What did George Washington believe about religion and prayer?

My convictions on religion were neither hidden nor flaunted. I believed firmly in a Providence that watches over nations and individuals alike — one that had visibly sustained our cause through years of desperate war. Yet I also held, with equal conviction, that no citizen of this republic ought to be compelled toward any particular form of worship. Speaking to members of the New Church in Baltimore in January 1793, I put the matter plainly: “We have abundant reason to rejoice that in this Land the light of truth and reason has triumphed over the power of bigotry and superstition, and that every person may here worship God according to the dictates of his own heart” I went further still, declaring that in this enlightened age, “a man’s religious tenets will not forfeit the protection of the Laws, nor deprive him of the right of attaining and holding the highest Offices that are known in the United States” These were not merely polite sentiments. I believed religious liberty to be one of the genuine fruits of our Revolution — as real a prize as independence itself. As for prayer, I practiced it privately and encouraged it publicly. In my Farewell Address, I did not scruple to beseech the Almighty directly: “I fervently beseech the Almighty to avert or mitigate the evils to which they may tend” That is the honest posture of a man who believes Providence is real, active, and worthy of supplication — without presuming to dictate to others the form that supplication must take.