Opening Day of The First Continental Congress

From The WallBuilders comes an article that happened on September 5th, 1774.

First Continental Congress

On September 5, 1774, the First Continental Congress met at Carpenter's Hall in Philadelphia. Among the delegates who attended were George Washington, Patrick Henry, Samuel Adams, John Adams, John Jay, and many other notables. This meeting had been called to address the increasing British tyranny, including the Intolerable Acts, which had ended self-government in Massachusetts and shut down the port of Boston to commercial shipments. On the second day of the gathering, Congress got down to business. There was a call to open the meeting with prayer, but a strong debate ensued. Some doubted whether they could or should all pray together since there was such a diversity of denominations present among them (some Lutherans, Congregationalists, Quakers, Anglicans, and others). But Samuel Adams ended the debate when he announced that he was not a bigot and could therefore "hear a prayer of piety and virtue" from anyone "who was at the same time a friend to his country." He then nominated Rev. Jacob Duché to lead the prayers (Duché was from a denomination quite different from and often opposed to that of Adams). The next day, September 7th, the first prayer in Congress occurred, and the Rev. Duché prayed: O Lord our Heavenly Father, high and mighty King of kings, and Lord of lords, Who dost from Thy throne behold all the dwellers on earth and reignest with power supreme and uncontrolled over all the kingdoms, empires and governments, look down in mercy, we beseech Thee, on these our American States, who have fled to Thee from the rod of the oppressor and thrown themselves on Thy gracious protection, desiring to be henceforth dependent only on Thee. To Thee have they appealed for the righteousness of their cause....

Some of the delegates indicated that the Rev. Duché prayed for a full ten minutes, and then followed it with the Scripture reading for the day (which included Psalm 35). Numerous delegates reported on the positive impact the time of prayer and Scripture had on them. For example, John Adams told Abigail:

[Jacob Duché] read several prayers in the established form, and then read the collect for the seventh day of September, which was the thirty-fifth Psalm. You must remember, this was the next morning after we heard the horrible rumor of the cannonade of Boston. I never saw a greater effect upon an audience. It seemed as if Heaven had ordained that Psalm to be read on that morning.

That time of prayer united them and brought them together despite their differences. In fact, the great Daniel Webster, "Defender of the Constitution," in 1844 reminded the US Supreme Court of the unifying power of prayer:

Mr. Duché read the Episcopal service of the Church of England and then, as if moved by the occasion, he broke out into extemporaneous prayer. And those men who were then about to resort to force to obtain their rights, were moved to tears; and flood of tears, he says, ran down the cheeks of the pacific Quakers who formed part of the most interesting assembly. And depend upon it, that where there is a spirit of Christianity, there is a spirit which rises above form, above ceremonies, independent of sect or creed, and the controversies of clashing doctrines.

It was prayer and the Scriptures that united the Founding Fathers, and it can still do the same for us today.