ious professions of these New Lights are

"the results of Jesuitical policy" only; John Roan is presented for "reflecting upon and vilifying the established religion; and Thomas Watkins suffers the same harassment for the outrageous fling at the clergy: "Your churches and chapels are no better than the Synagogues of Satan."

So far had sounded the wonderful eloquence of Whitefield. It had shaken and awakened. Under that thunder the dry bones stirred; and the stir was going to be followed once more by a good wholesome persecution of people who presumed to think for themselves in religion, as before in the old times under Sir William Berkeley. A sudden commotion is the result of the New Light preaching. The irruption of Methodism, which is virtual dissent, arouses all the denominations. The Baptists and Presbyterians make their protest and excite the masses. The preachers of the former faith will be characterized as 66 illiterate, with an impassioned manner, vehement gesticulation, and a singular tone of voice," at which their hearers "give way to tears, trembling, screams, and acclamations.” They will ، "sing hymns while on the way to prison, and address crowds congregated before the windows of the jails ;" and they and the Presbyterians will lay the foundations of relig ious freedom.

The great awakening of the time is rending asunder even dissenting communions. Whitefield's coming splits the Presbyterian Church into the "New Side" and the "Old Side," the Pennsylvanian Presbytery adhering to the Old, and the New York Presbytery to the New. It is the New Side which is going to establish itself in Virginia; and the Old Side, Philadelphia Synod, dis

owns the "uncharitable and unchristian conduct" of those of their communion in Virginia who talk about the churches and chapels of the English Church as "synagogues of Satan." But the New Side Presbyterians persist in spite of proclamations and persecutions, and soon they find a tower of strength in the great and pure apostle Samuel Davies.

If Francis Makemie was the first licensed minister of the Presbyterian faith (1699), Samuel Davies was the founder of the Church, in Virginia. He was not inimical to the Methodist movement, and afterwards said that the English and Scottish Methodists were the most pious of all the people in those countries. From the time of his coming, when, as he declared, there were "not ten avowed dissenters within one hundred miles of him," this great and good man was the head and front of dissent in Virginia. Born in the State of Delaware, then a part of Pennsylvania, he had studied divinity until his frame grew enfeebled; but there was nothing feeble in the acute and burning brain which inhabited this frail tenement. Patrick Henry said of him that he was greatest orator he had ever heard; " and he met and nearly overthrew Attorney-General Randolph in a great discussion of the construction of the act of toleration. He was a man to preach the faith before princes, and preached it everywhere. He succeeded in procuring from the Attorney-General in England a decision that the Act of Toleration was the law of Virginia; and the consequent licensing of the dissenting churches, after an oath of allegiance, and a subscription to certain of the articles. When he came to Virginia at twenty-three the Presbyterian Church did not exist. In three years there were churches in Caroline, Louisa, and Gooch

"the

land, as well as in Hanover, "the birthplace," numbering three hundred communicants. He was not at all bitter against the English Church; that was not his nature. The objections of the Dissenters, he said, were "not against the peculiar rites and ceremonies of that Church; much less against their excellent Articles, but against the general strain of the doctrines delivered from the pulpit, in which their Articles were opposed, or not mentioned at all."

Such was the liberal and evangelical Christianity of this eminent young man, all whose instincts were expanded. Afterwards he went to England to obtain money for Princeton College; made a great name as a preacher, especially in Scotland; and returning to Virginia established (1755) the first Presbytery there. It was during the next year, after Braddock's defeat, that he spoke of "that heroic youth, Colonel Washington, whom I cannot but hope Providence hath hitherto preserved in so signal a manner for some important service to his country." The young preacher was thirty-three when he said this of the young soldier of twenty-four; and soon afterwards he went away to succeed the famous Calvinist, Jonathan Edwards, as President of Princeton, where he died, still young; but not before he had made a great and lasting name.

This outline will indicate the condition of religious affairs in Virginia at the middle of the century. The Church of England is in the ascendant, with nothing to check it but a variously construed Act of Toleration. In Hanover and elsewhere the Presbyterians and Baptists are clamoring for religious freedom. Beyond the mountains German Lutherans and Scotch-Irish Presbyterians demand the "free enjoyment of their civil and

religious liberties." The fossilized crust of dry-bones and old-world prejudices is slowly cracking under the pressure, and the new time is coming. After all the years, religious freedom, long writhing with the knee on its breast and the hand at its throat, is going to stand erect and bid defiance to whatever attempts to overthrow it.

XXV.

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FRANCE AND ENGLAND IN THE GREAT WOODS."

JUST as the half century expired, Virginia was called on to protect her frontier beyond the Ohio. What followed was the "French War," which proved a passionate episode in the history of the colony, as well as a decisive trial of strength between France and England in America.

The issue to be decided was the ownership of the territory extending from the Great Lakes to Louisiana. France urged her claim to it on the ground that a French subject, Padre Marquette, had in 1673 sailed down the Mississippi and taken possession of it in the name of France; and the English claimed it on the ground that it was part of Virginia, and had also been conveyed to them by the Iroquois. Either title might be plausibly maintained, but the real question was which could be supported by arms; to which issue affairs had drifted at the middle of the century. Both powers moved in the matter. The English organized the " Ohio Company" to form settlements in the region; and the French, burying a lead plate inscribed with an assertion of their claim, on the banks of La Belle Rivière, the Ohio, proceeded to occupy the country with troops and

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settlers. Most important of all, they erected a chain of forts reaching from the Lakes to the southwest, which Spotswood had vainly urged on his own government. Canadian France in the north thus joined hands, through the "Great Woods," with Lousianian France in the south; and the English settlements on the Atlantic were hemmed in by this cordon. France said to them, through the mouths of her cannon, "Thus far and no

farther."

In 1753 things were coming to a crisis. The western territory swarmed with French hunters and traders; they were advancing step by step, and if England meant to support her claim to the country it was necessary to do so quickly. The result was that cannon and supplies were sent to Virginia, and the Governor was directed to formally assert the English title, and if necessary fight. The Governor at the time was Robert Dinwiddie, a native of Scotland, who had succeeded Gooch in 1752. In obedience to his orders he drew up his protest against the French occupation, and selected as his envoy a young Virginian, Major George Washington.

This is the first appearance of Washington in public affairs. He was just twenty-one and unknown beyond the borders of Virginia; but had already established there the reputation of a young man of excellent ad ministrative ability. An accident had directed his life. At the age of sixteen, Lord Fairfax had selected him to survey his lands beyond the Blue Ridge, and the boy had spent some years roughing it on the border. The result was a manly development and self-reliance which fitted him for great performances; and the personal association with Lord Fairfax was another important influence in shaping his character. The lonely Earl