been in Portugal’s royal archives, from China’s treasure fleets which were sent out in 1421 by Ming Emperor Zhu Di, led by Admiral Zheng He.

Columbus corresponded with Florentine physician Paolo dal Pozzo Toscanelli, who suggested China was just 5,000 miles west of Portugal. Based on this, Columbus estimated that Japan, or as Marco Polo called it “Cipangu,” was only 3,000 Roman miles west of the Canary Islands, rather than the actual 12,200 miles.

As a young man, Columbus began sailing on a trip to a Genoese colony in the Aegean Sea named Chios. In 1476, he sailed on an armed convoy from Genoa to northern Europe, docking in Bristol, England, and Galway, Ireland, and even possibly Iceland in 1477.

When Muslim Turks conquered Constantinople in 1453 and hindered land trade routes from Europe to India and China, Portugal, which had been freed from Islamic occupation for two centuries, began to search for alternative sea routes.

The treasures of the East were long brought overland to Alexandria, or Constantinople, or the cities of the Levant, and thence distributed to Europe by the galleys of Genoa or of Venice. “But when the Turk placed himself astride the Bosporus, and made Egypt his feudatory, new routes had to be found.”

Historian Howard Zinn admitted in A People’s History of the United States (1980): “Now that the Turks had conquered Constantinople and the eastern Mediterranean, and controlled the land routes to Asia, a sea route was needed.

The Spanish Monarchs then joined the quest for a sea trade route to India and China. They backed Columbus’ plan. Though Columbus was wrong about the miles and degrees of longitude, he did understand trade winds across the Atlantic.

On August 3, 1492, Columbus set sail on the longest voyage to that date out of the sight of land.

Trade winds called “easterlies” pushed Columbus’ ships for five weeks to the Bahamas. On OCTOBER 12, 1492, Columbus sighted what he thought was India.

He imagined Haiti was Japan and Cuba was the tip of China.

He called the first island he saw “San Salvador” for the Holy Savior.

Thus, in his search for the riches of Cipangu (Japan), Columbus stumbled upon America.

The great Genoese lived and died under the illusion that he had reached the outmost verge of Asia; and though even in his lifetime men realized that what he had found was no less than a new world.”

In his journal, Columbus referred to the native inhabitants as “indians” as he was convinced he had successfully arrived in India: “So that they might be well-disposed towards us, for I knew that they were a people to be converted to our Holy Faith rather by love than by force, I gave to some red caps and to others glass beads.

They became so entirely our friends that I believe that they would easily become Christians.”

The End

The Greatest Betrayal in American History

Most folks have heard about Benedict Arnold and that he was a traitor, but don’t know much else about him. Below I have provided you the amazing details of what he did and how he was discovered and what happened to him. Do read it and be informed.

Since photography had not been invented when the content of this post happened, the pictures had to be paintings or drawings.

The oath of military enlistment states: “I, _____, do solemnly swear (or affirm) that I will support and defend the Constitution of the United States against all enemies, foreign and domestic.”

The most common form of government in history is kings. The king of England was the most powerful king in the world at the time of the Revolution.

The Constitution was a way to take power away from a king and give it to the people.

In other words, the Constitution’s purpose is to prevent power from re-concentrating back into the hands of the government; to prevent the return to a king; to keep one person from ruling as a dictator.

In a word, the Constitution’s ultimate purpose it is to prevent a President from ruling through Executive Orders and Mandates.

General Douglas MacArthur addressed Massachusetts State Legislature in Boston, on July 25, 1951: “I find in existence a new and heretofore unknown and dangerous concept that the members of our Armed Forces owe primary allegiance to those who temporarily exercise the authority rather than to the Constitution which they are sworn to defend. No proposition could be more dangerous. For its application would at once convert them from their traditional and constitutional role as the instrument for the defense of the Republic into something partaking of the nature of a praetorian guard, owing its allegiance to the political master of the hour.”

Cicero addressed the Roman Senate, c.42 BC: “A nation can survive its fools and even the ambitious. But it cannot survive treason from within. An enemy at the gates is less formidable, for he is known and he carries his banners openly against the city. But the traitor moves among those within the gates freely, his sly whispers rustling through all alleys, heard in the very halls of government itself. He works secretly and unknown in the night to undermine the pillars of a city; he infects the body politic so that it can no longer resist. A murderer is less to be feared.”

Probably the most painful betrayal of America during the Revolution was that of Benedict Arnold.

Benedict Arnold was one of America’s most popular leaders, renown for helping Ethan Allen capture Fort Ticonderoga in 1775.

Arnold fought courageously on Lake Champlain at the Battle of Valcour Island in 1776.

He fought in the Battle of Ridgefield, Connecticut and came to the rescue at the Siege of Fort Stanwix.

Benedict Arnold was considered the hero of the pivotal Battle of Saratoga in 1777, leading a daring flanking charge, though he disobeyed a direct order to do so.

Shot in the leg during the battle, his career was sidelined for a season.

For his courageous, patriotic service, Arnold was, at this time, as popular as George Washington.

Philadelphia was the largest city in America, with a population of 43,000.

The next biggest cities were:

  • New York City, with 25,000;
  • Boston, with 16,000;
  • Charleston, with 12,000; and
  • Newport, Rhode Island, with 11,000.

A year earlier, rather than coming to the rescue of British General Burgoyne at the Battle of Saratoga, British General William Howe, possibly due to professional rivalry, abandoned Burgoyne, left New York, and sailed for Pennsylvania.

Howe defeated General Washington at the Battle of Brandywine, September 11, 1777, then marched into Philadelphia, being gloriously greeted by the large number of British Loyalists still in the city.

The British occupied the city for eight months, but gaining no strategic benefit from being there, they left Philadelphia in June of 1778.

Americans once again took control, with Benedict Arnold being appointed the military commander of Philadelphia.

As Philadelphia had a significant population of Quakers, who refused for religious reasons to take up arms in defense of America, citizens who were still loyal to the King of England could blend in.

While military commander of Philadelphia, Benedict Arnold became captivated by Peggy Shippen, the daughter of a wealthy loyalist-leaning judge.

Arnold and Peggy were married in 1779.

At the same time, Arnold was accused of using his position for his own financial benefit. He had to endure a long and drawn out court-martial trial. Interestingly, during the trial, Arnold, vehemently accused his prosecutors of being disloyal to the patriot cause.

This behavior was later termed by Sigmund Freud as “psychological projection,” where a guilty person accuses their innocent opponent of the exact crime that they, themselves, are guilty of.

Arnold was eventually cleared in the trial, but the ordeal, along with being passed over for promotion, confirmed to his loyalist-leaning wife, Peggy, that the Americans did not appreciate her husband.

Meanwhile, Arnold incurred much debt attempting to maintain his wife’s upper-class lifestyle.

All this while, Peggy had maintained communication with a British spy, the young and handsome Major John Andre, who had stayed behind in Philadelphia posing as a civilian.

After a year of coaxing, Peggy finally convinced Benedict to meet with Andre.

That same year, 1779, the Continental Congress declared a Day of Public Prayer to Almighty God.

Virginia Governor Thomas Jefferson observed this by signing a State Proclamation of Prayer: “Congress hath thought proper to recommend to the several States a day of public and solemn Thanksgiving to Almighty God, for his mercies, and of Prayer, for the continuance of his favor. That He would go forth with our hosts and crown our arms with victory; that He would grant to His church, the plentiful effusions of Divine Grace, and pour out His Holy Spirit on all Ministers of the Gospel; that He would bless and prosper the means of education, and spread the light of Christian knowledge through the remotest corners of the earth. I do therefore issue this proclamation appointing a day of public and solemn thanksgiving and prayer to Almighty God. Given under by hand this 11th day of November, in the year of our Lord, 1779, Thomas Jefferson.”

The next spring, April 6, 1780, General Washington issued the order from his headquarters at Morristown, New Jersey: “Congress having been pleased by their Proclamation of the 11th of last month to appoint Wednesday the 22nd instant to be set apart and observed as a day of Fasting, Humiliation and Prayer, there should be no labor or recreations on that day.”

Due to Arnold’s heroic reputation, Washington had a blind spot when it came to suspecting Arnold’s betrayal. General Benedict Arnold lobbied General Washington to put him in charge of West Point, which Washington did on August 3, 1780.

The fort at West Point was America’s largest and most important fort, designed by the Polish freedom fighter Tadeusz Kosciuszko.

West Point controlled the Hudson River Valley, which stretched from near Canada in the North to New York City in the south.

The Hudson River effectively divided colonial America in half, with the New England Colonies on the east and the Middle & Southern Colonies on the west. The surrender of West Point would have split the country and possibly cost the Americans the War.

By August 30, 1780, Benedict Arnold not only agreed to betray West Point, but to do so on the very day General Washington would arrive to inspect it. This way Washington would be captured.

In return, for his betrayal, the King’s British Empire would pay Benedict Arnold money, lots of money — 20,000 British pounds sterling, the equivalent of one million dollars today.

Arnold proceeded to intentionally weakened West Point’s defenses by neglecting repairs and removing supplies, all the while complaining to General Washington of shortages.

The trap was set. General George Washington and Major-General Lafayette set out on their way to West Point to examine its defenses.

On September 19, 1780, British General Henry Clinton left Charleston, South Carolina, and put his troops in position to capture West Point.

On September 23, 1780, Arnold met with British spy Major John Andre to arranged the final details of the fort’s surrender.

Talking too long, Andre missed the rendezvous with a British boat waiting in the Hudson River. This was due in part to some Americans, by chance, spotting the idle British boat and firing shots at it, causing it to retreat down river.

Arnold then had Andre dress as a civilian and take the risky route back to the British lines by land.

This was a fateful decision, for the accepted rules of warfare were, that if a combatant was captured in uniform, he was afforded certain treatment as a prisoner of war, but if the combatant was captured dressed as a civilian, he was considered a spy, for which the penalty was immediate hanging.

Historians question why Arnold did not take more precaution to keep Andre from being caught. It is suspected that Arnold may have been blinded by jealousy. Arnold seemed to harbor resentment toward the younger and more handsome Andre for maintaining a such a close relationship with his wife, Peggy.

Andre departed from Arnold, and hiked across the American controlled territory, and no-man’s land. He almost made it to the British lines when, providentially, some random American sentries spotted him in the woods and decided to stop him for questioning.

Trying to talk his way out of why he was there, the sentries were unconvinced. They searched him once and again.

They almost let him go when they decided to make him take off his boot. There, hidden in Andre’s sagging stocking, they found the folded up map of West Point.

The American sentries arrested Andre and immediately sent word to General Benedict Arnold. Arnold was anxiously waiting at West Point for the arrival of General Washington, supposedly to have breakfast, but where he intended to capture him.

Major James McHenry, for whom Fort McHenry was later named, rode ahead to let Arnold know that Washington was on his way, but had been delayed.

By the time Major McHenry arrived at West Point, Benedict Arnold had realized his plot was discovered. He left his wife and child, and fled to the waiting British ship, HMS Vulture.

His wife, Peggy, feigned insanity to avoid being questioned by Washington.

The day after Arnold’s plot was thwarted, American General Nathaniel Greene reported September 26, 1780: “Treason of the blackest dye was yesterday discovered! General Arnold who commanded at West Point, was about to give the American cause a deadly wound if not fatal stab. Happily the treason had been timely discovered to prevent the fatal misfortune. The providential train of circumstances which led to its discovery affords the most convincing proof that the Liberties of America are the object of divine Protection.”

On May 8, 1783, Yale President Ezra Stiles stated: “A providential miracle at the last minute detected the treacherous scheme of traitor Benedict Arnold, which would have delivered the American army, including George Washington himself, into the hands of the enemy.”

The Continental Congress issued a Day of Thanksgiving, October 18, 1780: “In the late remarkable interposition of His watchful providence, in the rescuing the person of our Commander-in-Chief and the army from imminent dangers, at the moment when treason was ripened for execution. It is therefore recommended a Day of Public Thanksgiving and Prayer to confess our unworthiness and to offer fervent supplications to the God of all grace to cause the knowledge of Christianity to spread over all the earth.”

Washington offered to do a prisoner exchange with the British. He would return John Andre to the British in exchange for Benedict Arnold being returned to the Americans. The British refused.

Since the British earlier hanged the captured 21-year-old American spy, Nathan Hale, General Washington insisted that the same fate be administered to the captured British spy Andre.

Major John Andre was hung on October 2, 1780.

Benedict Arnold fulfilled his betrayal by pledging loyalty to the King and joining the British ranks.

He led attacks where he fought and killed Americans, even burning the city of New London, Connecticut, in 1781.

Benedict Arnold led British troops to capture Richmond, Virginia.

They burned government buildings and homes, destroyed the foundry, and attempted to catch Governor Thomas Jefferson.

The U.S. Military Academy at West Point has plaques hanging in the Old Cadet Chapel commemorating the name of every general of the Revolutionary War, except one. Arnold’s plaque had his name struck off. It simply reads: “Major General ___________ Born 1740.”

Academy historian at West Point Steven Grove explained: “We wanted to commemorate all the war generals, so we have a plaque for him, but he disgraced his uniform, so we don’t put his name up there.”

John Jay, who was later appointed by George Washington as the first Chief Justice of the Supreme Court, stated September 8, 1777: “This glorious revolution is distinguished by so many marks of the Divine favor and interposition in a manner so singular, and I may say miraculous, that when future ages shall read its history they will be tempted to consider a great part of it as fabulous.

Will it not appear extraordinary like the emancipation of the Jews from Egyptian servitude.”

The End

Amazing Story from WW II

This is the story of how the Senior Pilot who led the attack on Pearl Harbor later amazingly became a Christian and became a Christian Evangelist.  Do read this and be inspired:

Japanese Emperor Meiji allowed many freedoms during the Meiji Restoration, 1868-1912.

The country industrialized, adopted many Western ideas, allowed voting, ended feudalism, permitted private citizens to own land, and abolished the historic distinctions of four social classes, though the samurai class opposed this.

In 1905, Japan won a war against Russia.

By the early 1900s, Japan expanded into one of the largest maritime empires in history.

It annexed Korea in 1910 and took control of Russian ports in Siberia in 1918.

Citizens of Japan experienced unprecedented freedom and prosperity during the “Taishō democracy,” 1912 to 1926.

Japan’s economy successfully survived World War I.

This all changed with the 1929 Stock Market Crash and Great Depression, which had global repercussions.

Exports from Japan to America and other Western nations dramatically dropped off, causing a financial crisis. This worldwide economic panic allowed Stalin to seize more power in Russia, Hitler in Germany, and Mussolini in Italy.

Similarly, Shōwa Emperor Hirohito and his generals, inspired by a resurgence of the nationalist spirit of the samurai, centralized power into a Japanese totalitarian, militaristic state. Power concentrated so much, that the emperor was revered by some Shinto followers as an incarnate divinity who must be obeyed without question, whose subjects were forbidden to criticize.

In 1937, Imperial Japan’s Army killed an estimated 200,000 in Nanking, China.

In 1941, it was the world’s 3rd largest naval power, with the 9th largest economy.

It made an alliance with Germany and Italy.

In 1941, over 3,000 Americans died when Imperial Japan attacked Pearl Harbor.

In 1942, over 20,000 Americans and Filipinos died on Bataan’s Death March, where starving prisoners were marched 65 miles in heat and jungles to a disease infested camp.

Similar to jihad suicide-bombers, kamikaze suicide-pilots were indoctrinated with the honor-shame samurai code, that it was more honorable to die killing the enemy than to shamefully surrender and be captured. Japanese fought fiercely, resulting in over 100,000 deaths as the Allies took Okinawa and Pacific islands through 1945. About 3,860 kamikaze pilots met their deaths hitting more than 400 Allied ships.

An incident in the Pacific War occurred September 2, 1944, when U.S. Navy torpedo-bombers were on a bombing raid near Chichi Jima in the Bonin Islands, 700 miles south of Japan. Ten pilots were hit with anti-aircraft fire and ejected from their burning planes.

As recorded in the book Navy Wings of Gold (3rd edition, 2010), Japanese boats sped from the shore and quickly captured nine of the ten downed pilots. The tenth pilot was able to get further out to sea before ejecting. He was only saved by the circling plane of American pilot Lt. “Blackie” Adams. “Blackie” Adams kept shooting at the Japanese boats till the submarine, USS Finback, could rescue the last downed pilot.

The rescued pilot was 20-year-old Lt. George H. W. Bush.

When Bush saw the submarine providentially surface near him, he thought he was seeing an hallucination. Had he not been rescued, he most certainly would have suffered the fate of the other nine captured pilots in what became known as the Chichi Jima Incident.

The book Flyboys: A True Story of Courage (2003) recorded what happened to Bush’s fellow pilots. Imperial officers Lt Gen. Yoshio Tachibana and Major Sueo Matoba ordered them to be beaten and cannibalized, sometimes amputating only one limb at a time.TIME Magazine reported in an article, “National Affairs: Unthinkable Crime,” September 16, 1946, that two of the soldiers were beheaded and their livers eaten.

Imperial military embraced the samurai code, preferring killing one’s self in hara-kiri more honorable than capture. As a result, they held contempt for captured prisoners of war.

The Telegraph (Feb. 6, 2017, published an article “George H.W. Bush narrowly escaped comrade’s fate of being killed and eaten by Japanese captors: Lt George Bush, then a 20-year-old pilot, was among nine airmen who escaped from their planes after being shot down during bombing raids on Chichi Jima, a tiny island 700 miles south of Tokyo, in September 1944, and was the only one to evade capture by the Japanese.”

The former President George H.W. Bush narrowly escaped being beheaded and eaten by Japanese soldiers when he was shot down over the Pacific in the Second World War, a shocking new history published in America has revealed. The book, Flyboys, is the result of historical detective work by James Bradley, whose father was among the marines later photographed raising the flag over the island of Iwo Jima.”

The two Imperial officers who ordered the gruesome acts were found guilty of war crimes and executed.

U.S. Marine fighter ace Greg “Pappy” Boyington, of the Black Sheep Squadron, was also shot down in the Pacific, January 1944. He was a prisoner of war for a year and a half, and his biography attests to similar horrendous treatment.

Realizing that every Japanese soldier would fight to the death instead of surrender, Democrat President Harry Truman made the secret and controversial decision August 6, 1945, to drop the Atomic Bomb on Hiroshima and Nagasaki. The reasoning was that, though devastating, it would prevent an additional one million casualties on both sides from a long, continuing war.

Emperor Hirohito finally made the official surrendered aboard the U.S.S. Missouri, anchored in Tokyo Bay, on SEPTEMBER 2, 1945.

After the war, George H. W. Bush graduated from Yale. He worked in the Texas oil industry and entered politics, being a Congressman, Ambassador, Director of the C.I.A., Vice-President, and eventually the 41st President of the United States.

In his Inaugural Address, George H.W. Bush, January 20, 1989, he stated: “I have just repeated the oath taken by George Washington 200 years ago, and the Bible on which I placed my hand is the Bible on which he placed his.

My first act as President is a prayer: Heavenly Father,make us strong to do Your work, and if our flaws are endless, God’s love is truly boundless.”

A story of redemption occurred after World War II. Mitsuo Fuchida was the Imperial Japanese Navy pilot who led the attack on Pearl Harbor, shouting, “Tora, Tora, Tora.”

Mitsuo Fuchida was depicted in the 1970 Movie Tora, Tora, Tora. “Tora,” meaning “tiger” was the Japanese code word meaning, the enemy is caught in complete surprise.

In 1950, after World War II was over, Fuchida became a Christian, then an evangelist, and then in 1960, an American citizen. His story was written in Readers Digest “God’s Samurai: Lead Pilot at Pearl Harbor” (February 1954).

Mitsuo Fuchida wrote in his biography From Pearl Harbor to Calvary (1953): “I was in Hiroshima the day before the atom bomb was dropped. Fortunately, I received a long distance call from my Navy Headquarters, asking me to return to Tokyo.

With the end of the war, my military career was over, since all Japanese forces were disbanded, I returned to my home village.

As I got off the train one day in Tokyo’s Shibuya Station, I saw an American distributing literature. When I passed him, he handed me a pamphlet entitled “I Was a Prisoner of Japan” (published by Bible Literature International). What I read was the fascinating episode which eventually changed my life.”

Fuchida continued:

“Jake DeShazer volunteered for a secret mission with the Jimmy Doolittle Squadron, a surprise raid on Tokyo from the carrier Hornet.

After the bombing raid DeShazer found himself a prisoner of Japan. There in the Japanese P.O.W. camp, he read and read (the Bible) and eventually came to understand that the Book was more than an historical classic. The dynamic power of Christ, which Jake DeShazer accepted into his life, changed his entire attitude toward his captors. His hatred turned to love.”

Fuchida wrote further, that after the War: “DeShazer returned to Japan as a missionary. And his story, printed in pamphlet form, was something I could not explain. Since the American had found it in the Bible, I decided to purchase one myself, despite my traditionally Buddhist heritage.

I was certainly one of those for whom He had prayed. The many men I had killed had been slaughtered in the name of patriotism, for I did not understand the love which Christ wishes to implant within every heart.

Right at that moment, I seemed to meet Jesus for the first time.

I understood the meaning of His death as a substitute for my wickedness, and so in prayer, I requested Him to forgive my sins and change me from a bitter, disillusioned ex-pilot into a well-balanced Christian with purpose in living. I became a new person. My complete view on life was changed by the intervention of the Christ I had always hated and ignored before.”

Fuchida added:

“I have traveled across Japan and the Orient introducing others to the One Who changed my life.

I believe with all my heart that those who will direct Japan, and all other nations in the decades to come must not ignore the message of Jesus Christ.

Youth must realize that He is the only hope for this troubled world. I would give anything to retract my actions of twenty-nine years ago at Pearl Harbor, but it is impossible.

Mitsuo Fuchida concluded:

“Instead, I now work at striking the death-blow to the basic hatred which infests the human heart and causes such tragedies.

And that hatred cannot be uprooted without assistance from Jesus Christ.”

American Indians – Greed vs. The Gospel

Throughout history, in the United States there have been two competing factions as respects the native American Indians: Those who wanted to lead them to Jesus and understand the Gospel vs. those who wanted to exploit them and take their lands.  Following is a brief history of both factions:

Ron

Throughout history, there have been those motivated by GREED, who:

  • took land from Indians;
  • sold people into slavery;
  • hung signs in their shops: “Help Wanted-No Irish Immigrants Need Apply”;
  • British East India Company merchants who grew opium in India and imported it into China;
  • seen more recently as in this Huffington Post article, May 5, 2017: “Since the U.S.-led invasion, Afghan opium production has increased 35-fold. Overdoses from heroin, an opium derivative, and other opioids kill more than 27,000 people each year.”

Greed is evident in political tactics:

  • organizers engaging in “race-baiting” — intentionally inciting racial tensions for political gain;
  • politicians who create or capitalize on national crisis as an excuse for the government to usurp rights away from the people and set up totalitarian dictatorships.
  • people who vote for candidates promising entitlements, while advocating immorality and disregard for human life.

Scripture states in I Timothy 6:10 – “For the love of money is the root of all evil.”

On the other hand, there have been those motivated by the GOSPEL, such as those who:

  • dug wells in native villages;
  • opened orphanages and medical clinics;
  • founded hospitals, inoculated children;
  • taught farming techniques;
  • provided literacy programs;
  • donated money, food & clothes to help the poor;
  • took in homeless;
  • visited those in prison;
  • fought to abolish slavery, forced marriages, and sex-trafficking.

Matthew 25:44-45: “Lord, when saw we thee an hungred, or athirst, or a stranger, or naked, or sick, or in prison, and did not minister unto thee?

Then shall he answer them, saying, Verily I say unto you, Inasmuch as ye did it not to one of the least of these, ye did it not to me.”

It is not the color of one’s skin but the thinking in one’s brain.

In other words, it is not a situation where one race is good and another bad, as people of the same race can treat each other poorly.

It is a battle over thinking – what behavioral software is guiding a person’s action.

Is it selfish greed or the caring love of the Gospel. Besides the American Indians, there were many others who ministered to similar down and out peoples:

Though many Spanish conquistadors were greedily searching for gold and glory, there were sincere Spanish missionaries, like Bartolome’ de Las Casas, who were motivated by the love of the GOSPEL to minister and care for native peoples.

Some of those motivated by the GOSPEL include: Scottish Missionary to the Congo David Livingstone, who worked to end the Muslim slave trade in Africa;

Scottish Missionary to Nigeria Mary Slessor, who promoted women’s rights and the ending twin killing;

Adoniram Judson, missionary to Burma, who created a Burmese-English Dictionary;

Baptist Missionary Lottie Moon, who helped famine victims in China;

Missionary to India William Carey, who helped end the practice of “sati”–the burning of widows on their husband’s ashes;

George Muller, who founded orphanages in the slums of England;

Gladys Aylward, missionary to China who helped end the binding of little girls’ feet;

Hudson Taylor, who was a missionary and physician to the poor in China;

Irish missionary Amy Carmichael, who worked with orphans in India;

Olympic athlete Eric Liddell, who was a missionary and teacher among the extreme poor in war torn areas of North China;

Jake DeShazer, who was a prisoner-of-war turned missionary to war-torn Japan;

Nate Saint and Jim Elliot, who were missionary martyrs to Ecuador’s Auca Indians;

and Mother Teresa of Calcutta, who said: “I see Jesus in every human being. I say to myself, this is hungry Jesus, I must feed him. This is sick Jesus. This one has leprosy or gangrene; I must wash him and tend to him. I serve because I love Jesus.”

Scripture states in James 1:27 “Pure and undefiled religion in the sight of our God and Father is this: to visit orphans and widows in their distress, and to keep oneself unstained by the world.” (NASB)

Those motivated by the GOSPEL spread uniquely Judeo-Christian ideals like:

  • women and children first;
  • charity and philanthropy;
  • tolerance, equality, honesty, marital fidelity;
  • civil rights;
  • volunteerism;
  • forgiveness;
  • racial healing.

The competing motivations of GREED versus the GOSPEL can be observed most prominently when more advanced civilizations have clashed with less advanced civilizations.

The Pulitzer Prize winning book Guns, Germs, and Steel: The Fates of Human Societies by Jared Diamond (1997), explained how the first humans were hunter-gatherers, foraging and scavenging for their daily food, pursuing wild animals and collecting wild plants.

As time progressed, some advanced from hunter-gather to domesticating crops and animals, these being the first occupations: “tiller of the ground” and “keeper of flocks.”

As methods of food storage developed, these peoples advanced from spending all day hunting and gathering to now developing other occupations, inventions, writing skills, bureaucracies, and eventually armies, with which they displaced less advanced hunter-gathers.

Mesopotamia had the largest share of domesticable crops and animals, along with favorable climate conditions:

  • Cereals: Wheat, Barley, Rye, Oats;
  • Pulses: Lentil, Pea, Chickpea, Bean;
  • Other: Almonds, Olives;
  • Flax: a source of linseed oil and fiber for clothes, ropes, rugs, bedding, curtains, sails; and
  • Animals: such as donkey, horse, camel, pig, chicken, cattle and oxen.

Mesopotamia’s had a head start in advancing civilization, which spread into Europe, the East and North Africa.

For the most part, Asia was limited to just rice.

Africa had large animals, but, other than camels and elephants, their wild dispositions rendered them untamable, i.e., water buffalo, rhino, giraffe, zebra, and gazelle–who could run 60 miles an hour.

In Australia, varieties were scarce.

The American continent had lots of wild game and fish, but only a small selection of domesticable crops, mainly: beans, squash, potatoes, and later maize-corn. These were limited by climate and terrain from spreading north or south across equatorial central America.

America’s buffalo, llama, and alpaca, were difficult to domesticate, and dogs could only pull sleds.

The people of the Americas survived because there was a plentiful abundance of food which could be hunted and gathered.

When the Europeans immigrated to the New World, they were carrying with them 5,000 years of advancement in civilization, whereas the aboriginal inhabitants of the Americas were still predominantly hunting and gathering, living somewhere between the stone age and the bronze age, without even the invention of a usable wheel.

As a result, there was a civilization clash.

The American Indians were caught in the clash of technological disparity, as well as in the struggle between GREED versus the GOSPEL.

They were often pulled into larger global conflicts.

For example, many Indians were persuaded to side with the French against the British during the French and Indian War.

When the French lost, the Indians also lost, and some of their land was confiscated.

Many Indians were persuaded to side with the British during the Revolutionary War as Britain limited colonial westward expansion in 1763.

When the British lost, Indians again lost more land with the Treaty of Greenville, 1795.

Many Indians were persuaded to side with the British during the War of 1812.

When the British lost, Indians lost more land with the Treaty of Fort Jackson, 1814.

Catholic and Protestant missionaries were motivated by the GOSPEL to better the condition of Indians, such as:

Fr. Isaac Jogues, S.J., missionary martyr to the Iroquois;

-Fr. Charles Garnier, S.J., missionary martyr to the Iroquois;

-Rene Goupil, S.J., missionary martyr to the Mohawk and Huron;

-Fr. Anthony Daniel, S.J., missionary martyr to the Huron Indians;

-Fr. John de Brebeuf, S.J., missionary to the Huron Iroquois Indians; 

-John Elliott, missionary to the Massachusetts Indians;

-Pierre Jacques Marquette, S.J., missionary to Natives along the Saint Lawrence River, the Great Lakes and the Mississippi River;

-David Brainerd, missionary to Mohican Indians in New York and Delaware Indians in Pennsylvania and New Jersey; 

-Francis Makemie, Scotch-Irish founder of the Presbyterian Church in America and Barbados;

-John Stewart, African-American missionary to the Wyandot Tribe;

-Dr. Marcus and Narcissa Whitman, missionaries to the Pacific Northwest;

-Pierre-Jean DeSmet, S.J., missionary to midwestern Indian tribes;

-Fr. François Blanchet, missionary to Pacific Northwest;

-Fr. Modeste Demers, missionary to Willamette Valley tribes;

-Jason Lee and nephew Daniel Lee, missionaries to Oregon;

-Henry and Eliza Spalding, missionary to Nez Perce;

-William Gray, missionary carpenter to Walla Walla, Washington;

-Elkanah and Mary Walker, missionaries to Spokane Tribe;

-David Leslie, missionary and founder of Salem, Oregon;-Hiram Bingham, missionary to Hawaiian Islands.

On April 26, 1802, President Jefferson extended a 1787 act of Congress in which special lands were designated: “For the sole use of Christian Indians and the Moravian Brethren missionaries for civilizing the Indians and promoting Christianity.”

After the Louisiana Purchase, Jefferson asked Congress to ratify a treaty with the Kaskaskia Tribe, negotiated by William Henry Harrison – the future 9th President.

The Kaskaskia Treaty, December 3, 1803, stated:  “And whereas the greater part of the said tribe have been baptized and received into the Catholic Church, to which they are much attached, the United States will give annually, for seven years, one hundred dollars toward the support of a priest of that religion, who will engage to perform for said tribe the duties of his office, and also to instruct as many of their children as possible, in the rudiments of literature, and the United States will further give the sum of three hundred dollars, to assist the said tribe in the erection of a church.”

In 1806 and 1807, two similar treaties were made withthe Wyandotte and Cherokee tribes.

Jefferson compiled “The Life and Morals of Jesus of Nazareth Extracted Textually from the Gospels in Greek, Latin, French and English.”

It was first published in 1804, then again in 1816, with the intention of it being a book of ethics to help Christianize and civilize the Indians, reasoning that if they were given the entire Bible, they may emulate Old Testament stories of warfare.

Jefferson wrote on the cover page:  “The Philosophy of Jesus of Nazareth–extracted from the account of his life and doctrines as given by Matthew, Mark, Luke & John–being an abridgement of the New Testament for the use of the Indians unembarrassed with matters of fact or faith beyond the level of their comprehensions.”

When gold was discovered in Georgia, greedy settlers rushed in.

A Democrat controlled Congress hurriedly passed a big government solution — the Indian Removal Act of 1830, signed by Democrat President Andrew Jackson.

Christian missionary Jeremiah Evarts, motivated by the Gospel, organized resistance to the Federal Government’s removal plan, with many other missionaries being arrested by the State of Georgia and sentenced to years of hard labor.

Christian missionaries Samuel Worcester and Elizur Butler were arrested and their case defending the Indians went to the U.S. Supreme Court, where Chief Justice John Marshall ruled in favor of the Cherokee in Worcester v. Georgia, 1832.

Jackson ignored the Supreme Court decision, being convinced that removal was the only “wise and humane” way to prevent the Indians from “utter annihilation” by greedy, encroaching settlers.

The Federal Government then moved to the Indian Territory of Oklahoma thousands of:

  • Chickasaw,
  • Choctaw,
  • Muscogee-Creek,
  • Seminole, and
  • Cherokee.

Four thousand died on the Trail of Tears, resulting from the Treaty of Fort Armstrong, 1832 and Treaty of Echota, 1835.

President Jackson stated in his Third Annual Message, December 6, 1831: “The removal of the Indians beyond jurisdiction of the States does not place them beyond the reach of philanthropic aid and Christian instruction.”

President Jackson stated in a Message to Congress, January 20, 1830: “According to the terms of an agreement between the United States and the United Society of Christian Indians the latter have a claim to an annuity of $400, commencing from the 1st of October, 1826, for which an appropriation by law for this amount will be proper.”

In the 1850’s, the territory of the Five Civilized Tribes in the eastern Oklahoma had Gospel-motivated missions, schools and academies:

  • Presbyterians’ Dwight Mission, Cherokee, 1820, 1828;
  • Chuala Female Academy, Choctaw, 1842;
  • Tullahassee Manual Labor Boarding School, Cherokee, 1848;
  • Congregational-American Board of Commissioners for Foreign Missions’s Wheelock Academy, Choctaw, 1832;
  • Methodist Episcopal Church’s Quapaw Mission, 1843; and
  • Bloomfield Academy for Chickasaw Females, 1852.

President Lincoln stated in his 3rd Annual Message, December 3, 1863:  “It is hoped that the treaties will result in permanent friendly relations with such of these tribes. Duty to these wards of the Government demand our anxious and constant attention to their material well-being, to their progress in the arts of civilization, and, above all, to that moral training which under the blessing of Divine Providence will confer upon them the elevated and sanctifying influences, hopes and consolations, of the Christian faith.”

Some Indians sided with the Confederacy during the Civil War.

When the South lost, Indians lost more land.

Eventually the Democrat policy of Indians REMOVAL was replaced with the Republican policy of RESERVATIONS.

To pressure nomadic tribes into settling on reservations, as well as to make way for profitable railroads, millions of buffalo were unfortunately killed off.

Once Indians were on reservations, oil and minerals were found there.

Again, greedy politicians soon took land from the Indians, such as in the Teapot Dome Scandal.

President Grant’s “Quaker Policy” removed entrepreneurs from being Indian agents and replaced them with missionaries, stating in his First Annual Message, December 6, 1869:  “I have attempted a new policy toward these wards of the nation. The Society of Friends (Quakers) is well known as having succeeded in living in peace with the Indians in the early settlement of Pennsylvania. They are known for their opposition to all strife, violence, and war, and are generally noted for their strict integrity and fair dealings. These considerations induced me to give the management of a few reservations of Indians to them. The result has proven most satisfactory.”

In 1869, the Board of Indian Commissioners noted in its annual report: “The religion of our blessed Savior is the most effective agent for the civilization of any people.”

President Grant stated in his 2nd Annual Message, December 5, 1870:  “Reform in Indian affairs has received special attention. The experiment of making it a missionary work was tried with a few agencies given to the denomination of Friends (Quakers), and has been found to work most advantageously. Indian agencies being civil offices, I determined to give all the agencies to such religious denominations as had heretofore established missionaries among the Indians, and perhaps to some other denominations to Christianize and civilize the Indians, and to train him in the arts of peace.”

President Grant stated to Congress, January 1, 1871:  “Civilized Indians of the country should be encouraged in establishing for themselves forms of Territorial government compatible with the Constitution. This is the first indication of the aborigines desiring to adopt our form of government, and it is highly desirable that they become self-sustaining, self-relying, Christianized, and civilized.”

President Grant stated in his 3rd Annual Message, December 4, 1871:  “The policy pursued toward the Indians has resulted favorably. Through the exertions of the various societies of Christians … many tribes of Indians have been induced to settle upon reservations, to cultivate the soil, to perform productive labor of various kinds, and to partially accept civilization. I recommend liberal appropriations to carry out the Indian peace policy, not only because it is humane, Christian-like, and economical, but because it is right.”

Oklahoma had missions run by:

  • Baptists,
  • Methodists,
  • Episcopalians,
  • Presbyterians,
  • Mennonites,
  • Quakers,
  • Moravians,
  • Nazarene,
  • Catholics, and others.

Mennonites had a mission among the Comanches at Post Oak Mission and at Colony.

Catholics had missions in the Potawatomi Nation at Sacred Heart Abbey, at Anadarko on the Kiowa-Comanche-Apache Reservation, and in north central Oklahoma among the Osage, Ponca, and Otoe.

In 1884, one of the first missionaries to the Yupik Indians in Alaska was John Henry Killbuck, great-grandson of Lenape Chief Gelelemend, who in 1778 made the first Indian Treaty with the United States and later was converted to Christianity by German Moravian missionaries.

President Cleveland issued the Proclamation respecting Church property in Alaska, November 14, 1896: “Whereas the Russian Empire ceded to the US the Territory of Alaska … the churches which have been built in the ceded territory shall remain the property of such members of the Greek Oriental Church. The Cathedral Church of St. Michael. The Church of the Resurrection called the Kalochian Church,  situated near the battery number at the palisade separating the city from the Indian village. Three timber houses for lodging of priests. Four lots of ground belonging to the parsonages.”

In the 1871 Indian Appropriations Act, Indians officially made legal wards of the state, an idea first introduced in the 1831 case of Cherokee Nation v. Georgia.

This meant that U.S. government no longer needed to make treaties with tribal leaders, and through Federal government assistance, tended to create a crippling dependency.

In 1924, Republican President Calvin Coolidge signed the Indian Citizen Act granting citizenship to Native Americans born in the United States.

In 1927, President Coolidge was “adopted” into the Sioux tribe at Fort Yates in North Dakota.

As a boy, Herbert Hoover had spent several months living on the Osage Indian Reservation in Oklahoma Territory.

Republican President Hoover chose as his Vice-President Charles Curtis, the nation’s first Native American Vice-President, from the Kaw tribe in Kansas.

Hoover reorganized and provided increased funding to the Bureau of Indian Affairs.

The next President, Franklin D. Roosevelt, had John Collier serve as Commissioner of Indian Affairs, 1933-45. The son of a successful Atlanta businessman, John Collier pressured Congress to pass the Indian Reorganization Act of 1934. This preserved Indian identity by restoring native lands, improving reservation medical services, and promoting development of business opportunities for Indians.

The two competing threads of human motivation, Greed versus the Gospel, can be traced through history, and the struggle between them still continues to this day.

Jesus explained in Matthew 13:30, let the wheat and tares grow together until the harvest.

Some individuals of American Indian ancestry who have become well-known include:

Will Rogers: 1879-1935, cowboy, actor, humorist, and newspaper columnist, of Cherokee descent.

Jim Thorpe: 1887-1953, Olympic athlete, of Sac and Fox descent.

Oral Roberts: 1918-2009, evangelist who reached millions, broadcast television pioneer, founder of Oral Roberts University, of Cherokee and Choctaw descent.

Navajo Code Talkers: Chester Nez, Willson Price, William McCabe, Teddy Draper, Sr., Carl Gorman, Peter MacDonald, Kee Etsicitty, Samuel Tom Holiday, Joe Vandever, Keith Little, John Kinsel, Samuel Tso, together with over 400 Navajo sent vital communications during World War II that the Japanese were unable to decode, allowing for the success of major Marine assaults.

Chuck Norris: b.1940, actor, martial artist, film producer, of Cherokee descent.

John Bennett Herrington: b.1958, first American Indian Astronaut, launched into space with NASA on November 23, 2002, of Chickasaw descent.

First Prayer in U.S. Congress

Yes, each session of the U.S. Congress starts with a prayer, but this is the amazing story of the very first prayer and its history.  Do read this and be inspired:

The First Session of the First Continental Congress opened in September of 1774 with a prayer in Carpenter’s Hall, Philadelphia.

America was being threatened by the most powerful monarch in the world, Britain’s King George III.

On September 7, 1774, as the Congress began, the founding fathers listened to Rev. Jacob Duche’ read Psalm 35, which was the “Psalter” for the day according to the Anglican Book of Common Prayer: “Plead my cause, Oh, Lord, with them that strive with me, fight against them that fight against me. Take hold of buckler and shield, and rise up for my help. Draw also the spear and the battle-axe to meet those who pursue me; Say to my soul, ‘I am your salvation.’ Let those be ashamed and dishonored who seek my life; Let those be turned back and humiliated who devise evil against me.”

Then Rev. Jacob Duche’ prayed:  “Be Thou present, O God of Wisdom, and direct the counsel of this Honorable Assembly; enable them to settle all things on the best and surest foundations; that the scene of blood may be speedily closed; that Order, Harmony and Peace may be effectually restored, and that Truth and Justice, Religion and Piety, prevail and flourish among the people. Preserve the health of their bodies, and the vigor of their minds, shower down on them, and the millions they here represent, such temporal Blessings as Thou seest expedient for them in this world, and crown them with everlasting Glory in the world to come. All this we ask in the name and through the merits of Jesus Christ, Thy Son and our Saviour, Amen.”

That same day, September 7, 1774, John Adams wrote to his wife, Abigail, describing the prayer:  “When the Congress met, Mr. Cushing made a motion that it should be opened with Prayer.  It was opposed by Mr. Jay of New York, and Mr. Rutledge of South Carolina because we were so divided in religious sentiments, some Episcopalians, some Quakers, some Anabaptists, some Presbyterians, and some Congregationalists, that we could not join in the same act of worship.”

Adams continued:

“Accordingly, next morning Reverend Mr. Duche’ appeared with his clerk and in his pontificals, and read several prayers in the established form, and read the collect for the seventh day of September, which was the thirty-fifth Psalm. You must remember, this was the next morning after we heard the horrible rumor of the cannonade of Boston. I never saw a greater effect upon an audience. It seemed as if heaven had ordained that Psalm to be read on that morning.

After this, Mr. Duche’, unexpectedly to every body, struck out into an extemporary prayer, which filled the bosom of every man present. I must confess, I never heard a better prayer, or one so well pronounced. Episcopalian as he is, Dr. Cooper himself never prayed with such fervor, such ardor, such earnestness and pathos, and in language so elegant and sublime, for America, for the Congress, for the province of Massachusetts Bay, and especially the town of Boston. It has had an excellent effect upon everybody here. I must beg you to read that Psalm.”

The Library of Congress printed a historical placard of Carpenter’s Hall, Philadelphia, which stated: “Washington was kneeling there with Henry, Randolph, Rutledge, Lee, and Jay, and by their side there stood, bowed in reverence the Puritan Patriots of New England. ‘It was enough’ says Mr. Adams, ‘to melt a heart of stone. I saw the tears gush into the eyes of the old, grave, pacific Quakers of Philadelphia.'”

The Journals of Congress then recorded their appreciation to Rev. Mr. Duche’:

“Wednesday, SEPTEMBER 7, 1774, 9 o’clock a.m. Agreeable to the resolve of yesterday, the meeting was opened with prayers by the Rev. Mr. Duche’. Voted, That the thanks of Congress be given to Mr. Duche’ for performing divine Service, and for the excellent prayer, which he composed and delivered on the occasion.”

In the Supreme Court case of Town of Greece, NY, v. Galloway et al, Justice Kennedy wrote in the decision, May 5, 2014:

“Government may not mandate a civic religion that stifles any but the most generic reference to the sacred any more than it may prescribe a religious orthodoxy. In the Supreme Court case of Town of Greece, NY, v. Galloway et al, Justice Kennedy wrote in the decision, May 5, 2014: “Government may not mandate a civic religion that stifles any but the most generic reference to the sacred any more than it may prescribe a religious orthodoxy. The first prayer delivered to the Continental Congress by the Rev. Jacob Duché on Sept. 7, 1774, provides an example:  ‘All this we ask in the name and through the merits of Jesus Christ, Thy Son and our Saviour, Amen’.  From the earliest days of the Nation, these invocations have been addressed to assemblies. Our tradition assumes that adult citizens can tolerate and perhaps appreciate a ceremonial prayer delivered by a person of a different faith.”

Town of Greece v. Galloway was cited by the 8th Circuit Court of Appeals in upholding “In God We Trust” on national currency, August 28, 2018:

“We recognize that convenience may lead some Plaintiffs to carry cash, but nothing compels them to assert their trust in God. The core of the Plaintiffs’ argument is that they are continually confronted with ‘what they feel is an offensive religious message.’ But Galloway makes clear that ‘offense does not equate to coercion.'”

Ten months after the First Prayer in Congress, Rev. Jacob Duche’ exhorted Philadelphia’s soldiers, July 7, 1775:

“Considering myself under the twofold character of a minister of Jesus Christ, and a fellow-citize involved in the same public calamity with yourselves, addressing myself to you as freemen: ‘Stand fast, therefore, in the liberty, wherewith Christ hath made us free’ (Galatians, ch. 5).”

The Amazing Will Rogers

Will Rogers was one of the most popular men in America.  He was invited to be governor of Oklahoma.  He did agree to be Mayor of Beverly Hills.  His column in the New York Times reached 40 million readers. The US Post Office even created two stamps of him. As a Cherokee Indian cowboy he went a long way.

It is my opinion that we need men like him today, with his insight into politics, which he expressed in his own brand of humor.  If you would like to know more about this amazing man, do read the following brief expose of him that I have sent:

The Preamble of the Oklahoma State Constitution, 1907, states: “Invoking the guidance of Almighty God, in order to secure and perpetuate the blessing of liberty; to secure just and rightful government; to promote our mutual welfare and happiness, we, the people of the State of Oklahoma, do ordain and establish this Constitution.”

A Cherokee delegate to the Oklahoma State Constitutional Convention was Clement Rogers of Rogers County.

His son was William Penn Adair ‘Will’ Rogers. His mother wanted him to become a Methodist preacher.

During this era, there were popular traveling shows, such as:

  • Great Pawnee Bill’s Show;
  • Bee Ho Gray’s Wild West; and
  • Buffalo Bill’s Wild West Show, with notable figures Chief Sitting Bull, “Wild Bill” Hickok, Calamity Jane, and Annie Oakley.

Will Rogers got his start with Texas Jack’s Wild West.

A Cherokee cowboy skilled in roping, Will Rogers became popular on stage in vaudeville shows and the Ziegfeld Follies.

He even performed before President Woodrow Wilson, roasting his political audience with hilariously witty remarks, which became his trademark:

  • “The U.S. Senate opens with a prayer and closes with an investigation.”
  • “If we got one-tenth of what was promised to us in these acceptance speeches there wouldn’t be any inducement to go to heaven.”
  • “With Congress — every time they make a joke it’s a law. And every time they make a law it’s a joke.”
  • “The short memories of American voters is what keeps our politicians in office.”
  • “This country has come to feel the same when Congress is in session as when a baby gets hold of a hammer.”
  • “Never blame a legislative body for not doing something. When they do nothing, that don’t hurt anybody. When they do something is when they become dangerous.”
  • “Be thankful we’re not getting all the government we’re actually paying for.”
  • “The budget is a mythical bean bag. Congress votes mythical beans into it, and then tries to reach in and pull real beans out.”
  • “I don’t make jokes. I just watch the government and report the facts.”
  • “If pro is the opposite of con, what is the opposite of Congress?”
  • “If you ever injected truth into politics you’d have no politics.”
  • “The trouble with practical jokes is that very often they get elected.”
  • “Everything is changing. People are taking the comedians seriously and the politicians as a joke.”

In 1908, Will Rogers married Betty Blake, and together they had four children:

  • Will Rogers, Jr., who became a WWII hero and was elected to Congress;
  • Mary, who became a Broadway actress;
  • James, who was a newspaperman, and
  • Fred, who died at age two of diphtheria.

He had a large radio audience in the 1920’s and made 48 silent movies. When movies had sound, he appeared in 21 feature films.

One of his most notable roles was in Mark Twain’s A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur’s Court.

Rogers had a syndicated column, “Will Rogers says,” in the The York Times, which reached 40 million readers. He wrote frequently for The Saturday Evening Post.

Will Rogers stated:

  • “There are two theories to arguing with a woman. Neither works.”
  • “Always drink upstream from the herd.”
  • “Everyone is ignorant, only on different subjects.”
  • “There is nothing so stupid as the educated man if you get him off the thing he was educated in.”
  • “The problem ain’t what people know. It’s what people know that ain’t so that’s the problem.”
  • “The minute you read something that you can’t understand, you can almost be sure that it was drawn up by a lawyer.””
  • “Hitler got his start in a beer hall and before he’s through he’ll give the world a hangover.”

Will Rogers commented on taxes:

  • “The income tax has made liars out of more Americans than golf.”
  • “I don’t want to complain, but every time they build a tax structure, the first thing they nail is me.”
  • “The only difference between death and taxes is that death doesn’t get worse every time Congress meets.”
  • “Next to guinea pigs, taxes have been the most prolific animal.”
  • “The government shoves you in the creek once a year and all that don’t get wet you can keep.

Once, while entertaining polio victims and severely handicapped at the Milton H. Berry Institute in Los Angeles, he suddenly left the stage and rushed to the rest room. Milton Berry followed him to give him a towel, only to find him weeping like a child. In a few minutes, he was back on the platform, as jovial as before.

Will Rogers fundraised for the American Red Cross during the Great Depression, served as goodwill ambassador to Mexico, and briefly served as mayor of Beverly Hills. He was offered the nomination to be Oklahoma’s Governor, but he declined.

The State of Oklahoma placed a statue of Will Rogers in the U.S. Capitol’s Statuary Hall. Called the Cowboy Philosopher, where he said:

“The farmer has to be an optimist or he wouldn’t still be a farmer.”

“Even if you’re on the right track, you’ll get run over if you just sit there.”

An advocate of aviation, he was friends with the famous pilots Charles Lindbergh and Wiley Post. Will Rogers flew with Wiley Post to Alaska, but getting caught in bad weather, they died in plane crash, August 15, 1935.

Oklahoma City named its international airport the Will Rogers World Airport.

The U.S. Post Office issued a stamp with Will Rogers image in 1948, and again in 1979.

With his cowboy philosopher wit, Rogers said: “The Lord constituted everybody that no matter what color you are, you require the same amount of nourishment.”

He remarked: “Live in such a way that you would not be ashamed to sell your parrot to the town gossip.”

Will Rogers quipped: “Lord, let me live until I die,”

And with great insight, the amazing and so popular Will Rogers finally said:

“The trouble with our praying is, we just do it as a means of last resort.”

Really – What is a Republic

This is Constitution Week in America. In that context I have provided you the following:

The most common form of government in world history is power concentrated into the hands of one person.

The most common form of government in world history is power concentrated into the hands of one person.

This person is called by different names in different countries: King, Khan, Caesar, Kaiser, Czar, Sultan, Maharaja, Emperor, Chairman Mao, Comrade Stalin, or El Presidente.

Though the name changes, the function remains the same — one person rule.

At the time of the American Revolution, the King of England was the most powerful king on the planet.

The writers of the Constitution had one overriding concern — how to prevent power from re-concentrating.

They designed Constitution to take the concentrated power of a king and separate it into three branches and pit the branches against each other in a three-way tug-of-war to check power; then separate power into Federal and State levels, then tie up this Federal Frankenstein with ten handcuffs–the First Ten Amendments.

In a word, the U.S. Constitution is simply a way to prevent a President from ruling through mandates and executive orders — to prevent one-person rule.

The founders sacrificed to brake away from a tyrant who had weaponized law enforcement against his political opponents, as they admitted in the Declaration of Independence: “The history of the present King of Great-Britain is a history of repeated injuries and usurpations, all having in direct object the establishment of an absolute Tyranny over these States.

He has made judges dependent on his Will alone.

He has erected a multitude of new offices, and sent hither swarms of officers to harass our people.

A Prince whose character is thus marked by every act which may define a Tyrant, is unfit to be the ruler of a free people.”

A monarchy is where the power flows TOP-DOWN, from the king through a deep-state bureaucracy to the lowly subjects below.

In contrast, in democracies and republics, the power flows BOTTOM-UP, from the citizens to their elected public-servant representatives.

It is the difference between a dead pyramid, ruled from top-down, and a living tree, where every root, even the tiniest, must participate from the bottom-up to keep the tree alive; every citizen must be involved.

Where kings have “subjects” who are subjected to the king’s will, democracies and republics have “citizens.”

“Citizen” is a Greek word having the meaning of co-ruler, co-sovereign, co-king.

Citizens are in charge of their own lives, and together, are in charge of the country.

“Polis” is the Greek word for “city.”

Residents of the city were called “polités” — the Greek word for “citizen.”

“Politics” is simply “the business of the city.”

The Latin word “civics” means “relating to a citizen.”

Aristotle wrote in his work Politics (335-323 BC): “Man is a political animal.”

Now know……………A republic differs from a democracy.

The word “democracy” has two general definitions:

  • one is a general reference to “popular” governments, where the population, the people rule themselves;
  • the other is an actual system of government.

As an actual system of government, a democracy only worked on a small-scale where THE PEOPLE rule directly by being present at every meeting.

A republic, on the other hand, is where THE PEOPLE rule indirectly through their representatives.

As a system of government, a DEMOCRACY only successfully worked on a small scale, like the Greek city-states that began to around 800 BC.

City-states were limited in size, as logistically, every citizen had to go to the marketplace everyday to discuss every issue face to face. It was very time consuming.

If a democracy grew larger than where citizens could travel the distance to the market everyday, power subtlety transferred to the busy-body messengers who carried news of the issues back and forth, and they could slant it any way they wanted.

Republics could grow larger than democracies, as citizens could spend their time taking care of their families and farms, and have representatives in their place go to the market everyday to discuss politics.

America’s republic is unique in that it has grown to have the most citizens of any republic in world history, as Theodore Roosevelt stated October 24, 1903: “In no other place and at no other time has the experiment of government of the people, by the people, for the people, been tried on so vast a scale as here in our own country.”

In the Roman Republic, “representatives” were hereditary positions.

The American Republic is a hybrid, where representatives are democratically elected.

A “constitutional” republic limits representatives with a set of rules approved by the citizens.

Where democracies are susceptible to being whipped into a frenzy, allowing a majority to carry out sudden mob justice, constitutional republics are slower to change, especially when they have the goal of guaranteeing to citizens’ their Creator-given rights.

America’s founders designed a government that was intentionally slow to change — frustratingly slow at times in making good changes, but thankfully slow in making irreversible bad changes.

The founders realized it could take a lifetime to build a mansion and one irresponsible match to burn it down in a day.

A signer of the Constitution James McHenry noted in his diary (American Historical Review, 1906), that after Ben Franklin left the Constitutional Convention, he was asked by Mrs. Elizabeth Powel of Philadelphia:

“Well, Doctor, what have we got, a republic or a monarchy?”

Franklin replied, “A republic, if you can keep it.”

The Amazing Tennyson

Alfred Lord Tennyson embellished the medieval legend of the Lady of the Lake who gave the sword Excalibur to the courageous young King Arthur.

Scenes of this were portrayed in Disney’s 1963 animated musical fantasy movie, The Sword in the Stone.

Born August 6, 1809, Alfred Lord Tennyson was the son of an Anglican clergyman.

As a young poet, Tennyson came to the attention of poet Samuel Taylor Coleridge (1772-1834).

Coleridge had written in “The Rime of the Ancient Mariner,” 1798:

“He prayeth best who loveth best, All things both great and small;

For the dear God who loveth us, He made and loveth all.”

In 1850, Tennyson married Emily Sellwood, to whom he had been engaged for a long time.

He wrote: “The peace of God came into my life before the altar when I wedded her.”

Alfred, Lord Tennyson also wrote: “Bible reading is an education in itself.”

Tennyson wrote in “Maud,” 1855, part II, sec. iv, st. 3:

“Oh, Christ, that it were possible, For one short hour to see, The souls we loved, that they might tell us, What and where they be.”

Tennyson’s In Memoriam, 1850, chapter XXVII, stanza 4, has the line:

“Tis better to have loved and lost, Than never to have loved at all.”

Tennyson wrote In Memoriam, 1850, chapter XXXI:

“When Lazarus left his charnel-cave, And home to Mary’s house returned, Was this demanded-if he yearned To hear her weeping by his grave?

“‘Where wert thou, brother, those four days?’ There lives no record of reply ,Which, telling what it is to die, Had surely added praise to praise.

“From every house the neighbors met, The streets were filled with joyful sound; A solemn gladness even crowned The purple brows of Olivet.

“Behold a man raised up by Christ; The rest remained unrevealed; He told it not, or something sealed The lips of that Evangelist.”

Queen Victoria once said: “Next to the Bible, In Memoriam is my comfort.”

Queen Victoria honored Alfred Lord Tennyson as Britain’s Poet-Laureate.

A line from Alfred Lord Tennyson’s poem In Memoriam is displayed in the Library of Congress in Washington, D.C., in the Jefferson Building’s Main Reading Room above the figure of History: “ONE GOD, ONE LAW, ONE ELEMENT, AND ONE FAR-OFF DIVINE EVENT, TO WHICH THE WHOLE CREATION MOVES.”

Tennyson was referred to by U.S. Supreme Court Justice David Josiah Brewer in his lecture “The Promise and Possibilities of the Future,” 1905: “Some think that we are mere atoms of matter tossed to and fro.

Speaker Reed once said great events of history were brought about by an intelligent and infinite Being.  If you will reflect a little you will be led to the conclusion that, as Tennyson writes ‘Through the ages one increasing purpose runs.'”

Justice Brewer continued:

“If there be a ‘purpose running’ through the life of the world, is it not plain that one thought in the divine plan was that in this Republic should be unfolded and developed in the presence of the world the Christian doctrine of the fatherhood of God and the brotherhood of man?”

Alfred Lord Tennyson echoed an older poet ,Sir Walter Scott (1771-1832), who wrote in “The Monastery,” 1830, chapter XII: “Oh, on that day, that wrathful day, When man to judgment wakes from clay, Be Thou, O Christ, the sinner’s stay Though heaven and earth shall pass away.”

Tennyson wrote in “Crossing the Bar,” 1889, st. 3: “I hope to see my Pilot face to face When I have crossed the bar.”

Alfred Lord Tennyson recorded the obedience and courage of the British Cavalry in the poem “The Charge of the Light Brigade,” which occurred during the Crimean War with Russia, 1853-1856.

Taking place on the north side of the Black Sea, over a million and a half fought, and a half-million died in the Crimean War.

The Siege of Sevastopol lasted eleven months. Sevastopol is a major port and the largest in Crimea. It fell to the British, French, and Italians from Italy’s Piedmont region, who were fighting on the side of the Muslim Ottoman Turkish Empire against Russia. Russia sank its entire fleet in order to block the entrance of the harbor.

A woman who cared for wounded soldiers during the Crimean War was Florence Nightingale. She was known as “The Lady with the Lamp,” as she made her rounds at night to check on injured soldiers. Florence Nightingale is considered to be the pioneer of the modern nursing profession and was an inspiration to Clara Barton, founder of the American Red Cross.

During the Crimean War, as the allies’ advance toward Sevastopol, the Battle of Balaclava took place October 25, 1854. A mistaken command sent the British cavalry riding headlong to their deaths, directly into the path of firing Russian cannons.

Tennyson wrote:

“Half a league, half a league, Half a league onward, All in the valley of DeathRode the six hundred. ‘Forward, the Light Brigade! ‘Charge for the guns!’ he said:Into the valley of Death Rode the six hundred.

‘Forward, the Light Brigade!’ Was there a man dismay’d Not tho’ the soldier knew Someone had blunder’d: Theirs not to make reply, Theirs not to reason why, Theirs but to do and die: Into the valley of Death Rode the six hundred.”

In 1936, Errol Flynn and Olivia de Havilland starred in the Warner Bros film The Charge of the Light Brigade.

After Russia lost the Crimean War, it feared Britain’s Hudson Bay Company would be tempted to expand its Canadian territory of British Columbia into Russian Alaska. To preempt this, Tsar Alexander II offered to sell Alaska to Prince Johann II of Liechtenstein in 1867, but he decline, thinking the land had no use. Russia then sold Alaska to the United States that same year.

Alaska has a unique history. Researchers have studied ancient DNA evidence which indicate a migration from eastern Siberia across the Bering Strait occurred either across a land bridge or frozen ice, an estimated 5,000 years ago. Immigrants then spread south across North America, Central America and South America. Inhabitants of Alaska, like those of Hawaii, the Pacific Islands, and other New World territories, had no gunpowder, cannons, or steel weapons. They spoke 300 different languages, none of which were written. This meant that at some point in time, any one of the global powers would attempt to colonization it.

Russian Tsar Peter the Great proposed mapping the Arctic coast of Northern Siberia.

In 1733, Danish explorer Vitus Bering, in the service of Russia, began his 6,000 mile expedition, crossing through the strait separating Asia and America, later named for him — Bering Strait.

In 1741, Bering’s men rowed a longboat and set foot on the shores of Alaska, claiming it for Russia.

In 1778, British Captain Cook sailed by Alaska and described the area of Anchorage. A statue of  Captain Cook marks the spot.

With Alaska’s furs being considered the finest in the world, Russian fur traders founded a trading post in 1799 called Fort Saint Sitka Michael the Archangel, present, Sitka Alaska.

Russia’s sale of Alaska to the United States was negotiated by William Henry Seward.

Seward had been Governor of New York, 1839-1843; U.S. Senator from New York, 1849-1861, and Secretary of State under Abraham Lincoln during the Civil War. Like Lincoln, Seward was an abolitionist Republican and stood strongly against the pro-slavery policies of the Democrat South.

As a result, the same night Lincoln was shot, an accomplice of John Wilkes Booth, Lewis Powell, broke into Seward’s home and attempted to assassinate him by repeatedly stabbing him in the neck. Providentially, nine days earlier, Seward had broken his jaw in a carriage accident. The doctors had devised a metal neck brace to hold his jaw in place, which deflected the assassin’s knife.

After the Civil war, Seward continued as Secretary of State under President Andrew Johnson, 1865-1869, during which time he negotiated the purchase of Alaska from Russia on March 30, 1867. It was the second largest land purchase in history, consisting of 586,412 square miles for $7.2 million — about two cents per acre.

The largest was the Louisiana Purchase from France of 828,000 square miles in 1803. The third largest was the Mexican Cession of 520,000 square miles in 1848.

Seward also pushed through the 1856 Guano Islands Act, allowing the U.S. to annex unclaimed islands with bird droppings, a source of fertilizer and an ingredient of gunpowder. One of islands Seward claimed was the Pacific Island of Midway, where in 1942, the U.S. won a battle which turned the course of the war with Imperial Japan.

Initially, Alaska was thought to be of no value, being referred to as Seward’s Folly. Only later, after Alaska was found to be rich in natural resources, was appreciation shown to Seward. The city of Seward on Alaska’s Resurrection Bay is named for him. A few years after Seward’s purchase, in 1870, gold began to be mined from placers (surface deposits) southeast of Juneau, Alaska.

In 1896, the Klondike Gold Rush began along the Yukon River. It drew an estimated 100,000 prospectors from Seattle, San Francisco and other American cities north. They populated the Alaskan cities of Juneau, Anchorage, Fairbanks, and the Canadian Dawson City.

William H, Seward stated in his oration, “The Destiny of America” (Columbus, Ohio, September 14, 1853): “Shall we look to the sacred desk? Yes, indeed; for it is of Divine institution, and is approved by human experience. The ministers of Christ, inculcating Divine morals, under Divine authority, with Divine sanction, and sustained and aided by special cooperating influences of the Divine Spirit, are now carrying further and broadly onward the great work of the renewal of the civilization of the world, and its emancipation from superstition and despotism.”

As vice-president of the American Bible Society, William Henry Seward stated in 1836: “I know not how long a republican government can flourish among a great people who have not the Bible; the experiment has never been tried; but this I do know: that the existing government of this country never could have had existence but for the Bible. And, further, I do, in my conscience, believe that if at every decade of years a copy of the Bible could be found in every family in the land its republican institutions would be perpetuated.”

Seward stated:

“I do not believe human society … ever have attained, or ever can attain, a high state of intelligence, virtue, security, liberty, or happiness without the Holy Scriptures; even the whole hope of human progress is suspended on the ever-growing influence of the Bible.”

Tennyson

Alfred Lord Tennyson referenced the Bible verse 1st Peter 5:7 when he wrote line 222 of the poem “Enoch Arden,” 1864:

“Cast all your cares on God; that anchor holds.”

Amen!

Pirates and Miracles in America

Yes, the British used pirates to help in their defense against the Spanish in the Caribbean , but up in the Colonies, the Americans were threatened by an enormous French fleet with over 13,000 soldiers aboard. It would have for sure have devastated and captured all the Colonies. However, one of the greatest miracles to ever, happened in America when the Colonists fasted a prayed desperately.  God immediately sent an enormous hurricane that wiped out the whole French fleet and caused plague to descend upon the survivors.  Do read about it below:

Ron

In 1655, British Admiral William Penn, the father of Pennsylvania’s founder, captured Jamaica from the Spanish. 

As Jamaica was too far from England be defended, inhabitants turned to privateers, freebooters, buccaneers and pirates for protection.

Port Royal, Jamaica, became a haven for the likes of Blackbeard, Calico Jack and Captain Henry Morgan.

With English, Portuguese, French and Dutch establishing bases in the Caribbean, Spain’s power was being challenged.

Spain’s most prosperous port in the New World was Porto Bello, Panama.

Spanish ships were loaded at Porto Bello with gold and silver from Peru, and then they set sail for Spain.

In 1668, English privateer Captain Henry Morgan and some 500 buccaneers attacked and captured Porto Bello.

They cruelly tortured the inhabitants to get them to surrender their treasures.

Captain Morgan demanded 100,000 pesos of silver and gold from the Spanish to ransom the inhabitants of the fort and its town.

The repercussions of this attack ended the tenuous cease-fire between Spain and England, renewing open hostilities.

In 1669, Captain Henry Morgan sacked the Spanish port of Maracaibo, Venezuela.

Sailing into Lake Maracaibo in search of more treasure, Morgan was almost trapped.

He sent forward a decoy ship filled with gunpowder, which exploded and destroyed a Spanish ship.

He then faked a land attack, causing the Spanish fort to reposition its cannons landward, allowing him to quickly sail past to the sea.

In 1671, Morgan again sacked Panama.

In 1731, a Spanish commander in the Caribbean detained an English ship.

He cut off the ear of the English Captain Robert Jenkins and told him to take it to his King. This began the War of Jenkins’ Ear.

British Admiral Edward Vernon recruited 400 American colonists, including Lawrence Washington, George Washington’s older half-brother. They sailed to Panama and captured the port city of Porto Bello.

British Admiral Edward Vernon also attacked Cartagena, Columbia, but was unable to capture it.

Lawrence Washington returned to Virginia as a 25-year-old war hero.

Lawrence served in Virginia’s assembly and militia, and named his farm “Mount Vernon” in honor of Admiral Edward Vernon.

After Lawrence died, George, at age 20, inherited Mount Vernon.

In 1742, the War of Jenkin’s Ear became combined with the War of Austrian Succession, which began when Marie Theresa became the first woman to take Austria’s throne.

This pulled Prussia and France into the war which because of intertwining treaties enlarged into a conflict called King George’s War in America.

The threat of war shook colonists in America out of complacency and contributed to the spread of the Great Awakening Revival.

The British took the French city of Louisbourg, Nova Scotia, in 1745, which had been the third busiest seaport in America, behind Boston and Philadelphia.

It also was New France’s second most important commercial city after Quebec.

France wanted Louisbourg back, so they sent Admiral d’Anville in 1746.

Admiral d’Anville set sail with the most powerful fleet of its day: 73 ships with 800 cannons and 13,000 troops.

D’Anville intended to: “expel the British from Nova Scotia, consign Boston to flames, ravage New England, and waste the British West Indies.”

Massachusetts Governor William Shirley declared a Day of Prayer and Fasting, October 16, 1746, to pray for deliverance.

Boston citizens gathered in the Old South Meeting House, where Rev. Thomas Prince prayed:

“Send Thy tempest, Lord, upon the water, scatter the ships of our tormentors!”

Historian Catherine Drinker Bowen related that as he finished praying, the sky darkened, winds shrieked and church bells rang. “a wild, uneven sound though no man was in the steeple.”

A violent hurricane scattered the entire French fleet from Canada to the Caribbean.

Lightning struck several ships, igniting gunpowder magazines, causing explosions and fire.

With 2,000 dead, including Admiral d’Anville, and 4,000 sick with typhoid, French Vice-Admiral d’Estournelle threw himself on his sword.

A historical marker near Louisbourg read:  “In the autumn of 1746 Duc d’Anville’s formidable but storm shattered expedition sent from France to recover Acadia, encamped along the shore.  Chebucto d’Anville died and many of his men fell victims of fever. Owing to the storms and disease, the Enterprise utterly failed. 

This great deliverance encouraged Ben Franklin to organized Pennsylvania’s first “volunteer” militia with 10,000 signing up.

This began Franklin’s career of public service, as he became the most popular person in the colony.

Ben Franklin also proposed a General Fast which was approved by Pennsylvania’s Council and published in the Pennsylvania Gazette, December 12, 1747:  “The calamities of a bloody war seem every year more nearly to approach us, and there is just reason to fear that unless we humble ourselves before the Lord and amend our ways, we may be chastised with yet heavier judgments.  We have thought fit to appoint a Day of Fasting & Prayer, exhorting all, both Ministers & People to join with one accord in the most humble & fervent supplications that Almighty God would mercifully interpose and still the rage of war among the nations & put a stop to the effusion of Christian blood.”

The threat of war was averted, Philadelphia was spared. Americans went on to fight in the French and Indian War, and in the Revolution to become a new nation.