Important Early American Artists #4: John Singleton Copley

By J. M. Hochstetler

John Singleton Copley, Self Portrait (1780-84)

When I was in school I loved art class, and although it’s been a number of years since I’ve done any drawing or painting, my interest in the visual arts has continued throughout my life. Which is why I’ve been focusing on important early American artists in my last 3 three posts. Today I’m going to wrap up the series by taking a look at John Singleton Copley, who became famous in both America and England for his portraits and paintings of historical subjects and is generally acclaimed as the finest artist in colonial America.

Copley was born July 3, 1738, most likely in Boston, Massachusetts, to Richard and Mary Copley. Richard was from Limerick, while Mary was a Singleton from County Clare whose family was of Lancashire origin. They immigrated to Boston in 1736 and owned a tobacco shop on Long Wharf. Richard apparently arrived in America in ill health, however, and around the time of John's birth went to the West Indies, where he died in either 1737 or 1748, depending on the source you consult. In any case, he died previous to Mary’s wedding Peter Pelham on May 22, 1748.

Paul Revere (1768-70)

Little is known of Copley’s childhood. Pelham painted portraits and was an excellent engraver, however, which undoubtedly set Copley on the path to a career as a painter. Young Copley was around fourteen when his stepfather died, and about that same age Copley painted his half-brother Charles Pelham, his earliest extant portrait. More promising works followed during the next few years, and by the time he was 20 he was steadily employed in painting portraits. Copley’s works reveal a detailed knowledge of New England people and culture. Influenced by the Rococo style of Joseph Blackburn, Copley portrayed his subjects with objects relevant to their personal lives, like this one of Paul Revere, which gave his portraits an intimate sense of the person’s character and interests that was rare 18th-century American painting.

A Boy with a Flying Squirrel (1765)

Commissions from the foremost members of New England society made Copley a prosperous man. His income, extraordinary for New England in the 1760s, elevated him to the Boston aristocracy. But he was eager for wider recognition. In 1766 Benjamin West, a fellow countryman who had moved to London to pursue his own art career, entered Copley’s painting A Boy with a Flying Squirrel (1765), at left, in the annual Exhibition of the Society of Artists of Great Britain. The subject is Copley’s half-brother, Henry Pelham, seated at a table playing with a pet squirrel, and it gained Copley’s election as a Fellow of the Society. West urged him to come to England to study for several years, but although Copley continued to send pictures to the Exhibition, he hesitated to risk the prosperity he enjoyed in Boston for an uncertain future in England.

Copley Family (1776-77)

On November 16, 1769 Copley married a woman of impeccable social status. Susanna Farnham Clarke was the daughter of Richard and Elizabeth (Winslow) Clarke. Her father had become very wealthy as an agent of the East India Company in Boston, and her mother’s ancestors had arrived in America on the Mayflower. By all accounts the Copleys’ marriage was not only socially notable, but also a happy one. Susanna was a beautiful, poised woman, whose portrait Copley painted several times. He and Susanna welcomed six children into their family in a house he built on the west side of Beacon Hill, where they lived as members of the top tier of Boston society.

The only substantial time Copley left Boston during this period was in 1771 and 1772, when he spent seven-months painting in New York City and Philadelphia as the political situation in Boston was deteriorating. The tea destroyed in the Boston Tea Party had been consigned to his father-in-law, and his extended family were all Loyalists, which made it increasingly dangerous for him to stay in the area. He finally heeded the urging of West and others and sailed for England in June 1774 as many other American artists had done before him, leaving his mother, wife, and children behind until he could secure lodgings. In England he received a warm reception from West and England’s art community. In 1775 while he traveled through France and Italy to study the great works of art, his wife and children arrived in London, where they stayed with her brother-in-law, Henry Bromfield. Susanna’s father and brothers soon joined them in London. After Copley’s return he and his family settled in 25 George St., Hanover Square, where Copley, Susanna, and their son, John Singleton Copley, Jr., the future Lord Lyndhurst, lived until their deaths.

Watson and the Shark (1778)

Encouraged by the success of West and others, Copley ventured outside of portraiture and began to paint more historical pieces. His first important work in the genre was Watson and the Shark (1778), at left, which portrays an incident involving his friend and fellow artist Brook Watson, who at the age of 14 lost a leg in a shark attack while swimming in Havana harbor. The painting foreshadows one of the great themes of 19th-century Romantic art: man’s struggle against nature. Copley’s historical paintings were so successful because he went to great lengths to create excellent likenesses of the people in them and to include correct details of the historical period. He traveled throughout England to make studies of old portraits of the subjects he intended to paint as well as the actual historical locations. At the same time he continued to paint portraits of English royalty and famous British and American individuals.

Copley was elected as an associate member of the Royal Academy in 1776 and made a full member in 1783. Likely more politically liberal than his relatives, he maintained contact with many New Englanders, painting portraits of John Adams, John Quincy Adams, and other Bostonians when they visited England, and in 1791 he was elected a Foreign Honorary Member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences. His daughter Elizabeth married wealthy Gardiner Greene of Boston, whose descendants preserved much of the Copley family’s correspondence for posterity.

John Adams (1783)

Ultimately, although Copley’s intensive work habits certainly contributed to his success, the long hours at the easel and lack of regular exercise also took a toll on his health and disposition. A granddaughter recalled that he usually painted continuously from early morning until evening, when his wife or one of their daughters would read to him. In his latter years he struggled with depression made worse by the expense of maintaining his household and educating his son, John Singleton Copley, Jr., who in adulthood became a brilliant lawyer. As Copley’s own career waned, paintings that took years of labor remained unsold, forcing him to borrow heavily to cover household expenses. His physical and mental health declined as well, and he died of a stroke on September 9, 1815, deeply in debt. His daughter Mary wrote that “He was perfectly resigned and willing to die, and expressed his firm trust in God, through the merits of our Redeemer.” He was buried in Croydon Minster in Croydon, Surrey.

Copley became the greatest and most influential painter in colonial America, with a legacy that extended well into the nineteenth century. In Britain his greatest achievement was in developing contemporary history painting as a combination of history, idealism, and theater. Boston’s Copley Square, Copley Square Hotel, and Copley Plaza are named after him, as are Copley Township in Summit County, Ohio, and the Copley crater on the planet Mercury. In 1965 the U.S. Postal Service issued a 5-cent stamp commemorating the 150th anniversary of his death that features his daughter, Elizabeth Clark Copley, from his Portrait of the Copley Family (1776) above.

In this series I’ve covered John Trumbull, Benjamin West, Gilbert Stuart, and now John Singleton Copley. Please check out the links to those articles in their names above and answer the following questions.

1. What do you find the most interesting about one of these artists?

2. Which painting by any one of the artists are you most drawn to?
Please share, and I’ll share mine too!

~~~

J. M. Hochstetler is the daughter of Mennonite farmers and a lifelong student of history. She is a professional editor, a publisher, and the author of award-winning historical fiction whose books have been endorsed by bestselling authors such as Lori Benton, Laura Frantz, and Jocelyn Green. Her American Patriot Series is the only comprehensive historical fiction series on the American Revolution. Book 6, Refiner’s Fire, released in 2019, and one more volume, Forge of Freedom, will complete the series. She is also the author of One Holy Night, the Christian Small Publishers 2009 Book of the Year, and co-authored the award-winning Northkill Amish Series with Bob Hostetler.

How "His Highness" George Washington Became "Mr. President"

During a recent conversation about history, the subject was mentioned of how the term "Mr. President" came to be. That sent me to Google, thinking it would make a great topic for CQ, and my search yielded this amusing and engaging article, which includes a bit about the origins of President's Day:

How 'His Highness' George Washington Became 'Mr. President'

My apologies for simply putting the link here for your perusal ... I just returned this evening from a youth conference out of state and am on a very tight book deadline ... doubly my apologies for the site and surrounding subject matter. I hope our dear readers will enjoy, regardless!

John Adams - the HBO series

We're all about books here at Colonial Quills, and nobody more than me. I'm not a TV person. I can't identify more than six or seven living actors. I haven't been to a movie theater in ... well ... let's just say it's been a while. 

My son is a history teacher and he often uses snippets of movies to help illustrate his lessons. On a total impulse, I picked up a DVD set of John Adams. I knew absolutely nothing about it, but my son's birthday was coming up and I thought he might like it. He LOVED it and he told me I needed to watch it.

He brought it home when he came for Christmas and I binge-watched the entire series in one day. One day! Me. Who doesn't watch TV. 

Why am I sharing this? Because if you love all things colonial, you should watch it too. The details are wonderful, from the clothing to the furnishings, it's amazing. The history is both well-researched and well-presented. I loved the portrayal of Abigail Adams. She's always been an interesting person to me and the actress - whoever she is - did a wonderful job. The same can be said of those who portrayed John Adams, George Washington, and Benjamin Franklin. 

It's not a book ... but it's worth your time to watch it.

PeggThomas.com

Follow Pegg on Amazon.com

American Politics: A History of Invective, Chicanery, and Mudslinging

The 2016 presidential campaign season has been exceptionally entertaining of late—not to mention disgusting, enraging, and outright maddening. So when I ran across this article that I originally posted in this space on October 31, 2012 (and we thought that campaign was appalling!), I decided it was just too applicable not to post again, with a couple of minor updates. I apologize for the rerun, but since several years have passed I hope it entertains you again as much as it did me!

Every presidential campaign season I ruminate on the history of American politics, and since the current primary race is so, um, interesting—and we haven’t even gotten to the main event yet—I thought this would be a timely and lively topic to revisit. We hear a lot of complaints about personal attack ads and dirty tricks, especially from the politicians who are themselves most guilty of using them. But you don’t have to do much digging to discover that political chicanery is a time-honored American tradition that has been exercised with glee since America was still a collection of British colonies on the course toward revolution. So let’s take a quick tour of some of the more egregious examples from our nation’s history.

Political parties didn’t exist in this country until we were well on the way to revolution. At that point, the division between those who supported the British and those who opposed them spawned the Loyalists, or Tories, and the Patriots, or Whigs. There was no such thing as neutrality between the two points of view. Anyone who didn’t support one side was automatically consigned to the opposition. Where Patriots held sway, mobs often forced Loyalists out of their homes, denying them legal counsel and trial. Loyalists might be jailed, have their property confiscated, their citizenship revoked, and even be exiled. Where Loyalists held power, Patriots suffered similar treatment. At times someone of the wrong political persuasion was even tarred and feathered and run out of town on a rail.

Mobs played a big part in colonial politics, particularly in Boston, where Dr. Joseph Warren helped to refine mob rule into an art form. But mobs were a force to be reckoned with throughout the colonies. In June 1775, one placed the home of New Hampshire’s last royal governor, John Wentworth, under siege, demanding he turn over his guest, John Fenton, who had urged acceptance of the latest British proposals to avert the crisis. When Fenton understandably refused to comply, the crowd wheeled a cannon in front of the mansion and beat on the walls with clubs until the hapless offender finally gave himself up. Fearing for his and his family’s safety, that night the governor fled with his wife and young child to the fort in Portsmouth harbor, ending decades of British rule in that colony. Nothing like the direct approach to changing your government!

From America's earliest days as a democracy, name-calling and character assassination has been a highly popular tactic, such as when Davy Crockett accused Martin Van Buren of secretly wearing women’s corsets. In 1828, when John Quincy Adams and Andrew Jackson vied for president, Jackson’s campaign nicknamed Adams The Pimp, based on a rumor that as the American ambassador to Russia he had forced a young woman into an affair with a Russian nobleman. Adams’ supporters responded by circulating a pamphlet claiming that Jackson's mother had been a prostitute brought to this country by British soldiers, and that Jackson was the offspring of her marriage to a mulatto!

The name-calling in the 1800 presidential election between Thomas Jefferson and John Adams, however, takes the prize for no-holds-barred mudslinging. Some of the charges and counter-charges are cited in this hilarious YouTube video. You might want to also check out some of the others that show up on the sidebar for additional entertainment. And you thought our modern politics was bad!

In 1840, American politician Thomas Elder wrote to a friend that “Passion and prejudice properly aroused and directed do about as well as principle and reason in any party contest.” Every campaign season we see the proof of that claim.

So what do you think about the current presidential election? Has the political scene improved any since this article was posted in 2012 or has it degraded even further? What are your main (nonpartisan only!) gripes about American political campaigns? What, if anything, can be done to change things?

~~~

J. M. Hochstetler is the daughter of Mennonite farmers, an author, editor, and publisher, and a lifelong student of history. Her novel Northkill, Book 1 of the Northkill Amish Series coauthored with Bob Hostetler, won ForeWord Magazine’s 2014 INDYFAB Book of the Year Bronze Award for historical fiction. Her American Patriot Series is the only comprehensive historical fiction series on the American Revolution. One Holy Night, a contemporary retelling of the Christmas story, was the Christian Small Publishers 2009 Book of the Year.

Heroes, Rogues, and Villains

Greene Monument at Guilford Courthouse, NC

 Amongst the discussions surrounding the recent History Channel miniseries “Sons of Liberty,” I saw disappointment expressed over the language used by various characters. One poster responded, essentially, that they are human, they are fallen. We may admire their deeds as founders of our country, but don’t think for a moment that meant they were sinless.

However you feel about History Channel's politically correct portrayal of figures such as Sam and John Adams, it’s true that many of the key players in the American Revolution were a mixed bag, morally. My last post was devoted to deconstructing popular opinion on one of them, the infamous “Bloody Ban,” Banastre Tarleton of the British Legion, but truth is that so many men of his time were neither half as evil nor half as righteous as popular history now portrays.

One of the odd benefits of initially studying the Revolution from the British perspective is that if there was any dirty laundry on those of the Continental side, they would have aired it. It was interesting overall to see who emerged as true men of honor, and who were ... not so much.

So I present you with a rough sketch of who, by admittedly my own subjective eye, could be categorized as heroes ... and rogues ... and then out-and-out villains.

HEROES

First up is our revered first President, George Washington. I was surprised—and quite relieved—that as bits of gossip surfaced about other prominent men and women, none did regarding him. True, his past isn’t entirely uncheckered ... there was one uncomfortable matter during the French & Indian War ... but by the time the RevWar rolled around, the worst that could be found was criticism regarding his accepting the position of Commander in Chief of the rebellion's armies. (King George shouldered his own share of criticism on the other side of the pond, for engaging those pesky rebels to start with.) His relationship with wife Martha was loving and constant, he did not drink or eat to dissipation, and while he is recorded as resorting to mild profanity in a moment of extreme frustration on the field of battle, well ... he was also human.

John Adams on left, Staten Is. Peace Conference

Second was John Adams. (Brother Samuel, somewhat of a hothead, could fall into the category of rogue.) Though some have charged him with thinking a bit too highly of himself, his faith—and his devotion to wife Abigail—shines strong and authentic even from the accounts of his enemies. From Wikipedia:

Throughout this life, Adams was opposed to slavery, never owned a slave, and was quite proud of the fact.^[4] After the Boston Massacre, with anti-British feelings in Boston at a boiling point, he provided a principled, controversial, and successful legal defense of the accused British soldiers, because he believed in the right to counsel and the "protect[ion] of innocence".^[5]

Third—and don’t shoot me for this—Charles Cornwallis, Earl of the realm and general of the British army. This is a man around whom scandal is conspicuously absent—whose devotion to his dying wife drew him home again to England, with the war still in full swing, then grief for her drove him back, just in time to head up the Southern Campaign in Henry Clinton’s wake. He found the Carolina backcountry enchanting, and though shocked at the viciousness of the partisan warfare shredding the very fabric of society, he endeavored to tread the line between English gentleman, and general of the army whose job it was to enforce order and loyalty to the Crown. Too bad he was so prone to unwise decisions when it came to war strategy, especially his insistence in pushing across North Carolina during the early spring of 1781 ... and I have to take points off for his calling in sick the day he was to surrender to Washington at Yorktown, and sending his second in command instead. Still, he was steps above being classed as a rogue or villain.

General Nathanael Greene

Fourth—no mention of heroes would be complete with mention of Nathanael Greene. General of the Continental forces after the complete rout of Gates at the Battle of Camden, he was raised a Quaker but later was read out of meeting for his interest in the militia and brewing revolt. Passionately and unfashionably devoted to a wife around whom rumors and scandal swirled, but who despite everything went to amazing lengths to join her husband on the field, when she could. All that aside, Greene was famous for his cool under fire, his brilliance at strategy, his patience in completely wearing out the British army.

ROGUES

These are the ones who, on either side, might not have been perfectly honorable, but you couldn’t help admire their panache, or they were considered darlings by their superiors. Yes, I believe Tarleton fits more closely here than the last category, but he’s joined by ...

Henry “Light Horse Harry” Lee—the Continentals’ counterpart to Tarleton. Yes, really. He was quite the fire-eater, just as hotheaded as Ban Tarleton but looked upon with a kinder eye because he was Washington’s “pet,” while Ban was the favorite of Cornwallis. Consider the possible humor—and exasperation?—in the tone of this note from General Washington:

The measure you propose of putting deserters from our Army to immediate death would probably tend to discourage the practice[, but] I think that the part of your proposal which respects cutting off their heads and sending them to the Light Troops had better be omitted. (July 9, 1779)

“Mad” Anthony Wayne, General of the Continental forces, so nicknamed for a slightly crazy but wildly successful night attack on the British in 1779. So did he, or did he not, have something going on with Caty Greene? We may never know. He was, despite gossip and rumors, brave in battle and a devoted friend to the Greenes, present when Nathanael died tragically after the war, and remaining a source of support for Caty.

John Andre, self portrait

Daniel Morgan, another Continental general ... a crusty old veteran if there ever was one. Flogged once for punching an officer during the F&I War. Ignored Greene's orders to not engage Tarleton directly, but gave that lad a "devil of a whipping" at the battle of Cowpens. Among other things we know of him personally, there’s no record of a legal marriage between him and the woman he considered his wife, and he suffered in later years from severe sciatica in his back and legs. That alone might account for the crankiness.

John Andre ... another young, dashing figure—handsome, witty, talented British officer who managed to be in the wrong place at the wrong time, captured by the Continentals and hung as a spy. It’s reported that he went bravely to his death.

VILLAINS

General Henry Clinton of the British

Benedict Arnold, famed Continental officer turned traitor ... dude, we get that your father was a drunk and a loser. We understand having the drive to better yourself. But letting jealousy and envy drive you to betray men who loved and trusted you ... okay, maybe just trusted, because personally speaking you were probably far too prickly to inspire actual love. But you were never really respected by the other side, either. Fail, good sir! Epic fail.

Henry Clinton, General of the British forces ... touchy, opinionated, sure that anything in the colonies was at his personal disposal. Including, and maybe especially, his landlady. Guilty of constant criticism of his superiors (General Howe) and bickering with those under him (General Cornwallis), and giving not very good military advice at times.

Continental General, Charles Lee

James Wemyss, officer of the British ... the one who most likely deserved the later hatred focused on Tarleton. Maybe some of the wild tales surrounding him were merely legend, as well, but some report that even Cornwallis, who gave the order to subdue the rebel populace in South Carolina, disapproved of Wemyss’ unholy zeal in carrying it out, and the methods he employed. (There is some evidence, as well, that some of these tales belong rather to loyalist Christian Huck, who met his end at Williamson’s Plantation in South Carolina, after earning the particular fury of the local Presbyterian population.)

And lastly, Continental general, Charles Lee. (No relation to the Lees of Virginia.) Pompous, self-serving, constantly critical of Washington. Lee gave up all his holdings in England to throw in his lot with the revolution, and thought he deserved payment for it. (Washington agreed to serve for no pay, only having his expenses covered.) In fact, he'd expected Washington's job and didn't get it. So, he might have fought for the Patriot side, even though he wasn't American-born, but he didn't like anybody, and nobody really liked him.


Agree? Disagree? Anyone care to add to this very short list? :-)

All images from Wikipedia and/or public domain.

American Politics: A History of Invective, Chicanery, and Mudslinging

Every presidential campaign season I ruminate on the history of American politics, and since we’re coming down to the wire in the current race, I thought this would be a timely—and lively—topic for discussion. We hear a lot of complaints about personal attack ads and dirty tricks, including from the politicians who are guilty of using them. But you don’t have to do much digging to discover that political chicanery is a time-honored American tradition that has been exercised with glee since America was still a collection of British colonies on the course toward revolution. So let’s take a quick tour of some of the more egregious examples from our nation’s history.

Political parties didn’t exist in this country until we were well on the way to revolution. At that point, the division between those who supported the British and those who opposed them spawned the Loyalists, or Tories, and the Patriots, or Whigs. There was no such thing as neutrality between the two points of view. Anyone who didn’t support one side was automatically consigned to the opposition. Where Patriots held sway, mobs often forced Loyalists out of their homes, denying them legal counsel and trial. Loyalists might be jailed, have their property confiscated, their citizenship revoked, and even be exiled. Where Loyalists held power, Patriots suffered similar treatment. At times someone of the wrong political persuasion was even tarred and feathered and run out of town on a rail.

Mobs played a big part in colonial politics, particularly in Boston, where Dr. Joseph Warren helped to refine mob rule into an art form. But mobs were a force to be reckoned with throughout the colonies. In June 1775, one placed the home of New Hampshire’s last royal governor, John Wentworth, under siege, demanding he turn over his guest, John Fenton, who had urged acceptance of the latest British proposals to avert the crisis. When Fenton understandably refused to comply, the crowd wheeled a cannon in front of the mansion and beat on the walls with clubs until the hapless offender finally gave himself up. Fearing for his and his family’s safety, that night the governor fled with his wife and young child to the fort in Portsmouth harbor, ending decades of British rule in that colony. Nothing like the direct approach to changing your government!

From America's earliest days as a democracy, name-calling and character assassination has been a highly popular tactic, such as when Davy Crockett accused Martin Van Buren of secretly wearing women’s corsets. In 1828, when John Quincy Adams and Andrew Jackson vied for president, Jackson’s campaign nicknamed Adams The Pimp, based on a rumor that as the American ambassador to Russia he had forced a young woman into an affair with a Russian nobleman. Adams’ supporters responded by circulating a pamphlet claiming that Jackson's mother had been a prostitute brought to this country by British soldiers, and that Jackson was the offspring of her marriage to a mulatto!


The name-calling in the 1800 presidential election between Thomas Jefferson and John Adams, however, takes the prize for no-holds-barred mudslinging. Some of the charges and counter-charges are cited in this hilarious YouTube video: Election of 1800 Attack Ads. And you thought our modern political chicanery was bad!

In 1840, American politician Thomas Elder wrote to a friend that “Passion and prejudice properly aroused and directed do about as well as principle and reason in any party contest.” Every campaign season we see the proof of that claim!

So what do you think? Has the political scene improved any today? What are your main (nonpartisan only!) gripes about American political campaigns? What, if anything, can be done to change things?

John Adams: A Moral and Religious People

"Our constitution was made only for a moral and religious people. It is wholly inadequate to the government of any other."

John Adams

"And the LORD commanded us to do all these statues, to fear the LORD our God, for our good always, that he might preserve us alive, as it is at this day. And it shall be our righteousness, if we observe to do all these commandments before the LORD our God, as he hath commanded us."

Deuteronomy 6:24-25

If righteousness does not reign in the hearts of a country's citizens, justice will not be maintained. But man cannot be righteous of his own merit. Mankind cannot execute perfect justice because each individual is consumed with the needs and desires of his own flesh.

Ideologies rise up in opposition to each other, neither looking to the absolute truth found in God's Word, the Bible. Division follows leading to the abandonment of the remarkable fundamental principles upon which our Founding Fathers intended for us to govern. Reduced to mere words, the constitution becomes open to personal interpretation. Personal interpretation generally follows the lust of the eyes, the lust of the flesh, and the pride of life.

"From whence come wars and fightings among you? come they not hence, even of your lusts that war in your members?
"Ye lust, and have not: ye kill, and desire to have, and cannot obtain: ye fight and war, yet ye have not, because ye ask not.
"Ye ask, and receive not, because ye ask amiss, that ye may consume it upon your lusts."

James 4:1-3

We cannot resolve our differences, because we examine our situations from our finite minds and our finite lives. In the end, our focus centers upon our own human comforts in this present time, and not to our children's and grandchildren's comfort, nor do we anticipate eternity. In essence, we can't see past the end of our noses.

The United States of America strayed away from God (God the Father, God the Son, and God the Holy Spirit) by removing Him from its schools, its courts, its government, and its culture. We are no longer a moral and religious people in the sense meant by John Adams, and we are beginning to experience the consequences.

So where does this leave us?

Benjamin Franklin said:

"Any people that would give up liberty for a little temporary safety deserves neither liberty nor safety."

For those of us who are born again believers, our liberty is in Christ. Our faith is our righteousness and our actions are our religion, both of which reflect our morality. Have we given up our liberty in Christ for fear of persecution? For fear that someone (determined to be enslaved by the lusts of his own flesh and eyes and by his pride of life) might call us hateful bigots, religious zealots, and racists because we are standing on Biblical truths--not on man's interpretation of those truths but God's interpretation?

Have we given up our liberty because we are reluctant to suffer as Christ did for our faith? Or will we stand like Peter and John who stood before the religious leaders and said:

"...Whether it be right in the sight of God to hearken unto you more than unto God, judge ye. For we cannot but speak the things which we have seen and heard." Acts 4:19-20

Or do we shrink away from the freedom of speech our ancestors fought for?

I put to you, our country will continue to shrink in power and greatness if we continue to shrink away from our Christian faith in the Almighty God, Lord and Saviour of our lives, and the precepts and principles taught from Scripture.

For those of you who know God's Word, let me ask you, where is North America mentioned in the prophecies of what is yet to come? I would much rather North America be diminished because so many are raptured by Christ than because we've experienced judgement for our sins.

What should we do? There is still hope. The people of Nineveh were told they would be destroyed by God. The people repented and pleaded for God's mercy. God saw that they turned from their evil way, and He turned from destroying them.

We may or may not be able to save our country, but we can bring God glory by proclaiming His good works, His Gospel to each person willing to listen. We can bring God glory by standing on God's Word and on the Blood of Jesus Christ shed for our sins, and when we no longer shrink from those who wish to malign us and tread upon our faith. We do not need to be antagonistic nor do we need to cower. We stand by peacefully proclaiming God's truth and not fearing what man will do to us.

I am thankful for those senators and congressmen who stand up for our faith at cost to themselves. And I will pray for them as I also pray for our country. I will pray that we will once again become a moral and religious people.

"And I will give them an heart to know me, that I am the LORD: and they shall be my people, and I will be their God: for they shall return unto me with their whole heart." 

Jeremiah 24:7

(Note, the above verse was written for Judah, but it shows the heart of God. He is the same yesterday, today, and forever, and calls for even the Gentiles to repent, call upon the name of Jesus, and follow Him)

John Adams, The Danger to Our Liberties

We should be unfaithful to ourselves if we should ever lose sight of the danger to our liberties if anything partial or extraneous should infect the purity of our free, fair, virtuous, and independent elections.

 John Adams, Inaugural Address, March 4, 1797

"Stand fast therefore in the liberty wherewith Christ hath made us free, and be not entangled again with the yoke of bondage." Galatians 5:1

When training a horse in a round pen, my initial goal is for the horse to, by its own freewill, follow me. The horse's flight instinct sends it around the pen, looking for a way out. I stand in the middle, with whip in hand, quietly waiting for the horse to stop running and turn to look at me. If it stops running but turns its hindquarters to me, it feels the bite of the whip, which sends it around the pen again.

Once the horse stops and looks at me, I will not move. I will talk softly to it, and as soon as its attention is off me, I send it around the pen again. After several rounds, the horse learns that the most comfortable place is to stand looking at me.

Then I begin my approach. If the horse bolts, it feels the kiss of the whip until it stops and looks at me. Eventually the horse learns that the safest place is next to me. Yes, it has the freedom to run away. There are no ropes about its neck forcing him to do my bidding. But by its own freewill it follows me like a dog and soon allows me to touch it everywhere.

I learned this training technique when I was fourteen. My little mare, Ginger, and I became such fast friends that I would dance with her in a ten acre pasture, her attention fully on me while I ran this way and that. She'd follow my every move. Through my teen years she was my closest and dearest friend, and we'd play for hours in the field.

My sister had a mare, Smokey, who never learned to stay close. At the first chance, she'd take flight. As a result, her freedom was limited. She'd be driven into the smallest pen and held there until we were finished with her. She had a wrong perception of freedom.

We humans can be very much like Smokey. We race around the pen either trying to avoid God or thinking that an escape from the whip of the slave master (sin) would be to work harder at finding that hole in the fences of ritual or human traditions that would bring us peace. But God stands in the center, calling for our attention, waiting for us to come to Him by our own freewill.

Our works cannot save us from the whip of sin nor can they manipulate God into doing our bidding. God stands in the middle of our pen desiring to extend to us His abundant grace, to give us the joy of being His friend and faithful follower.

John Adams spoke of our freedoms as citizens of America, but spiritually the freedom from sin Christ gave us is in danger when we lose sight of why we follow certain traditions or why we make certain applications of our faith. Not that we would lose our salvation, but that we would lose the fellowship we could have with God if we relied on our works to earn the blessings of God. By faith in God's grace we receive salvation, and by faith in His grace we live in His good pleasure to perform what works please Him.

Smokey was a rather contrary horse. Even the other horses didn't like her. She received fewer favors from us because of her nature. Yes, she'd follow rituals at feed time, when moved from pasture to pasture, and in her general care, but almost every aspect of working with her was more difficult than with Ginger, even though the two mares received the same training.

When I look at my own life, I can see times when I've gone through the motion of serving the Lord, but in truth I was serving myself. I'd look for those escape routes to do as I pleased (under the guise of serving God, of course) and would feel the sting of the whip. I'd run about looking as though I was working for the Lord, expending great energies for God, thinking that these efforts would bend God's will to my favor. Yet, all along God stood in the center waiting for me to come, lower my head, and allow Him to pour upon me His abundant grace and the joy of following His plan, not my own.

I have learned that the place of greatest freedom, of perfect peace, of tremendous joy, is when I willingly follow God's leading, dancing with Him in the pastures of life even as Ginger would with me.

"But if we walk in the light, as he is in the light, we have fellowship one with another, and the blood of Jesus Christ his Son cleanseth us from all sin." 

I John 1:7