Jonathan Edwards: 3/22/1758

On MARCH 22, 1758, Princeton University President Jonathan Edwards died from a smallpox inoculation. Valedictorian of his class at Yale, Jonathan Edwards' preaching began the Great Awakening, a revival so widespread history credits it with uniting the colonies prior to the Revolution.

Of the awakening, Ben Franklin wrote: "It was wonderful to see...From being thoughtless or indifferent...it seemed as if all the world were growing religious, so that one could not walk thro' the town in an evening without hearing psalms sung in..every street."

Jonathan Edwards' grandson was Yale President Timothy Dwight. On July 4, 1798, Timothy Dwight explained how Voltaire's atheism inspired the French Revolution's Reign of Terror, 1793-1794, where 40,000 people were beheaded: "The...ends proposed by the Illuminati...are the overthrow of religion, government and human society...Murder, butchery and war...are declared by them to be completely justifiable...No villainy...can be named which was not vindicated...Satanic lips polluted the pages of God...inundated the country with...immorality...Where religion prevails, Illumination cannot make disciples, a French Directory cannot govern, a nation cannot be made slaves" Timothy Dwight concluded: "To destroy us therefore...our enemies must first...seduce us from the house of God."

American Minute with Bill Federer