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Log College Press began officially on July 4, 2017. We identify this date not only with the origin of LCP, but of course also with the founding of the United States of America, when the Declaration of Independence was promulgated in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania on July 4, 1776.

In 2018, we wished our readers a Happy Independence Day; in 2019, we spoke of “Freedom’s Cost’; in 2020, the theme was “Presbyterians and the Revolution”; and today we highlight Fourth of July orations and sermons by some noted Presbyterians.

It was customary for many Presbyterians to commemorate American Independence with speeches and sermons. Here we bring to your attention a representative sample of some specimens of Presbyterian Independence oratory.

Samuel Clark Aiken (1827) - Speaking to the Sunday School Societies in Utica, New York, on the 51st anniversary of American Independence, Rev. Aiken of the need for nations who have been greatly blessed to maintain religion in its public and private spheres, and of the role that Sunday Schools play in this.
Diarca Howe Allen (1861) - Rev. Allen’s discourse, published in 1862, focused on the centennial of Lebanon, New Hampshire in the context of a celebration of national independence.
Nathan Sidney Smith Beman (1841) - Rev. Beman’s discourse was titled The Western Continent. Looking both the past and the future, he spoke of national blessings which should continue to expand westward.
Elias Boudinot IV (1793) - Speaking to the Society of the Cincinnati of the State of New Jersey on the 17th anniversary of American Independence, Rev. Boudinot called upon his hearers, with a direct preceding message to President George Washington, to strive to maintain the ideals for which American patriots had fought: “The obligations of mankind to these worthy characters increase in proportion to the importance of the blessings purchased by their labors.” He also advocated for increased rights for women.
Frederick Thomas Brown (1865) - Speaking on the first Fourth of July following the War Between the States, Rev. Brown argued that this was an important moment for the country in which he prayed that our nation would become stronger and more unified.
Hooper Cumming (1817, 1821, 1824) - Rev. Cumming, in his short life, delivered a number of Fourth of July orations, some of which are found on his page. In each, he stirs up his hearers to appreciate our national blessings, and to strive to maintain godly ideals.
Daniel Dana (1814) - Delivered in the midst of the War of 1812, Rev. Dana reminded his audience that God is concerned with national affairs. He highlighted God’s providence not only with respect to America but also with respect to the affairs of Europe.
Ezra Stiles Ely (1827) - Rev. Ely preached a Fourth of July sermon (published in 1828) — based on the concluding verses of Psalm 2 — on The Duty of Christian Freemen to Elect Christian Rulers. According to Ely, the Lord Jesus Christ is the rightful sovereign of all lands.
Timothy Flint (1815) - Speaking on the first Fourth of July after the War of 1812 ended, Rev. Flint called to mind the troubles that the nation had endured, but with thankfulness for the mercies of God in seeing the country through.
Ralph Randolph Gurley (1825) - Rev. Gurley spoke in Washington, D.C. of a religious celebration of national blessings; yet, he also addressed the fact that slavery continued to be a stain on our national honor, and of efforts to colonize Western Africa with freed slaves.
Symmes Cleves Henry (1824) - In this oration delivered before the Society of Cincinnati of the State of New Jersey, Rev. Henry spoke of the ideals represented by the historical events commemorated on the 48th anniversary of American Independence.
William Linn (1791) - Rev. Linn’s sermon, preached in New York, was based on Ps. 16:6: “The lines are fallen unto me in pleasant places; yea, I have a goodly heritage.” He recounted many of the blessings that God’s favor had granted to a young nation.
John McKnight (1794) - Rev. McKnight’s Fourth of July sermon, preached in New York City, was titled God the Author of Promotion and based on Ps. 75:6-9. In the context of celebrating the birth of the American nation, he reminds his hearers that it is God who raises up and casts down.
Samuel Miller (1793, 1795) - Among the earliest published sermons of Rev. Miller were two Fourth of July messages preached in New York City. The first was titled Christianity the Grand Source and Surest Basis for Political Liberty.
Eliphalet Nott (1801) - On the 25th anniversary of American Independence, Rev. Nott spoke of The Providence of God towards American Israel.
George Potts (1826) - It was on the same day that both John Adams and Thomas Jefferson died that Rev. Potts, speaking in Philadelphia, commemorated the 50th anniversary of American Independence.
Horace Southworth Pratt (1828) - Preaching in Fryeburg, Maine Rev. Pratt spoke of the nature of freedom and liberty Biblically understood.
Nathaniel Scudder Prime (1825) - Rev. Prime’s sermon highlighted a critical defect in our national freedom from tyranny: The Year of Jubilee; But Not to Africans: A Discourse, Delivered July 4th, 1825, Being the 49th Anniversary of American Independence.
David Ramsay (1778) - Speaking to an audience in Charleston, South Carolina on the 2nd anniversary of American Independence, Dr. Ramsay encouraged his hearers to consider the advantages of liberty in the midst of a war that was far from over. He would go on to record the history of the American War of Independence.
Henry Ruffner (1856) - Addressing his fellow Virginians in 1856 (before West Virginia seceded), Rev. Ruffner spoke of the necessity of maintaining the Federal Union: “United we stand, divided we fall.”
William McKendree Scott (1851) - In time-honored fashion, Rev. Scott spoke to his fellow citizens at a “barbacue” held in Danville, Kentucky to commemorate our national independence.
Isaac Nathan Shannon (1852) - Rev. Shannon, preaching in New Brunswick, New Jersey, highlighted the providence of God in the history of the American nation.
William Buell Sprague (1827, 1830) - Rev. Sprague preached on the 51st and 54th anniversaries of American Independence, calling for religious celebration of this momentous event in our history, and reminding his congregation that “Happy is the people whose God is the Lord” (Ps. 144:15).
Joseph Sweetman (1810) - Rev. Sweetman preached on religion as the foundation for national prosperity at Charlton, New York.
Joseph Farrand Tuttle (1876) - Speaking on the centennial of American Independence, Rev. Tuttle recalled the efforts and sacrifices of the revolutionary forefathers of Morris County, New Jersey.
William Spotswood White (1840) - Rev. White preached on 4th of July Reminiscences and Reflections: A Sermon in Charlottesville, Virginia, also on Ps. 144:15. Acknowledging the political agitations that were convulsing the land at the time, he spoke of the providential guidance and blessing that America has received and for which we should give thanks.

It is worth taking time to brush off the dust, so to speak, on these historical orations and sermons and consider what our American Presbyterian forefathers had to say about independence, liberty, national blessings, and the need for further reformation, and freedom for all.

Happy Independence Day to our readers from Log College Press!

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There is a wonderful web of ties between godly men and women outlined in just a few paragraphs from a memoir of the famous Southern Presbyterian missionary to the African Congo, Samuel Norvell Lapsley (1866-1892). His father, James Woods Lapsley, in Life and Letters of Samuel Norvell Lapsley, Missionary to the Congo Valley, West Africa, 1866-1892 (1893), wrote:

SAMUEL NORVELL LAPSLEY

was born in Selma, Alabama, April 14th, 1866. He came into life with the inestimable advantage of pious parentage and a godly ancestry. He was the third son of James Woods Lapsley and Sara E. Pratt, his wife: he an elder in the church, and both of them children of Presbyterian ministers. On his father's side the blood was that of the Scotch-Irish and Scotch, who came to the Valley of Virginia over one hundred and fifty years ago; he being descended from Michael Woods, of Albemarle, an Irish immigrant, who came up the Valley in 1734; his son-in-law, Joseph Lapsley, coming by way of Pennsylvania a little later, and also from Andrew Woods, of Botetourt, and Mary Poage, his wife, and counting among his ancestors in the last century the Moores, Rayburns, and Armstrongs, who came into the Valley country when it was a wilderness.
His father's father was the Rev. Robert Armstrong Lapsley, D.D., of Nashville, Tenn., a name still greatly revered through Tennessee and Kentucky. And in the old cemetery at Nashville, over the grave of his father's mother, Catherine Rutherford Lapsley, is an inscription telling of her pious life and triumphant death, and of her descent from Samuel Rutherford, of the Westminster Assembly'. Her father was John Moore Walker, son of Joseph Walker, for thirty years a trustee and treasurer of Washington College, now the Washington and Lee University. Joseph Walker's wife was Jane Moore, an aunt of Mary Moore, the heroine of the little book in our Sunday-school libraries, The Captives of Abb’s Valley.1 How the name and character of the brave old Covenanter, Samuel Rutherford, has been held in reverence, is observable from the constant recurrence of his name and that of his wife, Catherine, in the families of his descendants. An instance is that of Samuel Rutherford Lapsley, an uncle of the subject of this Memoir (and for whom he was named), his father's youngest brother, who, in his twentieth year, got his death wound in the front of the battle at Shiloh, April, 1862, struck down with the colors of his regiment in his hands.
On the mother's side the lineage was drawn from New England and the Georgia low-country. His mother's father, the Rev. Horace Southworth Pratt, was from Connecticut, but spent his life in Georgia and Alabama, dying while professor of Belles-lettres in the University of Alabama, in which office he was succeeded by his son. Rev. John W. Pratt, D. D., afterwards pastor of the Presbyterian Church in Lexington, Va., and of the Second Church in Louisville, Ky. His mother's mother, Isabel Drysdale, was of an old loyalist Episcopal family of the low-country, to which the late Bishop Drysdale, of Louisiana, belonged. Rather than rebel against King George, they fled to the Bahamas, where Mrs. Pratt was born. She was equally eminent for piety, literary taste, and business capacity. For many years a widow, she managed well her children's education and property, and also found time to write and publish a number of books for children.
These brief references to an honored and faithful ancestry are worthy of record, showing the value of family religion, coming down from generation to generation, and testifying to the faithfulness of a covenant-keeping God.
1 Mrs. Kay, our venerable aunt, says: "The book, Captives of Abbs Valley [by James Moore Brown], omits one thing that my mother used to tell. She said, as the Indians were taking Cousin Mary away, that she caught up her Bible and carried it with her through her long captivity, and when she was at last released and came back to live at Grandma Walker's she still had that Bible. Grandma was quite a match-maker, and thought very highly of preachers. She married Cousin Mary Moore to the Rev. Samuel Brown, and among their children were five preachers, one of whom was the Rev. Dr. William Brown, of Richmond. She married her daughter, my Aunt Peggy, to Rev. Samuel Houston. Their son, Rev. Samuel Rutherford Houston, was missionary to Greece, and his daughter, Janet, is now a missionary m Mexico."

A testimony to “the faithfulness of a covenant-keeping God,” indeed.

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