592 BALCH— SOME FORMER MEMBERS. [April i8. 



Nature and Extent of the Legislative Authority of the British Par- 

 Hament." The sermon that he preached on " fast day," May 17, 

 1776, on the " Dominion of Providence over the Passions of Men," 

 he dedicated to John Hancock, the president of Congress ; it was 

 reprinted at Glasgow, with notes in the loyal interest, to show the 

 iniquity of rebels. He was a member of the New Jersey Conven- 

 tion that framed a constitution for that colony and showed much 

 legal knowledge. Among other things he urged an omission of reli- 

 gious tests. He served in the Provincial Congress of New Jersey, 

 and afterwards he represented that colony in the Continental Con- 

 gress. He always wore his clerical garb, and considered himself to 

 be " God's minister both in a sacred and a civil sense." In Congress 

 he did his full share of work, opposing, with keen insight, the re- 

 peated issues of paper currency. The part that Witherspoon played 

 in those years of trial has until now been much underestimated. 

 Among his other services to America it should not forgotten that 

 he was the only clergyman who signed the Declaration of Inde- 

 pendence. The religious leaders of the nations have a profound 

 influence on their development and destiny. For, as Paul Fredericq, 

 of the University of Ghent, has so truly said : 



" Perhaps all historians do not attach a sufficient importance to the action 

 of religion on the development or restriction of public liberty. ... As soon as 

 you do not close your eyes you notice this historic truth : There are religions 

 that put the peoples to sleep and there are religions that keep them awake." 



And Witherspoon's religious teaching was not of a kind to lull a 

 nation to slumber.-*' 



'" Montesquieu : " Esprit des Lois," Livre XXIV., chapitre V. ; Thomas 

 Balch, " Les Frangais en Amerique," Paris. 1872, pages 22-41 ; fimile de Lave- 

 leye, " Le Protestantisme et le Catholicisme dans leurs rapports avec la liberte 

 et la prosperite des peuples " (RcTue de Belgique, Brussells, January 15, 1875), 

 reprinted in " Essais et fitudes," premiere serie, 1861-1875, Ghent and Paris, 

 1894, pages 370-409; R. Treumann: "Die Monarchomachen : Fine Darstellung 

 der revolutionaren Staatslehren des XVI. Jahrhunderts," Leipzig, 1895; Paul 

 Fredericq, " Le Calvinism et le Self-Government " {Journal de Geneve, July 

 ID, 1909), reprinted in the Journal of the Presbyterian Historical Society, 

 Philadelphia, June, 1910, page 270. 



There are statues of Witherspoon in Fairmount Park, Philadelphia, on 

 Connecticut Avenue in the City of Washington, and on the walls of the 

 library of Princeton University. 



