This week I read something fascinating, and I’d like to share it with you: In 1675 and 1676, the colonies were reeling under the onslaught of King Philip’s War. The streets of towns like Swansea and Dartmouth, Taunton and Sudbury were littered with the bodies of mutilated men, women and children. It appeared as if nothing could withstand the force of thousands of King Philip’s braves. In the midst of this, Peter Folger, the grandfather of Benjamin Franklin, wrote these words:

If we then truly turn to God,
He will remove His ire.
And will forthwith take this His rod
And cast it in the fire.
Let us then search what is the sin
That God doth punish for;
And when found out, cast it away,
And ever it abhor.

Peter Marshall writes:
“By April 1676, there was scarcely a man or woman in all of New England who was not diligently searching his or her own soul for unconfessed or unrepented sin. In fact, it became unpatriotic not to do so—as if one were not doing one’s part for the war effort.”

Four months later the war was over. It cost this nation proportionately more lives than any war we have fought since.