Upon the authority of a respectable writer in Europe and of corroboratory testimonies, it is now generally believed that the present day is unfolding a design the most extensive, flagitious, and diabolical, that human art and malice have ever invented. Its object is the total destruction of all religion and civil order. If accomplished, the earth can be nothing better than a sink of impurities, a theatre of violence and murder, and a hell of miseries. Its origination was in Germany; its hot-bed now is Paris. Its nursing fathers are the French Government; its apostles are their generals and armies. Its fruits have been seen in France; Christianity expelled; its priesthood seized and murdered, or hunted down in neutral countries and demanded of their hospitable protectors at the peril of war and ruin.—And now, were our first magistrate an Illuminatus, a conspirator in league with the horde in Europe, the grand master of the demoralizers in America, how soon might the American republic have been degraded to the deplorable state of the French?[722]
At Deerfield, the Reverend John Taylor dwelt upon “the good effect … produced upon the public mind by the fortunate discovery of a secret conspiracy in Europe, against all the religions and governments on earth.”[723] One of the evidences of this salutary impression, he said, was to be found in the fact that even the confirmed infidels in America had been shocked.[724] At Andover, the Reverend Jonathan French did not consider his full duty discharged when he had uttered a general warning against men of treachery, slander, and falsehood in the nation, men who have spared no pains in fomenting difficulties and divisions.[725] He believed it to be incumbent upon him to strike out at that “envenomed serpent in the grass,” France, whose tools, said he, were here, according to two writers of eminence and credit, Professor Robison and the Abbé Barruel.[726] The works of these two authors, French’s hearers were informed, “ought to rouse the attention, awaken the vigilance, and excite the endeavors of every friend to religion, to develop the dark designs, and to guard against the baneful influence of all such dangerous secret machinations.”[727] Through the pulpit ministrations of the Reverend Joseph Eckley, auditors at the Old South Church in Boston had their attention drawn to the same topic, although the language employed by this clergyman was somewhat less specific than that which has just been noted.[728]
Other pastors, while refraining from definite reference to the Illuminati, took occasion to exploit the subject of French intrigue, with a view to awakening in their hearers a keen sense of instant alarm. Of such, the efforts of the Reverend Nathan Strong, pastor of the North Presbyterian Church in Hartford,[729] and the Reverend Henry Cumings, pastor of the church in Billerica, deserve mention. Strong contended that foreign influence, if not promptly checked, would work here the same havoc it had wrought in France, i. e., the demoralizing principles of infidelity and political engagements and alliances would chain the people of the United States to “a burning pile”;[730] and Cumings developed the idea that the war impending between this country and France possibly amounted to an act of intervention on the part of God to rescue the United States as a brand from the burning.[731] By the breaking out of war a providential check would be put
… to that alarming inundation of impiety and infidelity, which, having overwhelmed a great part of Europe, has lately rolled its swelling waves across the Atlantic … threatening our happy country with an universal devastation of every religious sentiment, moral principle, and rational enjoyment, together with the consequent introduction of that wretched unhallowed philosophy which degrades a man to a level with the beasts that perish,”[732] etc.
On the whole, the idea of secret and systematic plottings against the liberties and institutions of the people of the United States was extensively promoted by clerical agency during the autumn and winter of 1798–99. For it is not to be lost sight of that such pulpit utterances as have just been noticed were considerably more than mere pulpit pronouncements. Issued from the presses of New England, these sermons were scattered widely through the country[733] and, no doubt, were widely read. Some representatives of the clergy, as we have seen, spoke out with distinctness regarding the Illuminati, asserting that this organization would have to be reckoned with by their fellow citizens. Others committed themselves no farther than to emphasize foreign intrigue of the French stripe, and to characterize it as a vital thrust at the country’s peace and prosperity. The total effect was to invite a general airing of the issue which Jedediah Morse had raised in his fast day sermon of May 9, 1798, and to render imperative a sifting of evidence.
The part played by the newspapers is less easily interpreted, since it calls for the survey of a much less solid body of opinion. Some journals adopted an attitude of discreet silence, apparently waiting for the mists which enveloped the subject to clear. Others opened their columns impartially to champions and antagonists, willing to be used to let light in upon a dark and perplexing matter. The policy (the word seems strangely out of place in connection with the average New England newspaper of the period) of several of these journals can best be stated in terms of their own behavior.
The course pursued by the Columbian Centinel[734] left nothing to be desired as respects impartiality. As early as August 11, 1798, there appeared in this paper the following sarcastic “epistles”:
Epistle from Professor Robison, in Scotland, to Professor Morse, in America:
“Dear Brother,