Dr. Benjamin Rush (1745-1813). Rush was a physician, signer of the Declaration of Independence, “father of public schools,” and promoter of the American Sunday School Union. Rush served his country as Surgeon General of the Continental Army. He helped write the Pennsylvania Constitution and was treasurer of the U.S. Mint. Dr. Benjamin Rush established the first free medical clinic in 1786. He helped found the first American anti-slavery society. After the adoption of the United States Constitution in 1798, Dr. Rush declared:

“The only foundation for…a republic is to be laid in Religion. Without this there can be no virtue, and without virtue there can ne no liberty, and liberty is the object and life of all republican governments.”

Dr. Rush published Essays, Literary, Moral, and Philosophical in 1798. In that work he declared:

“I know there is an objection among many people to teaching children doctrines of any kind, because they are liable to be controverted. But let us not be wider than our Maker. If moral precepts alone could have reformed mankind, the mission of the Son of God into all the world would have been unnecessary. The perfect morality of the Gospels rests upon the doctrine which, thought often controverted has never been refuted: I mean the vicarious life and death of the Son of God.”

Benjamin Rush described himself as:

“I have alternately been called an Aristocrat and a Democrat. I am neither. I am a Christocrat.”

Dr. Rush wrote to his wife when facing his final illness,

“My excellent wife, I must leave you, but God will take care of you. By the mystery of Thy holy incarnation; by Thy holy nativity; by Thy baptism, fasting, and temptation; by Thine agony and bloody sweat; by Thy cross and passion; by Thy precious death and burial; by Thy glorious resurrection and ascension, and by the coming of the Holy Ghost, blessed Jesus, wash away all my impurities, and receive me into Thy everlasting kingdom.”