Great Men Of History

From The Christian Reader:

Great Men of History


by Eric Rauch



It has been said that “leaders are made, not born.” If this is true (and I think it is), 56 outstanding leaders were made in the fertile colonial soil of early America. When the Second Continental Congress passed “Lee’s Resolution” in July 1776, 56 men put their lives on the line by signing their names to the bottom of the official document giving approval to the Resolution: The Declaration of Independence. The sacrifice, dedication, and bravery of these men is the foundation of the freedom that all Americans still enjoy today. But what is really known of these men? Other than Thomas Jefferson and Benjamin Franklin, how many of these 56 patriots can you name?



I must admit, these questions never really entered my mind until I met Marilyn Boyer and her husband in Boston over the July 4th weekend. Marilyn was excited about her new book, For You They Signed, and she thought that I should be too. When she handed me a copy of the book, I was initially impressed by its look and feel, but less than enthused about the topic. “Oh great,” I thought sarcastically, “another book about America’s Christian history. We definitely don’t have enough of those!” My skeptical mind was only half-interested until Marilyn began describing what made her book different. As she talked, her passion about the topic became evident. As I opened the book and took a look inside, I was confronted by a well-designed, well-crafted historical treasure. Marilyn explained that her motivation for writing the book was due to realizing her own ignorance of the lives and individual histories represented by the 56 signatures on the Declaration. By the time that we parted ways, I was convinced that this was indeed a book that was needed—much needed. In our current crisis in America, where the entire country is desperately waiting for a leader to show the way, For You They Signed shines the light backward, through the dark and dimly lit past of 250 years ago to show examples of the type of men that we need today. One leader is not enough, but 56 is a pretty good start.



The subtitle is a good description of what the book is all about: Character Studies from the Lives of the Signers of the Declaration of Independence. While this may sound less than exhilarating, it is a truthful summary of the book’s goal and purpose. The truth of the matter is that the men from the Second Continental Congress have some of the most fascinating stories that have never been heard by modern Americans. Public schools certainly don’t tell their stories and Christian and home schools don’t fair much better because precious little of the historical data exists in a readily accessible format. For You They Signed changes that by dealing with each Founding Fathers individually, rather than the usual approach of treating the Fathers as a homogeneous group. Individual personalities played a very key role in the decisions of the group, just as influences and experiences in the lives of those individuals played a key role in making them who they were. We can’t rightly understand America until we understand the men who built the framework. The names on the Declaration represent far more than a unique event in our nation’s past, they represent 56 examples of the sovereign hand of God ordaining and orchestrating history.



As only such example, consider the story of Benjamin Rush, one of the signers and a physician from Pennsylvania:



Benjamin Rush was born on Christmas Eve of 1745, in Byberry Township, northeast of Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. His great-grandfather had been a cavalry officer in Oliver Cromwell’s army before emigrating to Pennsylvania. Benjamin’s father, a farmer, died when the boy was six years old. His mother moved to Philadelphia and opened up a grocery store to provide for Benjamin and his siblings. Intent on providing a good education for her sons, she placed Benjamin, at the age of nine, under the care of Rev. Dr. Findlay, the principal of an academy at Nottingham, Maryland, and also his uncle… [Benjamin] then attended the College of New Jersey and graduated at the age of 14. Later, he placed himself under the celebrated Dr. Redman of Philadelphia to learn medicine for the next six years. In 1766 he went to England for two years to obtain more training in medicine. While he was there, the trustees of the College of New Jersey where his uncle was president asked Rush to try to persuade John Witherspoon, then a Presbyterian minister in Scotland, to accept the presidency of the college. Rush convinced Mrs. Witherspoon, who was fearful of Indian attacks, and was successful in the mission of getting the Witherspoons to move to America. (p. 190-191)





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Convincing the Witherspoons to move to America is a profound moment in the history of America. Not only was John Witherspoon a signer of the Declaration himself, but as President of the College of New Jersey (what is now Princeton), he taught and discipled “a vice-president, 21 senators, 29 representatives, 56 state legislators, and 33 judges, three of whom became members of the United States Supreme Court.” [1] Witherspoon taught and modeled for his students the biblical relationship between church and state. One of his students was James Madison. Known as the “Father of the Constitution,” Madison learned his lessons well and much of the U.S. Constitution can be directly attributed to the influence and example of John Witherspoon. America owes Witherspoon a great debt, but if not for Benjamin Rush, Witherspoon may have never set foot on these shores.



Stories like this abound in the providential history of this country, but most of us never get to hear them. It is often lamented that men like the 56 signers are in short supply today, but I think this is a cop-out, a self-fulfilling prophecy. The 56 signers were surely men of integrity, virtue, and honor, but they were also men of weakness, indecision, and contradiction, just like the men of today. The difference between the men of 250 years ago and the men of today is not one of ability, but one of character. Waiting for the next John Witherspoon to tell us what to do is not only counterproductive, it is sinful. Men of character and resolve are not born, they are created; first by God, then by parents. Only when America’s parents begin to understand that the next John Witherspoon is not sitting behind a desk in Washington, but in a chair in the living room, will they be in the right frame of mind to do something about it. Men of character are important, but parents of character must come first.



If we learn anything from the character studies of For You They Signed, I pray that it is this. If we simply read the biographies and teach them to our children as so many examples of the “Great Men of History,” we will have missed the point. The Great Men are simply the ones that rise to the challenge of any given time-period. It cannot be disputed that the 56 signers were indeed Great Men, but they didn’t get that way by accident. The lives of the Founding Fathers are a testimony to the practice of character-building that once existed in the families of this country. Marilyn Boyer does an excellent and exhaustive job of showing this example at work in 56 historical men, but now it is our turn. Will we learn the lessons of the past and grow Great Men of our own, or will we sit on our hands and wait for them to miraculously appear out of thin air? The choice is ours.



Notes:

[1] As quoted in Gary DeMar, America’s Christian History: The Untold Story (Powder Springs, GA: AV Press, [1993] 2008), 4-5.