Part 9

Were the corporation less rigid, and more inclined to tolerate some reasonable amusements and polite accomplishments among the youth, they would greatly add to the fame and increase of the College, and the students would not be known by every stranger to have been educated in Connecticut. The disadvantage under which they at present appear, from the want of address, is much to be regretted.

_Beauford_, _Guilford_, and _Milford_, are much alike.

_Guilford_ is laid out in squares, after the manner of Newhaven, twenty of which are built upon. The church and two meetings stand in the centre square. One of the meetings is very grand, with a steeple, bell, and clock. The parishes in it are eight, three of them episcopal.

This town gave birth to the Rev. Samuel Johnson, D. D., who was the first episcopal minister in Connecticut, and the first president of King’s College in New-York. He was educated and became a tutor in the College at Saybrook, was an ornament to his native country, and much esteemed for his humanity and learning.

The Rev. Mr. George Whitefield, in a sermon he preached in the great meeting, gave the character of the people of Guilford in 1740. His text was, “Anoint mine eyes with eye-salve.” After pointing out what was not the true eye-salve, he said: “I will tell you what is the true eye-salve: it is faith, it is grace, it is simplicity, it is virtue. Ah, Lord! where can they be found! Perhaps not in this grand assembly.”

I have frequently quoted the Rev. George Whitefield, without that ludicrous intention which, possibly, the reader may suspect me of. I admire his general character, his good discernment, his knowledge of mankind, his piety, his goodness of heart, his generosity, and hatred of persecution, though I think his zeal was sometimes too fervent. I ever viewed him as an instrument of Heaven, as the greatest Boanerges and blessing America ever knew. He turned the profligate to God; he roused the lukewarm christian; he tamed the wild fanatic, and made Felix tremble.

It is true, he has also made wise men mad; but this is the natural effect of the word, which is the savour of life and the savour of death at one and the same time. New-England before his coming was but the slaughter-house of heretics. He was admired by the oppressed episcopalians, the trembling Quakers, the bleeding Baptists, &c., &c. He was followed by all sects and parties, except the _Sober Dissenters_, who thought their craft in danger. He made peace where was no peace, and even his enemies praised him in the gate. Whitefield did what could not have been done without the aid of an Omnipotent arm: he planted charity in New-England, of which the increase has been a thousand-fold. He is lauded where the wicked cease from troubling; where his works of faith, love, and charity, clothe him; and where the glory of eternity blesses him with a welcome ineffably transporting. May his virtues be imitated, his imperfections forgiven, and his happiness obtained by all!

_Wallingford_, _Durham_, _Waterbury_, and _Derby_, finish the County of Newhaven. _Wallingford_ is the best of the four: it lies on the Quinnipiack River, and forms eight parishes, two of which are episcopal. The town street is one mile long, and the houses stand pretty thick on both sides. The church and two meetings, one with a steeple, bell, and clock, stand in the middle of the street. The grave-stones point out the characters of the first settlers. An extract from one follows:

“Here lies the body of Corporal Moses Atwater, who left England in 1660, to enjoy the liberty of conscience in a howling wilderness.”

The second county in the Kingdom of Quinnipiog is _Fairfield_. It is situated west of Osootonoc River, and contains nine townships, five of which lie on the sea, and resemble one another; and on the back of them are situated four others, which also have a mutual resemblance. The soil is rich and uneven; the chief productions, excellent wheat, salt hay, and flax. Those townships which lie out on the sea are _Fairfield_, _Norwalk_, _Stamford_, _Greenwich_, and _Stratford_. This last I shall describe.

_Stratford_ lies on the west bank of the Osootonoc River, having the sea, or Sound, on the south; there are three streets running north and south, and ten east and west. The best is one mile long. On the centre square stands a meeting, with steeple and bell, and a church, with a steeple, bell, clock, and organ. It is a beautiful place, and from the water has an appearance not inferior to Canterbury. Of six parishes contained in it, three are episcopal. The people are said to be the most polite of any in the colony, owing to the singular moderation of the town in admitting latterly Europeans to settle among them. Many persons come also from the Islands and southern provinces for the benefit of their health. Here was erected the first episcopal church in Connecticut. A very extraordinary story is told concerning the occasion of it, which I shall give the reader the particulars of, the people being as sanguine in their belief of it as they are of the ship’s sailing over Newhaven.

An ancient religious rite called the Powwow was annually celebrated by the Indians, and commonly lasted several hours every night for two or three weeks. About 1690 they convened to perform it on Stratford Point, near the town. During the nocturnal ceremony, the English saw, or imagined they saw, devils rise out of the sea, wrapped up in sheets of flame, and flying round the Indian camp, while the Indians were screaming, cutting, and prostrating themselves before their supposed fiery gods. In the midst of the tumult, the devils darted in among them, seized several and mounted with them in the air, the cries and groans issuing from whom quieted the rest. In the morning, the limbs of Indians, all shrivelled and covered with sulphur, were found in different parts of the town. Astonished and terrified at these spectacles, the people of Stratford began to think the devils would take up their abode among them, and called together all the ministers in the neighbourhood to exorcise and lay them. The ministers began and carried on their warfare with prayer, hymns, and abjurations; but the powwows continued, and the devils would not obey. The inhabitants were about to quit the town, when Mr. Nell spoke and said, “I would to God Mr. Visey, the episcopal minister at New-York, was here; for he would expel those evil spirits.” They laughed at his advice; but on his reminding them of the little maid who directed Naaman to cure his leprosy, they voted him their permission to bring Mr. Visey at the next powwow. Mr. Visey attended accordingly; and as the powwow commenced with howling and whoops, Mr. Visey read portions of the holy scriptures, litany, &c. The sea was put into great commotion; the powwow stopped; the Indians dispersed, and nevermore held a powwow in Stratford. The inhabitants were struck with wonder at this event, and held a conference to discover the reason why the devils and the powwowers had obeyed the prayers of one minister, and had paid no regard to those of fifty. Some thought the reading of the holy scriptures, others thought that the litany and Lord’s prayer, some again that the episcopal power of the minister, and others that all united, were the means of obtaining the heavenly blessing they had received.

Those that believed that the holy scriptures and litany were effectual against the devil and his legions, declared for the Church of England; while the majority ascribed their deliverance to complot between the devils and the episcopal minister, with a view to overthrow Christ’s vine planted in New-England. Each party acted with more zeal than prudence. The Church, however, increased, though oppressed by more persecutions and calamities than were ever experienced by puritans from bishops and powwowers. Even the use of the Bible, the Lord’s prayer, the litany, or any part of the prayer-book was forbidden; nay, ministers taught from their pulpits, according to the Blue Laws, “that the lovers of Zion had better put their ears to the mouth of hell and learn from the whispers of the devil, than read the bishops’ books;” while the Churchmen, like Michael the archangel contending with the devil about the body of Moses, dared not bring against them a railing accusation. But this was not all. When the episcopalians had collected timber for a church, they found the devils had not left town, but only changed their habitation--had left the savages, and entered into fanatics and wood. In the night before the church was to be begun, the timber set up a country-dance, skipping about and flying in the air with as much agility and sulphurous stench as ever the devils had exhibited around the camp of the Indian powwowers. This alarming circumstance would have ruined the credit of the Church, had not the episcopalians ventured to look into the phenomena, and found the timber had been bored with augers, charged with gunpowder, and fired off by matches--a discovery, however, of bad consequence in one respect: it prevented the annalists of New-England from publishing this among the rest of their miracles. About 1720, the patience and sufferings of the episcopalians, who were then but a handful, procured them some friends even among their persecutors; and those friends condemned the cruelty exercised over the Churchmen, Quakers, and Anabaptists, in consequence of which they first felt the effects of those gentle weapons, the New-England whisperings and backbitings; at length were openly stigmatized as Armenians, and enemies of the American Vine. The conduct of the _Sober Dissenters_ increased the grievous sin of moderation, and nearly twenty of their ministers, at the head of whom was Dr. Cutler, President of Yale College, declared, on a public commencement, for the Church of England. Hereupon the General Assembly and Consociation, finding their comminations likely to blast the American Vine, instantly had recourse to flattery, larded with tears and promises, by which means they recovered all the secessors but four, viz. Dr. Cutler, Dr. Johnson, Mr. Whitemore, and Mr. Brown, who repaired to England for holy orders. Dr. Cutler had the misfortune to spend his life and great abilities in the fanatical, ungrateful, factious town of Boston, where he went through fiery trials, shining brighter and brighter, till he was delivered from New-England persecution, and landed where the wicked cease from troubling. Dr. Johnson, from his natural disposition, and not for the sake of gain, took pity on the neglected church at Stratford, where for fifty years he fought the beast of Ephesus with great success.[37] The Doctor was under the bountiful protection of the Society for the Propagation of the Gospel in Foreign Parts, incorporated by William III., to save from the rage of republicanism, heathenism, and fanaticism, all such members of the Church of England as were settled in our American colonies, factories, and plantations beyond the sea. To the foresight of that monarch, to the generous care and protection of that society, under God, are owing all the loyalty, decency, christianity undefiled with blood, which glimmer in New-England. Dr. Johnson having settled at Stratford among a nest of zealots, and not being assassinated, other dissenting ministers were induced to join themselves to the Church of England, among whom were Mr. Beach and Mr. Penderson. These gentlemen could not be wheedled off by the Assembly and Consociation; they persevered, and obtained names among the Literate that will never be forgotten.

The four remaining towns of Fairfield County, viz. _Newtown_, _Reading_, _Danbury_, and _Ridgfield_, lie behind the towns on the sea. I shall describe the last of them, which is _Danbury_. It has much the appearance of Croydon, and forms five parishes, one of which is episcopal, and another Sandemanian; a third is called Bastard Sandemanian, because the minister refused to put away his wife, who is a second wife. The town was the residence, and is now the tomb, of the learned and ingenious Rev. Mr. Sandeman, well known to the literary world. He was the fairest and most candid Calvinist that ever wrote in the English language, allowing the natural consequences of all his propositions. He taught that a bishop must be the husband of one wife--that is, he must be married before he was ordained--and, if he lost his wife, he could not marry a second; that a bishop might dress with ruffles, a red coat, and sword; that all converted brothers and sisters, at their coming into the Church, ought to salute with an holy kiss; that all true christians would obey their earthly king: for which tenets, especially the last, the _Sober Dissenters_ of Connecticut held him to be a heretic.

It is strikingly remarkable, that near one-half of the people of the Dominion of Newhaven are episcopalians, though it was first settled by the most violent of puritans, who claimed so much liberty to themselves that they left none for others. The General Assembly computed that the Church of England professors amounted to one-third of the whole colony in 1770. Hence has arisen a question, how it came to pass that the Church of England increased rapidly in Connecticut, and but slowly in Massachusets-Bay and Rhode-Island? The reason appears obvious to me. It is easier to turn fanatical farmers from their bigotry than to convert fanatical merchants, smugglers, and fishermen. Pride and gain prevent the two first, and ignorance the last, from “worshipping the Lord in the beauty of holiness.” The General Assembly of Rhode-Island never supported any religion; nay, lest religion should chance to prevail, they made a law that every one might do what was right in his own eyes, with this proviso, that no one should be holden to pay a note, bond, or vote, made or given to support the Gospel. Thus barbarism, inhumanity, and infidelity, must have overrun the colony, had not its good situation for trade invited Europeans to settle therein. As to the people of Massachusets-Bay, they, indeed, had the highest pretensions to religion; but then it was so impregnated with chicane, mercantile policy, and insincerity, that infidelity got the better of fanaticism, and religion was secretly looked upon as a trick of State. Connecticut was settled by a people who preferred the arts and sciences to the amusements which rendered Europe polite; whence it has happened that their boys and girls are at once amused and improved in reading, writing, and cyphering, every winter’s night, whilst those in the neighbouring colonies polish themselves at cards, balls, and masquerades.

In Connecticut, zeal, though erroneous, is sincere; each sect believes religion to be a substantial good; and fanaticism and prejudice have turned it into superstition, which is stronger than reason or the law of humanity. Thus it was very observable, that when any persons conform to the Church of England, they leave neither their superstition nor zeal at the meetings; they retrench only fanaticism and cruelty, put on bowels of mercy, and pity those in error. It should be added, that every town in the colony is by law obliged to support a grammar school, and every parish an English school. From experience, therefore, I judge that superstition with knowledge and sincerity is more favourable to religion than superstition with ignorance and insincerity; and that it was for this reason the Church thrives in Connecticut, and exists only in New-England provinces. In further support of my opinion, I shall recite the words of Mr. George Whitefield, in his first tour through America in 1740. He found the people of Connecticut wise in polemical divinity, and told them much learning had made them mad; that he wished to leave them with “sleep on and take your rest in the Bible, in Baxter, Gouge, and Bunyan, without the knowledge of Bishops’ books.”

Persons who supposed Churchmen in Connecticut possessed of less zeal and sincerity than the various sects among the dissenters, are under a mistake; for they have voluntarily preferred the Church under every human discouragement, and suffered persecution rather than persecute. Conducting themselves upon this truly christian though impolitic principle, they have, in the space of sixty years, humanized above sixty thousand puritans, who had ever been hating and persecuting one another; and though the General Assembly and Consociation are alarmed at the progress of christian moderation, yet many individuals among them, perceiving that persecution declines wherever the Church prevails, bless God for its growth; whilst the rest, more zealous for dominion and the politics of their ancestors the regicides than for the gospel of peace and love, compass sea and land to export and diffuse that intolerant spirit which overthrew the Eastern Church and has cursed the Western. For this purpose they have sent New-England ministers as missionaries to the southern colonies, to rouse them out of their religious and political ignorance; and, what is very astonishing, they succeeded best with the episcopal clergy, whose immorality, vanity, or love of self-government, or some less valuable principle, induced them to join the dissenters of New-England, against an American bishop, from a pure intention, they said, of preserving the Church of England in America. If their reward be not pointed out in the fable of the Fox and Crane, they will be more fortunate than most men. Other missionaries were dispersed among the Six Nations of Indians, who were under the care of the clergy and schoolmasters of the Society for the Propagation of the Gospel. There, for a time, wonders were effected; the Indians were made drunk with zeal. But when their fanaticism was abated, they cursed the protestant religion, and ordered the ministers of all denominations to depart out of their country in a fixed time, on pain of death. Another band of saints went to Nova-Scotia to convert the unconverted, under the clergy appointed by the Bishop of London; among whom, however, meeting with little encouragement, they shook off the dust of their feet against them, and returned home. These peregrinations, the world was taught to believe, were undertaken solely to advance the interests of religion; but righteousness and peace have not yet kissed each other in New-England; and, besides, the pious pretences of the _Sober Dissenters_ ill accord with their bitter revilings of the Society for the Propagation of the Gospel, for sending clergymen to promote the spiritual good of the Churchmen among them.

It is worthy of especial notice, that, among all the episcopal clergy settled in Connecticut, only one of them has been accused, even by their enemies, of a scandalous life, or of any violation of moral law. They have exercised more patience, resignation, and self-denial, under their various trials, fatigues, and oppressions, than can be paralleled elsewhere in the present century. The countenance of the Society for the Propagation of the Gospel in Foreign Parts, and an allowance of 650_l._ per annum between eighteen of them, have proved the means of averting from the professors of the Church of England that rigour which has constantly marked the conduct of the General Assembly and Consociation towards Anabaptists, Quakers, &c. &c. Had the bishops shown as much concern for the welfare of the Church of England in America as the Society have done, they would have prevented many reproaches being cast upon them by the dissenters as hireling shepherds, and have secured the affections of the American clergy in every province to themselves, to the King, and the British Government. If the religion of the Church of England ought to have been tolerated and supported in America, (which, considering the lukewarmness of the bishops in general, even since the Restoration of Charles II., seems to have been a dubious point,) policy and justice long ago should have induced the King and Parliament of Great Britain to have sent bishops to America, that Churchmen at least might have been upon an equal footing with dissenters. Against American bishops I have never heard of any objections, either from the dissenters or the episcopal clergy south of the Delaware River, so powerful as the following:

“That the Church of England increases in America, without bishops, faster than it does in England, where are bishops to spare.” If the dissenters in America err not in advancing, as a fact, that in 1715 the Church of England, under the bishops, had been upon the decline, and the protestant dissenters upon the increase, in England, it may be but natural to suppose that the dissenters in America wish to have the English bishops resident there, and the dissenters in England to retain them, as they appear to be so beneficial towards the growth of the dissenting interests here; and so the dissenters in both countries disputing about the residence of the bishops merely because the absence of them is disadvantageous to the one, and their presence advantageous to the other, would it not be the best way of strengthening the interest of both those parties, and weakening that of the Church of England, to retain half the bishops in England and send the other half to America? Against this plan, surely, no dissenter could object; it will neither add to the national expense nor to the disadvantage of England or America, since it promises to be equally serviceable to the protestant dissenting interest on both sides the Atlantic, and will reconcile a difference between the protestant dissenters, that has been supposen in New-England to be the reason of bishops not being sent to about one million episcopalians in America, who are left like sheep in a wilderness without a shepherd, to the great danger of the protestant dissenting religion in those parts. Nor can it be apprehended that this plan of dividing the bishops will meet with the disapprobation of the episcopalians, except a few licentious clergymen in the American southern colonies, who dread their lordships’ sober advice and coercive power.

Of all the wonders of the English Church, the greatest is that the rulers of it should hold episcopacy to be an institution of Christ, and that the Gospel should be spread among all nations, and, at the same time, should refuse the American Churchmen a bishop, and the fanatics and heathen all opportunities of enjoying the Gospel dispensation in the purity and lustre with which it shines in the Mother Country. If bishops are necessary, let America have them; if they are not necessary, let them be extirpated from the face of the earth; for no one can be an advocate for their existence merely for the support of pomp, pride, and insolence, either in England or America.