This volume is committed to the American people, in the firm assurance that the invaluable facts which it records will be grateful to every patriotic and pious heart. In it, as from the richest mines, has been brought out the pure gold of our history. Its treasures have been gathered and placed in this casket for the instruction and benefit of the present and future. We have a noble historic life; for our ancestors were the worthies of the world. We have a noble nation, full of the evidences of the moulding presence of Christian truth, and of the power and goodness of Divine wisdom in rearing up a Christian republic for all time. That this was the spirit and aim of the early founders of our institutions the facts in this volume fully testify.

The field through which the reader will walk, in this work, must give wider expansion to his political views, quicken the pulses of his loyalty, add to his conscious dignity as an American citizen, strengthen his confidence in our future, and impart a higher tone to his piety.

The single object of the compiler was to link, in a connected form, the golden chain of our Christian history, and to reveal the basis on which our institutions stand.

The documents and facts are authentic, and have been collected, with laborious diligence, from standard historical works and from the political and Christian annals of the nation. The volume is the voice of the best and wisest men of the republic. It must, therefore, have weight with the American people, and be a political and Christian thesaurus and text-book to the scholar, the teacher, the patriot, the politician, the statesman, the jurist, the legislator, the divine, and, in a word, to all classes of American citizens.

The work is not speculative or theoretical, but a series of facts to unfold and establish the Christian life and character of the civil institutions of the United States, in the light of which every American citizen can trace to its source the true glory of the nation, and learn to appreciate its institutions and to venerate and imitate the great and good men who founded them.

It has been a delightful task of patriotism and piety to the compiler to prepare the volume, and to lay it as a grateful offering upon the common altar of his country and of Christianity.

The work has been the labor of years, performed in various States of the Union, and in the capital of the nation, within sight of the tomb of Washington, during the most eventful year of the Rebellion ; and its last pages were prepared for the press in Philadelphia, where so many of the sacred scenes of the Revolution transpired. The volume, therefore, has in its preparation a national feature, and the reader will be impressed with the importance and appositeness of the facts to the present time.

It is also the ardent hope of the compiler that the facts and principles recorded in this volume, and in which, in our early struggle, all denominations of Christians uttered with such harmony their convictions that the only sure and stable basis of our civil institutions was in the Christian religion, may contribute to strengthen the union of patriot- ism and piety in all parts of the country, to save the nation from the perils of a wicked rebellion, and be the brightest hope of the future.

Care has been taken to give each author credit for his thoughts and language, though in a few instances it may have been overlooked. It was not the desire nor the design of the compiler to elaborate his own views, - though they are found in the volume, - but to give those of the great leading minds of the republic, both past and present.

His grateful acknowledgments are tendered to the Librarians of the Young Men's Mercantile Library Association, and of the Mechanics' Institute Libraries of Cincinnati ; of the State Library of Ohio ; of the Historical and Astor Libraries of New York; of the Mercantile Library and Library Association of Philadelphia ; of the Libraries of Congress, and of the Interior Department ; to the Chief Clerk in the Department of State, for access to the manuscript papers of Washington ; to Peter Force, of Washington City, for frequent examinations of his large and invaluable collection of books and periodicals illustrative of the early history of our country; and to the Honorable Thomas Corwin, of Ohio, for numerous visits to his valuable library. His thanks are due also to the late Honorable Samuel W. Parker, of Indiana, for the frequent use of his large political and historical library, and to the late Judge John McLean, of Ohio, who imparted to the compiler valuable suggestions in reference to the preparation of the work.

The Introduction to the work is written by Rev. Byron Sunderland, D.D., pastor for the last twelve years of the First Presbyterian Church of Washington City, and Chaplain to the Senate of the United States in the Thirty-Seventh Congress. Its high Christian tone and sentiment, its finished literary excellence, and the important truths it so forcibly enunciates will render it well worthy the attention of the reader.

The volume is committed to the blessing of God and to the judgment and favor of the American people, in humble trust that it may aid in preserving and perpetuating to future generations the Union of the States, the integrity of the best government ever instituted by the wisdom of men, and the nationality of the American Republic.

PRINCIPAL AUTHORITIES CONSULTED.

Archives of American Annals, by Peter Force.

Journals of Congress and Official Records, Colonial and State Constitutions and papers.

Bancroft's History of the United States.

Hairs History of the Puritans.

Grahame's Colonial History of America.

Webster's Works.

Burke's Works.

Annals of the American Pulpit, by W. B. Sprague.

Pulpit of the Revolution, by John Wingate Thornton.

Chaplains and Clergy of the Revolution, by J. T. Headley.

Dr. Beecher's Works.

Power of the Pulpit, by Dr. Spring.

Character of the American Government, Anonymous,

Rev. J. Adams's Sermon, with Notes, on the Relation of Christianity to the Civil Government of the United States.

Principles and Acts of the American Revolution, by H. Niles.

Grimke's Writings and Orations.

Chaplains of the American Government, by L. D. Johnson.

Nash's Morality of the State.

Life and Times of Washington, by John Frederick Schroeder, D.D.

Sparks's Writings of Washington.

Custis's Recollections of Washington.

Religious Opinions and Character of Washington, by E. C. McGuire.

Presbyterian Review, New England Review, Bibliotheca Sacra, Rebellion Record, by Frank Moore, and a large number of periodicals, of the time of the Revolution and at the formation of the Constitution of the United States.

The Chapter on the Christian Element in the Civil War was compiled from the official acts and papers of the ecclesiastical denominations, of benevolent organizations, and of the national and State Governments.

Bible.

Story's Commentaries on the Constitution.

Bayard's Commentaries on the Constitution.

Rawle on the Constitution.

Gardner's Institutes of International Law.

Griswold's Republican Court, or American Society in the Days of Washington.

Mrs. Ellett's American Women.

Histories of the Various Colonies and States.

Hough's Thanksgiving Proclamations.

Lossing's Field-Book of the Revolution.

Sanderson's Biography of the Signers of the Declaration of Independence.