Presbyterians and soulcraft woven throughout Will’s speech The Presbyterian Layman Volume 34, Number 5 Posted July 6, 2001 LOUISVILLE, Ky. – Pulitzer Prize-winning columnist George F. Will believes that the religious life of the American people and the political life of the country are – and always have been – inextricably entwined. During a program sponsored June 8 by the Presbyterian Lay Committee, Will said the moral strength of a nation directly relates to a religious “river” spanning generations, and he used two stories about Presbyterians to illustrate his theme. “I was, just at the beginning of this week, at Princeton University, where my goddaughter is a sophomore, where I received my Ph.D. and where a friend of mine was graduating. And at Princeton we revere the name of someone who I know is revered by this audience. A man who really ranks high among the most important of our Founding Fathers, yet is not widely recognized as such by people perhaps outside of this room and others of your spirit. “I refer, of course, to John Witherspoon. John Witherspoon was not only the great formative influence on one of our great universities, Princeton, he was singlehandedly the teacher of the young country. His students included – listen to this – 12 people who attended the Continental Congress; five delegates to the Constitutional Convention; one president, James Madison; one vice president, Aaron Burr; 49 members of the U.S. House of Representatives; 28 United States senators; three Supreme Court justices; one Secretary of State; three Attorneys General. “He is the only clergyman to have signed the Declaration of Independence, he helped draft the Articles of Confederation and he was a member of the New Jersey Legislature that ratified the Constitution. “He is also emblematic of a simple fact – sometimes forgotten, sometimes it can be argued against even if it makes some people unhappy. The fact is that the religious life of the American people and the political life of our country are – and always have been – inextricably entwined.” In the midst of discussing the moral coarsening of today’s society, Will spoke of the need for a continuing religious “river” of moral standards that would span generations, saying: “You know where Americans used to get this? From a Presbyterian clergyman named William H. McGuffey. “You’ve heard of his readers? His readers were the moral instruction for our country for many generations. It has been estimated that from the first edition of his readers in 1836 through 1920, 120 million American children – half the schoolchildren – acquired their moral bearings from his readers. “Ah, but he died, and the fourth edition of his readers came out after his death, in 1879, and a very interesting change had occurred. Hitherto it had said, one should not covet one’s neighbor’s riches because it’s a violation of God’s commandment. The 1879 edition said one should not covet one’s neighbor’s riches because God will make you rich anyway. Now, this was an America undergoing a change, a secularization, a slow abandonment of the river that is part of a serious religious faith.”

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