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“Good News From a Far Country”: A Note on Divine Providence and the Stamp Act Crisis

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  28 July 2009

John F. Berens
John F. Berens
Affiliation:
Mr. Berens received a Ph.D. degree in 1975 from Marquette University and currently resides in Milwaukee, Wisconsin.
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Extract

November! gloomy Month! approaches fast,

When Liberty was doom'd to brethe [sic] her last,

All, all her Sons agree to fast that Day,

To mourn, lament and sigh, and hope,—and pray

That the Almighty god of all below,

Some Pity would to suffering Mortals show1.

With these lines an anonymous American poet addressed the first day of November 1765, the date the Stamp Act was to take effect throughout British North America. The hopes of patriots and lovers of liberty, he argued, rested upon the interposition of God on behalf of the American colonies. If the Lord would look with mercy on his afflicted people and come to their aid, their freedoms could yet be preserved. In assigning the continuation of American liberty to the intervention and protection of divine providence, this patriotic poet employed one of the deepest and most popular strands of American thought expressed during the era of the American Revolution.

Type
Research Article
Information
Church History , Volume 45 , Issue 3 , September 1976 , pp. 308 - 315
Copyright
Copyright © American Society of Church History 1976

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References

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