I am a direct descendant of William Whitaker (1548-1595), the author of “Disputations on Holy Scripture.” Whitaker’s sons were in the Jamestown colony before 1620. How and when the English and German branches of my family united to become Southern Presbyterian, I do not know. What is most important to me is God’s covenant faithfulness through an (apparently) unbroken 450-year Calvinistic and Reformed witness.

The more we learn of God’s sovereign hand throughout history, the more we stand in awe of God’s “amazing grace.”

In and around Charleston, South Carolina, and the Low Country to the north and west there were Huguenot congregations. In the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries French Huguenots that had settled in the Low Country sometimes united their French Reformed congregations with the Presbyterians recognizing their common Calvinism. Today, the Huguenot Church in Charleston is the only remaining one in the country and the city streets have French names and old houses built by Huguenots in the antebellum years. There are Presbyterian congregations, particularly around Abbeville, with French surnames occurring often on the grave markers in their cemeteries. So, the Dutch were not the only ones to recognize that sometimes national identity must be second to the welfare of a church.

The presentation of Bryan Winter’s extensive research was interesting. It would be nice if Reformed Forum could post the bibliographic information when the article is published. Thank you for an interesting program.