Presbyterian Emigrants
The Scotch
race resident in Ireland at the commencement of the eighteenth century were
nearly all Presbyterians, and as such had experienced the oppressive measures
of Charles II and James II. They had sympathized and acted with the British
Nation in driving the latter tyrant from the throne and establishing the claims
of his successor. Traditions of the Siege of Derry and the Battle of Boyne were
carried wherever the Scotch-Irish went in the eighteenth century, and causes
that led to the Revolution in England in the preceding century were matters of
common conversation and generally well understood. No man could have a proper
appreciation of these causes and be ignorant of the rights of a British subject
as by law established in the eighteenth century.
Again,
the principles and usages of the church with which they are connected were well
adapted to diffuse knowledge and elevate the character of the whole mass of the
population. The constitution of their church required a learned, pious and
zealous minister. It secured the choice of a pastor to the congregation and
required his constant and active efforts in diffusing religious knowledge not
only from the pulpit but from house to house. It required parents to maintain
family religion not only in general terms, but descended to minute details. It
demanded the regular appointment and installation of a class of officers to
assist the pastor in carrying out wholesome discipline and the extension of
knowledge and piety. It secured to these officers a power in all the
judicatories of the church equal to that exercised by the ministers, and secured
the parity of the ministry. In fact, such were their laws and usages that
tyrants have never viewed them with any other than a jealous eye. These
ecclesiastical laws and usages were far from being a dead letter. A thirst for
knowledge was excited among the people and means for its gratification devised
from time to time. The school master did his work. Books of a theological,
scientific and literary nature found a home in the cottage of the poor as well
as in the palace of the rich. All pursuits and morality marked the habitations
where catechetical instructions and pastoral visitations were maintained. A
spirit of enterprise sprang up which could not be circumscribed by a territory
so small as a few counties in the North of Ireland. At the commencement of the
eighteenth century the people were seeking homes on the Western Continent. They
came to New York, New Jersey, Delaware and Pennsylvania. They brought their
religious principles and habits or order and industry. Congregations were
organized and pastoral relations formed. Presbyteries and synods grew up. The
tide of emigration flowed across the Atlantic and up the rivers, reached the
base of the mountains end turned to the Southwest, following the ranges of the
mountain until it poured its streams into the Valley of the Savannah. New
congregations were formed and the cry of the destitute went into the ears of
every presbytery and the ear of the Almighty. The ministers toiled in the
schoolhouse, In the pulpit, in pastoral visitation and yet often found time to
make a missionary tour from the Susquehanna to the Catawba. Abundant revivals of
religion followed these labors, a now corps of ministers were brought forward
from time to time, new churches sprung up in the wilderness, new academies were
established and collegiate institutions planned. This was the spirit, these were
the works of the Scotch-Irish population on this continent at the middle of the
eighteenth century. From these statements we learn the following characteristics
of them:
The
consequence of these various causes was a remarkable unanimity of sentiment and
action in favor of independence when matters came to the crisis.