When did Pratrick Henry say this nation was founded not by religionists?

Answer 1

He never said nor wrote that.

In April, 1956, the magazine The Virginian in its Volume II #3 issue quoted Henry's will in which he said that if his children had the Christian religion, they would be rich indeed. The author of the article then editorialized on that quote, and in so doing wrote the famous "religionists" quote.

A few months later, in September of the same year, another magazine, the American Mercury, excerpted that Virginian article into a "pull quote" and placed it at the bottom of a page (#134 to be precise) where another article ended as "filler" to take up the space.

The "pull quote" looked about like this (these are the exact words):

"I have now disposed of all my property to my family. There is one thing more I wish I could give them, and that is the Christian Religion. If they had that and I had not given them one shilling they would have been rich; and if they had not that and I had given them all the world, they would be poor."

Patrick Henry, VIRGINIA,

His Will

"There is an insidious campaign of false propaganda being waged today, to the effect that our country is not a Christian country but a religious one − that it was not founded on Christianity but on freedom of religion.

"It cannot be emphasized too strongly or too often that this great nation was founded not by 'religionists' but by Christians − not on religion but on the Gospel of Jesus Christ. For this very reason, peoples of other faiths have been afforded asylum, prosperity and freedom of worship here.

"In the spoken and written words of our noble founders and forefathers, we find symbolic expressions of their Christian faith. The above quotation from the will of Patrick Henry is a notable example."

The Viriginian, April 1956, Vol. II, No. 3

As you can see, the only part actually by Patrick Henry is the top paragraph, from his will. The following three paragraphs were commentary on that quote, from the article writer of The Virginian.

Somebody [see edit below] saw that, read the last sentence that said, "The above quotation from the will of Patrick Henry is a notable example," and apparently mistakenly thought that "the above quotation from the will of Patrick Henry" was the immediately preceding paragraph (even though it didn't end in a closing quote), despite the fact that the real Patrick Henry quote from his will was clearly marked as such.

Most likely, this misattribution was an honest, albeit incompetent, mistake.