Ike's legacy

                                                History is His Story

How did “In God We Trust” end up on all our currency?  “Under God” in the Pledge of Allegiance? To understand the story you have to understand where Eisenhower got his faith.  His parents were Pennsylvania Dutch Lutherans.  David and Ida moved to Hope, Kansas in the 1880s.  They had both gone to college in LeCompton.  After a brief job in Denison, TX, David Eisenhower moved to Abilene, KS, in 1892, about 150 miles north of Ponca City and 40 miles from my old KS homestead (Hope is just 20 miles away!). The family would be classified as deeply religious, attending first a Mennonite church and then joining the Jehovah Witnesses, mainly at the instigation of Ida. Dwight never joined, however, remaining more mainstream in his faith. The family held twice daily devotions. She had 7 boys, and Dwight was the 3^rd.  All were nicknamed “Ike”. Dwight (Little Ike) and his older brother Edgar (Big Ike) made a pact that they would alternate years at college, the other working to pay tuition. But Edgar wanted a second year of college right away so Dwight agreed to work another year at the creamery.  A friend had successfully applied to the Naval Academy and encouraged Little Ike to do the same. He was accepted at West Point. 

            Soon he fell very much in love with Mamie Doud and they married in 1916, soon after he graduated. Every year or so he was assigned to a different base so they never joined a church but attended the Protestant base services.  During WW I, Captain Eisenhower trained tank operators and soon joined Colonel George Patton in Texas who espoused aggressive “tank warfare”, not just using the tanks as an infantry backup. Ike got assigned to the War College and it became apparent that he was a genius for battle plans with a comprehensive brain for lining up resources and working with differing personalities. Yet he remained a major for 16 long years.  In 1941, he was promoted to Brigadier General.  He and Patton went to N. Africa and the result was a stellar campaign through Tunisia, Sicily and southern Italy until Ike was chosen to handle all the egotistical and prickly generals of the Allied Command for Operation Overlord, D-Day. He achieved this by keeping close personal control over the entire operation and letting them claim the glory of victories.  The pictures of Ike’s heartfelt conversations with troops ready to land in Normandy, knowing that half would sustain casualties, are quite real.  He was humbled by their devotion, even by those far beneath him in rank. And he often shared scripture. 

            After the war, he served as military governor of US sector of occupied Germany, General of the Army, and then in 1948 became President of Columbia University, NY. Truman suggested he run for President as his Democrat successor.  But the little secret was that though Ike could work with anybody, he disliked Columbia’s atheistic professors and the welfare state.  He chose to run as a Republican, was secretly conservative, but was also an advocate of NATO, opposed by the Republican right wing isolationists. Most of us remember President Eisenhower as a “bipartisan and relaxed”, but historians who have studied his papers say, no, he was secretly, intensely involved in every decision, a deviousness he learned from being in military command, desiring unpredictabilitiy. In 1952 Ike joined the Presbyterians and was baptized.

            But something was eating at Ike. From 1948 to 1955 television viewing went from 172,000 families to 32 million.  As the habit spread, those who ran the networks began to flex cultural muscles and openly contemplated a society in which all standards of behavior would be up for redefinition in moral relativism governed by only ratings. Ike quietly listened and decided that the character education of American youth should not follow this.  He suggested “under God” (from Lincoln’s Inaugural) be inserted into the pledge to some congressmen, and in 1954 they passed it. He is famously quoted, “Our government makes no sense unless it is founded on a deeply felt religious faith—and I don’t care what it is.” Typical Ike Talk, Mamie explained. This didn’t mean he was indifferent to the articles of faith, but sincere faith should be an important component of all Americans. Then some suggested “In God We Trust” (4^th verse of national anthem) become a national motto and be on all coins.  The media dubbed this as “Piety on the Potomac”.  Indeed it was subtle.  Mamie later said that Ike thought this was one of the more important things he had achieved.  From a guy who had defeated Hitler, blocked communist expansion, rebuilt Europe, built the Interstate Highways, NASA, and other things, this is a quite an assessment!

Lydia Smith

                                                History is His Story

July 4, 1863, a torrential rain broke out over Gettysburg, Pennsylvania.  For 3 days 180,000 Union and Confederate forces had fought the bloodiest battle of the war, and with the rain the Confederates managed to escape.  They needed to. They had suffered 28,000 casualties, 40% of Lee’s 71,000-man army.  Meade’s larger (94,000) Union force had 22,000 casualties.  10,000 men and 3000 horses lay dead on the ground. Another 23,000 men lay wounded.  

            Harrisburg, the capital, had been Lee’s objective.  But the Confederates were quick to pilfer just about anything of value they could get their hands on to ship back to Virginia.  That included slaves.  An able-bodied male slave would bring about the same price as a house.  And the ugly secret was that southern Pennsylvania was full of free blacks.  With little regard for their status, the soldiers rounded up several hundred, tied them together and put them in carts.  Seeing the wagons full of weeping women and children, white Pennsylvanians argued and taunted the occupiers but to little avail.  “They’re fugitives escaped from us,” the soldiers claimed.  One pastor boldly protested that he had baptized several children and he knew they were freeborn. The Union forces had warned blacks in the area to flee ahead of the battle, but some refused since they were protecting their farms.  The Briens had a farm on Cemetery Ridge.  It wound up being the center of Pickett’s charge. On the edge of the Brien property was the shack of Margaret Palm, a black laundress, who, having fended off an earlier kidnapping attempt in 1857, had warned her neighbors to flee before being tied up herself. Another woman, referred to as "Old Liza," "took advantage of the chaos and the crowds of soldiers and civilians and bolted" with a group to the Lutheran Church in town, R. Creighton writes. Others were forced to cook for Confederate troops.  Everywhere, the threat of capture persisted during the battle. While the confusion saved some, another witness "saw 'a number of colored people' corralled together and marched away." What more than a few blacks of Gettysburg saw and heard themselves inspired them to join the Union cause as soldiers, among them prominent citizens like Randolph Johnston and teacher Lloyd Watts of the 24th U.S. Colored Troops; both became sergeants.

             July 4.  Lydia Smith looked out over the field strewn with bodies and asked herself what Jesus would do in such a situation.  She grabbed her water buckets and saddled her horse.  Of course, half the men were confederates but when they are dying or incapacitated, does it matter if someone were to take a pot shot at her?  And so she hitched a wagon to another horse, filled more buckets and began giving drinks, binding wounds, organizing transportation for the wounded.  The Union Army had refused to let a few black militias fight, but Lydia was armed with prayers for suffering soldiers and a servant’s heart.  And it didn’t matter if the soldier was blue or gray. Observing her, one reporter that Creighton quotes said, " 'This is quite a commentary … upon Gen. Lee's army of kidnappers and horse thieves who came here and fell wounded in their bold attempt to kidnap and carry off these free people of color.' "

            Gettysburg and surrounds was 15% Afro-American.  When Lincoln gave his address in October of that year, the town was still cleaning up.  The local AME churchmen worked tirelessly in the years after the war to commemorate the battlefield.

Tony Snow's faith

Tony Snow was an American journalist, news anchor, columnist, radio host, musician and White House Press Secretary under President George W.Bush. There have been about 30 Press Secretaries in 4 decades and none came close to handling the difficult job so smoothly as Snow. His dad was a social studies teacher and after college Tony taught physics for a year, but soon began his career in journalism. He was an avid musician who played in a rock band with musicians who later played with Jethro Tull and the Doobie Brothers.  He began work for a newspaper in Greensboro, then went to Norfolk, Newport News and The Washington Times.  In 1991 he quit the Times to become a speechwriter for Pres. George H.W. Bush, an unusual move since he was a Democrat.  In the 90s Snow appeared on radio and television programs worldwide including The McLaughlin Group, The MacNeil–Lehrer NewsHour, Face the Nation, Crossfire, and Good Morning America. He was host of the PBS news specials The New Militant Center. He substituted for Rush Limbaugh and became the first host of FOX News Sunday. (He also worked for CNN)  In 2005 he was diagnosed with colon cancer and fought losing 4-year battle, yet in 2006-7 he was Bush 43’s Press Secretary.

            “Painful experiences can lead to big questions and critical insights in the state of one’s soul,” he told the usually hardened press corps at an awards gathering. “The key is to look in the mirror, stop making excuses and move forward with open eyes.” At his commencement address at Catholic University in 2007, he added, “You begin to confront the truly overwhelming question: Why am I here? And one more thing.  It’s hard to ask ultimate, eternal life-and-death questions without thinking about God.  You see, it’s trendy to reject religious reflection as a grave offense against decency.  But faith and reason are knitted together in the human soul.  Don’t leave home without either one.”  Clearly, Snow had decided long ago not to be crushed by the question of death.  His one-liners as Press Sec. were always sharp and he handled the kind of tough questions that haunt a Pres. with declining approval polls.  Contentiousness seemed to fly out the window at his conferences.  Bill Kristol summed it well in the NY Times, “His deep Christian faith combined with his natural exuberance gave him an upbeat worldview. The Jew in me came to wonder: Could it be that a stance of faith-grounded optimism is in fact superior to one of worldly pessimism or sophisticated fatalism.?” 

            In his Catholic U. speech, Snow urged the grads to take risks and to always strive to serve others.  “Religious faith is not an opiate that helps people avoid hard questions.  Instead, the ups and downs that accompany the life of faith should be seen as part of the ultimate extreme sport.” About his cancer battle he concluded, “Our maladies define a central feature of our existence.  We are fallen.  We are imperfect.  Our bodies give out.  But despite this—because of it—God offers the possibility of salvation and grace.  We don’t know how it will end, but we get to choose how to use the interval between now and the moment we meet Him face to face.”

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A Frank Lloyd Wright House

My house was designed by a student of Frank Lloyd Wright.  But of course the dirty little secret of designing the fifties was that people couldn’t decide between Wright’s organic architecture with its earth tones and natural materials and another style called atomic which featured wildly bright primary colors and sputnik inspired fixtures.  So, like Winnie the Pooh when asked if he wanted jam or honey said, “Both.” Hence we bought a house with pink and turquoise, gold and green  bathrooms and a hot pink kitchen.  Amazingly, after restoring and creating a lot of organic features, the modern house has made a comeback  and now people on HGTV order designers to do Wrightian stuff like “open concept” but hardly know his reasoning for this. 

            The open concept was a way to save wasted space of long hallways and to achieve a sense of large size.  Older homes had divided rooms—dining, kitchen, den, living.  Open concept usually used a dining room or family room to feed traffic through without a hallway.  The openness gave a sense of grand space to an otherwise boxy little 1000 square foot house, like  the ones built in 1950.  Moreover, Wright had a motive.  He used the idea of having low ceiling halls or entries that opened into a large, expansive space. It gives the large space even more Wow when you discover it after going through a small entry.  And the large living space often had big windows, especially floor-to-ceiling windows  that seemed to let nature come into the house. Planters outside and planters inside made the inside seem outdoors and the outside come in.  This has become a stylistic point of many homes  built today even though they may be traditional with large Palladian windows.  Wright also created the picture window, an expanse of glass surrounded by two operable windows.  In the 50s many people had no air conditioning and having the two operable windows was important.  Often he would design a repeated design into a window—stained glass or dividing wood canes. A corollary of this glass and nature idea was an atrium for plants  combined with patio outside and more plants.  People in the 50s were often in love with yards and plantings, unlike today when a lot of folks can hardly grow a tomato. But as late as the 1930s half of US population lived on farms.

            In the midst of rooms was often something of almost sculptural beauty, a divider, a light fixture from the ceiling or a bookcase.  Hence Wright designed furniture to match a house.  Everything seen has importance, a design concept used by virtually every interior designer today. Our little place has cantilevered shelves of spalted oak and a canarywood fireplace mantle over a cut-stone fireplace with niche for the wood. And in order to make the house fit the environment, stone, rough sawn woods, bamboo, and cork floors were often used. 

            Wright’s organic architecture used flat roofs and cantilevered rooms that were designed to blend with nature, quite the contrast to today’s homes where roofs are as high as possible in order to declare the importance of the owners.  Landscaping was vital in order to make the blend with the land work well.  Japanese house styles were mimicked with bonsai trees and stones and gravel beds to imitate nature’s stream beds.  There was also the importance of view, both small and large in every house.  People didn’t live with the drapes down.  They knew their neighbors well, but America had begun to relinquish the idea that one sits out on the porch at night until after dark. Instead the concept of patio and garden with trellis and gates replaced it.  I suppose a lot of people would think we are nuts in recreating this, slaving over a yard and garden just to be able to sit in it.  But there are times when it rains or the sun catches the wisteria or the trees thrash in the wind when it becomes magical. 

          

             My mother was an interior designer and I guess some of it rubbed off on me.  Shirley learned fast and together we have made a fortune on flipping and renting properites in this small town.  We recently remodelled a little ranch rental and the realtor was enthralled at what we had done.  He put a price on it that was nearly double what we gave a few years ago. Flabbergasted me.  "It will sell within a week," he told us.  Wrong.  It had an offer but the banker takes at least a month to get a note done. 

 

 

 

Myths of the West part I

Depending on where you grew up, you may or not realize a number of later-day myths about the West.  Many came from Hollywood.  Indians weren’t ‘bad guys’in the eyes of many settlers but of widely differing culture. Both groups struggled for existence in the wilderness.  Indians could be feared for their savagery but admired for their ethics. Ultimately, they were seen as simply impoverished neighbors in need of the Gospel.  But the Cowboy vs. Indian diorama was cast by early New York movie producers who were trying to portray the world as a larger version of NY problems, namely immigration.  East Coast Protestants after 1900 were nervous about large numbers of Catholic and Orthodox Southern Europeans invading their cities.  And eastern cities were where the nickelodeon movies (10 minute silent films) were popular. Needing a villain, the producers cast the Indians.  In actual fact, Indians had a stark choice—join the modern world of farming or stay as a tribe.  And since Indian hunter-gatherers had thin population, the government was somewhat baffled about a solution.  Let them live in a tribe on the reservation, a fly-in-amber preservation with few benefits? Or assimilate? The majority assimilated, beyond which they were not counted as Indians. The two main hurdles of assimilation were that Indians considered women to be responsible for agriculture and tribes were small fragmented groups (spawning an us-them mentality. ‘Them’ was also any other tribe.) “Religion” was often just a loose agglomeration of stories. Christianity had much appeal and the leading church that evangelized was Presbyterian, with Methodists, Catholics and Baptists close behind. Pan-Indian religion did not exist until 1918 when it was first preached in Oklahoma. Like Black Muslims, Indian religion practitioners have a ‘constructed belief.’

            How appealing was Christianity? Very.  It had social aspects too. When I ran across carefully-kept Army statistics of 79,000 killings of Indians from colonial times to 1890, compared to 2 million part-Indians in the 1890 census, it became apparent that romance overwhelmingly outdid warfare. I asked an employee, a member of the Ponca Tribal Council, if she knew any romantic Cowboy-Indian stories.  She immediately responded as if she was elated that someone finally asked.  “My Grandparents!” she said gleefully.  Grandfather was a young 15 yr-old cowhand who saw her 12 yr-old grandmother in the trading post one day.  He taught her English, to say “bacon” so she wouldn’t have to make snorting pig sounds to the grocer.  Her father and mother were delighted with the love affair and her dad gave her hand in marriage for a bride price of just 2 horses, all the young cowboy owned. When she found out, she was insulted.  Everyone should know that a good wife should bring 3 or more horses! But when Grandad told her he wanted to borrow his sister’s dress and get married at the Methodist church, she threw her arms around him and all was forgiven.  She and other girls had often hidden shyly behind bushes just to get a glimpse of the white brides coming out of the church in those fabulous gowns, treated like princesses who lived in dry and warm houses.  As it turned out, he did indeed build her a house which was just recently torn down next to US 177.  They were lovingly married over 60 years, attending that same Methodist church.

            Surely stories like this were played out all over our state, all over the United States for 400 years.  Of those who claim “white” on the census in Oklahoma, 30% have 1/16 or more Native American blood.

Sears

Martin Luther once said that a ploughboy, in a close relationship with God, could interpret and do God’s will better than a theologian.  Perhaps that is why there are more Lutheran small-businessmen than in any other denomination.

            Richard Warren Sears was born in 1863 in Stewartville, Minnesota, a rural town near Rochester that is just 5000 people even today.  The family moved to Spring Valley soon thereafter.  His dad was a wagon maker and blacksmith who did well and was on the town council.  But he lost his life savings in a market collapse, died 2 years later, forcing the teenage Richard to go to work for a railroad to help support family.  One day, his rail station had a merchant customer refuse a large order of watches.  Watches were considered a city luxury by farmers.  Richard made a deal to try to sell all those watches.  In six months, the super-salesman had sold every one and signed on a partner, Alvah Roebuck, who repaired watches.  They made money, moved to Chicago, then sold out.  Sears had observed that rural folks will buy only if it is cheap, the same observation of Sam Walton 80 years later.  He and Roebuck went into a mail-order business with Sears writing the catalog copy.  By 1896 it was 140 pages of folksy description.  Sometimes he was too glowing in his product descriptions and it came back to haunt him. “Honesty is the best policy,” he would say.  “I’ve tried it both ways.”

            Sears was targeting the most overworked market segment—farm wives.  His catalog held everything from dishes to clothes to kit houses (1904).  Using the postal system, he allowed them to buy things rarely seen in rural areas.  And by pressuring suppliers, he got prices very low.  And example is the cream separator.  They were typically $100.  Sears found one for $26 that was acceptable and came out with catalog models for $14 and $22.  Within a few years dairymen all over the country, formerly selling only whole milk, were selling cream separately with Sears separators. 

            But organizing and fulfilling orders was problematic.  When Roebuck fell into poor health and sold his share back to Sears (1895), Richard found a venture capitalist in his brother-in-law Rosenwald, who transformed Sears, Roebuck & Co. from a shapeless, inefficient, rapidly expanding corporate mess into the retailing titan of much of the twentieth century. He set up an assembly line to fill sales and a returns department. Richard Sears developed failing health in 1909 and quit his active role in the company.  He died in 1914 at his farm near Milwaukee.  His marketing genius lived on in the company through the 1970s. At its height around WW I, 5 million catalogs of 1200 pages held 100,000 items.  A good example of Sears’ impact was in refrigerators. There were once spring houses farmers dug to keep milk a second day, then ice boxes, but that required ice delivery. In 1918 Kelvinator invented a gas-cycle refrigerator.  Sears began to market it in the 20s and by 1930 was the leading marketer of refrigerators in America.  By the 20s the once rural marketing had turned urban as well with stores. FDR quipped that the way to cure a communist was to hand him a Sears catalog.  But the best indication of how influencial the company became was a story related by a Sunday School teacher.  The kids were asked, “Where did the Ten Commandments come from?” Answer: “From the Sears, Roebuck catalog!”

Queen Victoria's 200th is a big deal

Friday, May 24 was the 200^th birthday of Queen Victoria of The United Kingdom.  Canadians say that Queen Victoria’s B-Day is the day when you can safely put away your coat.  The media quips that she was the longest reigning monarch, but now eclipsed by Elizabeth II.  The real significance of V. was that she was the first Britsh monarch to make the monarchy wholly ceremonial, hence a great tourist draw without the political backlash.  Her mother, Victoria of Saxe-Coburg was married to George III’s fourth son.  George III was the king who lost USA, then went mad and had a long reign to 1820. His aging sons George and William were terribly unpopular.  George IV was known as Prince of Whales because he was fat and drank to excess, ruled 1820-30.  Then William IV ruled from 1830-37.  He never grew up and was always a adolescent drunk and womanizer. Neither had children. When Edward died, V’s mom, also ‘Victoria’, kept her daughter under close supervision and away from her ‘wicked uncles’.  Victoria was just 8 when she became heir apparent.  If William IV did anything correct it was to pack the House of Lords with forward thinking nobles who wanted to reform British politics so that the House of Commons Members would represent equal numbers of people. (Former landed system divided things weirdly so that some had hardly any constituents and others had industrial cities).  In 1832 it passed.  Duchess Victoria was quite German and her sister was great grandmother of my German great grandmother.   But young Victoria was thoroughly British. Her uncle Leopold became King of the Belgians and he had been sort of a surrogate father to her.  He constantly wrote back home advising her how to become a good queen.  When she did become queen, she put herself under the wing of Lord Melbourne, and amiable and avuncular Whig.  Perhaps because she trusted him, perhaps because the British were so disgusted and sour over her two uncles’ reigns, she began to quiet the monarch’s role in governing, especially war.  Then she fell in love with her cousin, Albert of Saxe-Coburg-Gotha.  They married in 1840. He was too German for the Brits, too spendthrift and too intellectual.  Parliament distrusted him.  So the couple retreated from politics even more.  Museums like South Kensington and publicity for charitable and worthy causes were their work instead.  When Europe exploded in revolution 1848 against dictatorial monarchs, Britain was quite content.  Then in 1851Albert conceived a Great Exhibition to show new technology of the machine age.  With Victoria and Albert the lead hosts, the entire exhibition was a spectacular success.

.     Victoria and Albert were a devoted couple and had 9 kids.  V. didn’t like child-rearing and used nannies.  But Albert put the best construction on it with pictures of the royal family around the Christmas tree and other familial photos .  It was a huge hit with the public.  All the while this was going on, wars and politics were in an uproar--Mines Act forbid child labor, a law limiting working hours to 13, Crimean War, Opium Wars with China and Indian Mutiny.  Had Victoria played a part in this, her popularity would have surely shrunk. 

.     When Albert died in 1861, Victoria was only 42, and she wore black-mourning  the rest of her life. She loved Disraeli  and disliked Gladstone, but advised them both.  And under them, England transformed from a colonial power to an empire upon which the sun never sets.  (Perhaps, someone said, God doesn’t  trust an Englishman in the dark.) Victoria became the symbol of this empire trying to rule justly and she was the “Grandmother of Europe.” When she died in 1901 she had begun the ‘century of the common man.’ But her initative to make the monarchy ceremonial and a force for good would live on to influence most of the First Ladies of USA in the 20^th century.  For just as there is a place for the rough-and-tumble of politics, there is also a place for civilization and good-will. So while we celebrate Memorial Day this weekend, realize that the British Commonwealth celebrates the queen who made democracy under constitutional monarchy possible.

Walt Disney

Walt Disney was born in Chicago but the Disneys moved to Marceline, Missouri when he was age 4 where his father farmed with Walt’s uncle.  Two years after Walt started school, they moved again to Kansas City.  The family was poor.  He and brother Roy led a grueling life of paperboys both morning and evening distributing the Kansas City Star and KC Times. There was literally no time for play.  Many of the houses they delivered had rich residents, and one day another boy saw Walt throwing their paper.  He showed Walt his bicycle.  Walt’s eyes grew big and he could only dream of having toys and a bike. He was too painfully shy to talk. The other kid befriended him and began to put out toys near the door so that his chance friend, Walt, could pause for a few seconds and admire the forbidden toys, try one or two, and fantasize.

            Walt and Roy didn’t get very good grades in school because they were tired.  But Walt loved to draw, had a talent for it, and studied art in the upper grades. The family was strictly Protestant and patriotic.   He lied about his age in 1918 and got into the army but the war was over by the time he got to France.  He drove an ambulance. His hastily drawn cartoons were printed in “Stars and Stripes.”  Back home after the war, he got work at a commercial art studio, then at a film animation company.  He started his own studio which promptly went bankrupt like those prior companies.  But he had produced his first film, a 12 minute animation, Alice’s Adventure in Wonderland.  In 1923, He and Roy moved to Los Angeles, eventually opening up a studio for cartooning.  There they created Mickey Mouse.

            His humble character and unswerving Protestantism (We are Saints and Sinners: Walt chain-smoked and drank) led him to produce not only comedy but moral plays, rich with fantasy. As a child he loved Aesop’s Fables. As a filmmaker, he made delightful anthropomorphic animals.  Employing a separate script department they wrote family-oriented, optimistic screenplays with lessons of life.  And during the hard times of the 1930’s these were keenly accepted.  Mickey Mouse was introduced as Steamboat Willie, a character always getting into a scrape but escaping harm by doing right.  The Three Little Pigs depicted pigs who worked hard in defiance of adversity taunting a Big Bad Wolf (the Depression).  Snow White shows that a true princess’s character is her real beauty as she teams with little people who work diligently. Pinocchio illustrates that lies get you in trouble but truth wins. 

            When labor costs after WW II made cartoon animation expensive, Disney started doing nature documentaries and live action pictures.  Disney recognized the potential of television as well.  But deep down inside Walt was still the kid who’d had no toys but lots of fantasies.  So in 1951 he began plans for a grandiose toy explosion in Disneyland amusement park. Main Street was patterned after his memories of Marceline, Walt’s fascination with trains produced a train that ran through the park.  Disneyland soon became a mecca for tourists from all over the world.  And the lessons-on-life films continued. Lady and the Tramp (sowing your oats is fun but finding a partner, doing your duty bravely even when unappreciated, is the greater joy), Song of the South (even clever people do very stupid things and get stuck, but you can still win), and Bambi (growing up is scary and full of scars, but nobility awaits in real adulthood).  Critics have said that Walt Disney’s films indoctrinated the world with American Protestant values.  Perhaps, but Christianity seems to have a global resonance. Maybe it is an unusual way for Jesus Christ to get a foot in their door. Oh, and don’t forget to be the other kid who shared his toys with the paperboy.  You never know who he might grow up to be.

                                     

The Revival that started Independence

                             

The Great Awakening was a phenomenal religious revival in Colonial America.  Oddly. it started through spiritual poverty.

            Unlike the French and Spanish who directed colonies in a planned format, with an omnipresent state, professional bureaucracy, and little local representation, the Brits had no money to spend. So they let adventurers and businessmen do it.  Colonies were established as charters by investors, or proprietary by important men of means.  Thus England got colonies largely for nothing but that meant colonies had to be self-supporting.  By the 1680s the crown began to wrest back control. 9 of 13 became crown colonies via revoked charters.  That failed. English meanness of appointed governors was matched by colonials demanding local parliaments.  Advisors, picked from the House of Lords never left England. American colonies had written constitutions which Britain never had.  British law only had precedents.  Constitutions inevitably made one think of rights, natural law, and absolutes.  British practicality, abhorred such things--“abstract stuff”. And so gradually common men of the lower houses began to take power in the colonies.  A bad royal proclamation would not stick.  A mob would oppose it, whose leaders were likely popular officials of the local government.

            Colonial government was kept very, very limited. Psalm 146:3 says “Trust not in princes.” Jesus said, “Render unto Caesar that which is Caesar’s and unto God that which is God’s.” (i.e., some things don’t belong to Caesar.)  It was hard to collect from backwoodsmen. American colonies were the least taxed perhaps in all history.  A few colonies had no tax at all until 1760, raising all funds by criminal fines and a few small fees.  No taxes meant people had 100% disposable income.  The colonial economy grew by 500% from 1700 to 1750 as population doubled every generation. This 4% growth rate might seem logical.  After all it was free land with many resources.  But it was also extremely remote and 4000 miles to a cash market.  People were sparse and skilled craftsmen far more so. Frontiers were dangerous. These sorts of conditions are why places like New Zealand never had rapid growth. With the good economy, many grew rich and secular. A German immigrant remarked, “Pennsylvania is heaven for farmers, paradise for artisans and hell for preachers.” America was spiritually impoverished.  But it was among Penn’s German refugees from the Thirty Years War, who saw nothing but God’s grace at work.  In 1719, a Reformed German pastor Theodore Frelinghuysen, led a series of “revival meetings” in the Raritan valley.  The movement began not in cities, but in the countryside, where it was a rare treat to hear a sermon.  The few pastors were anxious to have the illiterate listeners read the Bible for themselves and so reading programs and Bible [printing] Societies boomed.  William Tennent, a NJ Presbyterian pastor in the 1720s, started travelling to remote areas where he and his son practiced “firey preaching and rip-roaring hymn-singing.” His Log College later moved and became Princeton. Jonathan Edwards of Massachusetts was intrigued by this.  But he de-emphasized preaching the Puritan message of “God chose some, not others” with hellfire sermons.  He added more Gospel to the Law and instructions on how to have a fruitful life.  Finally it was George Whitefield who caused a sensation. He was a Billy Graham-style preacher who went on the first continental tour stopping daily to tent preach two stirring sermons a day.

            The country exploded with faith. In 20 months, 1740-1742, church attendance tripled. In every church there seemed to be town drunks who found a new life of faith or known thieves who paid people back. Bibles abounded in homes.  This same Whitefield reaction happened in Catholic Maryland, Lutheran Delaware and Anglican Virginia.  People read it in the papers and began to say, ‘Look! We are all alike!’  “The United States” was uttered for the first time. America had become a country of religious tolerance where free will, moral purity, personal faith, help thy neighbor, and appreciation of God’s word superseded European wars. John Adams put it, “The Revolution was effected before the War…in the minds and hearts of people; and change in their religious sentiments of their duties and obligations.”

Tom and the Pirates

Tom came home from the war and just weeks after he had come home, his wife died leaving him with 3 young daughters.  It broke his heart and nearly broke his mind.  He would hitch up the horses to the wagon and he and his ten year old daughter, Margaret, would ride around the farm endlessly saying nothing.  Neighbors noticed and they appealed to his neighbor, George, who maybe could do something.  And so George Washington asked Thomas Jefferson if he would be his ambassador to France.  Tom knew he needed a change of scenery and agreed.  He Margaret with him intending to send for the two younger girls, Mary who was six and Lucy who was just 2 when he was settled in in Paris.  A month after he got to France he got a letter from Aunt Eppie who was taking care of the girls.  Lucy had contracted whooping cough and died.  Now Tom was really broken up and determined to get Mary over to France to be with him. 

            But there was a problem.  The Muslim Barbary States of northern Africa had fleets of pirates who preyed on shipping.  They would take over a ship for a prize and then hold the passengers and crew for ransom or worse enslave them.  The things they did to children were unspeakable, making little girls sex slaves in harems and castrating little boys and making them eunuchs, forced conversions to Islam. One day Tom had dinner with the Ambassador of Tripoli and he asked him, “Sir, our country means no harm to yours.  Is there any possibility you could stop pirating our ships?” And the ambassador said, “No.”  According to his holy book, the Quran,” Abdrahaman said, “all nations who have not acknowledged the Prophet are sinners and subhumans, whom it is the Right and Duty of the Faithful to plunder and enslave.” Jefferson couldn’t believe what he was hearing!  But being an intellectual, he thought, I will check it out, get a copy of the Quran to read to see if Abdrahaman knows what he is talking about. So Tom found a Quran, translated into French, and read it. “Wow!  That Muslim is correct!” Therefore, we can only deal with the Barbary Pirates with force.  We must build a navy and go after them.  This was ironic because Jefferson was the pacificist who had argued to disband the army just a couple years before.  So he wrote a letter asking Congress to build a navy when he returned home to the job of Washington’s Secretary of State.  USA did build a navy and then as President, Thomas Jefferson built a bigger navy and the rest is history.  Stephen Decatur and the Marines burned Tripoli harbor and tiny USA put the Barbary Pirates out of business. The emirates stopped all pirate activity, even against other countries. 

            One of the great indicators of the truth of the gospel is that it points to eternal truth instead of getting bogged down in some in a mindset of the moment.  Much of Islam is steeped in Arab culture’s faults—cruelty, polygamy, slavery.  Quran, Sura 9:3 says “terrorize the infidels and beleaguer them.  Cut off their heads and cut off their fingers.” Hard as it may be for some to accept, Islam is at war with us. Yet we have the Eternal Savior. I’ve read the end of His book. We will win.

Paddy's Day

 You know you live in a small town when you still can't find corned beef during St. Patrick's week. Here's something to chew on. I ran it last year.                         

Patricius was 12 years old. One day he and his buddies decided to go swimming instead of going to school.  It was about the year 397, a long time ago. And Patrick lived in Britain.  At that time, the Roman Empire, which had protected everyone, no longer did it very well. What Pat and his friends didn’t know was that some fierce Irish Celts were waiting to capture them and take them across the ocean to Ireland as slaves.  And so Patrick and friends just disappeared and their parents were heartbroken.  As a slave Patrick had only a gunny sack to wear, hardly anything to eat and he had to watch and herd of a hundred head of cattle in the pastures.  He had to herd and guard the cows, day and night, winter snows, summer heat, rain, come what may, Patrick was out in it.  If he lost calves, he was beaten. What do you do when you are in an impossible situation?  Patrick began to pray.  He didn’t simply pray about what he wanted, but he began to talk to God as if God was his last friend on earth.  He would pray hundreds of times a day telling about all his troubles and just trying to remember the Christian faith he had been taught.  The Irish weren’t Christians.  They worshiped a sun god and thought that spirits were everywhere in plants and rocks and animals. So everything in nature was important to the Irish. Patrick knew he was going to be a slave for the rest of his life. He learned his job and all about the land he now found himself in, a green country of clover (shamrock) pastures and lots of rain.  Patrick had truly become Irish by the end of 10 long years.  He talked to God continually and had dreams.  Finally one night, a dream came with orders to leave. If he was caught he’d be killed!  Though not knowing where he was, Pat just started walking.  It was amazing that no one saw or bothered to stop this runaway slave! Eventually he walked to the seashore.   Patrick saw a merchant ship and went to talk to the sailors, telling them plainly that he was from Breton and wanted to go home.  Sure, said the crafty sailors, thinking they would just sell him again when they got to another place.  So they invited Patrick aboard and set sail first for the coast of Gaul (France), to trade a few things. 

     When they got to Gaul, it was disaster everywhere.  The seaport had been burned to the ground and no longer existed. There were no people or animals.  It was the year 408 AD and the previous winter had been a record cold one.  The Rhine River rarely freezes but it had frozen so solidly that thousands of barbarian Germans could walk across the river.  Over a quarter million German Franks swarmed into Gaul. They were fiercer than the even the Irish.  They stole everything they could from the towns, ate the food and killed most of the people.  This is what the surprised sailors now saw.  After finding nothing to eat, the starving sailors taunted Patrick about praying to his Christian God.  Patrick looked them squarely in the eye and said that if they would pray with him, then God would provide for them as He had done so many times before.  So the hungry sailors tried a moment of faith, and in the midst of the prayer, a herd of hogs came running over the hill and down the road straight at the men.  A feast.  Hogs were killed and they held a barbecue. At that point the sailors began to say maybe they should take this slave kid home since he had some sort of power they feared.

     Home in Britain, Patrick struggled to catch up in school and didn’t do very well.  He became a priest but wasn’t very good at just holding church on Sunday.  Still he prayed tirelessly and had dreams.  One night an old Irish friend appeared in his dream begging him to come to Ireland again.  If he did that, would they capture him and make him a slave again?  Despite his fears, Patrick wanted to share the good news about Jesus Christ and all it meant with the Irish.  So he left for Ireland.  He walked right into the leading king’s judgment hall and told his story bravely.  Why didn’t the King of Limerick have him arrested and enslaved?  In a warrior society, bravery, a good storyteller, generosity, and loyalty were the signs of a tremendous warrior.  Here was Patrick, coming fearlessly and ardently wanting to give the king the secret to all of life.  Now that’s generous! He told a fascinating story of how God led him to freedom. Now he was here, more loyal to Ireland than to Breton his home.  That was quite impressive to the Irish Celts.  Right there and then, the king decided that he wanted to be a Christian like Pat.  Patrick went out with the king’s blessing and traveled to his former owner, who was so astonished by Patrick that it moved him to praise Patrick’s God and ask if he could have such faith.  From one end of Ireland to the other, Patrick traveled preaching the message and God converted the Irish.  They asked a lot of questions.  How could there be one God yet 3 persons?  Patrick reached down and pulled up a shamrock leaf.  See, there are three leaves but one shamrock leaf, he told them, and all of the pastures of Ireland tell us this.  How could Mary have been a virgin and yet have given birth?  It was God’s miracle, just like a cow having twins, Patrick said.  But was this God of Christ as important as the old Irish Sun god, whose symbol was a ring? Patrick drew a cross overlapping the ring and told them that God in heaven is both the creator (ring) and the One who sent his Son to die because he loved them so much (cross). Surely, such love is the greatest of all things. Eventually, Patrick also taught them how to read and farm as well.  And so a strange thing happened.  As the Roman Empire collapsed and barbarians took over, Ireland became more civilized.  By the time Patrick died, the Irish, had built churches and monasteries around the country and were copying not only the Bible but also other old books eagerly.  Much of the classic Roman literature we have today comes from books saved and recopied by the Irish.  Some decided they wanted to be like Patrick and take the gospel message back to the continent and convert those bloodthirsty German barbarians.  Over about 200 years, the Irish saved European civilization. 

           Patrick of Ireland was the first Christian missionary after Paul. A one-time slave brought civilization and salvation to the Celts who in turn saved much of Europe in the Dark Ages. Green, national color of Ireland, is the color of new life in Jesus Christ, Patrick explained.  Thus we wear green to commemorate the day he died, March 17, 461, St. Patrick’s Day.

Mae West

In 1925, a young vaudeville jazz singer, Mildred Mae Westerly, had a nearly tragic run-in with the Firemen’s mascot monkey in a place called Ponca City, Oklahoma. The train carrying the show arrived at the depot and following tradition of vaudeville shows--the cast had a parade down Grand Ave. to announce the show and drum up interest. Mildred was a jazz singer who had 10 little Spitz dogs on leashes with doggie coats to herald her act.  As they turned into the firehouse adjacent the Ponca City Theatre, the dogs encountered a caged monkey the firemen had been given by the 101 Ranch.  The monkey and dogs went wild.  In the ensuing melee, the monkey got hold of Westerly’s hair. It tore out a patch and bruised her face.  As the firemen were putting on some bandages, Mildred took it in stride.  “You know everything crazy happens to me.  I should change my act and do comedy.”  She went home to New York for recovery thinking about what she had said, and she did just that.  Already a Shakespearian actress, she wrote comedy vaudeville skits and changed her stage name back to her real name, Mary Jane Mae West.

            Mae’s dad was Bavarian Catholic and his mother was Irish Catholic-Jewish. But they joined a Presbyterian church at Greenpoint (part of New York City today).  Mae had done stage since the age of 5. In 1926, at 34 she wrote, produced and directed a broadway play, Sex. She wrote scenes about the male-female chase, full of absurdity of what characters really thought.  Men were obsessed with women’s looks and women were half-smart in manipulating. The production did not go over well with city officials, who had received complaints from some religious groups and the theater was raided, with West arrested along with the cast. Her skits were so filled with sexual innuendo it scandalized the Eastern audiences.  She was banned in Boston (that is where we get the term) and run out of New York.  Dejected, she wrote her brother that she hadn’t meant to offend people’s faith, just poke fun of the battle of the sexes and sex of the battle. He told her to hang tough.  So when sentenced to 10 days in jail or pay a fine for “corrupting the morals of youth” she chose jail and played it to the hilt for publicity. West emerged more popular than ever. She wrote Diamond Lil in 1928. And then a funny thing happened. The shows were sellouts in the Midwest. Farm couples, trying to raise large families and used to seeing animal sex all day long, thought her plays, full of double entendres and breezy flirtation a hoot, not a scandal. She went to Hollywood and by 1932 was the best paid actress in film—making dull lines memorable by being outrageously suggestive.

            What Mae really disliked was hypocrisy.  Introduced to William Randolph Hearst and his mistress, she made a comment over their relationship that got her in trouble. Hearst went on the warpath. At one point, he asked aloud, "Isn't it time Congress did something about the Mae West menace?" Paramount executives felt they had to tone down the West characterization, or face further recrimination. This may be surprising by today's standards, as West's films contained no nudity, no profanity and very little violence. Though raised in an era when women held second-place roles in society, West portrayed confident women who were not afraid to use their wiles to get what they wanted. "I was the first liberated woman, you know. No guy was going to get the best of me. That's what I wrote all my scripts about." In 1940 her double entendres got her into trouble amazingly enough with Edgar Bergen’s ventriloquist dummy, Charlie McCarthy, on the radio, no less. Her career began to languish in the backlash. 

            But raised a Presbyterian, Mae attended church often, took care of her mother, brother and many others for years. She tithed and picked up Scot investment savvy.  “I need God more than anyone else,” she is to have said.  As her career waned, her wealth grew and she spent a long retirement as a philantropist.  Which I suppose proves that Christians aren’t perfect, we are redeemed.

Zenger

This should give a chuckle.  Reprint of a  British Historian from 1950, who was trying to explain US politics to the Brits.  He said that you could understand it by who had immigrated where.  New England was all Puritan Calvinists from East Anglia (Southeast) who are stern, untalkative and controlling.  The South was migrants from West England who are ultra-traditional and conservative.  Mid Atlantic states were Midlanders where many ideas mingled.  They were tolerant and loved new stuff.  Then there was New York.  Ill-supported by the Dutch, the colony was like an orphan child.  It had to make money on its own and so smugglers, pirates, hawksters, prostitutes and just about anybody did business there.  New Yorkers didn’t question your beliefs and to this day almost distrust you if you have any beliefs whatsoever (ahem!). 

            New York was home to the first big court case of colonial America.  Here’s background.  British America grew like crazy in the 1700s.  Strictly speaking the colonies were supposed to stick with agriculture and Parliament tended to think of Americans as ill-educated, poor, with one significant crop, tobacco.  But in violation of laws, America was rapidly becoming secretly industrial. Craftsmen were in short supply and could easily go into business for themselves.  Thus Americans never formed guilds or struck employers. An average man ate 10 ounces of meat a day and women had an average of 7 healthy children.  Farms were typically 100 acres, gigantic by Brit standards. And the place was growing like wildfire. 1700 to 1750 had 4% annual economic growth and the population passed 1 million.  If you compared New York to Quebec, French Quebec had been heavily subsidized by France for fur trade.  Yet by 1750 it still had only 60,000 people where the Hudson Valley had over 100,000 who had come from everywhere—Walloons and Flemings, Swedes, Germans, Norwegians, Scots, English Quakers, Irish, and freed slaves.  This milieu was noisy, acrimonious, faction-ridden, and mixed in faiths.  But nearly all agreed that Truth was what Jesus taught.

            In January 1735, John Peter Zenger, a newspaper owner, was locked up for criticizing the governor, William Crosby. Zenger’s lawyer, Andrew Hamilton of Philadelphia, brought forward a defense that he had merely told the truth.  That would not have been admitted in English court where criminally libelous talk was defined as anything  that fostered ‘ill will against the government.’  The judge tried to overrule the defense, but the jury demanded to hear it nonetheless, and then found the defendant not guilty by reason of Truth.  This became a harbinger of what critics of society could get away with in America. Two of the jurors were Lutherans; 3, Anglicans, who told a newspaper that their reasoning for Truth was as follows.  When we are claimed as believers in God, He puts his Love in us. And according to I Cor. 13, Love is patient and kind, has no envy or pride, not self-seeking, doesn’t delight in evil but Rejoices in Truth.  They found it an offense to their faith to convict a man who tells the truth.  The truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth.  Or as Jesus said, “you shall know the Truth and the Truth shall set your free.”

Lincoln--the inner man

President's Day. You think politics is divided today?  In 1861 it was so divided that South Carolina led 7 southern states to secede from the country (eventually 3 more) and our worst war took place.  This shutdown occurred when the only man who could have prevented it by his moral arguments was shut out of office for 5 months awaiting inauguration. 

            Abraham Lincoln was an anomaly in politics, a humble man of moral genius.  Jesus often taught that our actions must reflect our faith, but usually it’s the opposite.  Northerners and Southerners of the same church denominations split those churches over their own moral righteousness of their cause.  Lincoln was home-schooled by a mother who had only a Bible and a biography of George Washington.  Abe grew up without going to church and never did go.  Yet he had moral teaching, was moral by nature, and constantly quoted the biblical law (not gospel).  When he said “God” he often meant Providence. But he had humility and logical acumen, to figure out how morals must guide us.  In his campaign for President he said, “I come from nowhere.” (in a frontier log cabin) He believed his mother was illegitimate and she probably was.  His father was harsh and he had no important ancestors. Abe became a self-taught lawyer, failed in business, and the love of his life died.  He then married the prominent Mary Carter, who had money and famed ancestors.  She pushed him into politics because he was a master story teller and had good relations with all. But when he came home, she described him as ‘most useless, good-for-nothing man on earth’, a man who would just sit and read.  But Lincoln was thinking about life.  The issue of the day was slavery, the cruelty of which he had witnessed on many occasions. The one-term congressman wrote in 1849, “If A can prove, however conclusively, that he may of right enslave B, why may not B snatch the same argument…and enslave A? A is white and B is black—is it color then? Take care—by this rule, you are to be the slave to the first man you meet, with a fairer skin than your own…You mean whites are intellectually superior? Take care again—you are to be the slave of the first man you meet with an intellect superior to your own.” In the Lincoln Douglas debates of 1858: “If slavery is good for negroes in the South, why not extend it to white men as well?” “Slavery happens when Liberty is destroyed. Our Union comes from the cause of Liberty.  Liberty and Union, now forever, inseparable.” Republican Convention: “We read in scripture that a man should receive the fruits of his labor.  Slaves are denied this God-given right.” “A house divided against itself cannot stand.  I believe this government cannot endure half slave and half free.” Douglas was a compromiser, who kicked the can of controversy down the road. Douglas won the Senate seat, but Lincoln became the conscience of the country. “The South knows that slavery is wrong. Why have so many slaves been set free, except by the promptings of conscience?” And concerning the Supreme Court Dred Scott decision on runaway slaves: “you can fool all the people some on the time, and some of the people all the time, but you cannot fool all the people all the time.” Lincoln succeeded in making people confront the issue and the South reacted with paranoia.  Abolitionists had decried slavery for years but Lincoln made perfect sense to any farmer, frontiersman, or shop-owner.

            The result was the Republicans ran Lincoln in 1860.  The Democrat Convention split into North and South nominations, and Whigs nominated a border state guy. Lincoln won the lowest-ever 39.9% of the popular vote but won an electoral college majority. South Carolina, who had first brought slave culture to colonial America, seceded followed by 6 other states via state conventions.  Hence, 697 men, mostly wealthy plantation owners, in state conventions, voted ‘secession’ and  initiated the war. All the while Pres. Buchanan sat indecisive for 5 months as Lincoln awaited inauguration. More ironically, the South had held all the political cards yet threw the game in a temper tantrum. Abolition would have required an Amendment and southern Democrats held control of Congress.

            But what of Lincoln’s faith?  As the war wore on and the toll skyrocketed, Lincoln agonized. “To anyone who reads his letters, speeches, and conversations, it is hard to believe that whatever his religious state of mind before the war, he acquired faith before it ended.”(historian Paul Johnson)  He began reading his Bible daily, talking about his prayers, “The Lord is always on the side of right. But it is of my constant anxiety and prayer that I and this nation should be on the Lord’s side.” “I am but a fallible man.” Second Inaugural Address: “With malice toward none, with charity to all, with firmness in the right, as God gives us to see the right.” So while everybody else seemed to be claiming to be an Agent of God’s Will, “the Elect Nation” or as a general called himself “a dictator for righteousness,” Lincoln remained humble.  As Sherman put it, “he invariably did the right thing, the God-fearing thing.”

Pocahontas

                                    History is His Story

Why did British, not French nor Spanish come to dominate N. America?  Agriculture, faith and a love story are why.

            In 1415, the Portuguese began to venture on the seas and discovered many volcanic islands west of Africa. What crop to grow there?  They found the answer further south in Africa.  African agriculture’s only carbohydrate was sugar cane grown under hot, backbreaking conditions by slaves.  Slavery was long gone from Europe, but the Portuguese began to adopt it, and grew instantly rich as Europe became addicted to sugar--only had honey prior.  Spain came to the new world but struggled to establish a colony for 30 years in Hispanola.  Then Cortez had a bold defeat of the Aztecs and Pizarro of the Incas.  Their model was to colonize the way they had conquered and occupied Moorish Spain—make serfs of the natives and force them to convert. Native American agriculture had little meat, mostly birds that were hunted.  Spanish had cattle, horses, hogs, sheep and chickens, an enticement for native Indians to join a hacienda (plantation).  But Indians died rapidly of smallpox-- 20 million people from Mexico to Peru became 2 million in 40 years.  Hence the Spanish brought slaves to do the labor. One strange group were the natives of Canary Islands, fair-skinned blondes who were deported to Puerto Rico.  Hence there are dark- and light-skinned Puerto Ricans today.

            France was totally absorbed in civil war between Catholics and Calvinists until 1590.  They realized that they needed to grab a portion of N. America before the Spanish owned it all. Indians in what we call the Deep South had some corn/beans agriculture, but were mostly hunter-gatherers among a population of 2 to 5 million north of  Mexico.  France founded 2 forts in Florida that the watchful Spanish destroyed.  Champlain, recognizing the value of fishing and furs established a foothold in Acadia and Quebec. 

            But if common men will risk everything to go to a new place, they must feel that somehow God calls them to go to the wilderness to ply their humble trades, like farming or trapping.  The Spanish brought priests and built churches but the contingent was mostly soldiers.  Likewise the French neglected farming.  The first two British settlements Roanoke and Jamestown, were also soldiers and adventurers with very secular leadership.  They too failed or languished. There were other failed English settlements you’ve probably never heard of, like Sagadahoc in Maine. The English had no cash crop.

            Post Reformation Britain developed a popular myth that England was a Chosen Race, the new Israel. Fox’s Book of Martyrs, a book of stories about Protestants resisting Bloody Mary’s attempt at Catholic restoration was the popular read.  Wycliffe begat Hus begat Luther begat Cranmer, Brits reasoned. The Sea Dog pirates and merchants of England adopted strict Protestantism in their codes of bravery and had a reason to raid Spanish shipping. “God is English.  For you fight not only in the quarrell of your country, but also chiefly in defence of His true religion.” --Queen Elizabeth. Converting Indians was a goal of both Jamestown and Plymouth as they settled colonies but Jamestown was mostly soldiers.  It would have died-off had not Capt. John Smith arrived in 1608 to find 53 survivors.  He organized military discipline, negotiated with the tribes to get enough food to last the winter, and got no thanks for his efforts as he left. The colony again nearly collapsed but a teenage Indian girl, daughter of the chief, befriended the settlers.  But war broke out and Pocahontas was taken hostage by the colonists.  Nonetheless, Pastor Whitaker taught her Christianity and she was baptized in January 1614. (Anglican theology) A truce was put in place, but Pocahantas wanted to stay with the Christians. And later (February?) she fell in love with John Rolfe. Pocahontas and Rolfe married and produced children, thus endearing the Powhattans who showed Rolfe how to grow tobacco. Suddenly 60 settlers in Virginia had a cash crop. In 1619 the British crown hit upon the idea that they could exile convicts to Jamestown. Many had mental problems but others were determined to turn their lives around with faith and farming.  A ship of poor women arrived as well, available for the price of 125 pounds of tobacco. Settler-families started to emerge.  And on July 30, 1619, the first General Assembly of Virginia met in the Jamestown Church.  The colony designed a miniature parliament.  There was nothing like it in all the Americas, the first popular legislature.  At a time when Virginia’s progenitor, Sir Walter Raleigh, was executed by James I over the issue of divine right of kings, this was a significant portent of America’s future.  And by the way, proud Rolfe descendants are numerous in Virginia today.