[85] Backus, _History of New England_, vol. ii, pp. 391–401, furnishes

the following table of Baptist strength in New England in the year

1795: Churches, 325; ministers, 232; members, 20,902. Methodism had

emerged in New England within the last quarter of the century, and

Methodist ministers were indefatigable in their labors. By the close

of the century as generous-minded a Congregational minister as Bentley

could not altogether cover over his chagrin on account of the growth

and influence of the “sects”. _Cf._ _Diary of William Bentley_, vol.

ii, pp. 127, 409, 419.

[86] Backus, _History of New England_, vol. ii, p. 235. _Cf._ Burrage,

_History of the Baptist in New England_, pp. 121 _et seq._

[87] Cobb, _The Rise of Religious Liberty in America_, pp. 509–511.

[88] Backus, _History of New England_, vol. ii, p. 341.

[89] _Ibid._, pp. 351 _et seq._, 379.

[90] Backus, _op. cit._, pp. 353 _et seq._

[91] _Ibid._, p. 379.

[92] Actual disestablishment did not come in Massachusetts until 1833.

[93] Since the particular purpose of this chapter is to explain the

bitter spirit existing between the orthodox party and dissenters in

New England near the close of the eighteenth century, rather than to

re-write the history of the struggle for full religious toleration,

much that occurred in the long process of severing the bond between

church and state may be passed over. Attention will be focused upon the

character rather than the chronology of the struggle.

[94] Cobb, _The Rise of Religious Liberty in America_, p. 238; Fiske,

_The Beginnings of New England_, pp. 123 _et seq._

[95] Greene, _The Development of Religious Liberty in Connecticut_, p.

121; Cobb, _The Rise of Religious Liberty in America_, p. 243.

[96] Cobb, _op. cit._, pp. 244, 246.

[97] _Ibid._, pp. 240 _et seq._; Greene, _The Development of Religious

Liberty in Connecticut_, pp. 62 _et seq._, 68.

[98] It was the judgment of Isaac Backus that “oppression was greater

in Connecticut, than in other governments in New England”. (_History of

New England_, vol. ii, p. 404.)

[99] Cobb, _The Rise of Religious Liberty in America_, p. 244. Cobb’s

statement concerning the lack of harshness and ungentleness which

characterized the attitude of the supporters of the state church toward

dissent is extreme. The controlling spirit of the Standing Order was

doubtless a positive concern for the welfare of the Establishment

rather than a desire to weed out dissent; but the clash of interests

became so sharp and bitter that motives did not remain unmixed, and in

many an instance dissent in Connecticut was compelled to reckon with a

spirit of actual persecution.

[100] _The Public Records of the Colony of Connecticut_, vol. i, p. 21.

[101] Cobb, _The Rise of Religious Liberty in America_, pp. 246 _et

seq._

[102] _The Public Records of the Colony of Connecticut_, vol. i, p. 311.

[103] _Ibid._, pp. 356, 362; vol. ii, pp. 99, 240; vol. iii, pp. 78, 82

_et seq._

[104] _Ibid._, vol. iii, pp. 13, 18, 101, 216 _et seq._

[105] _Ibid._, vol. iv, pp. 67, 127, 136 _et seq._

[106] _Ibid._, vol. vii, p. 554.

[107] _Ibid._, pp. 334, 335.

[108] _Ibid._, vol. iii, p. 183.

[109] _Ibid._, vol. i, pp. 437 _et seq._

[110] _Ibid._, vol. iii, p. 104.

[111] Cobb, _The Rise of Religious Liberty in America_, p. 247.

[112] Walker, _The Creeds and Platforms of Congregationalism_, pp. 465

_et seq._

[113] Walker, _A History of the Congregational Churches in the United

States_, pp. 202 _et seq._; Greene, _The Development of Religious

Liberty in Connecticut_, pp. 133 _et seq._

[114] Walker, _The Creeds and Platforms of Congregationalism_, pp.

491–494.

[115] _The Public Records of the Colony of Connecticut_, vol. v, pp. 51

_et seq._

[116] _Ibid._

[117] _Ibid._

[118] Walker, _The Creeds and Platforms of Congregationalism_, pp.

502–506, where “The Saybrook Meeting and Articles” are printed in full.

For expositions, see Backus, _History of New England_, vol. i, pp.

470 _et seq._; Palfrey, _A History of New England_, vol. iii, p. 342;

Dexter, _The Congregationalism of the last Three Hundred Years_, pp.

489, 490.

[119] _The Public Records of the Colony of Connecticut_, vol. v, p. 87.

[120] Greene, _The Development of Religious Liberty in Connecticut_, p

151.

[121] _Cf. supra_, p. 53.

[122] _The Public Records of the Colony of Connecticut_, vol. v, p. 50.

It seems clear that either through neglect or evasion a considerable

number of congregations failed to qualify under the law. In any event

the legislature deemed itself warranted in passing an act, May,

1721, imposing a fine of five shillings on persons convicted of not

having attended “the publick worship of God on the Lord’s day in some

congregation by law allowed.” (See _ibid._, vol. vi, p. 248.) Churches

which for doctrinal or other reasons withdrew from the Establishment

suffered serious embarrassments on account of this law respecting the

licensing of congregations.

[123] _Ibid._, vol. v, p. 50. Any infraction of this law was to be

punished by a heavy fine. Failure to pay the fine involved heavy bail

or imprisonment.

[124] Greene, _The Development of Religious Liberty in Connecticut_,

pp. 191 _et seq._

[125] _The Public Records of the Colony of Connecticut_, vol. vi, p.

106.

[126] _The Pub. Records of the Colony of Conn._, vol. vi, pp. 237, 257.

Unlike the Massachusetts exemption laws passed on behalf of these two

bodies, these were perpetual.

[127] _Collections of the Connecticut Historical Society: Talcott

Papers_, vol. v, pp. 9–13; Backus, _History of New England_, vol. ii,

pp. 98 _et seq._

[128] Parker, _History of the Second Church of Christ in Hartford_,

pp. 117, 119; _Papers of the New Haven Colony Historical Society_,

vol. iv: _The Bradford Annals_, pp. 318 _et seq._; Backus, _History

of New England_, vol. ii, pp. 57 _et seq._, 79 _et seq._ For the

account of the difficulties of a particular Separatist congregation,

see Dutton, _The History of the North Church in New Haven_, pp. 25–28.

_Cf._ _The Public Records of the Colony of Connecticut_, vol. xi, pp.

323 _et seq._; also Beardsley, _The History of the Episcopal Church in

Connecticut_, vol. i, p. 140.

[129] The bigoted and unfeeling spirit which controlled the authorities

is well expressed in the act of May, 1743. Proceeding on the assumption

that the Separatists, taking advantage of the act of May, 1708, were

responsible for the disruptive tactics and measures of the times, by

means of which “some of the parishes established by the laws of this

Colony ... have been greatly damnified, and by indirect means divided

and parted,” the General Court repealed the act in question, and put

in its place the following: “And be it further enacted, that, for the

future, if any of His Majesty’s good subjects, being protestants,

inhabitants of this Colony, that shall soberly dissent from the way

of worship and ministry established by the laws of this Colony, that

such persons may apply themselves to this Assembly for relief, where

they shall be heard. _And such persons as have any distinguishing

character, by which they may be known from the presbyterians or

congregationalists, and from the consociated churches established by

the laws of this Colony, may expect the indulgence of this Assembly_

[Italics mine.—V. S.], having first before this Assembly taken the

oaths and subscribed the declaration provided in the act of Parliament

in cases of like nature.” (_The Public Records of the Colony of

Connecticut_, vol. viii, p. 522. _Cf._ Backus, _History of New

England_, vol. ii, p. 58.)

[130] _The Public Records of the Colony of Connecticut_, vol. viii, p.

454.

[131] _Ibid._, p. 456.

[132] _The Pub. Records of the Colony of Conn._, vol. viii, p. 456.

[133] _Ibid._, p. 457.

[134] Backus, _History of New England_, vol. ii, p. 57.

[135] Cobb, _The Rise of Religious Liberty in America_, pp. 274 _et

seq._ Greene, _The Development of Religious Liberty in Connecticut_,

pp. 244 _et seq._

[136] _Cf. supra_, note 1, p. 57.

[137] Backus, _History of New England_, vol. ii, pp. 59 _et seq._, 62,

65 _et seq._, 77 _et seq._, 81 _et seq._

[138] Greene, _The Development of Religious Liberty in Connecticut_,

pp. 248–262. The difficulties experienced by three congregations in New

Haven, Canterbury, and Enfield, are dealt with in detail.

[139] A revision of Connecticut laws took place in 1750. The unjust

legislation of 1742–43 and of the following years was quietly left out.

[140] _Papers of the New Haven Colony Historical Society_, vol. iii,

pp. 398 _et seq._

[141] _Acts and Laws of the State of Connecticut, in America_, p. 21.

[142] _Acts and Laws of the State of Connecticut, in America_, p. 21.

[143] Parker, _History of the Second Church of Hartford_, pp. 170,

171. _Cf._ Beecher, _Autobiography, Correspondence, etc._, vol. i, p.

302. The latter’s account of the situation is much softened by his

sympathies with the dominant party.

[144] By this time dissenters and Anti-Federalists had largely

consolidated their interests. The political program of the latter drew

upon the former all the suspicions and antagonisms which the Standing

Order entertained toward the foes of Federalism. The acrimonious

discussion which arose at this time over the disposition of the

Western Reserve and the funds thus derived, admirably illustrates the

cross-currents of religious and political agitation in the last decade

of the century. _Cf._ Greene, _The Development of Religious Liberty in

Connecticut_, pp. 380–392.

[145] This is readily explicable in view of the fact that most of the

magistrates were adherents of the Establishment. The comment of Backus

touches the pith of the matter, as dissenters saw it: “Thus the civil

authority in the uppermost religious party in their State, was to judge

the consciences of all men who dissented from their worship.” (_History

of New England_, vol. ii, p. 345.)

[146] _Acts and Laws of the State of Connecticut_, p. 418.

[147] In September, 1818, by the adoption of the new state

constitution, the long wearisome struggle was brought to an end, and

State and Church in Connecticut were separated completely.

[148] This point of view was tersely set forth in the election sermon

preached by the Rev. Mr. Payson, at Boston, May 27, 1778: “Let the

restraints of religion once be broken down, as they infallibly would

be by leaving the subject of public worship to the humours of the

multitude, and we might well defy all human wisdom and power to support

and preserve order and government in the state.”—Quoted by Backus,

_Church History of New England, from 1620 to 1804_ (ed. of 1844,

Philadelphia), pp. 204 _et seq._

[149] The state of feelings shared by the supporters of the

Establishment at the time when the blow fell severing the bond between

the church and state in Connecticut, is vividly expressed by Beecher:

“It was a time of great depression.... It was as dark a day as ever

I saw. The injury done to the cause of Christ, as we then supposed,

was irreparable. For several days I suffered what no tongue can tell

_for the best thing that ever happened to the State of Connecticut_.”

(_Autobiography, Correspondence, etc._, vol. i, p. 304.)

[150] This was the view propounded by President Ezra Stiles, of Yale,

in his election sermon of May 3, 1783: “Through the liberty enjoyed

here, all religious sects will grow up into large and respectable

bodies. But the Congregational and Presbyterian denominations, however

hitherto despised, will, by the blessing of Heaven continue to hold

the greatest figure in America, and, notwithstanding all the fruitless

labors and exertions to proselyte us to other communions, become more

numerous than the whole collective body of our fellow protestants in

Europe.” (Quoted by Backus, _History of New England_, vol. ii, p. 312.)

To this exposition and bold forecast Backus took decided objections, on

the grounds (1) that _persecution_ and not _tolerance_ had promoted the

growth of sects in America, and (2) that the numerical increase of the

Congregationalists and Presbyterians in this country did not justify

any such prediction. _Cf. ibid._, pp. 403–407.

[151] Perhaps no man more boldly stated this interpretation of the

motives that inspired the Standing Order than Abraham Bishop, leader

of the forces of Republicanism in Connecticut and arch-enemy of

“ecclesiastical aristocrats.” “The religion of the country is made a

stalking horse for political jockies ... Thanksgiving and fasts have

been often improved for political purposes and the miserable gleanings

from half a year’s ignorance of the true interests of our country

have been palmed on the people, by the political clergy, as a pious

compliance with the governor’s very pious proclamations.... The union

of Church and State ... [is] the grand fortress of the ‘friends of

order and good government.’” (_Oration delivered at Wallingford, New

Haven_, 1801, pp. 46, 83.) That “the church is in danger” has for some

time past been one of the most frequent and frantic of all the absurd

cries heard in the land, and that New England through her clannishness

has produced “patriarchs in opinion” who assume the prerogative of

dictating the opinions of the people on all subjects, are further

trenchant comments of the same orator. (_Ibid._, pp. 13, 17.) Bishop’s

observations respecting the alleged specious and insincere character

of those public utterances by which “the friends of order and good

government” sought to preserve the _status quo_, are equally pointed.

“The sailor nailed the needle of his compass to the cardinal point

and swore that it should not be always traversing. So does the New

England friend of order: but he cautiously conceals the oppression and

imposture, which sustains these habits.... This cry of _steady habits_

has a talismanic effect on the minds of our people; but nothing can be

more hollow, vain and deceitful. Recollect for a moment that everything

valuable in our world has been at one time innovation, illuminatism,

modern philosophy, atheism.... Our steady habits have calmly assumed

domination over the rights of conscience and suffrage. Certainly the

trinitarian doctrine is established by law and the denial of it is

placed in the rank follies. Though we have ceased to transport from

town to town, quakers, new lights, and baptists; yet the dissenters

from our prevailing denomination are, even at this moment, praying

for the repeal of those laws which abridge the rights of conscience.”

(_Ibid._, pp. 14, 16.)

3. ALARMS DUE TO THE SPREAD OF RELIGIOUS RADICALISM AND SCEPTICISM

During the eighteenth century the progress of religious thought in New

England in the direction of liberal positions was marked. Near the

beginning of the century, in his _Ratio Disciplinae_, Cotton Mather

was able to speak confidently of the solid and compact character of

religious opinion in his generation, and felt free to dispose of

the subject with a few general statements regarding the universal

adherence of the churches of New England to the orthodox standards

of the mother country. He made the added comment: “I can not learn,

That among all the Pastors of Two Hundred Churches, there is one

Arminian: much less Arian, or a Gentilist.”[152] At the end of the

century, it is very certain that no such all-inclusive generalization,

by the widest stretch of the imagination, would have been possible.

Indeed, when a noted Philadelphia minister of the day, the Reverend

Ashbel Green, visited New England in 1791, he found an aptitude for

polemical discussion on the part of the clergy which impressed him as

most extraordinary. Through his contact with the Boston Ministerial

Association he encountered “Calvinists, Universalists, Arminians,

Arians,” and at least one “Socinian,” all participating in pleasant

social intercourse, despite their radical differences of religious

opinion. To the mind of the visiting Philadelphia clergyman the

situation was explicable only on the basis of an extreme laxness in

the matter of religious sentiments and doctrines, a judgment which

obviously requires some modification in view of the predilection for

doctrinal controversy which he himself remarked.[153]

From the days of the Great Awakening, the lines of doctrinal cleavage

had grown increasingly distinct in the religious thought of New

England. Apart from those effects of the revival which already have

been noted,[154] it may be said that the one really permanent result of

that notable wave of religious enthusiasm was the polemical controversy

which it precipitated.[155] The question concerning the “means of

grace,” around which the controversy in its initial stage raged,[156]

became larger and more complicated by virtue of the massive system of

theology which Jonathan Edwards developed upon the fundamental notion

of the utter worthlessness of man, due to his depravity and consequent

helplessness.

Into the metaphysical subtleties of the Edwardean system we are not

called to go; it is sufficient to observe that the reaction against

such a conception of human nature was bound to be marked in the midst

of an age generally responsive to enthusiasms born of fresh conceptions

of the essential dignity and worth of man. The virtue of humility was

destined to divest itself of much of that abject quality with which the

whole Calvinistic theology had clothed it, and to accommodate itself

to candid and unblushing convictions of human endowments, abilities,

excellencies, and prospects, because of which it would be impossible to

retain the traditional contempt for human nature.[157]

The reaction against the Edwardean theology was fruitful in the

encouragement of liberal notions along other closely related lines. The

bold necessitarianism of that system could not but produce an effect

generally favorable to the promotion of man’s confidence in himself, in

the midst of an age characterized by prodigious political initiative

and love of liberty, and by conceptions of the Deity which stressed the

very vastness of those reaches of space stretching between God and the

world. The heavy emphasis which the new theological system laid upon

the notion of the divine sovereignty, true as it was in spirit to the

traditional Puritan interest in the cause of theocracy, was doomed to

find itself belated within an age beginning to glow with humanitarian

passion and with enthusiasm for the ideal of democracy; and, positively

considered, to give impulse in the general direction just noted. The

very heat and intensity of the controversy which, from the middle

of the century on, filled New England with its din and confusion,

in itself bore witness to the degree of pressure which the more

secularized notions of human worth and destiny had begun to exert. That

a system so staggering in its assumptions, so all but invulnerable in

its logical self-consistency, and withal so inexorable in its demands

upon the human spirit for the abandonment of all thought of independent

ability and worth, having been brought to close quarters with more or

less vague and undefined, but none the less vital human interests and

passions, should tend to give rise to a variety of radical opinions and

judgments, was to be expected. And thus it operated,[158] not, to be

sure, without the assistance of significant concurrent causes.

The wash of the wave of the great deistic controversy on the other

side of the Atlantic was not without its effect upon the religious

thought of New England. The direct evidence of this is, however, much

more elusive than one might at first suppose.[159] That the reading

public was acquainted with the writings of the great English deists,

Herbert, Chubb, Shaftesbury, Tindal, Wollaston, Toland, Hume, is

clear from references to their works which appear with considerable

frequency in the private and public records of the day; but invariably

these references are made in a more or less casual manner, and, for

the most part, in connection with sweeping generalizations made by the

clergy respecting the prevailing scepticism of the age. Apart from such

allusions and the appearance of titles in the lists of booksellers

who were advertising their stocks in the newspapers, it would be

difficult to cite specific evidence, Thomas Paine’s _Age of Reason_

alone excepted, to the effect that the impact of English deism upon the

thought of New England was anything like direct.

The amount of independent literary expression which the doctrines of

deism obtained in New England was practically negligible.[160] The

quality was even less noteworthy. Ethan Allen’s _Reason the Only

Oracle of Man_,[161] published in 1784, was perhaps the only production

of native orig into which anything like general attention was accorded;

and the evident inability of this work to root itself deeply in the

thought of the people, despite the prestige due to the author’s

Revolutionary record, was demonstrated the moment Paine’s more serious

work began to circulate in this country. The crudeness of Allen’s

style, coupled with the ferocity of his onslaught on the advocates and

absurdly credulous devotees of supernaturalism, as Allen regarded the

orthodox party of his day, went far toward determining the attitude

of contempt and high-minded scorn with which his work was generally

treated, when leaders of conservative thought deigned to notice it at

all.[162]

But Thomas Paine’s attack upon the foundations of supernaturalism

was by no means taken lightly. From the time of its arrival in this

country, the _Age of Reason_ produced an amount of excited comment

which gave to its appearance and circulation all the elements of a

sensation.[163] The natural interest of the public in the appearance of

the production was admittedly great; but at least a partial explanation

of the attention which the book received is to be found in the fact

that its author was able to effect plans to have the work published

cheaply abroad and extensively circulated in this country.[164] In any

event, whatever may have been the precise influences which promoted

the distribution and perusal of the book, the _Age of Reason_ aroused

an immediate public interest, chiefly antagonistic, the like of which

probably had been accorded to no other volume circulated in America

before its day. The bumptious and militant nature of its deism, as

well as its raw and unceremonious ridicule of much that passed in the

thought of the times for essential orthodoxy, drew popular attention

from the worthier and more exalted passages in the volume,[165] and

irritated the opposition beyond control. A vociferous chorus of

hostile criticism arose.[166] Clergymen poured out the vials of

their wrath and execration, despite their evident desire to appear

undisturbed; newspaper editors and contributors gave voluminous

expression to their sense of chagrin and pained disappointment that so

scandalous and impious a publication should be in circulation;[167]

observers of and participants in the college life of the day felt

called upon to lament the extent to which unsettling opinions of the

nature of those expressed by Paine had laid hold of the imaginations

and altered the convictions of youthful minds.[168] The impression that

Paine had aided and abetted the cause of impiety and irreligion was

general.[169]

It was not the doctrinal controversies of the period, however, nor

yet the intrusion of the principles of natural religion, by which

the unsettling tendencies of the times were believed to be promoted

most directly and powerfully. In the judgment of practically every

leader of conservative thought in New England, and of all America for

that matter, that unholy preëminence belonged to the effect produced

upon the public mind in this country by the French Revolution, and

more especially the impious principles of infidelity and atheism by

which, they concluded, that colossal overturning of institutions was

stimulated and guided. No single phenomenon of our national history

stands out in sharper relief than the impression which the great

European convulsion made, first upon the imaginations and later upon

the political and religious ideals of the citizens of this young

republic in the West, who followed the earlier fortunes of the French

Revolutionary cause with breathless interest and concern. The memory

of the recent struggle of the American colonists for independence, for

the happy issue of which France had made such timely and substantial

contributions, in itself supplied a pledge of profound sympathy for

that country. That the spark of revolution had been communicated

originally by America to France was, moreover, one of the favorite

conceits of the day. Gratitude, the bonds of political friendship

and alliance, the supposed similarity of popular enthusiasms and

passions—all the essential factors requisite for the development of a

spirit of tender and affectionate regard were clearly present.

Thus it happened that from the hour when the first rumblings of the

impending European revolution were heard on this side of the Atlantic,

the citizens of these states evinced an earnest and sympathetic

concern;[170] and as the revolutionary drama unfolded through its

earlier scenes the enthusiasm and lively sympathy of the people grew

apace. The atmosphere was electric. Anticipations of citizens ran high.

Liberty was again in travail.[171] The institutions of freedom were

about to descend upon another nation. The shackles of political and

ecclesiastical tyranny were being torn from the limbs of twenty-five

millions of slaves.[172] Having revolutionized France, America’s ideals

might be expected to leaven the whole of Europe.[173] The millennium

could not be far away. Admiration for the French cause and devotion

to it swept all before them. So much so that when, in the autumn and

winter of 1792–93, the thrilling news of the successes achieved by the

French armies in repelling the invaders of the new republic began to

arrive in America, a wave of irresistible and uncontrolled enthusiasm

swept over the land.[174] The “French Frenzy,” with its maudlin

outbursts of professed attachment for the great watchwords of the

Revolution—Liberty, Equality, Fraternity—with its pageants and civic

feasts, its cockades and liberty caps, its ribald singing of republican

songs and dramatic intertwinings of the standards of the two sister

republics, deserves a place altogether by itself as an extraordinary

expression of the public mind.

To this wild riot of tumultuous and spectacular enthusiasm an

effectual check was soon to be given. With the execution of Louis XVI,

in January, 1793, the admiration of the more thoughtful observers of

the Revolution, who had accustomed themselves to pass soberly but

apologetically over the earlier excesses of the revolutionists as

unavoidable concomitants of a struggle necessarily desperate in its

character,[175] received a rude shock.[176] The brutal death of a

monarch whose personal services on behalf of their own cause during the

days of deep necessity had been considerable, brought home to American

citizens their first clear conviction respecting the excessively bloody

and relentless spirit of the forces in control of the Revolution. The

day of disillusionment had dawned. Leaders of thought made no effort

to conceal their sense of mingled horror and regret. The amount of

popular sympathy for the cause of the Revolution was still too great to

allow anything approaching a general condemnation; but none the less a

decided chill was felt.[177]

The murder of the king soon enough appeared to Americans a mere

incident in a wild orgy of unbridled violence and blood-letting. A

stream of information concerning the swift march of events in France,

mostly having to do with enormities and excesses which gave all too

patent proof of the fury of the currents of passion upon which the

participants in the Revolution were being tossed, began to pour its

waters through the channels of public utterance and discussion in

America. The atrocities of the Reign of Terror brought fully home

to the American public, to the conservative-minded particularly,

the conviction that the Revolution had become diverted from its

original principles and aims, and had descended to the plane of brutal

despotism, reprehensible both in principle and practice above anything

the eyes of men had ever beheld.[178] The leaders of the Revolution

clearly were not the high-minded patriots and emancipators their

admirers on this side of the ocean had adjudged them to be. The terms

“assassin,” “savage,” “monster,” “regicide,” began to be employed as

the only fit terms whereby to characterize the leading figures in an

awful spectacle of butchery and rapine.[179]

But not until the religious aspects of the French Revolution are

considered, is the deep revulsion of feeling which took place in New

England completely laid bare. This feature of the situation had been

regarded with deep solicitude from the beginning;[180] and as time went

on through the cloud of confusion raised by the dust and smoke of the

political developments of the Revolution, it became increasingly clear

to the conservative class in New England that an alliance between

the forces of anarchy and impiety had been effected. What else could

explain the rapid development of a fierce reforming spirit, which in

turn, within the space of not more than two or three years at the

most, stood forth as a spirit of overt persecution in the handling of

all ecclesiastical affairs? The vociferous affirmation of deistical

and atheistical principles on the part of Revolutionary leaders in

the councils of clubs and in sessions of the National Assembly, the

reiteration and growing boldness of the demand for the elimination

of the ancient system of religious faith, the successive efforts to

supplant that system, first with the cult of Reason and later with

the cult of the Supreme Being,—how were these to be construed other

than as the expressions and performances of men who were bent upon

the utter abolition of the Christian faith? There was wanting in New

England, of course, intimate knowledge of the true state of French

religious affairs and of the reactionary spirit displayed by the higher

clergy and their devotion to the cause of monarchy. Little was known

of the growing sense of resentment felt by a people who had begun

to contemplate frankly the burdens which had been imposed upon them

under the ancient régime, the multiplication of religious offices and

establishments, the absorption of the land into vast ecclesiastical

estates, and the indifference of the spiritual guides of the nation

to private and public distress. It was hardly to be expected that

spectators as far removed from the scene as the shores of New England

would be able to interpret correctly the essential spirit of a people

who had grown weary of the abuses of a religious system in whose

principles and purer forms they still believed, despite the momentary

violence of their leaders.[181]

By the year 1794 the belief that the revolutionists in France had

added atheism to their program of anarchy was well established in New

England. The difficulty of weighing this opinion exactly is greatly

enhanced on account of the political handling which the situation

received. Over the question of foreign alliances the Federalists and

Republicans had split violently in 1793. The war which had broken out

between England and France, regarded from any point of view, was of

vast consequence in the eyes of the citizens of this young nation, just

beginning to cope with the problems of diplomacy and international

relations. The outbreak of hostilities between the two European nations

with which the United States had had and must continue to have its

most intimate and important intercourse forced an alignment among

its citizens so sharp and decisive as to constitute the outstanding

political feature of the country for years to come.[182] For reasons

which we shall not now pause to consider, Federalists championed the

cause of England in the European conflict, and Republicans the cause

of France. Seizing upon the issue of “French infidelity,” Federalist

editors were disposed to see in it the gravest peril by which the

American people were threatened. The anti-religious spirit of the

French Revolutionary leaders represented a danger-point of infection

against which every citizen must needs be warned. On the other hand,

Republican editors felt it incumbent upon them to do their utmost to

minimize the genuineness and importance of all such damaging views of

the case.[183]

But considerations of party advantage fall far short of furnishing

a full explanation of the general sense of alarm the people of New

England experienced on account of the open hostility to religion

which they saw manifest in France. Out of France came a series of

reports which taken together were calculated to raise their fears to

the highest pitch. The confiscation of the property of the church,

the abolition of religious vows, the promulgation of the “Civil

Constitution of the Clergy,”[184] the banishment of non-juror priests,

the infamy of the Goddess of Reason, the abolition of the Christian

Sabbath, the secularization of festivals[185]—here were evidences of

impiety as shameless as they were shocking.[186] Such principles and

measures appeared as so many deadly thrusts at the Christian faith. It

was difficult, if not impossible, for the most sympathetic admirers of

France to find a way to explain this ominous cast of events.[187]

How thoroughly the fear of “French infidelity” had gripped the

imaginations of men in New England will appear more clearly if the

following considerations are weighed. The presumption that the intimate

relations which Americans had been having with the people of France

had produced a serious blight of morals and religion among the former,

seemed to find its justification in the currents of skepticism and

irreverence which, by common consent, had set in among the youth of the

land. This phase of the situation as reflected in conditions within the

colleges was held to be particularly deplorable. It was the settled

conviction of President Dwight of Yale that “the infidelity of Voltaire

and his coadjutors” had a special attractiveness for youth, for reasons

which do not impress one as being highly charitable, to say the least:

Youths particularly, who had been liberally educated, and who with

strong passions, and feeble principles, were votaries of sensuality

and ambition, delighted with the prospect of unrestrained

gratification, and panting to be enrolled with men of fashion and

splendour, became enamored of these new doctrines. The tenour of

opinion, and even of conversation, was to a considerable extent

changed at once. Striplings, scarcely fledged, suddenly found that

the world had been involved in a general darkness, through the long

succession of the preceding ages; and that the light of wisdom had

just begun to dawn upon the human race. All the science, all the

information, which had been acquired before the commencement of the

last thirty or forty years, stood in their view for nothing....

Religion they discovered on the one hand to be a vision of dotards

and nurses, and on the other a system of fraud and trick, imposed

by priestcraft for base purposes upon the ignorant multitude.

Revelation they found was without authority, or evidence; and

moral obligation a cobweb, which might indeed entangle flies,

but by which creatures of a stronger wing nobly disdained to be

confined.[188]

This somewhat theoretical view of the case was not unsupported by

tangible evidence. The students of Yale were sceptical.[189] In the

religious discussions of the lecture-rooms the cause of infidelity

stood high in student favor.[190] Of seventy-six members of the class

that graduated in 1802 only one was a professed Christian at the time

of matriculation.[191] At the time President Dwight entered upon

the leadership of the college, the college church was practically

extinct.[192] Altogether the situation was highly alarming to the

friends of Christianity.[193]

The condition of affairs at Harvard showed little if any improvement.

When William Ellery Channing matriculated in that institution in 1794

he found the thought and principles of the students on a lower level

than they ever before had reached.[194] The French Revolution, which

generally throughout the country had shown itself to be contaminating,

already had left its marks deep upon the life of the college. The old

loyalties were shaken; conversation had become bold and daring in tone;

the foundations upon which morals and religion had been built in the

past were now believed to be seriously undermined.[195]

On the part of men who held themselves responsible for the education

of youth, everywhere the feeling prevailed that a popular mood of

skepticism had developed for which the precepts and example of the

French were chiefly responsible.

With the clergy—and in their state of mind we are interested

especially—this feeling was hardly less than an obsession. The special

conservators of the moral and religious health of the people, they

had long been concerned over the possible effects of radical French

political and religious notions; and when they seemed to see the

triumph of those notions in the excesses of the French Revolution,

their sense of alarm was intense. It was, of course, the exhibition

of violent hostility to organized Christianity in France which the

Revolutionists were making, over which their hands were flung high in

horror.

The clergy of New England, like the majority of their

fellow-countrymen, in the beginning had not adopted an attitude of

hostility toward the French upheaval. There was that in the earlier

struggles of the French people to tear the yoke of despotism from

their necks which appealed mightily to the sympathies of the clerical

heart. It was not without some travail of spirit that clergymen arrived

at the conclusion that their sympathy and enthusiasm for the French

Revolution had been misplaced.[196] Two factors contributed to this

result. In the first place, the changed complexion of the Revolution;

in the second place, the new party alignments at home which brought the

orthodox clergy, almost to a man, into the Federalist camp.

Which of these two factors was the more decisive in its power of

control over the clerical mind, it would be difficult to say.

As a matter of fact, the two influences were interrelated to an

extraordinary degree. Political alignments, as we have seen, were

interwoven closely with the question of foreign alliances. Conversely,

the status of foreign affairs was bound to react strongly upon the

judgments of clergymen with whom patriotic concerns were second in

importance only to the interests of religion. Be that as it may, the

years 1793 and 1794 saw the Federalist clergy in New England rapidly

veering round to the fixed position of vehement antagonism to French

principles. The following is a brief account of the course they pursued.

On the occasion of the annual fast in Massachusetts, April 11, 1793,

the Reverend David Tappan, professor of divinity in Harvard College,

preached a sermon that indicated the trend of a clerical mind.[197] In

language not unmarked by vagueness, he called upon his hearers to bear

witness to the present corrupted state of religion, due to the bold

advance and rapid diffusion of “sceptical, deistical, and other loose

and pernicious sentiments.” Waxing more confident, he continued: “May

I not add that a species of atheistical philosophy, which has of late

triumphantly reared its head in Europe, and which affects to be the

offspring and the nurse of sound reason, science, and liberty, seems

in danger of infecting some of the more sprightly and free-thinking

geniuses of America.”[198]

Something more than a year later, a pulpit deliverance was made

at Medford, Massachusetts, on the occasion of the annual state

Thanksgiving, which supplied ample evidence that clerical fears were

rapidly gathering force. Medford’s minister, the Reverend David

Osgood,[199] was heard in a vigorous discussion of the leading

political and religious concerns of the day.[200] First taking

occasion to eulogize the Federal government by way of atonement for

the failure of Governor Samuel Adams to make reference to the same

in his Thanksgiving proclamation, the reverend gentleman thereupon

launched into a vehement denunciation of the Democratic Societies,[201]

because of their subservience to foreign emissaries, and because

of the outrageous activities of Minister Genet. Not content with

this, he proceeded to lay heavy emphasis upon the ferocious zeal and

desperate fury which the French were manifesting in their attacks upon

the institutions of religion, the far-reaching import of which, he

declared, was already apparent in the fact that, under the power of

their blind devotion to the French cause, not a few American citizens

were casting off their allegiance to the Christian religion.[202]

The notes of warning sounded by Osgood in this sermon were both clear

and loud. They fell on numerous sympathetic and responsive ears.

Committed promptly to type, the sermon passed rapidly through six

editions, a sufficient proof of the extent of the sensation which it

produced. Its author’s reputation was established; but beyond this,

and what is more to the point, the shibboleths of future clerical

pronouncements had been uttered. Henceforth the public utterances of

the Federal clergy were to be characterized by a violent antagonism

to the French Revolution and the spread of French influence in

America.[203]

The chorus of clerical complaint on account of the dangers that

threatened the cause of religion, either because of the progress of

the Revolution abroad or the overt and secret diffusion of infidel

principles at home, grew steadily in volume. One or two added instances

of this type of pulpit utterance will suffice.

Tappan was again heard from, in February, 1795, on the day set for

the observance of the national thanksgiving.[204] He dealt with

the political situation at length, and emphasized particularly

the destructive effects of French influence. Before his sermon was

committed to the hands of the printer, Tappan was made acquainted with

the fact that the minister of Rowley, the Reverend Ebenezer Bradford,

had made certain apologetic comments, on the occasion of the national

thanksgiving, respecting the importance of French success to the peace

and tranquility of America, and the propriety of seeking the reason for

the recent insurrection in western Pennsylvania in “impolitic laws”

rather than in French influence exerted through Democratic Clubs,[205]

as Federalists had made bold to claim.[206] To these observations

Tappan made the following sharp retort:

The destructive effects of them [_i. e._, secret political clubs]

in France have been noticed in the preceding discourse. Their

unhappy influence in this country is sufficiently exemplified in

that spirit of falsehood, of party and faction, which some of them,

at least, assiduously and too successfully promote, and especially

in the late dangerous and expensive western insurrection, which

may be evidently traced, in a great degree, to the inflammatory

representations and proceedings of these clubs, their abettors and

friends.[207]

Medford’s minister acquitted himself with something more than his

customary fiery earnestness on the occasion of this same national

festival. Mounting his pulpit, he pictured to his hearers “the reign

of a ferocious and atheistical anarchy in France,” whose authors had

“formed the design of bringing other nations to fraternize with them

in their infernal principles and conduct.”[208] Their emissaries,

Osgood argued, have spread themselves abroad and entered into every

country open to them. In Geneva these abandoned creatures have been

“horribly successful in overthrowing a free government but lately

established, and in bringing on, in imitation of what had happened in

their own country, one revolution after another.” The same identical

agents have found their way into the United States and have begun here

their poisonous fraternizing system.[209] The sermon as a whole could

scarcely have been more violent in tone. It is very clear that Osgood

had resolved to do what he could to rouse the country.

As a direct result of this kind of pulpit utterance—a result that

doubtless had much to do with persuading the clergy that an alarming

decline of religion was under way in New England—the charge of

“political preaching” rapidly developed into one of the standing

accusations of the day. The bitterness of party strife grew apace.

Opposition to Federalist measures of government, such as Jay’s Treaty

and the handling of diplomatic relations with France, mounted steadily

higher. In consequence, the Federal clergy found themselves drawn

farther and farther into the maelstrom of political discussion. Out of

this developed the sentiments entertained by the opposition that the

clergy were the tools of the Federalists, and that public occasions

were eagerly pounced upon by them and used to promote the cause of

party advantage.

This shaft struck home; and yet not so much in the nature of a personal

affront as an added proof that a state of deep impiety had settled down

upon the land. Well might the clergy lament, not that they had been

so foully slandered, but that they were called upon to reckon with

a people who had drifted out so far upon the sea of irreverence and

disrespect. To illustrate: The Reverend Jeremy Belknap was before the

convention of the clergy of Massachusetts, in May, 1796, to preach the

convention sermon. His mind turned to this new burden which had lately

fallen on the already heavily-laden shoulders of the ministry. Thus he

sought to mollify the wounded feelings of his brethren:

Another of the afflictions to which we are exposed, is the

resentment of pretended patriots, when we oppose their views in

endeavoring to serve our country. There is a monopolizing spirit in

some politicians, which would exclude clergymen from all attention

to matters of state and government; which would prohibit us from

bringing political subjects into the pulpit, and even threaten us

with the loss of our livings if we move at all in the political

Sphere. But, my brethren, I consider politics as intimately

connected with morality, and both with religion.... How liberal are

some tongues, some pens, and some presses, with their abuse, when

we appear warm and zealous in the cause of our country! When we

speak or write in support of its liberties, its constitution, its

peace and its honor, we are stigmatized as busy-bodies, as tools of

a party, as meddling with what does not belong to us, and usurping

authority over our brethren.[210]

A couple of years later another staunch clerical supporter of

Federalist policies, the Reverend John Thornton Kirkland, minister of

the New South Church in Boston, came somewhat closer to the main point.

The spirit of the times, he urged, had greatly changed, and that for

the worse. Clergymen now were being severely censured for what only a

few years earlier they had been warmly commended for as constituting a

peculiar merit. The leaders of the American Revolution, for example,

had praised the clergy for throwing the weight of their influence

into the political scale, recognizing that there exists a moral and

religious as well as a civil obligation on the part of ministers

to warn the people of the dangers which threaten their liberty and

happiness. But now, however, at a time when the dearest interests of

religion and patriotism, of church and state, are fiercely assailed and

imperiled, the clergy are met with calumny and insult when they venture

to speak out. Only the debasement of morals and piety could explain so

lamentable a transformation.[211]

A growing sensitiveness to the objections of Republican partisans that

they were stepping aside from the legitimate responsibilities of their

calling and prostituting the functions of their sacred office to

unworthy ends, is apparent on the part of the clergy;[212] but when the

very slander and abuse which they suffered supplied added evidence, if

that were needed, that the institutions of religion and of government

were being rapidly undermined, there could be no damping of their

spirit nor turning back from the performance of a service, however

unappreciated, to which by tradition and by present necessity they

believed themselves bound.

Thus matters stood with the clergy of the Standing Order in New England

at the close of the eighteenth century. Whether they were mistaken

or not, a state of general irreligion seemed to them to have been

ushered in. On all sides the positions of traditional orthodoxy were

being called in question. The cause of revealed religion had found

new enemies, and the cause of natural religion new agencies for its

promotion. The French Revolution had given a terrifying exhibition

of what might be expected to happen to a nation in which radical and

sceptical opinions were allowed to have complete expression. As for the

progress of impiety at home, the youth of the land were contaminated,

the state of public morals was unsound, opposition to measures of

government was increasing in power and virulence, the institutions of

religion were commanding less and less respect, the clergy were treated

with a coldness and criticalness of spirit they had never faced before.

Seeking for the causes of this baneful condition of affairs, the

clergy believed they were to be found mainly in the dissemination of

revolutionary opinions issuing from France, but in part also in native

tendencies to exalt reason and throw off the restraints of government

in church and state.

Before taking leave of the subject, a few final illustrations may be

considered by way of fixing upon the mind the strength of this general

impression which the New England clergy entertained.

On the occasion of the general fast, May 4, 1797, at West Springfield,

Massachusetts, the Reverend Joseph Lathrop preached a sermon to which

he gave the expressive title, _God’s Challenge to Infidels to Defend

Their Cause_.[213] The inspiration of the discourse was drawn from the

conviction that “this is a day when infidelity appears with unusual

boldness, and advances with threatening progress, to the hazard of

our national freedom and happiness, as well as to the danger of our

future salvation.”[214] According to this interpreter of the signs of

the times, the dissemination of infidelity was to be regarded as the

outstanding fact in the life of America, as well as in the life of the

world.

An unusually lugubrious view of the situation was that taken by the

Reverend Nathan Strong, in the sermon which he preached, April 6, 1798,

on the occasion of the Connecticut state fast. In the eyes of this

modern Jeremiah, the situation was desperate almost beyond remedy:

There are dark and ominous appearances. I do not mean the wrath

and threatening of any foreign nations whatever, for if we please

God and procure him on our side, we may bless his providence,

and hear human threatenings without emotion. But the dark omens

are to be found at home. In our hearts, in our homes, in our

practice, and in a licentious spirit disposed to break down civil

and religious order. In affecting to depend on reason in the

things of religion, more than the word of God; so as to reject

all evangelical holiness, faith in Jesus Christ, the Son of God,

and the ministrations of the spirit in the heart. In substituting

anarchy and licentiousness, in the room of rational and just

liberty. In supposing that freedom consists in men’s doing what

is right in their own eyes; even though their eyes look through

the mist of wicked ambition and lust. Here is our real danger, and

these are the omens that augur ill to us.[215]

Far less subjective in its analysis was the sermon which the now

celebrated minister of Medford, the Reverend David Osgood, preached

not many days later, on the occasion of the national fast.[216] Once

more the eyes of his hearers were invited to contemplate the horrible

spectacle abroad. It had now become certain that the legislators of

France had abolished the Christian religion. Preposterous indeed was

the idea of those who supposed that they were engaged in anything so

beneficent as “stripping the whore of Babylon, pulling down the man of

sin, destroying popery,”[217] and making way for the introduction of

the millennium. That which they had set their hearts upon was to bring

it to pass that Christ and His religion should no longer be remembered

upon the earth. The French republicans were so many infernals who had

broken loose from the pit below.[218] Their profession of principles

of liberty and philanthropy were deceptive in the highest degree.

They sought to fraternize with other nations merely to seduce them.

Their emissaries employed the arts of intrigue and corruption, they

were charged to stir up factions, seditions, rebellions, so as to

disorganize established governments and make them more readily the prey

of the infamous French government.[219]

That these were not the pulpit utterances of men of peculiarly morbid

dispositions, who stood apart from the main currents of thought and

life in their day, would seem to be proved by the following instances

of formal declarations issued by associations of churches.

On the 17th of May, 1798, the General Assembly of the Presbyterian

Church in the United States, then in session in the city of

Philadelphia, issued an address to the members of its various

congregations scattered throughout the country, urging attention to the

extraordinarily gloomy aspect of affairs. The situation was interpreted

as follows:

The aspect of divine providence, and the extraordinary situation

of the world, at the present time, indicate that a solemn

admonition, by the ministers of religion and other church officers

in General Assembly convened, has become our indispensable duty.

When formidable innovations and convulsions in Europe threaten

destruction to morals and religion; when scenes of devastation

and bloodshed, unexampled in the history of modern nations, have

convulsed the world; and when our own country is threatened with

similar calamities, insensibility in us would be stupidity; silence

would be criminal. The watchmen on Zion’s walls are bound by their

commission to sound a general alarm, at the approach of danger. We

therefore desire to direct your awakened attention, towards that

bursting stream, which threatens to sweep before it the religious

principles, institutions, and morals of our people. We are filled

with a deep concern and an awful dread, whilst we announce it as

our real conviction, that the eternal God has a controversy with

our nation, and is about to visit us in his sore displeasure. A

solemn crisis has arrived, in which we are called to the most

serious contemplation of the moral causes which have produced it,

and the measures which it becomes us to pursue.[220]

As to the “moral causes” referred to, the address proceeds to define

them as “a general defection from God and corruption of the public

principles and morals,” the evidences whereof are such as a general

dereliction of religious principle and practice, a departure from

the faith and simple purity of manners for which the fathers were

remarkable, a visible and prevailing impiety, contempt for the laws and

institutions of religion, and “an abounding infidelity.”[221]

The same year, on May 31, the Congregational clergy of Massachusetts,

assembled in annual convention, “without a dissenting vote” adopted

an address to their churches, wherein they expressed their deep

sorrow and concern on account of “those atheistical, licentious

and disorganizing principles which have been avowed and zealously

propagated by the philosophers and politicians of France; which have

produced the greatest crimes and miseries in that unhappy country, and

like a mortal pestilence are diffusing their baneful influence even

to distant nations.”[222] A year later the same body of clergy, again

assembled in their annual convention, formulated and later published

an address similar in tone, but strongly emphasizing the American

aspects of the case. The growing disbelief and contempt of the Gospel

are loudly lamented; the lack of exemplary piety and morality even

among the members of churches, and the dissipation, irreligion, and

licentiousness prevalent among the youth of the day, are accounted to

be of so much weight as to constitute a national apostasy. “The voice

of God to us in these events,” continues the address, “is emphatically

this: Come out of the infidel, antichristian world, my people; that

ye be not partakers of her sins, and that ye receive not of her

plagues.”[223]

To a very considerable number of earnest lovers of religion in

New England and elsewhere throughout the nation, the century’s sun

seemed to be setting amid black and sullen clouds of the most ominous

character.

FOOTNOTES:

[152] Quoted by Walker, in his _History of the Congregational Churches

in the United States_, p. 216.

[153] Green, _Life_, pp. 224, 225.

[154] _Cf. supra_, pp. 36 and 37 _et seq._

[155] See Walker, _Creeds and Platforms of Congregationalism_, p. 287.

[156] The lowest point of religious decline in the history of New

England was reached in the first quarter of the eighteenth century. The

absence of vital piety was generally remarked. The prevailing type of

religious experience was unemotional and formal. The adoption of the

Half-Way Covenant in the third quarter of the previous century helped

to precipitate a state of things wherein the ordinary distinctions

between the converted and the unconverted were largely obscured.

Emphasis came to be laid heavily upon the cultivation of morality as a

means of promoting spiritual life. Prayer, the reading of the Bible,

and church attendance were other “means”. In other words, man’s part

in the acquisition of religious experience came prominently into

view. The promoters of the revival attacked these notions, asserting

that repentance and faith were still fundamentally necessary and

that the experience of conversion, _i. e._, the conscious sense of

a change in one’s relation to God, was the prime test of one’s hope

of salvation. Charles Chauncy, minister of the First Church, Boston,

in his _Seasonable Thoughts on the State of Religion in New England_

(1743), championed the former position; the great Edwards came to the

defence of the latter.

[157] Channing, _Memoirs_, vol. i. pp. 287–290, 387. _Cf._ also

Goddard, _Studies in New England Transcendentalism_, pp. 13 _et seq._

[158] Riley, _American Philosophy_, p. 192. Note: It is not here

maintained that radical religious ideas in New England had their

earliest roots, or found their sole stimulus, in the controversy

which the theological formulations incident to the Great Awakening

provoked. Incipient religious liberalism is distinguishable as far

back as the publication of Cotton Mather’s _Reasonable Religion_,

in 1713. In his erudite essay on “The Beginnings of Arminianism in

New England,” F. A. Christie adopts the position that prior to the

Great Awakening there were rumor and alarm over the mere arrival of

Arminian doctrines in this country; but that after 1742 the heresy

spread rapidly, chiefly due to the growth of the Episcopal church, with

its marked leanings to the Arminian theology. _Cf._ _Papers of the

American Society of Church History, Second Series_, vol. iii, pp. 168

_et seq._ But however that may be, the cause of Arminianism during the

eighteenth century was promoted by men in New England who drew at least

a part of their inspiration from the writings of leaders of thought

in the mother country whose theological positions inclined strongly

toward rationalism. _Cf._ Cooke, _Unitarianism in America_, pp. 39,

44 _et seq._, 79. Harvard College, from the close of the seventeenth

century on, was increasingly recognized as a center of liberalizing

tendencies, although none will dispute that the kernel of intellectual

independence was found, all too frequently, well hidden within the

tough shell of traditional conceits. _Cf._ Quincy, _The History of

Harvard University_, vol. i, pp. 44–57, 199 _et seq._ Independent

impulses were largely responsible for the following events which mark

the definite emergence of Unitarianism in America: the organization

of the first New England Unitarian congregation at Gloucester, Mass.,

in 1779; the publication in this country, five years later, of the

London edition of Dr. Charles Chauncy’s _Salvation for All Men_; and

the defection from Trinitarian standards of King’s Chapel, Boston, in

1785–87. Still it must be maintained that the controversies which raged

around the doctrines of the New Calvinism beyond all other factors

stiffened the inclinations and tendencies of the century toward liberal

thinking. Such terms as “Arminianism”, “Pelagianism”, “Socinianism”,

“Arianism”, _etc._, which occur with ever-increasing frequency from

the fourth decade of the century on, are in themselves suggestive of

the divergencies in religious opinion which the doctrinal discussion

incident to the Great Awakening provoked. _Cf._ Fiske, _A Century of

Science and Other Essays_: “The Origins of Liberal Thought in America”,

pp. 148 _et seq._

[159] As a typical illustration the comment of Lyman Beecher may be

cited: “The Deistic controversy was an existing thing, and the battle

was hot, the crisis exciting.” (_Autobiography, Correspondence,

etc._ vol. i, p. 52.) The date is about 1798. In the same connection

President Dwight of Yale is referred to as “the great stirrer-up of

that [_i. e._, the deistic] controversy on this side the Atlantic.”

(_Ibid._) It is certain that Dwight had some acquaintance with the

works of the leading English deists, and that he opposed their views.

_Cf._ _Travels in New England and New York_, vol. iv, p. 362; but his

main target was infidelity of the French school. Beecher fails to

distinguish between the two.

[160] One discovers no convincing evidence that the deistical views

of Benjamin Franklin produced any direct effect upon the thought of

New England. As respects Thomas Jefferson the case was different. But

New England Federalists were so successful in keeping public attention

fixed on Jefferson’s fondness for French political and religious

philosophy, that his alleged “French infidelity” rather than his

opinions concerning natural religion became and continued to be the

bone of contention. That he was regarded as a deist is, however, not to

be questioned. Bentley, _Diary_, vol. iii, p. 20.

[161] Allen’s book of some 477 pages bore the following pretentious

and rambling title: _Reason the only Oracle of Man, or a Compendius

System of Natural Religion. Alternately Adorned with Confutations of a

Variety of Doctrines incompatible to it; Deduced from the Most Exalted

Ideas which we are able to form of the Divine and Human Characters,

and from the Universe in General_. _By Ethan Allen, Esq. Bennington,

State of Vermont._ The Preface is dated July 2, 1782. Evans records

the fact that the entire edition, except about thirty copies, was

destroyed by fire, said to have been caused by lightning, an event

which the orthodox construed as a judgment from heaven on account of

the nature of the book. _Cf._ _American Bibliography_, vol. vi, p.

266. The author’s aim has been interpreted as an effort “to build up

a system of natural religion on the basis of a deity expressed in the

external universe, as interpreted by the reason of man, in which the

author includes the moral consciousness.” (Moncure D. Conway in _Open

Court_ [magazine], January 28, 1892, article: “Ethan Allen’s Oracles of

Reason,” p. 3119.)

[162] _The Literary Diary of Ezra Stiles_, vol. iii, p. 345. The

comment of Yale’s president is fairly representative: “And the 13th

Inst died in Vermont the profane & impious Deist Gen Ethan Allen,

Author of the Oracles of Reason, a Book replete with scurrilous

Reflexions on Revelation. ‘And in Hell he lift up his Eyes being in

Torments.’” (_Ibid._) In 1787, at Litchfield, Connecticut, where

Allen’s home had once been, there was published an anonymous sermon,

from the text: “And he would fain have filled his belly with the husks

which the swine did eat.” (Luke 15: 16.) The sermon was planned to

counteract the effect produced by the “prophane, prayerless, graceless

infidel,” Allen, through the publication of the book in question.

The author, “Common Sense” (apparently Josiah Sherman), adopts for

his sermon the caption, “_A Sermon to Swine_,” and explains in the

Advertisement the temper of his mood: “By way of apology, I hope Gen.

Allen will pardon any reproach that may be supposable, in comparing

him to the Prodigal Son, sent by the Citizen into his fields to feed

Swine with husks, when he considers, what an infinitely greater

reproach he casts upon the holy oracles of God, and upon his Prophets,

Apostles and Ministers, and upon the Lord of life and glory himself;

at whose tribunal we must all shortly appear; when he represents Him

as an impostor and cheat, and all the blessed doctrines of the gospel

as falsehood and lies.” (_A Sermon to Swine: From Luke xv: 16 ...

Containing a concise, but sufficient answer to General Allen’s Oracles

of Reason._ By Common Sense, A. M., Litchfield, 1787.)

An amusing albeit suggestive episode is recorded by William Bentley

in his _Diary_, in connection with certain reflections on the dangers

involved in the loaning of books: “Allen’s _oracles of reason_ ... was

lent to Col. C. under solemn promise of secrecy, but by him sent to a

Mr. Grafton, who was reported to have died a Confirmed Infidel.... The

book was found at his death in his chamber, examined with horror by

his female relations. By them conveyed to a Mr. Williams ... & there

examined—reported to be mine from the initials W. B., viewed as an

awful curiosity by hundreds, connected with a report that I encouraged

infidelity in Grafton by my prayers with him in his dying hour, & upon

the whole a terrible opposition to me fixed in the minds of the devout

& ignorant multitude.” (_Ibid._, vol. i, p. 82.)

The following extract from Timothy Dwight’s poem on _The Triumph of

Infidelity_ supplies another interesting contemporaneous estimate of

Allen’s assault upon revelation:

“In vain thro realms of nonsense ran

The great Clodhopping oracle of man.

Yet faithful were his toils: What could he more?

In Satan’s cause he bustled, bruised and swore;

And what the due reward, from me shall know,

For gentlemen of equal worth below.”

A foot-note explains the point in the last two lines: “In A——n’s

Journal, the writer observes, he presumes he shall be treated in the

future world as well as other gentlemen of equal merit are treated:

A sentiment in which all his countrymen will join.” (_The Triumph of

Infidelity: A Poem._ [Anonymous], 1788, pp. 23 _et seq._ The copy

referred to is dedicated by the author “To Mons. de Voltaire.”)

[163] _The Age of Reason: Part I_, appeared in America in 1794. _Cf._

_The Age of Reason by Thomas Paine_, edited by Moncure Daniel Conway,

New York, 1901, p. vii; also advertisements of its offer for sale,

_Massachusetts Spy_ (Worcester), Nov. 19, 1794. The _Connecticut

Courant_ (Hartford), Jan. 19, and Feb. 9, 1795, contains examples of

pained newspaper comment. _Walcott Papers_, vol. viii, 7.

[164] At least fifteen thousand copies of the second part of the

book arrived in America in the spring of 1796, despatched from Paris

by Paine, consigned to his Philadelphia friend, Mr. Franklin Bache,

Republican printer, editor, and ardent servant of radicalism generally.

It was clearly Paine’s purpose to influence as many minds in America as

possible. _Cf._ Conway, _The Writings of Thomas Paine_, vol. iv, p. 15;

Paine’s letter to Col. Fellows, in New York, explaining the forwarding

of the books. This effort to obtain a general circulation of the _Age

of Reason_ did not escape the attention of men who were disturbed

over the prevailing evidences of irreligion. In a fast day sermon,

delivered in April, 1799, the Reverend Daniel Dana, of Newburyport,

Massachusetts, called attention to the matter in the following fashion:

“ ... let me mention a fact which ought to excite universal alarm

and horror. The well-known and detestable pamphlet of Thomas Paine,

written with a professed design to revile the Christian religion, and

to diffuse the poison of infidelity, was composed in France, was there

printed in English, and an edition containing many thousand of copies,

conveyed at a single time into our country, in order to be sold at

a cheap rate, or given away, as might best ensure its circulation.

What baneful success has attended this vile and insidious effort, you

need not be told. That infidelity has had, for several years past, a

rapid increase among us, seems a truth generally acknowledged.” (_Two

Sermons, delivered April 25, 1799: the day recommended by the President

of the United States for National Humiliation, Fasting and Prayer._ By

Daniel Dana, A. M., pastor of a church in Newburyport, 1799, p. 45).

_Cf._ also _ibid._, p. 20.

[165] _The Age of Reason_ was written from the standpoint of a man

who believed that the disassociation of religion from political

institutions, and the elimination from it of fiction and fable, would

bring in the true religion of humanity. The following excerpt sets

out the author’s approach and aim: “Soon after I had published the

pamphlet, ‘Common Sense’, in America I saw the exceeding probability

that a revolution in the system of government would be followed by

a revolution in the system of religion. The adulterous connection

of church and state, wherever it had taken place, whether Jewish,

Christian, or Turkish, had so effectually prohibited by pains and

penalties every discussion upon established creeds, and upon first

principles of religion, that until the system of government should be

changed those subjects could not be brought fairly and openly before

the world; but that whenever this should be done a revolution in the

system of religion would follow. Human inventions and priestcraft

would be detected; and man would return to the pure, unmixed, and

unadulterated belief of one God and no more.” (_The Writings of Thomas

Paine_, vol. ii, pp. 22 _et seq._) Paine’s exposition of the tenets

of natural religion was far from scholarly, and as soon as the public

became aware of the eccentric and uneven character of the book, the

storm of criticism speedily blew itself out. The recoil of Paine’s ugly

attack upon Washington, in the same year in which the _Age of Reason_

was extensively circulated in this country, materially helped to

discredit the book.

[166] A partial list of the books and pamphlets, separate discourses

not included, which were published in this country immediately

following the appearance of the _Age of Reason_ will serve to emphasize

the depth of the impression which Paine’s book made: (1) Priestley,

Joseph, _An Answer to Mr. Paine’s Age of Reason; being a Continuation

of Letters to the Philosophers and Politicians of France, on the

Subject of Religion; and of the Letters of a Philosophical Unbeliever_.

Second Edition. Northumberlandtown, America, 1794; (2) Williams,

Thomas, _The Age of Infidelity: an Answer to Thomas Paine’s Age of

Reason_. By a Layman (pseud.). Third Edition, Worcester, Mass., 1794;

(3) Stilwell, Samuel, _A Guide to Reason, or an Examination of Thomas

Paine’s Age of Reason, and Investigation of the True and Fabulous

Theology_, New York, 1794; (4) Winchester, Elhanan, _Ten Letters

Addressed to Mr. Paine, in Answer to His Pamphlet, entitled The Age of

Reason_, Second Edition, New York, 1795; (5) Ogden, Uzal, _Antidote to

Deism. The Deist Unmasked; or an Ample Refutation of all the Objections

of Thomas Paine, Against the Christian Religion; as Contained in a

Pamphlet, intitled (sic), The Age of Reason, etc._, Two volumes,

Newark, 1795; (6) Broaddus, Andrew, _The Age of Reason and Revelation;

or Animadversions on Mr. Thomas Paine’s late piece, intitled “The Age

of Reason”, etc._ ... Richmond, 1795; (7) Muir, James, _An Examination

of the Principles Contained in the Age of Reason. In Ten Discourses_,

Baltimore, 1795; (8) Belknap, Jeremy, _Dissertations on the Character,

Death & Resurrection of Jesus Christ ... with remarks on some

sentiments advanced in a book intitled “The Age of Reason,”_ Boston,

1795; (9) Humphreys, Daniel, _The Bible Needs no Apology; or Watson’s

System of Religion Refuted; and the Advocate Proved an Unreliable One,

by the Bible Itself: of which a short view is given, and which itself

gives a short answer to Paine: in Four Letters, on Watson’s Apology for

the Bible, and Paine’s Age of Reason_, Part the Second, Portsmouth,

1796; (10) Tytler, James, _Paine’s Second Part of the Age of Reason

Answered_, Salem, 1796; (11) Fowler, James, _The Truth of the Bible

Fairly Put to the Test, by Confronting the Evidences of Its Own Facts_,

Alexandria, 1797; (12) Levy, David, _A Defence of the Old Testament,

in a Series of Letters, addressed to Thomas Paine, Author of a Book

entitled, The Age of Reason, Part Second, etc._ ... New York, 1797;

(13) Williams, Thomas, _Christianity Vindicated in the admirable speech

of the Hon. Theo. Erskine, in the Trial of J. Williams, for Publishing

Paine’s Age of Reason_, Philadelphia, 1797; (14) Snyder, G., _The Age

of Reason Unreasonable; or the Folly of Rejecting Revealed Religion_,

Philadelphia, 1798; (15) Nelson, D., _An Investigation of that False,

Fabulous and Blasphemous Misrepresentation of Truth, set forth by

Thomas Paine, in his two volumes, entitled The Age of Reason, etc._

(This volume appears to have been published pseudonymously. Advertised

in Lancaster, Pa., Intelligencer and Advertiser, October, 1800); (16)

Boudinot, Elias, _The Age of Revelation, Or, The Age of Reason shewn to

be an Age of Infidelity_, Philadelphia, 1801.

[167] _Cf._ Morse, _The Federalist Party in Massachusetts_, Appendix

I, pp. 217 _et seq._, for a detailed and fairly satisfactory statement

of the character and extent of the discussion which Paine’s book

precipitated in New England.

[168] Channing, _Memoirs_, vol. i, pp. 60, 61. On the latter page

it is asserted that in order to counteract such fatal principles as

those expressed in the _Age of Reason_, the patrons and governors

of Harvard College had Watson’s _Apology for the Bible_ published

and furnished to the students at the expense of the corporation.

This was in 1796. Beecher’s _Autobiography, Correspondence, etc._,

vol. i, pp. 30, 35, 52, touches upon the situation at Yale. _Cf._

Dwight, _Theology: Explained and Defended_, vol. i, pp. xxv, xxvi. The

extensive prevalence of infidelity among Yale students is commented

upon and the statement made that a considerable proportion of the class

which President Dwight first taught (1795–96) “had assumed the names of

principal English and French Infidels; and were more familiarly known

by them than by their own.” (_Ibid._) _Cf._ Dorchester, _Christianity

in the United States_, p. 319.

[169] The impression lingered on after the stir caused by the

appearance of the _Age of Reason_. In 1803 Paine was in southern New

England. His presence was disturbing, as the following comment of

William Bentley will show: “Reports are circulated that Thomas Paine

intends to visit New England. The name is enough. Every person has

ideas of him. Some respect his genius and dread the man. Some reverence

his political, while they hate his religious, opinions. Some love the

man, but not his private manners. Indeed he has done nothing which has

not extremes in it. He never appears but we love and hate him. He is as

great a paradox as ever appeared in human nature.” (_Diary_, vol. iii.

p. 37. _Cf. ibid._, vol. ii. pp. 102, 107, 145.)

[170] Hazen, _Contemporary American Opinion of the French Revolution_,

pp. 141 _et seq._

[171] _Ibid._, p. 143.

[172] Dwight, _Travels_, vol. iv, p. 361.

[173] _Writings of Thomas Jefferson_, vol. v, pp. 154, 274;

_Massachusetts Historical Collections, Sixth Series_, vol. iv, _Belknap

Papers_, p. 503.

[174] The entire episode is treated with great fullness and equal

vividness by Hazen, _Contemporary American Opinion of the French

Revolution_, pp. 164–188.

[175] _Writings of Thomas Jefferson_, vol. vi, pp. 153 _et seq._

[176] From the first, devotion to the French cause had not been quite

unanimous. Here and there, scattered through the country, a man might

be found who from the beginning of the Revolution had cherished

misgivings as to the essential soundness of the principles of the

French in the conflict they were waging with despotism. Occasionally a

man had ventured to speak out, voicing apprehension and doubt, although

usually preferring to adopt the device of pseudonymity. Conspicuous

in this by no means large group were the elder and the younger Adams,

the former declaring himself in his “Discourses on Davila” (_Cf._ _The

Life and Works of John Adams_, vol. vi, pp. 223–403), and the latter

in the “Publicola” letters, written in 1791, in response to Paine’s

treatise on “The Rights of Man”. Morse, _John Quincy Adams_, p. 18. But

_events_, much more than political treatises, were to break the spell

which the Revolution in its earlier stages cast over the people of

America.

[177] No better testimony concerning the unfavorable impression created

by the execution of the French king could be had than that supplied

by the comment of Salem’s republican minister, the Reverend William

Bentley. Under date of March 25, 1793, he wrote: “The melancholy news

of the beheading of the Roi de France is confirmed in the public

opinion, & the event is regretted most sincerely by all thinking

people. The french lose much of their influence upon the hearts of

the Americans by this event.” (_Diary_, vol. ii, p. 13. _Cf._ Hazen,

_Contemporary American Opinion of the French Revolution_, pp. 254

_et seq._) This thrill of public horror also found expression in the

following lines taken from a broadside of the day:

“When _Mobs_ triumphant seize the rheins,

And guide the _Car_ of _State_,

Monarchs will feel the galling chains,

And meet the worst of fate:

For instance, view the _Gallic_ shore,

A nation, _once_ polite

See what confusion hovers o’er,

A _Star_, that shone so bright.

Then from the scene recoil with dread,

For LOUIS is no more,

The barb’rous _Mob_ cut off his head,

And drank the spouting gore.

Shall we, the _Sons_ of FREEDOM dare

Against so _vile_ a _Race_?

Unless we mean ourselves to _bare_ (_sic_)

The _palm_ of their disgrace.

No! God forbid, the man who feels

The force of _pity’s_ call,

To join those _Brutes_, whose _sentence_ seals,

Whose hearts are made of gall.”

(_The Tragedy of Louis Capet, and Printed next the venerable Stump of

Liberty Tree, for J. Plumer, Jun., Trader, of Newbury-port._) (In Vol.

21 of Broadsides, Library of Congress.)

[178] Webster, _The Revolution in France considered in Respect to

its Progress and Effects_, New York, 1794. Webster’s discriminating

pamphlet is one of the most suggestive of all American contemporaneous

documents. _Cf._ Hazen, _Contemporary American Opinion of the French

Revolution_, p. 259.

[179] For characteristic outbursts of this nature, _cf._ Adams, _Life

and Works_, vol. ii, p. 160; Gibbs, _Memoirs of the Administrations of

Washington and John Adams_, vol. i, p. 90. Typical newspaper comment

similar in vein may be found in the _Western Star_ (Stockbridge,

Mass.), March 11, 1794, and the _Gazette of the United States_

(Philadelphia), April 13, 1793.

[180] As early as 1790 John Adams had spoken of the French nation as

a “republic of atheists.” (_Works_, vol. ix, p. 563.) Other leaders

responded to similar sentiments. (Hazen, _Contemporary American

Opinion of the French Revolution_, p. 266.) Familiarity with French

philosophical and religious opinions before the French Revolution had

supplied a basis for this concern.

[181] Aulard, _Le culte de la Raison et de l’Être suprême_, pp. 17 _et

seq._ _Cf._ Sloane, _The French Revolution and Religious Reform_, pp.

53, 79, 97. The effort to dechristianize the institutions of religion

in France is admitted by both writers, but the superficial occasion of

this hostile effort is made clear.

[182] _Cf. infra_, pp. 103 _et seq._

[183] The practice of looking to the religious situation in France for

ammunition to serve the artillery of political parties in America,

is well illustrated in the following instances: _The Western Star_

of March 25, 1794, dwelt at length upon the depravity of French

irreligion, and asserted that the lack of public alarm in this country

must be accepted as convincing evidence that the American public

has already yielded itself to the seductive influence and power of

atheistical opinions. On the other hand, the _Independent Chronicle_,

issues of March 6 and July 24, 1794, pounces upon Robespierre’s

scheme for the rehabilitation of religion under the guise of the

cult of the Supreme Being, and with great gusto asserts that here is

the positive and sufficient proof that the charge of atheism which

has been lodged against the Revolutionists is as baseless as it is

wicked. An examination of the newspaper comment of the day supplies

abundant warrant that this crying up and crying down of the charge of

French infidelity went far in the direction of investing the political

situation in New England with those characteristics of bitter and

extravagant crimination and recrimination with which all political

discussion in that section, as in fact throughout the entire country,

near the close of the eighteenth century, was so deeply marked.

[184] By the adoption of this measure the Catholic clergy in France

were turned into state officials. The relation of the Pope to the

French clergy became that of a spiritual guide and counsellor only.

The principle of territorial limitation on the part of ecclesiastics

was also abolished. _Cf._ Sloane, _The French Revolution and Religious

Reform_, pp. 121 _et seq._

[185] Aulard, _The French Revolution_, vol. iii, pp. 152–191, gives an

excellent résumé of the dechristianizing movement.

[186] The conservative press of America saw to it that this information

did not escape the attention of its readers. _Cf._ Hazen, _Contemporary

American Opinion of the French Revolution_, pp. 267 _et seq._ _Cf._

Morse, _The Federalist Party in Massachusetts_, pp. 80–87, 98 _et seq._

[187] Hazen, _Contemporary American Opinion of the French Revolution_,

pp. 269 _et seq._

[188] Dwight, _Travels_, vol. iv, p. 362.

[189] Beecher, _Autobiography, Correspondence, etc._, vol. i, p. 30.

[190] Baldwin, _Annals of Yale College ... From its Foundation to the

Year 1831_, New Haven, 1831, p. 146.

[191] Field, _Brief Memoirs of the Members of the Class Graduated at

Yale College in September, 1802_. (_Printed for private distribution_),

p. 9.

[192] Beecher, _Autobiography, Correspondence, etc._, vol. i, p. 30.

[193] Sprague, _Annals of the American Pulpit_, vol. ii, pp. 164, 165.

_Cf._ _Sketches of Yale College, with Numerous Anecdotes_ ... New York,

1843, p. 136.

[194] _Memoir of William Ellery Channing_, vol. i, p. 60.

[195] _Ibid._ Sidney Willard, in his _Memories of Youth and Manhood_,

vol. ii, p. 101, tones down the picture appreciably.

[196] Morse, _The Federalist Party in Massachusetts_, pp. 88 _et seq._

[197] _A Sermon Delivered to the First Congregation in Cambridge, and

the Religious Society in Charlestown, April 11, 1793._ By David Tappan,

A. M., Professor of Divinity in Harvard College, Boston, 1793.

[198] _Ibid._, p. 16.

[199] David Osgood (1747–1822) was one of the best known New England

clergymen of his day. Possessing a fondness for unusual public

occasions, such as state and church festivals, he acquired the habit of

turning them to account by way of airing his political and religious

ideas, a custom which drew to him the cordial support of the Federal

school to which he belonged, and the no less cordial contempt of the

Republicans. _Cf._ Sprague, _Annals of the American Pulpit_, vol. ii,

pp. 75, 76.

[200] The predilection of the New England clergy for political

preaching requires a word. The clergy emerged from the period of the

American Revolution with their reputation considerably enhanced. The

cause of the struggling colonists they had supported with resolution

and ability and their moral force had shown itself remarkably

effective. It is also to be noted that from the settlement of the

country, the clergy had been extraordinarily influential in the

direction of public affairs. They were the intimates and advisers of

public officials as well as the trusted counsellors of the people.

After the setting up of the government most of the questions which

agitated the public mind had definite moral and religious aspects.

The New England clergy would have regarded themselves as seriously

remiss and therefore culpable had they not spoken out upon the burning

questions of the day. With the intrusion of foreign affairs into the

sphere of American politics the impulse in the direction of political

preaching was decidedly strengthened. Definite issues regarding

morality and religion were thus raised, and the passions of patriotism

and religious devotion became inextricably woven together. Love,

_The Fast and Thanksgiving Days of New England_, p. 363; Swift, _The

Massachusetts Election Sermons: Publications of the Colonial Society of

Massachusetts_, vol. i: _Transactions_, 1892–1894, pp. 422 _et seq._

[201] The Democratic Societies (or Clubs), to which fuller attention

is given on pp. 104 _et seq._, instantly assumed a position of first

importance in the minds of many clergyman of New England. Coupled as

their emergence was with the amazing performances of Genet, they had

the effect of suggesting to the clerical mind the fatal thrust at

religion which might, and probably would result, on account of their

subterranean operations. This idea of a secret combination against the

institutions of religion in America, which proved to have a powerful

attraction for many clerical minds, was definitely related to the spasm

of anxiety and fear which swept the country when the presence of these

secret clubs became generally known.

[202] _Cf._ [Osgood, David], _The Wonderful Works of God are to be

Remembered. A Sermon delivered on the day of the Annual Thanksgiving,

November 20, 1794_, Boston, 1794. pp. 21 _et seq._

[203] On account of the virulence of party feeling, it was not to be

expected that Osgood would succeed in stating the case in a manner

acceptable to all. Popular opinion respecting the wisdom and fairness

of Osgood’s performance was far from unanimous. An opposition, inspired

by political interests, quickly developed, to which Republican

newspapers willingly enough gave voice. _The Independent Chronicle_

of Dec. 11, 1794, contains typical expressions of adverse comment.

An exceptionally forceful counter-attack was made in the guise of an

anonymous “sermon”, entitled: “_The Altar of Baal Thrown Down: or, The

French Nation Defended, Against the Pulpit Slander of David Osgood,

A. M., Pastor of the Church in Medford. Par Citoyen de Novion._” The

author of this pamphlet, who, as time demonstrated, was none other

than James Sullivan, later governor of Massachusetts, right valiantly

took up the cudgel in defence of the French. The French, he argues,

are to be regarded as a mighty nation by whom our own nation has

been preserved from destruction. Their excesses are most charitably

and fairly explained in the light of the frightful oppressions which

they had long suffered. Their attitude toward religion should not be

regarded as hostile. The French strike only at a clergy who have linked

their power with that of the nobility, and who together have made the

people’s lot intolerable. _Cf. ibid._, pp. 12 _et seq._ The entire

sermon abounds in caustic criticism of Osgood for having stepped “out

of ... line to gratify a party.”

[204] _Christian Thankfulness Explained and Enforced. A Sermon,

delivered at Charlestown, in the afternoon of February 19, 1795. The

day of general thanksgiving through the United States._ By David

Tappan, D. D., Hollisian Professor of Divinity in Harvard College,

Boston, 1795.

[205] _The Nature and Manner of Giving Thanks to God, Illustrated. A

sermon, delivered on the day of the national thanksgiving, February

19, 1795._ By Ebenezer Bradford, A. M., pastor of the First Church in

Rowley, Boston, 1795.

[206] The so-called “Whiskey Rebellion” came in for a considerable

amount of hostile comment on the part of the Federalist clergy at

this time. Generally speaking, the New England clergy felt sure of

their ground respecting the alleged causal relation between the

Democratic Clubs and the Pennsylvania uprising. Hence it happened that

the tone of clerical condemnation with respect to everything which

had the semblance of a secret propaganda was appreciably heightened.

The moralizing tendencies of the clergy with respect to the secret

combinations which were believed to be back of the “Whiskey Rebellion”

is well illustrated in the following: _A Sermon, delivered February

19, 1795, being a day of general thanksgiving throughout the United

States of America_. By Joseph Dana, A. M., pastor of the South Church

in Ipswich. Newburyport, 1795. _Cf._ also, _Wolcott Papers_, vol. viii,

7.

[207] Tappan’s _Sermon_, p. 36.

[208] _A Discourse, delivered February 19, 1795. The day set apart by

the President for a general thanksgiving throughout the United States._

By David Osgood, A. M., pastor of the church in Medford, Boston, 1795,

p. 18.

[209] _Ibid._, pp. 18, 19.

[210] _A Sermon, delivered before the Convention of the Clergy of

Massachusetts, in Boston, May 26, 1796._ By Jeremy Belknap, minister of

the church in Federal-Street, Boston. Boston, 1796, pp. 15 _et seq._

A similar note was struck by Tappan in the convention of the following

year. _Cf._ _Sermon, delivered before the Annual Convention of the

Congregational Ministers of Massachusetts, in Boston, June 1, 1797_,

Boston, 1797, p. 26.

[211] _A Sermon, delivered on the 9th of May, 1798. Being the day of

a National Fast, Recommended by the President of the United States._

By John Thornton Kirkland, minister of the New South Church, Boston.

Boston, 1798, pp. 18 _et seq._

[212] Complaints of the nature indicated, and justifications of

ministerial conduct in continuing the practice of “political preaching”

increase in number from about 1796 on. The following examples are

picked almost at random: _The sermon preached by John Eliot at the

ordination of Joseph M’Kean, Milton, Mass., November 1, 1797_, Boston,

1797, p. 33; James Abercrombie’s _Fast Day Sermon, May 9, 1798,

Philadelphia_, Philadelphia, (n. d.); Eliphalet Porter’s _Fast Day

Sermon_ of the same date, at Roxbury, Boston, 1798, p. 22; Samuel

Miller’s _Fast Day Sermon_, also of the same date, at New York, New

York, 1798.

[213] _God’s Challenge to Infidels to Defend Their Cause, Illustrated

and Applied in a Sermon, delivered in West Springfield, May 4, 1797,

being the day of the General Fast._ By Joseph Lathrop, minister ...

Second Ed., Cambridge, 1803.

[214] _Ibid._, p. 4.

[215] _A Sermon, preached on the State Fast, April 6th, 1798._ ... By

Nathan Strong, pastor of the North Presbyterian Church in Hartford.

Hartford, 1798, pp. 14 _et seq._

[216] _Some Facts evincive of the Atheistical, Anarchical, and in other

respects, Immoral Principles of the French Republicans, Stated in a

sermon delivered on the 9th of May, 1798._ ... By David Osgood ...

Boston, 1798.

[217] One of the curious results of the reflection of the American

clergy on the significance of the French Revolution was a marked

disposition to treat the Roman Catholic Church with unwonted sympathy

and respect. Osgood’s implied apology not infrequently received an

unblushingly frank statement. _Cf._ for example, Nathan Strong’s

_Connecticut Fast Day Sermon_, cited above.

[218] This estimate of the case appealed to Osgood’s mind and satisfied

his fancy. A year later he was heard on the following subject: _The

Devil Let Loose; or The Wo occasioned to the Inhabitants of the

Earth by His Wrathful Appearance among Them_. For lurid rhetoric

Osgood outdid himself on this occasion. “Not in France only, but in

various other countries, is the devil let loose; iniquity abounds;

unclean spirits, like frogs in the houses and kneading-troughs of the

Egyptians, have gone forth to the kings and rulers of the earth, ...

the armies of Gog and Magog are gathered together in open hostility

against all unrighteousness, truth and goodness.” (_The Devil Let

Loose, etc. Illustrated in a Discourse, delivered on the Day of the

National Fast, April 25, 1799_, Boston, 1799, pp. 13 _et seq._)

[219] _Some Facts Evincive, etc._, pp. 13, 16 _et seq._

[220] _Acts and Proceedings of the General Assembly of the Presbyterian

Church in the United States of America, May 17, 1798_, pp. 11 _et seq._

[221] _Ibid._

[222] The _Massachusetts Mercury_ (Boston), June 19, 1798, contains the

address in full.

[223] This address may be found in the _Independent Chronicle_ of July

4, 1799, and the _Newburyport Herald_ of June 28, 1799. A further

comment, of more than average significance, on the unparalleled

degeneracy of the times may be found in the sermon preached by the

Reverend William Harris, of Marblehead, Massachusetts, before the

annual convention of the Protestant Episcopal Church, held in Boston,

May 28, 1799. _Cf._ _A Sermon delivered at Trinity Church, in Boston._

... By William Harris, rector of St. Michael’s Church, Marblehead,

Boston, 1799. A decade and a half later Lyman Beecher preached his

famous sermon on “Building Waste Places.” The impression which

lingered in his mind concerning the period under survey is worthy

of consideration. After having discussed the unhappy condition of

religious life in the churches of New England during the first half

of the eighteenth century, he said: “A later cause of decline and

desolation has been the insidious influence of infidel philosophy. The

mystery of iniquity had in Europe been operating for a long time. The

unclean spirits had commenced their mission to the kings of the earth

to gather them together to the battle of the great day of God Almighty.

But when that mighty convulsion [Foot-note: The French Revolution] took

place, that a second-time burst open the bottomless pit, and spread

darkness and dismay over Europe, every gale brought to our shores

contagion and death. Thousands at once breathed the tainted air and

felt the fever kindle in the brain. A paroxysm of moral madness and

terrific innovation ensued. In the frenzy of perverted vision every foe

appeared a friend, and every friend a foe. No maxims were deemed too

wise to be abandoned, none too horrid to be adopted; no foundations

too deep laid to be torn up, and no superstructure too venerable to

be torn down, that another, such as in Europe they were building with

bones and blood, might be built.... The polluted page of infidelity

everywhere met the eye while its sneers and blasphemies assailed the

ear.... The result was a brood of infidels, heretics, and profligates—a

generation prepared to be carried about, as they have been, by every

wind of doctrine, and to assail, as they have done, our most sacred

institutions.” _Cf._ Beecher, _Autobiography, Correspondence, etc._,

vol. i, pp. 239, 240.