The Scotch-Irish in America

There is, and there necessarily must be, a marked resemblance between all God's works and ways, whether in creation, or providence or redemption. They are perfect, and consequently must be like each other so far as they can be compared. This thought is sublime and most suggestive. The same divine hand may be seen in the realm of creation and of history. The same mind reigns in both, the same designs, and the same mode of working. The same movements, the same features, the same principles prevail. Hence, with the utmost confidence, we may go to the study of the one for light upon the other. The particular matters may be different, but the principles, or laws, must be the same. Wherever we can trace a resemblance or a similarity of principle there we see the hand of God and the laws by which he directs'. Because they throw light upon each other, the study of either will help us to a fuller knowledge of the other.

For our present purpose we may take two of the most sublime objects: one in the realm of creation, and the other in the realm of human history. Because they are most sublime, and both bear the impress of God's hand, we may justly use them in a study in which at least one of them is involved. One is the gulf stream, among the most stupenduous of all the works of creation; the other is the Scotch-Irish race, just as remarkable amid the movements of mankind. God's hand may bo seen in both; and from the study of the one which science can trace and measure and comprehend, we can infer much concerning the other which otherwise we could not comprehend.

The gulf stream is the most marvelous and sublime moving thing that marks the works of the Almighty on our globe. It is a stupendous river in the ocean. It has flowed on and on irresistibly since the world was made. In its sublime circuit it washes the shores of continents, it rolls over the lovely beds of oceans, it visits remotest islands, it wanders through every clime, it cools the expanses of equatorial seas, it melts the proud iceberg and stops it on its adventurous career. It carries on its bosom the navies of every nation, it swallows up in its vortex the mightiest rivers that flow down from the lands. It awakens the wildest tempests throughout the measureless leagues of the oceans. It carries the finest timbers of the sunny Bahamas to warm up the dreary cabins of the "White Sea. It sends verdure and wealth through the happy lands of Europe, and it awakens those blessed gales by which we, in America, are refreshed amid the torrid days of summer. Such is the gulf stream, than which our earth has nothing that shows on a grander scale the wisdom and goodness and power of the sublime Creator.
The Scotch-Irish race is an element which holds a position among the human family analogous to that of the gulf stream amid the ocean regions. This is, of course, the theme of the present hour, and the subject for the more vivid apprehension of which we have introduced what may at first appear an unmeet comparison. Without the foolish vanity of entertaining disparaging thoughts toward other races or classes, if any could be found in this region in which the same blood is not mingled, our predominating thought is that this race—in history, in character, in mission, and in responsibility— has a position that is unique and pre-eminent amid the other races and classes of mankind. "We may be both unable and unwilling, to give that position a name, and therefore we prefer to let some of the simple facts speak for us.

The Scotch-Irish are a race wide spread and influential; but the expression is also descriptive of a system that is well-known and everywhere the same. It is a system in which there are certain great principles and characteristics which have made that people what they are. So intimately connected have become these principles and the race, that, in common apprehension, they are almost synonymous. To understand our subject clearly, we must place the principles distinctly before us. For greater simplicity they may be reduced to these three: National freedom, general education, and sound scriptural faith. These are almost a synonym for the Scotch-Irish race. They are what constitute the life of this people and what has given these their pre-eminence. The race, as far as distinguished, has always been a living exponent of them. Freedom, general education, and scriptural faith are their peculiarity, just as its greater saltiness, its indigo blue, and its higher temperature are the distinctions of the gulf stream. [The Scotch-Irish have this badge: by this they are known at every point of history; to disseminate and defend them is the great mission and glory of the race. Add to this the personal characteristics of its people—tenacity of purpose, energy of character, and the habit of being guided by principle rather than momentary impulse—and then we have the race before us in their best estate. These are what have given them their eminence, and of these they are the synonym, as they are also the champions wherever found.]

We have said that both bearing the impress of the same glorious Author, and both being the most sublime, one in creation and the other in history, there is an astonishing parallelism between these two objects—one as it flows incessantly on amid the restless seas, and the other with a course which can be traced back through the stormy ages to the days of the apostles. To see this similarity there needs to be no resting on mere conjecture, no straining of theories: the simple facts, as they lie before every student of history, are all that we need.

We may, therefore, use the gulf stream, whoso laws and movements arc so well known, as a splendid illustration through which we may reach a clearer and fuller knowledge of the history and mission of the Scotch-Irish race. In so doing, we would not ignore the other nations and races of men any more than we would ignore the other oceans and lands while tracing the wonders of the gulf stream. The race has evidently a peculiar and exalted mission, and our present aim is to understand this.

The first point wherein we find the similitude between the two is in the fact that amid all its wanderings and vicissitudes the gulf stream retains its clearly marked boundaries and presses on steadily to its predestined end. From its first perceptible movements at the equator until it disappears amid the ice of Nova Zembla nothing can turn it from its course. It is whirled around under the blazing suns of the equator, it is encountered by the stern cape of South America, it is rushed through the Caribbean waters, it is almost boiled in the Mexican basin, it is crushed in by the Florida straits, it is bent in its path by the immovable Bahama Islands, it is lashed into storms by the monstrous icebergs, it is congealed by the icy seas of the frozen north; still on and on it goes in its destiny to heat the shores of Europe, to spread over them verdure and luxury, and to keep alive the tribes of the distant north.

Precisely thus is it also with the Scotch-Irish race of men. The same divine hand appears. Can we trace this marvelous career without seeing a sublime type of that race? Formed out of a roving people of Western Asia, fresh from the vast wilds in the interior of the far East, it is assailed by the murderous assaults of iron Rome; it is opposed by savage hordes led by old Druid priests smeared over with the blood of human sacrifices; it is attacked by the wild Goths, who made even the "Imperial City" to tremble before them; it encountered the darkness and guilt and cruelty of the middle ages, when all hope for mankind seemed to have gone, it was persecuted with a persistence and a bitterness of hate which were positively Satanic— still, in spite of all, it pressed on to the fulfillment of its sublime mission, even that of being the salt of the earth, and, in the end, of rescuing the whole family of men from the horrors of barbarism.

The next point of resemblance is, as to the gulf stream, a course the whole of which is marked by the turbulence of incessant storms, wildest tempests, and dangers that are dreaded by even the boldest sailors. So much is this the case that for many an age they have given to it the appropriate name of the "Storm King of the Atlantic." The cause is, that the greater heat of the stupendous current above the temperature of the surrounding waters, at the line where it touches the cooler waves, sends up fogs, rouses winds, and causes perpetual rains that make its track so stormy.

The marvelous counterpart of this, in the Scotch-Irish race with their love of freedom, and their unflinching adherence to the truth of God's word is found in the horrible persecutions which have marked every point of their history as they moved through the ages. Hate and opposition and falsehood and murderous cruelty and tortures and deaths of agony have been their portion at every stage. Their whole course through the ages was marked by wars and persecutions and turmoils and bloodshed most appalling. This was what might have been expected. The race was the living exponent of light and truth; but that was what depraved men could not endure. It sprung from the horrible fact that the unrenewed heart "loves darkness rather than light." It was the awful fulfillment of our Lord's words: "I came not to send peace on the earth, but the sword."

This stormy, bloody course through the ages of the Scotch-Irish race cannot be appreciated without at least a glance at some of its terrible scenes. We pass over the dimmer events of their history from the time of their taking shape as a distinct people in Asia Minor for. over sixteen centuries, until their cruel persecutions as the Camoronians in Scotland. Then what a bloody panorama does their history pass before us! We see them tortured and butchered at Bothwell Bridge in 1679; slain by thousands by the troops of James II. at Killiecrankie in 1689; pale and dying as they struggled through the use of mere morsels of rats and mice and other repulsive things to maintain life in the siege of Derry in 1689; nobly fighting against three times their own number and triumphing under King William III. at the battle of the Boyne in 1690; and with a Fortitude unmatched in all time enduring the more than savage brutality by which they wore torn limb from limb, roasted alive, and flung by pitch-forks into the warring flood at Vinegar Hill in 1798. Then might we glance at the cruelties endured by our Cameronian ancestors under Charles II. in the hills and glens of Scotland, thus made immortal by the untold sufferings of the heroes of the Covenant, the bravest of the sons of men. To show that in this wo use not one word of exaggeration, I give a few sentences from Prof. Blackie, one of the most reliable of authors. The old Scotch-Irish race, transferred from Galatia into the strongholds of the British Islands, nurtured by the saintly Culdees, of Icolmkill, preserved by the Lollards for a thousand years, wrestling with the storms of persecution through Claverhouse and his blood-thirsty dragoons sent by Charles II.; and this is the portrait of Prof. Blackie: "This terrible persecution extended to every rank, age, sex, and condition, from the kingly Duke of Argyle, who said as he walked to the scaffold, 'I could die as a Soman, but I choose to die as a Christian,' to peasants, shepherds, and even children, who were butchered by the brutal dragoons as remorselessly as the wildest beast rends its prey and with a still more remorseless cruelty."

The sufferings of that "killing time," as it was called, when every species of torture, indignity, and oppression was used, are written fully only in the book of God's remembrance. That weather-beaten stone in the old Greyfriars church-yard in Edinburgh, which records the sufferings of the martyrs in its simple words, states that, "from May 17, 1661, when the most noble Marquis of Argyle was beheaded, to the 17th of February, 1688, that Mr. James Renwick suffered, were one way or the other murdered and destroyed for the same cause about eighteen thousand." In twenty-seven years eighteen thousand slaughtered; and yet that was only about-one quarter of the time of the deadly struggle! And yet again, these sufferers were our ancestors of the Scotch-Irish race; and this was only one of the hundreds of tempests through which they had to pass in securing to us the heritage of freedom and education and scriptural truth we now enjoy. This is the Scotch-Irish race, and this is one point and one only, in the tempestuous career through which they were led up and on to the sublime work of securing this independence and taking a leading part in maturing the Constitution of this land, destined to a place so high amid the final achievements of mankind.

The next point in which these sublime objects may be compared is that they are the great sources of heat and light and health, the one to the material and the other to the moral world. Such is it with the gulf stream, whose influence is enjoyed by a largo part of the inhabitants of our earth. Under the burning suns of the equator, in the torrid regions of the Caribbean Sea, and within the scorching shores of the Mexican Gulf, it becomes surcharged with heat, so that according to Lieut. Maury it contains surplus heat enough to keep in constant flow a stream of molten iron as large as the Mississippi. This heat it carries thousands of leagues and distributes over the frost-bound rivers of the dreary North. But for it, instead of the genial climate of England, there would be in that land but the deadly frosts that forever bind up the dreary Labrador. By its influence all the life-giving currents of the Northern Atlantic are kept in flow, the fertility of all Western Europe is preserved, the ocean adjoining us is kept open to navigation, and the health fulness of nearly all Christendom is continued from age to age. In a most real and sublime sense, as the arteries of the heart are to the human body, so is the gulf stream to half the world. It is one of the grand arteries of the globe.

So, precisely, is it, and has it been, with this noble system of the Scotch-Irish race. The researches of modern scholars, especially Germans, are showing that this system embodied in the old college of the Culdees in Iona did more to carry light and truth and a pure gospel to all parts of Great Britain and Franco and Germany and Switzerland during the sixth, seventh, and eighth centuries than did all other systems besides; and, with the gospel, to diffuse letters and science, industry and civilization. Those facts are coming to light in a wonderful manner at the present time. It is not exaggeration to say that the influence of this system is giving moral and spiritual health and life and robustness to the greater part of Christendom. This is a bold assertion. But we stand by it. What has the system done? What is it doing to-day? It is affecting all other systems and Churches in Christendom. Is it not the indubitable testimony of experience that it gives muscle and nerve to Christianity, that it has always stood up for the truth even unto death in every martyr Church, that its very foundation is principle firm and immovable, that everywhere it would take the crown from the head of proud man and place it upon the brow of King Jesus; that, as proved upon thousands of bloody battle-fields, it has everywhere been the friend of liberty and the uncompromising foe of despotism; and that, while it humbles human pride, it exalts man to his regal dignity?

Perhaps the most wonderful similitude between these two sublime works of God is seen in the stupendous course of the gulf stream and the marvelous vicissitudes of the Scotch-Irish race.

Among all the stupendous marvels of the material world there is not one so marvelous as the gulf stream, that ocean river that sweeps around the globe. Born in the equatorial regions, driven by the earth's rotation across the Atlantic, split in two by Cape St. Roque, sweeping up the South American coast, swelling out into the Caribbean sea, heated up as in a boiler in the Mexican Gulf, escaping out through the straits of Florida, bent into a northerly course by the Bahama Islands, flowing on and on along the coasts of Georgia and the Carolinas, turned out by Cape Hatteras to spread over the whole Atlantic, awakening tempests and melting icebergs; then tempering the Arctic seas, heating the fields of Spain, sending its blessed gales over this land of ours, rushing northward to wrestle with the ice of Greenland, sweeping eastward to ripen the vines of Burgundy, spread their wondrous verdure over the British Isles, break up the frosts of Norway, and dash against the dreaded rocks of the maelstrom, and carry warmth even into the huts of Lapland.

Now, place we beside this the stupendous career of the Scotch-Irish race. In ages before the advent of our Lord, a branch of the Gallic or Celtic race, "as it went plundering through the world," from the wild interior of Asia, first settled in Asia Minor, and gave that region the name of Galatia. Afterward this Gallic people migrated onward toward the north and west, passing through and leaving branches in Southern Germany, Northern Italy, and France, to which they gave the early name of Gaul. Onward they went until they reached Great Britain, and then settled as the Celts of Scotland, Ireland, and Wales. These are well-known facts of history.

For four hundred and twenty years, or as long as the Roman power governed them, the Scotch-Irish people, thus early planted, flourished in Scotland and Ireland and wore one people, called Scots. The Celtic tribes in both were those who were Christianized. At that time a new impulse was given to the current of their history by St. Patrick, a Scotsman of patrician birth, who, about 430, made Ireland the field of his labors in the cause of Christ, and by St. Columba, an Irishman of the royal lineage of Ulster, who, about 550, probably did more to elevate the race than any other man. He selected the sacred isle of Iona, or Icolmkill, amid the tempest-lashed islands of the north-west of Scotland; and, taking its old Druidic college, ho established in it that celebrated institution, college, or monastery which for centuries was the great source of light to Northern Europe by sending forth missionaries well-trained for their work. The researches of scholars are bringing these facts to light in an extraordinary manner at the present time. The scholars of this college, and those brought to the truth through them, formed the old Culdee Church of the Scotch-Irish people.

The middle ages settled down upon the nations of Europe. What was known as the Christian world became clouded in the deep darkness of ignorance and depravity. But the light never went out among these people in the islands of Scotland, its mountains and glens. The college of Icolmkill sent abroad its light; the Culdees suffered terrible persecutions, but they never yielded or expired. For a thousand suffering years these brave heroes of the Church and humanity held on to their sacred charge. As witnesses for God and truth, though forced to take refuge in the wilds of Ayreshire and Fifeshire in Scotland, they would not betray the cause. The Culdees, as these heroes for truth and righteousness were then called, never yielded to the torrents of Latin darkness and corruption.

The reformation day arrived, and the truth, of which the Scotch-Irish soon became the exponent, so long hidden in Scottish isles and in the mountains of Ireland and Wales, forced itself into the light. The grandeur of the cause was then seen as never before. Its sublimity was exhibited through the sufferings that were endured for it in the days of William of Orange, who, though of Dutch descent, was in heart and faith and courage a man of Ulster, and especially in the clays of the brave Cameronians, the most invincible of men.

Another stage of the sublime course remains to be considered: that stage by which these loyal sons of truth are transferred from the hills and plains of Scotland to the field of some of their most heroic deeds in Ulster; but this we have already considered as we have reviewed some of the horrible persecutions of Charles II. through his Satanic agent, the infamous Claverhouse. Those shocking scenes of the "killing time," were chief among the causes which forced the heroes of the faith from their hallowed Scottish homos to the sister island where they hoped to find peace and safety. Then in Ireland we find them. There they justly received their name, the Scotch-Irish. There they rested for awhile. There they received the last impress of that training through which they were prepared for their last and grandest mission in working out the Constitution of this country, destined in the glories of Providence to take a leading part in the final movements of the human race. There we find the Scotch-Irish people in those movements of their history which interest us most. From there, as the gulf stream spread over the Atlantic and over the northern regions of the globe, were they to spread out and influence the nations of men.

At this point, however, a new element of our subject opens up before us. We are tracing the progress of the Scotch-Irish race from its earliest days until it reaches a climax in the formation of the Constitution of this land. Hitherto we have followed it until through sublime vicissitudes it stands ready, in one of its most potent elements, to cross the Atlantic, reach these shores, and enter upon its final mission. The climax was to be reached in this good land which the God of providence had ready for it. In this country was to be its widest expanse, its most benign influence, its grandest development, and, we believe, its final achievement. This gives great significance and intense interest to this Congress which we are holding. The course of its history moved on and on, until a grander, wider, probably final, stage was reached, for which it would seem as if Providence had been preparing it all along. Another process awaited this people here. A more wonderful chain of providences, more clearly marked and more important in its influence upon human destiny, there is not in all history, outside of the Bible, than is the career of this race in this land, culminating in the formation of its Constitution. It remains for us to trace that career in its successive stages, but in the briefest words.

First Stage. Gathering the people and locating them over this land. We have traced the Scotch-Irish people in their history of sixteen centuries, from the unknown regions of the heart of Asia, until we find them collected in Ulster, ready for that magnificent final destiny for which God had been so long preparing them in establishing the government of this great land. Now, the first providential step is to bring them across the sea and locate them here. To any one who has not given special study to the subject there is but a feeble conception of the vast numbers of the Scotch-Irish people whom wrongs and oppression drove to these shores in the early days. Our limits arc so brief that two or three facts must suffice. Philadelphia was the chief port at which they then entered. In the year 1736, one thousand families sailed from Belfast; and on September 9, one hundred of them, all Presbyterians, arrived in Philadelphia, and most of the rest in the near vicinity. Said the Rev. Dr. Samuel Blair, in a letter of 1744: "All our congregations in Pennsylvania, except two or three, are made up chiefly of people from Ireland." One more astounding fact is all that we can give: From the year 1720 to 1770, this people came hero at the average rate of about 12.000 a year. This deserves special thought—12,000 a year for fifty years—600,000 people just before the war for independence! As the whole population then was three millions, this drift alone would make one-fifth of the whole population who fought and won our great battle for liberty. But this is not all. To this 12,000 a year for fifty years must be added those who came over before 1720, with their descendants and the descendants of the annual incoming twelve thousands. This would undoubtedly swell the whole number to at least one-quarter of the whole population as Scotch-Irish when the daring enterprise of freeing the land from foreign dominion was undertaken.

But this vast incoming population landed upon the coast in and around Philadelphia chiefly, and it was the divine plan that they should be dispersed and take possession of the whole land. Again were opposition and persecution allowed to do their work. Hunted as these Scotch-Irish people had been from Galatia, from Icolmhill, from Bothwell Bridge, from Scotland, and from Ulster, they were again hunted out of Philadelphia. The Quakers did not like these turbulent, fighting Irishmen who were coming over in such swarms. The English authorities, who ruled, misrepresented and opposed them in every way they dared. As a proof and specimen, we cite a few of the words and acts of James Logan, intimate friend, admirer, and secretary of William Venn. First he speaks and writes disparagingly of these Scotch-Irish emigrants. Then he expresses himself "as glad to find that Parliament is about to take measures to prevent their too free emigration to this country." "It looks," he says, "as if Ireland is to send all her inhabitants hither; for last week not less than six ships arrived, and every day two or three are coming." "It is strange," he says again, "that they thus crowd where they are not wanted." He calls them "audacious and disorderly." His spirit toward them is seen when he describes these incoming Scotch-Irish as "troublesome settlers to the government, and hard neighbors to the Indians." And he and his Quaker friends, as well as the English authorities, did not stop with words. They opposed, obstructed, and persecuted, and misrepresented so that the Scotch-Irish felt constrained again to seek other homes. Drifts of them went up the Delaware. Colonies went along the Juniata. "Multitudes of these best and most industrious of men dispersed over the Cumberland Valley. Tens of thousands of them sought peaceful homes in the then far, far west of Kentucky and Tennessee—the ancestors of you who are assembled here this day. But perhaps the greatest drifts of all wore down through the great valleys of Virginia into the Carolinas, and farther still into the remotest South and West. This was the providential gathering and locating of these children of destiny.

Second Stage. Securing a sound scriptural faith. These people never thought of locating anywhere without carrying their Bible and their Church with them. If there be any thing which distinguished them above all others, it was that of upholding the truth as it is in Christ Jesus, defending the truth, and publishing the truth where-ever they went. Accordingly, through their proper representatives, on September 18, 1729, they adopted in the most solemn and devout manner that grand creed or synopsis of Bible doctrine, the Westminster Confession, the most venerable and scriptural which the world has ever seen.

Third Stage. General education. As with the Church and Bible this people could not conceive of a national life without the school, the academy, and, the college. In all their history there has always been a close and intimate connection between them and a sound education. They could not be separated. The next important movement was, therefore, the founding, in 1726, of the celebrated Log College by William Tennant, whose name henceforth is worthy of a high place among the great benefactors of the race. Catham Kennedy became the parent of all those first academies and colleges of the Scotch-Irish people which prepared this land for its sublime future. Out of it sprung the celebrated Nottingham and Pequa Academies, and the colleges of Princeton and Hampden Sydney, and Washington and Jefferson, and innumerable others, both male and female. The sum of all is contained in a fact which will startle you as it greatly startled me when communicated to me by the younger Dr. Hodge, after long and patient investigation. It is that, for above one hundred and thirty of the first years of this country all the institutions of higher learning in the land were under the management of men embracing the principles of the Scotch-Irish! What a story of the people does this tell!

Fourth Stage. Great spiritual awakening. We have said that one of the three distinguishing principles of this people was their staunch adherence to truth and righteousness. It was this that gave them their high moral character. For this, the glorious God of nations made provision in the great awakening by his Holy Spirit, commencing in 1730, and exalting the spiritual state of the land. For this purpose the eloquent Whitefield was made instrument, who was divinely sent to flame as an angel of light throughout the whole land, awakening to the truth, and bringing thousands upon thousands to a higher and holier life. Wonderful, wonderful, that in this way the very spirit of the Oxford Methodists was imparted to our Church at that early day!

Fifth Stage. The Log College evangelists. A strangely momentous work was done for the race and for our land by the glorious God of nations in raising up in those early days a band of ten of the most holy and gifted men, trained at the Log College, and commissioning them to take the principles of the Scotch-Irish race and carry them all over the land—east, west, north, and south. All these, excepting two, were born in Ireland. Each one of them was a mighty man of God, and in himself a tower of strength. Each of them had a special mission, and accomplished a special work. We cannot pass them over without giving their names. Name we thus: (1) Gilbert Tennant, the mightiest of them all, appointed to attack evil and tear down opposition; (2) William Tennant, seraphic spirit, almost admitted to the sight of the beatific vision; (3) John Tennant, a sweet and blessed man, sent to illustrate the gentleness of the gospel, and then, while yet a young man, taken home; (4) Charles Tennant, the fourth son of the founder of the Log College, designed to be a model pastor for imitation by all following ministers; (5) Samuel Blair, among the most eloquent of men, intended to commend most lovingly the glorious gospel; (6) John Blair, the scholar and theologian, whoso work was in laying the foundations of the Church; (7) Samuel Finly, directed to establish institutions of religion and learning; (8) William Robinson, sweeping over all the land, preaching day and night, and gaining the glorious record of having boon the instrument of the conversion of more souls than any other man of this land; (9) John Rowland, the blessed revivalist, by whom whole communities were awakened to spiritual life; and (10) Charles C. Beattey, the cultured Christian and gentleman, sent of God to gain access to the educated and the wealthy. Such were the honored ten, and such the momentous missions on which they were sent in the days when the Scotch-Irish race were giving shape and religious character to the land.

Sixth Stage. The war for independence. There are other preparatory stages which wo should mark; but for the sake of brevity, we pass them over that we may reach the final two. We approach the war of independence, and the formation of the American Constitution. These were the consummation of that sublime movement of humanity for which they were in a providential course of training for eighteen hundred years. The movements of providence are slow, but they are sure, and they are sublime. "The American war of independence was a Presbyterian and Scotch-Irish war." This was an assertion very startling to me when I first heard it, and I was not disposed to receive it. But it was made by a stanch Episcopalian, an experienced statesman, one of the best-read historians of that period I ever know, the Hon. Richardson E. Wright, Speaker of the Pennsylvania House of Representatives. He made it deliberately, and gave the facts on which it was based. "It was a Scotch-Irish war," were his precise words. Then lot that race have the credit therefor, or rather let the glory be to the God of providence, who, by such a marvelous process of centuries, led them up to it! The facts are before all who will read the history. Admit it, and then the long course through which they were led is all explained. In its effect upon humanity it was one of the most momentous events of time, and hence it should be heralded by sublime movements of the race. Of course it is not meant that this people were the only agents, but it is meant that the war was prompted by their spirit, directed by their experience, and fought in a large measure by bravo men bearing their blood in their veins. See, in proof, a few of the facts, among thorn chiefly a few names taken almost at random: Alexander Hamilton, as a statesmen standing next to Washington, and of whom the testimony of Talleyrand was, "I consider Napoleon, Fox, and Hamilton the three greatest men of one epoch, and without hesitation I award the first place to Hamilton;" Patrick Henry, whose memorable words at the convention in 1775, when the question of war was to be decided, "There is no retreat but in submission and slavery," brought on the crisis; Gen. Anthony Wayne, whose grandfather had fought at the battle of the Boyne, and who at Stony Point achieved the most brilliant victory of the whole war; and Gen. Hugh Mercer, who fell at Princeton, so brave that a special medal was awarded him by the city of Philadelphia, and whose funeral was attended by 30,000 persons. To these very many more might easily be added, but these are sufficient as both proof and sample of the men. Why these Scotch-Irish heroes should have been the leaders in our war of independence may very easily be seen. They or their forefathers had come to this country that they might escape from the oppression and wrongs of Great Britain, and would they endure them to follow them here? They had just learned by a short experience the value of independence, and were ready to make all sacrifices for it. Dislike of England had been branded in upon them, and they longed to settle the old account of many generations. Then wo must not forget that at that time the Scotch-Irish people formed from one-fifth to one-quarter of the population of the country, and that they had be-come dispersed into every quarter. In New England, New York, Pennsylvania, Ohio, Tennessee, Kentucky, Maryland, Virginia, the Carolinas, and every other region, were they to be found with the same faith and the same love of freedom. They had been providentially planted in every quarter, ready to arouse the whole land when the call for independence was sounded. Through them the whole country was soon in arms. One-fourth of the population— their stern faith (the only thing that would do in those days) would soon arouse the rest. Long, long had they been trained in fighting for liberty. At Bothwell Bridge and Killiecrankie, at the Boyne and Vinegar Hill, as a people they had been accustomed to spring up at the call of God and country and liberty, and they were ready now—that quarter of three millions of the people, and their friends and neighbors with them. And they were splendid soldiers, "these turbulent, fighting Irishmen," as Logan called them. They were manly men, as a race, trained through many generations and on a thousand battle-fields. They were brave soldiers, but they were also patriots, and believers in a God of providence and grace; and when the call to fight for independence was heard, it was only the old call which their fathers had heard in many lands and ages, and which they had been taught to expect as the climax of their mission and as the ultimate bourn of humanity. It was, then, in truth and in the sublimest sense, a Scotch-Irish, a Presbyterian war.

Seventh Stage. Framing the Constitution of the United States. This was the last stage, the consummation of all, the beacon of providence directing for eighteen centuries, the climax of one sublime movement of humanity, the beginning of what will probably be the last and grandest of all. Only when we contemplate the Scotch-Irish race as threading its sublime course through the nations and the ages to this glorious bourn, and that by the morning light of Providence and history, do we reach any adequate impression of its wondrous mission. What must it be since it took all these long centuries to work it out? We are to fix it deeply in thought that the men who framed that peerless instrument were men trained in the principles of the Scotch-Irish race, and it was but the embodiment of these principles in a written form. We have already seen that all the institutions of higher education for over one hundred years were under the management of those who adhered to these principles. But that was the period, and these the institutions, in which the great statesmen who prepared the Constitution had received their mental training and bias. Hence these institutions made them what they were. Their spirit, the bent of their minds, their opinions and views, and their interpretations of history were all obtained there; and out of them they imbibed the wisdom which they then embodied in this Constitution, which a century has proved to be one of the most marvelous of all uninspired compositions. And well it may be, for every point in it had been wrought out by ages of toil and thought, and suffering and blood and prayer. We have been so long in the enjoyment of the blessings of its influence that we rarely think of them; but when we reflect on how much they cost, and cost chiefly these bravo Scotch-Irish people, and that through many ages, then must we adore the heavenly King, who raised them up and led them all along. Not one of them, however little we think of it, but cost many a life and suffering untold. They are the offspring of the three great principles of the Scotch-Irish race—independence, education, scriptural truth. Out of those came the great principles of the Constitution, which in previous ages were not oven thought of. Perfect independence of other governments; full severance of Church and State; written and ratified Constitution; perfect equality of all citizens in all rights and duties; representation in the administration of government; courts of appeal for the defense of every citizen, and other similar things which it took many an age to even understand. Every one of them had to be wrought out through many a struggle, and that in largo measure by this race of brave men in their long and stormy course through centuries. They were fought and bled for in Galatia, in the western isles of Scotland, in Icolmkill, in the dark ages, in St. Andrews, at Bothwell Bridge, at the Boyne, at Derry, in the Revolutionary War. Then they were formulated in the peerless Constitution, for the guidance of all after ages, and a new era commenced in human progress.

Now were all these sublime events chance merely? Did they all simply happen to be so? Who can believe that? Who can imagine that these sprung from human planning alone? Must we not rather believe that the same infinite wisdom and power which sent the gulf stream meandering through the oceans also sent this noblest race of men through the nations and ages to be a people that would take a foremost place in the final movements of mankind and the Church of Jesus Christ?