AN EYE-WITNESS TESTIMONY OF WASHINGTON’S CHRISTIAN FAITH
When Nelly Custis’ father, Jack Custis (George’s stepson), died in 1781, George and Martha Washington took her and her younger brother George Washington Parke Custis into their home. Under their care she grew. Her witness of her adopted parents’ faith is compelling and yet consistently ignored or diminished by those who claim Washington was a Deist and secularist. We have referred to her testimony repeatedly throughout our study. We cite it here in its entirety so that its full force may be felt. Nelly Custis’ testimony is a telling critique of the view that advocates that Washington was a Deist.
...General Washington had a pew in Pohick Church, and one in Christ Church at Alexandria. He was very instrumental in establishing Pohick Church, and I believe subscribed largely. His pew was near the pulpit...He attended the church at Alexandria when the weather and roads permitted a ride of ten miles. In New York and Philadelphia he never omitted attendance at church in the morning, unless detained by indisposition...No one in church attended to the service with more reverential respect. My grandmother, who was eminently pious, never deviated from her early habits. She always knelt. The General, as was then the custom, stood during the devotional parts of the service. On communion Sundays he left the church with me, after the blessing, and returned home, and we sent the carriage back for my grandmother.
It was his custom to retire to his library at nine or ten o’clock, where he remained an hour before he went to his chamber. He always rose before the sun, and remained in his library until called for breakfast. I never witnessed his private devotions. I never inquired about them. I should have thought it the greatest heresy to doubt his firm belief in Christianity. His life, his writings, prove that he was a Christian. He was not one of those who act or pray, “that they may be seen of men.” He communed with his God in secret.
My mother resided two years at Mount Vernon, after her marriage with John Parke Custis, the only son of Mrs. Washington. I have heard her say that General Washington always received the sacrament with my grandmother before the Revolution. When my aunt, Miss Custis, died suddenly at Mount Vernon, before they could realize the event, he knelt by her and prayed most fervently, most affectingly, for her recovery. Of this I was assured by Judge Washington’s mother, and other witnesses.
He was a silent, thoughtful man. He spoke little generally; never of himself. I never heard him relate a single act of his life during the war. I have often seen him perfectly abstracted, his lips moving, but no sound was perceptible. I have sometimes made him laugh most heartily from sympathy with my joyous and extravagant spirits. I was, probably, one of the last persons on earth to whom he would have addressed serious conversation, particularly when he knew that I had the most perfect model of female excellence ever with me as my monitress, who acted the part of a tender and devoted parent, loving me as only a mother can love, and never extenuating or approving in me what she disapproved in others. She never omitted her private devotions, or her public duties; she and her husband were so perfectly united and happy that he must have been a Christian. She had no doubts, or fears for him. After forty years of devoted affection and uninterrupted happiness, she resigned him without a murmur into the arms of his Saviour and his God, with the assured hope of eternal felicity. Is it necessary that any one should certify, “General Washington avowed himself to me a believer in Christianity”? As well may we question his patriotism, his heroic, disinterested devotion to his country. His mottoes were, “Deeds, Not Words”; and “For God and My Country.”
With sentiments of esteem,
I am,
Nelly Custis
15
Our challenge to the secularist interpreters of Washington is not just to refute Nelly Custis’ testimony, but to find merely one statement where Washington claimed to be a Deist. To question Washington’s patriotism is absurd. Nelly Custis declares it is just as absurd to question his Christianity.
SACRED FIRE VS. WILDFIRE
The “sacred fire of liberty” that Washington knew and shared with his nation is not in danger of burning out. Instead the danger is that the “sacred fire” is rapidly becoming a secular fire. The eternal flame of the torch of liberty is not burning low; instead, it is in danger of burning out of control. It is like what Washington experienced as a youth when he wrote in his diary on April 2, 1747, “Saterday 2d Last Night was a blowing and Rainy night Our Straw catch’d a Fire that we were laying upon and was luckily Preserved by one of our Mens awaking when it was in a [blaze].”16
There is a crucial difference between the sacred and the secular, between a sacred fire and a secular fire, between a fire in the hearth and a fire on the roof, between a Christian Washington and a secular Washington. It is the difference between ordered liberty and moral anarchy, between liberty and licentiousness. Licentiousness is an abuse of liberty. It is a spirit of anything goes. In contrast, Washington believed in ordered liberty, liberty under God’s law. Washington was keenly conscious of the distinction between liberty and licentiousness. He addressed this point on various occasions. To the states he wrote:
We shall be left nearly in a state of Nature, or we may find by our own unhappy experience, that there is a natural and necessary progression, from the extreme of anarchy to the extreme of Tyranny; and that arbitrary power is most easily established on the ruins of Liberty abused to licentiousness.17
To John Augustine Washington, he explained,
Liberty, when it degenerates into licenciousness, begets confusion, and frequently ends in Tyranny or some woeful catastrophe....18
In his First Inaugural Address, he declared,
...every valuable end of Government is best answered by the enlightened confidence of the people: and by teaching the people themselves ... to discriminate the spirit of Liberty from that of licentiousness, cherishing the first, avoiding the last, and uniting a speedy, but temperate vigilance against encroachments, with an inviolable respect to the Laws.19
The difference between “the spirit of liberty” and “licentiousness” is the difference between Washington’s “sacred fire of liberty” and the licentious secular fire of Deists like Thomas Paine. This is profoundly illustrated by the differences between the revolutionary “sacred fire” ignited by the American Revolution and the revolutionary wild fire unleashed by the French Revolution which resulted in widespread bloodshed. As we have seen, the differences between religion and morality vs. secularism were a theme often addressed in the sermons that Washington approved. Washington believed that the fires of reason and the fiery passions of a society without the presence of the sacred, refining fire of faith would always burn out of control. A fire lit by human passions alone would be a blaze without limits, without direction, and leave devastation and carnage behind.
George Washington’s “sacred fire of liberty” was sacred, precisely because of his ardent Christian faith. He understood that the American nation, under God, possessed a sacred fire to energize, guide, and sustain its “experiment in the republican model of government” that was “finally staked” on the experience and experiment of the American people.
“THE SPIRIT OF LIBERTY”
America’s experiment in liberty continues. The question is whether we will light our future with Washington’s “sacred fire of liberty” or the wildfire of a culture marked by a rootless, historical amnesia. Washington did not, Prometheus-like, steal the “fire of liberty” from heaven. He received it as a “sacred fire,” a divine gift informed by “the eternal rules of order and right, which Heaven itself has ordained.” (emphasis ours)
Washington knew that the divine flame of freedom would not light the path of a happy nation unless that nation pursued “justice and loved mercy.” And further, Washington called upon his nation to follow the “humility, charity and pacific temper of mind” of Jesus Christ as their great example. For this “Divine Author” of Washington’s “blessed religion” was the ultimate source of America’s “sacred fire of liberty.” That which made them a “happy nation.”
And finally, the phrase “sacred fire of liberty” manifests Washington’s common practice of biblical allusion. “The sacred fire of liberty” is clearly suggested by the sacred book that Washington knew so well. In the Bible, 2 Corinthians 3:17 says, “Now the Lord is that Spirit, and where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is liberty”(KJV). Here is the source of Washington’s spirituality and the fuel for his “sacred fire of liberty.”
“The preservation of the sacred fire of liberty” Washington said was “entrusted to the hands of the American people.” As keepers of this sacred fire, let us never forget that the “destiny of the republican model of government” is “deeply” and “finally” staked” on us, and what we do with the divine gift of liberty. What can we do to assure that the sacred fire will burn as an eternal flame? Clearly, we must pass it on by educating the next generation. Washington understood the power of his legacy for the future generations. Referring to his Congressional Commission to command the Revolutionary Army, he wrote, “If my commission is not necessary for the files of Congress, I should be glad to have it deposited amongst my own papers. It may serve my grand children some fifty or a hundred years hence for a theme to ruminate upon, if they should be contemplatively disposed.”20 (emphasis in original)
So once and for all, let us refuse to allow the secular revision of our history to extinguish the sacred in the life of Washington. The task is daunting to be sure. But our founding father’s words inspire us to press on to success:
As the cause of our common Country, calls us both to an active and dangerous duty, I trust that Divine Providence, which wisely orders the affairs of men, will enable us to discharge it with fidelity and success.21
Washington’s “sacred fire” can and must burn brightly again.
APPENDIX ONE
The Rules of Civility and Decent Behaviour in Company and Conversation
George Washington, sometime before the age of sixteen, transcribed these Rules of Civility & Decent Behaviour In Company and Conversation. Most historians of Washington see a great deal of consistency between his life and these rules for “civility and decent behaviour.” The evidence is also clear that Washington’s father, Augustine, and his two older half brothers were exposed to these rules as well, since they were part of the basic education of the Appleby School in England, where both boys had been educated. Rules 108 to 110 lay the groundwork for a life of exemplary piety. (Original errors in numbering have been corrected; original spelling is unchanged.)1
1ST: Every Action done in Company, ought to be with Some Sign of Respect, to those that are Present.
2ND: When in Company, put not your Hands to any Part of the Body, not usually Discovered.
3RD: Shew Nothing to your Freind that may affright him.
4TH: In the Presence of Others Sing not to yourself with a humming Noise, nor Drum with your Fingers or Feet.
5TH: If You Cough, Sneeze, Sigh, or Yawn, do it not Loud but Privately; and Speak not in your Yawning, but put Your handkercheif or Hand before your face and turn aside.
