6 Adams Family Correspondence, L.H. Butterfield, Editor volume 1 – December 1761-May 1776, pp. 626-27.
7 The Works of Benjamin Franklin, ed. Jared Sparks (Chicago: Townsend MacCoun., 1882), x. 281-82.
8 Bishop Meade, Old Church Ministers and Families of Virginia p. 223-224.
The strength as well as tenderness of Judge Marshall’s attachment to Mrs. Marshall will appear from the following affecting tribute to her memory, written by himself, December 25, 1832: “This day of joy and festivity to the whole Christian world is, to my sad heart, the anniversary of the keenest affliction which humanity can sustain. While all around is gladness, my mind dwells on the silent tomb, and cherishes the remembrance of the beloved object which it contains.
“On the 25th of December, 1831, it was the will of Heaven to take to itself the companion who had sweetened the choicest part of my life, had rendered toil a pleasure, had partaken of all my feelings and was enthroned in the inmost recess of my heart. Never can I cease to feel the loss and to deplore it. Grief for her is too sacred ever to be profaned on the day, which shall be, during my existence, marked by a recollection of her virtue.
“On the 3rd of January 1783, I was united by the holiest bonds to the woman I adored. From the moment of our union to that of our separation, I never ceased to thank Heaven for this its best gift. Not a moment passed in which I did not consider her as a blessing from which the chief happiness of my life was derived. This never-dying sentiment, originating in love, was cherished by a long and close observation of as amiable and estimable qualities as ever adorned the female bosom. To a person which in youth was very attractive, to manners uncommonly pleasing, she added a fine understanding, and the sweetest temper which can accompany a just and modest sense of what was due to herself. She was educated with a profound reverence for religion, which she preserved to her last moments. This sentiment, among her earliest and deepest impressions, gave a colouring to her whole life. Hers was the religion taught by the Savior of man. She was a firm believer in the faith inculcated by the Church (Episcopal) in which she was bred.
“I have lost her, and with her have lost the solace of my life! Yet she remains still the companion of my retired hours, still occupies my inmost bosom. When alone and unemployed, my mind still recurs to her. More that a thousand times since the 25th of December 1831, have I repeated to myself the beautiful lines written by General Burgoyne, under a similar affliction, substitution ‘Mary’ for ‘Anna’:
“’Encompass’d in an angle’s frame,
An angel’s virtues lay;
Too soon did Heaven assert its claim
And take its own away!
My Mary’s worth, my Mary’s charms,
Can never more return!
What now shall fill these widow’d arms?
Ah me! My Mary’s urn!
Ah me! Ah me! My Mary’s urn’”
As to the religious opinions of Judge Marshall, the following extract from a letter of the Reverend Mr. Norwood may be entirely relied on: “I have read some remarks of yours in regard to Chief-Justice Marshall, which have suggested to me to communicate to you the following facts, which may be useful should you again publish any thing in relation to his religious opinions. I often visited Mrs. General Harvey during her last illness. From her I received this statement. She was much with her father during the last months of his life, and told me that the reason why he never communed was, that he was a Unitarian in opinion, thought he never joined their society. He told her that he believed in the truth of the Christian revelation, but not in the divinity of Christ; therefore he could not commune in the Episcopal Church. But during the last months of his life, he read Keith on Prophecy, where our Saviour’s divinity is incidentally treated, and was convinced by his work, and the fuller investigation to which it led, of the supreme divinity of the Saviour. He determined to apply for admission to the Communion of our Church, objected to commune in private, because he thought it his duty to make a public confession of the Saviour, and which waiting of improved health to enable him to go the church for the purpose, he grew worse and died, without ever communing. Mrs. Harvey was a lady of the strictest probity, the most humble piety, and of a clear discriminating mind, and her statement, the substance of which I give you accurately (having reduced it to writing) maybe entirely relied on.
“I remember to have heard Bishop Moore repeatedly express his surprise (when speaking of Judge Marshall) that, though he was so punctual in his attendance at church, and reproved Mr. – and Mr. – and Mr. – when they were absent, and knelt during the prayers and responded fervently, yet he never communed. The reason was that which he gave to his daughter, Mrs. Harvey. She said he died an humble, penitent believer in Christ, according to the orthodox creed of the church.
Very truly, your friend and brother in Christ, Wm. Norwood.
“P.S. – Another fact, illustrating the lasting influence of maternal instruction, was mentioned by Mrs. Harvey. Her father told here that he never went to bed without concluding his prayer with those which he mother taught him when a child – viz.: the Lord’s Prayer and the prayer beginning, ‘Now I lay me down to sleep.’”
9 Ibid., p. 33 – Randolph’s Repentance
“It being known that there was a family connection and some intimacy and correspondence between Mr. Randolph and myself, I have been often asked my opinion as to his religious character. It is as difficult to answer this as to explain some other things about this most talented, eccentric, and unhappy man. My acquaintance and correspondence with him commenced in 1813 and terminated in 1818, although at his death he confided a most difficult and important trust to myself, in conjunction with our common and most valued friend, Mr. Francis S. Key. I publish the following letter written in 1815, when his mind seemed to be in a state of anxiety on the subject of religion and an extract from another paper in my possession showing a supposed relief in the year 1818. Other letters I have, during the period of our intimacy, of the same character. The reader must judge for himself, taking into consideration the great inconsistencies of his subsequent life, and making all allowances for his most peculiar and unhappy temperament, his most diseased body, and the trying circumstances of his life and death.”
Richmond, May 19 1815
“It is with very great regret that I leave town about the time that you are confidently expected to arrive. Nothing short of necessity should carry me away at this time. I have a very great desire to see you, to converse with you on the subject before which all others sink into insignificance. It continues daily to occupy more and more of my attention, which it ahs nearly engrossed to the exclusion of every other, and it is a source of pain as well as of occasional comfort to me. May He who alone can do it shed light upon my mind, and conduct me, through faith, to salvation. Give me your prayers. I have the most earnest desire for a more perfect faith than I fear I possess. What shall I do to be saved? I know the answer, but it is not free from difficulty. Lord, be merciful to me, a sinner. I do submit myself most implicitly to his holy will, and great is my reliance on his mercy. But when I reflect on the corruptions of my nature I tremble whilst I adore. The merits of an all-atoning Saviour I hardly dare to plead when I think of my weak faith. Help, Lord, or I perish, but thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven. I know that I deserve to suffer for my sins; for time misspent, faculties misemployed; but, above all, that I have not loved God and my neighbour as we are commanded to do. But I will try to confide in the promises we have received, or rather to comply with their conditions. Whatever be my fate, I will not harbour a murmur in my breast against the justice of my Creator. Your afflicted friend, John Randolph, of Roanoke”
“Reverend William Meade, August 1818,
“It is now just nineteen years since sin first began to sit heavy upon my soul. For a very great part of that time I have been as a conscious thief; hiding or trying to hide from my fellow-sinners, from myself, from my God. After much true repentance, followed by relapses into deadly sin, it hath pleased Almighty God to draw me to him; reconciling me to him, and, by the love which drives out fear, to show me the mighty scheme of his salvation, which hath been to me, as also to the Jews, a stumbling block and, as to the Greeks, foolishness. I am now, for the first time, grateful and happy; nor would I exchange my present feeling and assurances, although in rage, for any throne in Christendom.”
p. 95- Bishop Madison- infidelity?
“In the year 1785, the Reverend James Madison, afterward Bishop of Virginia, became its minister, and continued so until his death in 1812, long before which the congregation had dwindled into almost nothing,- ... A young friend of mine, who was in Williamsburg about the year 1810, informed me that, being desirous of hearing the oratory of Bishop Madison, he had once or twice gone out on a Sabbath morning to this church, but that the required number for a sermon was not there, though it was a very small one, and so he was disappointed. ... In the year 1774 he became Professor in the College of William and Mary, in the year 1777, President of the College, and in the year 1799 was consecrated Bishop of Virginia. His addresses to the Convention breathe a spirit of zealous piety, and his recommendations are sensible and practical. ... I again repeat my conviction that the reports as to his abandonment of the Christian faith in his latter years are groundless; although it is to be feared that the failure of the Church in his hands, and which at that time might have failed in any hands, his secular and philosophical pursuits, had much abated the spirit with which he entered upon the ministry. The old church at Jamestown is no longer to be seen, except the base of its ruined tower.”
10 The reformation envisaged by the Deists was an education founded on reason, coupled with an opposition to revelation and the clergy. As deist Charles Blount wrote in his Oracles of Reason:
“By education most have been misled,
So they believe, because they were so bred;
The priest continues what the nurse began,
And thus the child imposes on the man. Cited in J. A. Leo Lemay, “The Amerindian in the Early American Enlilghtenment” in Deism, Masonry, and the Enlightenment ed. by J. A. Leo Lemay (Newark: University of Delaware Press, 1987), p. 86-87.
Similarly, Deist John Toland in his Letters to Serena showed the danger of the clergy with their religious mysteries:
“Natural religion was easy first and plain,
Tales made it mystery, offerings made it gain;
Sacrifices and shows were at length prepared,
The priests ate roast meat and the people starved.” Cited in Byrne, Natural Relgion, p. 80.
11 The Virginia Almanack For the Year of our Lord God 1761 by Theophilus Weeg (Williamsburg: Printed and Sold by William Hunter, 1761). The book summary in the Almanack said:
“An Impartial Enquiry into the True Nature of the Faith, which is required in the Gospel as necessary to salvation, In which is briefly shown, upon how righteous terms of Unbelievers may become true Christians: And the Case of Deists is reduced to a short Issue. Containing Section I. Nature of Faith, or Belief, in the general. 2. Showing how much, and how readily, all Men act in the most important Affairs of this World, upon Faith, or upon Grounds less certain. 3. True Nature of the Christian Faith. 4. In which the Nature of Christian Faith is more fully explained, by examing the Properties of Abraham’s Faith, which Christians are bound to imitate. The first Property attributed to Abraham’s Faith is considered; viz. That it was grounded on Reason. 5. In which the second Property of Abraham’s Faith is considered; viz. The Righteousness of his Faith. 6. In which the third Property of Abraham’s Faith is considered; viz; That it was grounded on Reason. 6. In which the third Property of Abraham’s Faith is considered; viz. That it was a Full Persuasion of his Mind. 7. In which the fourth Property of Abraham’s Faith is considered; viz. That he gave Glory to God. 8. Shows in what Sense the Practice of Virtue is necessary to the producing of Faith in Christ Jesus. 9. Showing that no Man can attain to true Christian Faith, without the Assistance of the Divine Spirit influencing his Soul. 10. Concerning the due Submission of Reason, with regard to the Mysteries of Religion: In which the Nature of a Christian Mystery is explained. 11. In which the Influence and Efficacy of Divine Faith is considered. 12. Containing a summary Account of the Evidences which prove that Jesus was the Messiah, sent from God to instruct and redeem Mankind. In which is shown, that there was in the Jewish Scriptures a Prophesy made to Mankind, and from thence an Expectation of an extraordinary Person sent from God, at a particular Time. 13. Showing that, as Jesus declared himself to be this extraordinary Person, so he gave the fullest and strongest Proofs that could be desired, that he was the promised Messiah. In which the Evidence is examined, which ariseth from his fulfilling the other Prophecies, which foretold the Messiah. 14. In which the Evidence is examined, that ariseth from the Miracles which Jesus wrought: showing that the first condition, that should attend all Miracles, took Place in those wrought by Jesus, viz. That they should be so repeated, so publick, and so evident to Numbers, as to leave no Doubt. 15. Showing that the moral Doctrines, which Jesus taught, all manifestly tend to promote the Happiness of Mankind and the Glory of God. In which they are compared with those taught by the Heathens. 16. In which it is examined whether the peculiar Doctrines of Christianity be worthy of God and whether they tend to promote the Glory of God, and the Good of Mankind. 17. In which is examined the Evidence that ariseth from the Fulfilling of Prophecies foretold by Jesus. 18. The fifth Proof, that Jesus was a Teacher sent from God, viz. his rising from the Dead. 19. In which the Nature of the Evidence which we have for the Resurrection is examined, and the Objections to it, as witnessed by the Apostles, are answered. 20. In which the case of the Unbelievers of these Days is compared with that of the Jews, who saw the Miracles of Jesus; showing that we have several Proofs and Advantages which the Jews wanted; and that (upon the Whole) they who now reject the Christian religion, would reject it, thought the same Evidence which the Jews had, were offered to them. 21. Containing a short state of the Deist’s Case, being the Result of the former Sections. 22. That no man can have true Christian Faith, without Freedom in Thought and Action; and that true Free-thinking and true Christian Faith, as it is the Act of the Mind, are evidently one and the same Thing. 23. Showing that Infidelity took its Rise from Rome, and hath been propagated from thence to us; and that our Deists, however contrary to their Intentions, carry on and greatly forward the Interests and Designs of popery.”
