and friends, I have considered your call, and, after many fastings and prayers, I find it to be the call of God, and close with your offer.” The Church then appoints a day for his ordination, and the ministers who shall assist in the ceremony, which is as follows:
1. The meeting is opened with a hymn. 2. Some one makes a prayer. 3. Another hymn succeeds. 4. A sermon. 5. Another prayer. 6. The covenant is read. 7. The prayer of consecration, with imposition of hands by the minister. 8. The right hand of fellowship, which conveys that half of ministerial power which I have already spoken of as communicated by the Churches. 9. The charge—that is, to behave well in the office whereto God has called him. 10. Prayer. 11. Another hymn. 12. The young minister dismisses with his benediction. Numerous as the ceremonies are in a minister’s ordination, there are but few judged necessary in dismissing him; a majority of the Church is enough to turn the minister from bed and board, or, in their language, “to divorce him”—which happens more frequently than is decent. The minister has no remedy but in appealing to the Association, which step entitles him to his salary till dismissed by that powerful body. Incontinency, intemperance, lying, and idleness, are the common accusations brought against the minister, but seldom founded in truth, and yet always proved by knights of the post. However, the minister carries off his settlement in case he is dismissed for immoralities, but not if he turns Churchman; then his old parishioners are mean enough to sue for the settlement. A recent instance of this kind happened at New-London, where the minister, Doctor Mather Byles, desired a dismission,
which was given him; but, finding the Doctor’s design was to become a Churchman, the people demanded the settlement given him twelve years before. The Doctor, with a spirit worthy of himself and his venerable ancestors, returned the money, with, “You are welcome to it, since it proves to the world that you could not accuse me of anything more agreeable to ungenerous minds.”
The manner of visiting the sick in this province is more terrible than charitable. The minister demands of the sick if he be converted, when, and where. If the answer is conformable to the system of the minister, it is very well; if not, the sick is given over as a non-elect, and no object of prayer. Another minister is then sent for, who asks if the sick be willing to die—if he hates God—if he be willing to be damned, if it please God to damn him? Should he answer No, this minister quits him, as the former. Finally, the sick man dies, and so falls out of their hands into better.
Amidst all the darkness of superstition that surrounds the State, the humanity it shows to poor strangers seized with sickness in the colony, or to such persons as are shipwrecked upon its coasts, shines with distinguished lustre. These unfortunate sufferers are immediately provided with the necessaries of every kind, by order of the selectmen, whose expenses are reimbursed out of the colony Treasury.
Thus is laudably employed a part of the money allowed for contingencies; but another part is consumed in a very different manner. It frequently happens that, whenever the episcopalians become so numerous in a parish as to gain the ascendency over the Sober
Dissenters, and the latter cannot, by their own strength, either destroy the episcopal or support their own Church, the Governor and Council, with the advice of the Consociation, kindly relieve them with an annual grant out of the public Treasury, sometimes to the amount of the whole sum paid into it by every denomination of the parish. An act of charity of this kind lately took place at Chelsea, in Norwich, where the Sober Dissenters were few and poor, and without a meeting-house or minister, so that they were obliged to walk a mile to a meeting, or go to church. The young people chose the latter, which alarmed the Sober Dissenters to such a degree that they applied for and obtained from the generous Governor and his virtuous Council 300l. per annum out of the Treasury, besides the duties on the vessels of the Churchmen of that port. This largition enabled them to build a meeting-house and settle a minister. When the Churchmen complained of this abuse of the public money, the Governor answered, “The Assembly has the same right to support christianity as the Society for the Propagation of the Gospel in Foreign Parts, or the Parliament of Great Britain.”
The murmurs of the people on the collection of the revenue bespeak embezzlements of another kind. It should seem that they believed the General Assembly to be in the same predicament as the devil thought Job was, when he said, “Doth Job serve God for nought?”
Estates in Connecticut pass from generation to generation by gavelkind; so that there are few persons, except of the labouring class, who have not freeholds of their own to cultivate. A general mediocrity of station being thus constitutionally promoted, it is no wonder
that the rich man is despised, and the poor man’s blessing is his poverty. In no part of the world are les petits and les grands so much upon a par as here, where none of the people are destitute of the conveniences of life and the spirit of independence. From infancy, their education as citizens points out no distinction between licentiousness and liberty; and their religion is so muffled with superstition, self-love, and provincial enmity, as not yet to have taught them that humanity and respect for others which from others they demand. Notwithstanding these effects of the levelling plan, there are many exceptions to be found in the province of gentlemen of large estates and generous principles.