Do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind,

so that you may be able to prove what the will of God is, that which is good and acceptable

and perfect.

Romans 12 2 This is resistance and reformation on the Fight, laugh, Feast Network.

Even before the First Continental Congress in 1774, the fiery oratory of Patrick Henry was already legendary. He had taken on the

established church actively defending unlicensed preachers in Virginia. He led the opposition in the

House of Burgesses against the Stamp Act a decade earlier. And at the Continental Congress,

he was one of the leading political figures now in America.

Before he left Virginia after the Congress,

he met with John Adams for dinner

and discussed the situation the colonies then faced.

Adams read to him a letter from a friend back in Massachusetts which urged a military plan of action. Adams would later write,

In the Congress of 1774, there was not one member except Patrick Henry, who appeared to me sensible of the precipice,

or rather the pinnacle on which we stood and had the candor and courage enough to acknowledge

it. As he traveled back home to Virginia, the question of what to do next weighed heavily on Henry. But upon his arrival home,

he would be greeted with devastating news. His wife, Sarah, who suffered from an unknown illness,

was very sick and near death. But the urgent matters of state could not wait. Governor Dunmore refused all requests

to reconvene the House of Burgesses, and an effort was underway to call a convention to discuss

how the Virginia colony would respond to the growing British threat. The Hanover County Committee

elected Henry to represent them at the convention on February the 18th, but he was absent

from the proceedings. Just a week earlier, his wife had died. He told his closest friends how deeply his wife's death grieved him,

but also he felt that he couldn't disappoint the people of Virginia in their hour of need.

...