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 wiser than our Maker.  If moral precepts alone could have reformed mankind, the mission of the Son of God into the world would have been unnecessary.  The perfect morality of the Gospel rests upon the doctrine which, though often controverted has never been refuted: I mean the vicarious life and death of the Son of God.

Dr. Benjamin Rush, founding father

My excellent wife, I must leave you, but God will take care of you.  By the mystery of 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.

Dr. Benjamin Rush, founding father

We profess to be republicans, and yet we neglect the only means of establishing and perpetuating our republican forms of government; that is, the universal education of our youth in the principles of Christianity by means of the Bible; for this divine book, above all others, favors that equality among mankind, that respect for just laws, and all those sober and frugal virtues which constitute the soul of republicanism.

Dr. Benjamin Rush, Pamphlet A Defense of the Use of the Bible as a Schoolbook, 1791

I have always considered Christianity as the strong ground of republicanism.

Benjamin Rush, letter to Thomas Jefferson on August 22, 1800