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I suppose that, taking the country over, the majority of the members of, at all events the Nonconformist churches and congregations, are in receipt of weekly wages or belong to the upper ranks of the working-classes, and that the lever which has lifted them to these upper ranks has been God's Gospel.
I seem to hear far off sounds of busy people, thrifty mills, and successful railways. These reveal the secret of New England's power at home and abroad. The greatness of this people springs from their respect for, and practice of, the virtues so long taught in their schools and churches; viz., honesty, industry, economy, love of liberty, and belief in God.
The fort was on the hill behind, and seemed to stand sentinel for the little township it was there to protect. The wide grassy road ran down towards the river, its row of quaint Dutch houses broken by a group of finer and more imposing buildings, including the market, the guard house, the town hall, and two churches.
Then came a detachment of cavalry preceded by trumpets, and bands on horseback followed the carriages and ended the procession. Music accompanied the chants, all the bells of the churches tolled, and thirteen cannon thundered at intervals.
The Churches have taught many errors. Those errors have been confuted by scepticism and science. It is no thanks to spiritual discernment that we stand where we do. It is to reason we owe our advance; and what a great advance it is!
They are also praying earnestly that the Christians in Europe may be forgiven for killing each other, and, in particular, that the British and German churches and ministers may be forgiven for the blasphemy of praying to the Common Father for victory over one another, i.e. for Divine assistance in smashing and maiming and murdering more of their fellow Christians.
The greatest evil endured in those days by the ecclesiastical authorities was exactions levied on their property and oppression exercised on their dependents by the dukes and counts under whose jurisdiction lay the temporal possessions of the churches and monasteries.
Nor are the other rites, as of Marriage, of Extreme Unction, of Visitation of the Sick, of Consecrating Churches, and Church-yards, and the like, exempt from Charms; in as much as there is in them the use of Enchanted Oyle, and Water, with the abuse of the Crosse, and of the holy word of David, "Asperges me Domine Hyssopo," as things of efficacy to drive away Phantasmes, and Imaginery Spirits.
In the colony itself a change was taking place through which the college was to go over to the side of the New Lights. In 1755, President Clap had established the College Church in order to remove the students from the party strife that was still distracting the churches.
I know of more than one person in the world, who gives his property by thousands, annually and whose praise is in all the churches who never yet gave any thing worth naming, in his life, if the gospel rule on this subject is the correct one that the widow who of her penury cast into the treasury two mites, in reality cast in more than all they who of their abundance bestowed large and liberal sums.