Free America's Prophet by Bruce Feiler

liturgy wherein the King of Great Britain is prayed for as inconsistent with the said declaration.”
    Safford then reached to the uppermost bookcase and pulled out a particularly clean cardboard box, tied with a ribbon. He laid it on the table, opened it, and removed a maroon leather book, about sixteen inches tall and ten inches wide. Considering its age and the poor conditions in the room, the book was in remarkably good condition. He opened to the title page. The Book of Common Prayer, and administration of the Sacraments and other rites and ceremonies of the Church according to the use of the Church of England. It was printed by Mark Baskett in 1716. “I get goose bumps every time I hold it,” Safford said. “This was the physical manifestation of the king. And to Duché, the king was God.”
    Safford slowly turned the pages of the mammoth book and pointed out the half dozen passages where Duché had crossed out references to the Crown and replaced them with tributes to the new country. Duché scratched through words that asked God to bless “thy servant George, our most gracious king and governor,” and wrote in by hand, “the Congress of these United States.” He excised parts of a prayer beseeching God on behalf of “this kingdom in general, so especially for the high court of Parliament under our most religious and gracious King,” and inked in “these United States in General, so especially for the delegates in Congress.” He drew a line through entreaties for the “prosperity and advancement of our Sovereign and his kingdoms,” and inserted the “honour and welfare of thy people.” In half a lifetime of reading American history, I had never seen an artifact that more vividly captured the epic transformation that day represented. And this gesture would not have taken months to sink in. Worshipers at the most powerful church in the land would have heard it that Sunday, July 7, the day before the Declaration of Independence was read aloud for the first time. Christ Church rang the true bell of liberty.
    “I think this book represents Christ Church’s way of blessingwhat happened over at the State House,” Safford said. “The Congress has gone and done this. What could be more helpful than to have Christ Church say, ‘We agree.’ Almost every other church was loyalist or refused to participate in the Declaration. And speaking as a priest, I can say that it was Duché who had to live with the consequences of what he did.”
    “So what was he thinking at that moment?”
    “I think he’s probably scared to death. I think he’s excited. I think he’s worried he might be hanged. I think he believes he’s doing God’s work.” Safford lifted his head as if toward some invisible authority and clenched his hands as if to build up courage himself. He wasn’t really speaking to me now. “And I’ve always thought this was the real Mosaic moment of the Revolution. Duché must have felt like Moses, going before the pharaoh. How could you do anything but quake? Every molecule in your being had trained you to believe that the king was the king because God had put him there. Duché was denying everything in his heart. And the only way you can do that is if you believe that God has called you to do it.”
    Safford turned back to look at me. “And I’m sure his agony is the agony of all Moseses in American history. He had all the anguish that Dr. King had in 1968. He had all the doubt that Abraham Lincoln had. He had all the concerns of George Washington. Is this the right thing? ”
    Duché’s torment only increased in the next year as the American cause suffered a series of debilitating blows. Finally, in September 1777, when the British conquered Philadelphia, one of their first acts was to arrest Jacob Duché. A night in jail shook the preacher, as did Washington’s bloody defeat the following week at nearby Germantown. On October 8, Duché wrote Washington an eight-page private letter begging him