George Washington’s “Daily Sacrifice”

George Washington’s father died when he was 11 yr’s old. His father’s name was Augustine. His mother was named Mary, who instilled into young George the importance of God in his life. He had been baptized into the Episcopal Church. (As a side bar, the Episcopal Church in that day was much different than the current one.) It would only be a short few years and George would become a soldier. Before leaving for the army his mother gave him these words, “Remember that God is our only sure trust. To Him I commend you.” She added: “My son, neglect not the duty of secret prayer.” Young George listened to his mother. He began keeping a journal each day as he served in the military campaigns. During an early campaign, he would write a 24-page journal. Morning and Evening prayers would be included. As I read some of these prayers, I don’t doubt for a moment that Washington understood that Jesus Christ was his only hope of being saved, born again. Daily Sacrifice was the title given to the journal. Entry number one or prayer one is called “Sunday Morning.” “Almighty God, and most merciful Father, who didst command the children of Israel to offer a daily sacrifice to Thee, that thereby they might glorify and praise Thee for Thy protection both night and day … I beseech Thee, my sins, remove them from Thy presence, as far as the east is from the west, and accept of me for the merits of Thy Son Jesus Christ….” (Emphasis mine). That same Sunday Evening he writes another prayer, “Let me live according to those holy rules which Thou hast this day prescribed in Thy holy word … Direct me to the true object, Jesus Christ the way, the truth and the life. Bless, O Lord, all the people of this land.” (Emphasis mine). Another Daily Sacrifice entry, “Direct my thoughts, words and work, wash away my sins in the immaculate Blood of the Lamb” and “daily frame me more and more in the likeness of Thy Son Jesus Christ.” (Emphasis mine).

In 1755, Washington was appointed rank of Colonel serving under General Braddock in the French and Indian War. His mother tried to dissuade him from accepting the position. The words he had heard his mother speak to him when he first left home would be repeated back to his mother. “The God to whom you commended me, madam, when I set out upon a more perilous errand, defended me from all harm, and I trust He will do so now. Do not you?” The protection he had from danger I personally believe to the unseen hand of God. I have heard a story for many years about Washington’s coat with four bullet holes. February 24, 2017, USA Today ran a story “George Washington was Shockingly Hard to Kill.” They tell the story of GW fighting in this same French & Indian war, the one his mother didn’t want him to fight. During one of the battles, he had two horses shot out from under him as he rode. When the battle was done and he took off his coat, there were four bullet holes in the coat, yet he himself was not injured at all. The same couldn’t be said of his fellow soldiers. “Indeed, over half (714) were killed or wounded, and only 30 men survived out of the Virginia regiment. Nearly one-third of the officers were killed, including General Braddock — who died some three days later from wounds received in that battle” (Baptist Press). He would also be the Chaplin conducting funerals for the dead, including General Braddock. During his life “he survived small pox, malaria, several infections, abscesses, tuberculosis, dysentery and a boil the size of two fists.”

It is often claimed that our founders were deists. That is partially true, but they were extremely small in number. There were 56 signers of the Declaration of Independence. 55 were church going Christians from various denominations, all Christian denominations. George Washington is sometimes wrongly included in the deist’s listings. So many references in Washington’s writings to the Almighty or the Creator demolish those statements. He wrote a letter to a Jewish (Hebrew) Congregation in Savannah, Georgia saying, “May the same wonder-working Deity, who long since delivering the Hebrews from their Egyptian Oppressors planted them in the promised land—whose Providential Agency has lately been conspicuous in establishing these United States as an independent Nation—still continue to water them with the dews of Heaven and to make the inhabitants of every denomination participate in the temporal and spiritual blessings of that people whose God is Jehovah.” He writes a letter to be circulated to all the states dated June 8, 1783. In it he says, “I now make it my earnest prayer, that God would…most graciously be pleased to dispose us all to do Justice, to love mercy and to demean ourselves, with that Charity, humility & pacific temper of mind, which were the Characteristics of the Divine Author of our blessed Religion & without an humble imitation of whose example in these things, we can never hope to be a happy Nation.”

Lord Acton said, “Power corrupts and absolute power corrupts absolutely.” Twice, once in 1776 and again in 1777 he had the opportunity to become a king. There was a small group of men who sought for George Washington to become King of America. He would have nothing to do with that. A quote sums up his thinking, even though some left leaning historians deny it. The quote says, “I didn’t defeat King George III to become a King.” Very few men or women would have the will to say “no” to that type of power, but he did. He loved the founding of America and its Republican form of government, only wishing for its success. He knew that the nation would survive only with God and the Bible as its moral compass. In his Farewell Address, Washington says that morality cannot be maintained without religion. Furthermore, he says that religion and morality are the “indispensable supports” of what he calls “political prosperity” (enotes.com). The religion he is referencing is Christianity and no other.