ing in America had been modified. If George III and his ministers in England are to be blamed for not knowing the temper of their kinsmen across the ocean, what shall be said of the American clergymen, who were equally unable to read the characters of their own countrymen? The clergy fostered and encouraged the Revolution, and were as vehement in urging their congregations to resist what to them was the tyranny and injustice of the Crown as their fathers had been in waging that never-ending conflict against the powers of evil; but now they were largely influenced by selfish considerations instead of being animated by sublime faith and a spiritual craving that could not be denied. In an interview between the King and Lieutenant-Governor Hutchinson of Massachusetts in 1774, the King asked: "But, pray, Mr. Hutchinson, why do your ministers generally join with the people in their opposition to Government?" To which Hutchinson replied: "They are, Sir, dependent upon the people. They are elected by the people, and when they are dissatisfied with them, they seldom leave till they get rid of them."1 Beginning as religious zealots, the clergy had now become politicians and time-servers. Just as at first they were narrower, more intolerant, less charitable than the people to whom they ministered, so now they had become more resentful and less in a mood to seek compromise or conciliation than their con1 Diary and Letters of Thomas Hutchinson, vol. 1, p. 169. gregations. It was the law of Israel that he who enticed to the worship of false gods should be killed, and for him there was no pity.1 The Puritan elders were equally as merciless in the execution of the sentence upon the men who sought to introduce a new worship and set up new gods. "They persecuted as a part of their faith." There was another reason why the power of the theocracy was weakened, and in some respects it was perhaps the most powerful of all the agencies to diminish the authority of the Puritan elders. I have so frequently referred to the universality of thought and the recurring phenomenon of a movement in one part of the world finding its reflex in another, that it is not at all surprising that in Scotland and in America at the time of which we are treating the same causes were operating to produce the same results. Buckle notes that "the spirit of trade became so rife, that it began to encroach on the old theological spirit, which had long been supreme. Hitherto the Scotch had cared for little except religious polemics." 2 These discussions, on which "men had wasted their energies, without the least benefit to themselves or to others," now gave way to considerations of the improvement of manufactures, which became a common topic of discourse. This change marked "a tendency to turn aside from subjects which are inaccessible to our understanding, and the discussion of which has no effect except to exasperate those who dispute, and to make them more intolerant than ever of theological opinions different from their own."1 It was a blow to superstition. It diminished the inordinate respect formerly paid to theological pursuits, and it was an inducement to ambitious and enterprising men to abstain from these pursuits and to engage in temporal matters, where ability has more scope and enjoys more freedom of action. The result was the creation of a class whose aim was essentially secular. Heretofore the intellect of Scotland had been absorbed by the church, and the industry of the country was controlled by the nobles. 1 Deuteronomy, XIII, 6-10. 2 Buckle: History of Civilization in England, vol. 11, p. 248. 8 Ibid., p. 249. 2 We see the same change in America in the eighteenth century and the same weakening of the power of the church. There were other and better - at least men deemed them better - things to be done than to preach sermons or indulge in endless discussion of the meaning that dull brains could twist into a text. In the early days the church gave respectability and influence; now the trader and the shipper exercised an even greater influence; and men of ability saw there were opportunities for the use of their talents other than in the pulpit. With the church supreme, men were made superstitious, narrow, warped in their view of life; if the church did not teach selfishness, it caused men to become selfish, hard, and uncharitable. Paradoxical as it may sound, it was the pursuit of gain that made men generous, tolerant, and liberal in their dealings and their relations with their fellow-men, and not the teachings of the church. Commercial activity rather than charity modified the principle of stern justice and the exaction of vengeance against the transgressor. As commerce increased its hold, that of the church relaxed, and the clergy were held in less reverence than formerly, and to question their inerrancy was no longer heretical. 1 Buckle: p. 249. 2 Ibid., p. 249. It is a very curious thing, striking enough to be worth a moment's consideration, that when political independence was gained, the power of the Church in the affairs of the State ceased. New England in 1783 was still Puritan, its people were English, the Middle Colonies and the South were dominated by men of English thought, and English traditions controlled the country. It would only have been natural, one would have thought, that at least the attempt should have been made to give the church standing, or to concede it official recognition; that lands or money would have been set apart for its support, that the long inherited customs of Europe would have been respected. Nothing of the kind happened. With one sharp stroke Church was cut from State; things temporal and things spiritual were kept separate; politics was to find no ally in a state-endowed priesthood, nor to be served by it. As we come later to study the men who framed the Constitution, we shall see that a Church as the ward of the State could play no part in their scheme. The Puritan elders lived to see their desire fulfilled. They lived to see the colonies throw off their allegiance to the Crown and give birth to a Nation. With that birth came the death of their hopes. England would send no more royal governors to lord it over her colonials. No longer need there be fear of a bishop living in the midst of luxury in his palace. America had become free, and with that freedom the Puritan theocracy disappeared below the horizon of political and religious freedom. A new era was to dawn.1 |