LETTER TO THE EDITOR: Wisdom from our Founding Fathers

As we enjoy this holiday season, let us contemplate the courage, dedication, persistence and faith of our Founding Fathers who, against all odds and opposing the world’s most powerful empire, ensured, among others, our freedom to celebrate our religious holy days as we choose. The enormity of their effort is impossible to overstate.

During the drawn-out Revolutionary War, George Washington experienced periods of discouragement and bitter disappointments but, believing in the morality and justice of his cause, never abandoned his goal nor his faith. Surely, the objectives of the various patriot organizations are as moral and as just — to restore the Constitution to its rightful place in American society and to compel accountability from our elected officials, as our Founders envisioned.

So, as we gather for our celebrations, we might reflect on what is popularly known as “Washington’s Prayer.” It is the final paragraph of a letter Washington wrote to the governors of the 13 states upon his retirement as Commander of the Continental Army, and his first retirement from public life.

“I now make it my earnest prayer, that God would have you, and the State over which you preside, in his holy protection, that he would incline the hearts of the Citizens to cultivate a spirit of subordination and obedience to Government, to entertain a brotherly affection and love for one another, for their fellow Citizens of the United States at large, and particularly for their brethren who have served in the Field, and finally, that he would most graciously be pleased to dispose us all, to do Justice, to love mercy, and to demean ourselves with that Charity, humility and pacific temper of mind, which were the Characteristicks of the Divine Author of our blessed Religion, and without an humble imitation of whose example in these things, we can never hope to be a happy Nation.”

Nothing to add but, Amen.

Janice R. Drummond

Marco Island