tions of their sacred office to unworthy ends, is apparent on the part of the clergy; * 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
- 1 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 I, 7797, Boston, I 797, P- 33J 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.
