Only three of the converts had the fortitude to withstand the pressure to which they were exposed: Cutler, Johnson, and Brown went to England for ordination; there Brown died of small-pox, but Cutler returned to Boston as a missionary, and as he, too, possessed a certain clerical aptitude for forcible expression, it is fitting he should relate his own experiences:—
“I find that, in spite of malice and the basest arts our godly enemies can easily stoop to, that the interest of the church grows and penetrates into the very heart of this country.... This great town swarms with them “(churchmen),” and we are so confident of our power and interest that, out of four Parliament-men which this town sends to our General Assembly, the church intends to put up for two, though I am not very sanguine about our success in it.... My church grows faster than I expected, and, while it doth so, I will not be mortified by all the lies and affronts they pelt me with. My greatest difficulty ariseth from another quarter, and is owing to the covetous and malicious spirit of a clergyman in this town, who, in lying and villany, is a perfect overmatch for any dissenter that I know; and, after all the odium that he contracted heretofore among them, is fully reconciled and endeared to them by his falsehood to the church.” [Footnote: Dr. Timothy Cutler to Dr. Zachary Grey, April 2, 1725, Perry’s Collection, iii. 663.]
Time did not tend to pacify the feud. There was no bishop in America, and candidates had to be sent to England for ordination; nor without such an official was it found possible to enforce due discipline; hence the anxiety of Dr. Johnson, and, indeed, of all the Episcopalian clergy, to have one appointed for the colonies was not unreasonable. Nevertheless, the opposition they met with was acrimonious in the extreme, so much so as to make them hostile to the charters themselves, which they thought sheltered their adversaries.
“The king, by his instructions to our governor, demands a salary; and if he punishes our obstinacy by vacating our charter, I shall think it an eminent blessing of his illustrious reign.” [Footnote: Dr. Cutler to Dr. Grey, April 20, 1731. Perry’s Coll. iii.]
Whitefield came in 1740, and the tumult of the great revival roused fresh animosities.
“When Mr. Whitefield first arrived here the whole town was alarmed.... The conventicles were crowded; but he chose rather our Common, where multitudes might see him in all his awful postures; besides that, in one crowded conventicle, before he came in, six were killed in a fright. The fellow treated the most venerable with an air of superiority. But he forever lashed and anathematized the Church of England; and that was enough.
“After him came one Tennent, a monster! impudent and noisy, and told them all they were damn’d, damn’d, damn’d! This charmed them, and in the most dreadful winter that i ever saw, people wallowed in the snow night and day for the benefit of his beastly brayings; and many ended their days under these fatigues. Both of them carried more money out of these parts than the poor could be thankful for.” [Footnote: Dr. Cutler to Dr. Grey, Sept. 24, 1743. Perry’s Coll. iii. 676.]
The excitement was followed by its natural reaction conversions became numerous, and the unevangelical temper this bred between the rival clergymen is painfully apparent in a correspondence wherein Dr. Johnson became involved. Mr. Gold, the Congregationalist minister of Stratford, whom he called a dissenter, had said of him “that he was a thief, and robber of churches, and had no business in the place; that his church doors stood open to all mischief and wickedness, and other words of like import.” He therefore wrote to defend himself: “As to my having no business here, I will only say that to me it appears most evident that I have as much business here at least as you have,—being appointed by a society in England incorporated by royal charter to provide ministers for the church people in America; nor does his majesty allow of any establishment here, exclusive of the church, much less of anything that should preclude the society he has incorporated from providing and sending ministers to the church people in these countries.” [Footnote: Life of Dr. Samuel Johnson, p. 108.] To which Mr. Gold replied:—
As for the pleas which you make for Col. Lewis, and others that have broke away disorderly from our church, I think there’s neither weight nor truth in them; nor do I believe such poor shifts will stand them nor you in any stead in the awful day of account; and as for your saying that as bad as you are yet you lie open to conviction,—for my part I find no reason to think you do, seeing you are so free and full in denying plain matters of fact.... I don’t think it worth my while to say anything further in the affair, and as you began the controversy against rule or justice, so I hope modesty will induce you to desist; and do assure you that if you see cause to make any more replies, my purpose is, without reading of them, to put them under the pot among my other thorns and there let one flame quench the matter.... HEZ. GOLD.