There come times in the history of nations when circumstances call for men to rise as leaders and as the defenders of the life and liberties of the people. Circumstances do not make men. They sound the clarion call; they create the stage of action; they raise the curtain—God makes men; or men, by the help of God, make themselves, and the men who are prepared and equipped to answer the call of their times are the men who create what is glorious and enduring in a nation's life.
When the summons came at the time of the American Revolution it found here men ready to respond. The sons of the Church and the heirs of her teaching, these men had been trained by her to reverence their conscience, and to love their fellowmen, and they were spiritually, as well as mentally, equipped for duty which demanded the sacrifice, if needs be, of themselves for the life and liberty of the people. In the dark hours of perplexity they looked to the Church of their fathers for light and for strength, and came here to find the consolations afforded by the great gospel of redemption. From the men of this hero band who have found fame because they were willing to lose themselves in service, we have selected twenty-three names, which are almost exclusively the names of the great constructive statesmen of the republic, rather than the heroes of war, and have placed these names in bronze on the pews in this part of the Church where they assembled to worship and to invoke upon their cause the blessing of the God of liberty.
In the north aisle of the transept, on the west side, are the names of the seven men who for Virginia signed the Declaration of Independence.
Religious Freedom in Virginia
On the wall above these pews a tablet has been placed inscribed—
"To the glory of God, and in memory of the members
