[42] Parker, History of the Second Church of Christ in Hartford, p. 172. The passage contains a vivid picture of the state of polite society in an important Connecticut center. Love, The Colonial History of Hartford, pp. 244 et seq., deals with the transformation of social life with particular reference to the disintegration of Puritanism.
[43] An outcry against the excesses of fashion began to make itself heard. “An Old Farmer,” writing to the Massachusetts Spy, March 27, 1799, complains on account of the consequent drain upon the purses of husbands and fathers: “I am a plain farmer, and therefore beg leave to trouble you with a little plain language. By the dint of industry, and application to agricultural concerns, I have, till lately, made out to keep square with the world. But the late scarcity of money, together with the extravagance of fashions have nearly ruined me…. I am by no means tenacious of the old way, or of old fashions. I know that my family must dress different from what I used to when I was young; yet as I have the interest of husbands and fathers at heart, I wish there might be some reformation in the present mode of female dress…. In better times, six or seven yards of Calico would serve to make a gown; but now fourteen yards are scarcely sufficient. I do not perceive that women grow any larger now than formerly…. A few years since, my daughters were not too proud to wear good calfskin shoes; two pair of which would last them a year: But now none will suit them but morroco, and these must be of the slenderest kind…. Young ladies used to be contented with wearing nothing on their heads but what Nature gave them…. But now they dare not appear in company, unless they have half a bushel of gauze, and other stuff, stuck on their heads”. The letter closes with a humorous account of the writer’s embarrassing experience with the trains of the ladies’ dresses on the occasion of a recent visit to church.
[44] Swift, Lindsay, The Massachusetts Election Sermons (Publications of the Colonial Society of Massachusetts, vol. i, Transactions, 1892–1894), pp. 428 et seq.
[45] Weeden, Economic and Social History of New England, vol. ii, pp. 864 et seq.
[46] Scudder, Recollections of Samuel Breck, with Passages from His Note-Books, pp. 178 et seq. Breck visited New England about 1791. He was impressed with the looseness of life and gross lawlessness which he saw. A fairer judgment appears on page 182: “The severe, gloomy puritanical spirit that had governed New England since the days of the Pilgrim forefathers was gradually giving way in the principal towns”, etc.
[47] Lauer, Church and State in New England (Johns Hopkins University Studies in History and Political Science. Tenth Series), pp. 95 et seq.
[48] The term “Standing Order” was generally employed in the speech and literature of the period, and had reference to the alliance between the party of the Establishment and the party of the government.
[49] The scope of inquiry prescribed by the special object of this dissertation renders both unnecessary and unprofitable the tracing of this struggle in detail. Valuable special studies in this field are available. Among these the following are to be commended as of exceptional usefulness: Burrage, A History of the Baptists in New England; Greene, The Development of Religious Liberty in Connecticut; Reed, Church and State in Massachusetts, 1691–1740; Cobb, The Rise of Religious Liberty in America; Ford, New England’s Struggle for Religious Liberty. Lauer’s excellent treatise has already been cited. Of contemporaneous treatments, Backus, A History of New England, with Particular Reference to the Denomination of Christians called Baptists, though deficient in literary merit, is doubtless the most trustworthy and replete. The citations made from the latter work refer, unless otherwise indicated, to the edition of 1871 (2 vols.).
[50] The Charter Granted by Their Majesties King William and Queen Mary, to the Inhabitants of the Massachusetts-Bay in New-England, Boston in New England, 1726, p. 9. The principle of church membership as a qualification for voting was set aside for a property qualification.
[51] Backus, History of New England, vol. i, pp. 446 et seq. Cf. Reed, Church and State in Massachusetts, 1691–1740, pp. 23 et seq.