"When the path of prophet and believer is too easy, the growth is slow. The sting of persecution is necessary to fructify the seed, to harrow the field; then follows occasional abundant harvests--never a failure.
"You have read or been told how our fathers were harassed in the Old Country until they were driven to the New. From 1745, the year of the Rebellion, until now, our people have been coming to this colony; and at infrequent intervals have felt that victory, not of religious liberty, but of toleration, was at hand.
"The fall and winter of 1758-9, we quarried and hauled the stone for this church and in the summer of 1759 it was completed. Then Mr. Preston and I went to Williamsburg, where we met the Rev. Samuel Davies and brought him back to preach the dedicatory sermon.
"On that day the whole Valley was in attendance, as were many from Blue Ridge and Greenaway Court and Winchester. There were even a few from Williamsburg and Richmond. Every Presbyterian within a hundred miles who was able to ride or walk came; and with them many of their friends among the Quakers, the Baptists, the Lutherans, the Mennonites, the Dippers and communicants of the English Church. It was God's House; God's people filled it; the spirit of the Holy Ghost was upon it; the commandment of the Son was regarded; and crowded out all thought of sect and doctrinal intolerance. It looked as though there was to be a religious peace in the colony: and all rejoiced.
"Who brought this about? That greatest of preachers, Samuel Davies, the greatest orator who has ever spoken in the colony. But I am wrong--not all rejoiced. Who strangled the movement? Clergymen of the Conformist Church.
"The seat of an established church is no birthplace for a new faith. The birthplace of the Christian faith was not in Jerusalem but on the shores of that placid inland sea on which the boats of the fisher apostles rested. To the Christian, the first mind pictures of Jerusalem are of the Garden, the crucifixion and the resurrection. After these comes the picture of the Savior's lamentation: 'O Jerusalem! Jerusalem! thou that killest the prophets, and stonest them that are sent unto thee; how often would I have gathered thy children together; even as a hen gathereth her chickens under her wing, and ye would not.'