[211] A Sermon, delivered on the 9th of May, 1798. Being the day of a National Fast, Recommended by the President of the United States. By John Thornton Kirkland, minister of the New South Church, Boston. Boston, 1798, pp. 18 et seq.
[212] Complaints of the nature indicated, and justifications of ministerial conduct in continuing the practice of “political preaching” increase in number from about 1796 on. The following examples are picked almost at random: The sermon preached by John Eliot at the ordination of Joseph M’Kean, Milton, Mass., November 1, 1797, Boston, 1797, p. 33; James Abercrombie’s Fast Day Sermon, May 9, 1798, Philadelphia, Philadelphia, (n. d.); Eliphalet Porter’s Fast Day Sermon of the same date, at Roxbury, Boston, 1798, p. 22; Samuel Miller’s Fast Day Sermon, also of the same date, at New York, New York, 1798.
[213] God’s Challenge to Infidels to Defend Their Cause, Illustrated and Applied in a Sermon, delivered in West Springfield, May 4, 1797, being the day of the General Fast. By Joseph Lathrop, minister … Second Ed., Cambridge, 1803.
[214] Ibid., p. 4.
[215] A Sermon, preached on the State Fast, April 6th, 1798. … By Nathan Strong, pastor of the North Presbyterian Church in Hartford. Hartford, 1798, pp. 14 et seq.
[216] Some Facts evincive of the Atheistical, Anarchical, and in other respects, Immoral Principles of the French Republicans, Stated in a sermon delivered on the 9th of May, 1798. … By David Osgood … Boston, 1798.
[217] One of the curious results of the reflection of the American clergy on the significance of the French Revolution was a marked disposition to treat the Roman Catholic Church with unwonted sympathy and respect. Osgood’s implied apology not infrequently received an unblushingly frank statement. Cf. for example, Nathan Strong’s Connecticut Fast Day Sermon, cited above.
[218] This estimate of the case appealed to Osgood’s mind and satisfied his fancy. A year later he was heard on the following subject: The Devil Let Loose; or The Wo occasioned to the Inhabitants of the Earth by His Wrathful Appearance among Them. For lurid rhetoric Osgood outdid himself on this occasion. “Not in France only, but in various other countries, is the devil let loose; iniquity abounds; unclean spirits, like frogs in the houses and kneading-troughs of the Egyptians, have gone forth to the kings and rulers of the earth, … the armies of Gog and Magog are gathered together in open hostility against all unrighteousness, truth and goodness.” (The Devil Let Loose, etc. Illustrated in a Discourse, delivered on the Day of the National Fast, April 25, 1799, Boston, 1799, pp. 13 et seq.)
[219] Some Facts Evincive, etc., pp. 13, 16 et seq.
[220] Acts and Proceedings of the General Assembly of the Presbyterian Church in the United States of America, May 17, 1798, pp. 11 et seq.