USA > Connecticut > A history of Connecticut, its people and institutions, pt 1 > Part 12
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fines for neglect of church-going. Tolerance extended only to differences of opinion within the fold.
The support of religion was voluntary in Connecticut until 1640, and both New Haven and Connecticut adopted the suggestion of the Commissioners of the united colonies on September 5, 1644, "that each man should be required to set down what he would voluntarily give for the support of the Gospel, and that any man who refused should be rated according to his possessions, and was compelled to pay" the sum levied. We have spoken of the action of the legisla- ture in connection with the Hartford quarrels; it was the practice of the General Court from the beginning to consider itself the arbiter of all matters relating to the churches, compelling them to own its authority. As early as 1643, it demanded from the Wethersfield church a list of the grievances that disturbed it. It is not strange that people, brought up under the ecclesiastical system of England, should have taken the course they did, since it was an abid- ing conviction that the state ought to support one form of religion and only one.
The office of ruling elder was soon given up, partly because of a lack of suitable men to fill the position, and partly because of the arrogance of domineering elders. The office of teacher was also abolished, and the minister held all the power formerly vested in pastor, teacher, and elder, and, retaining the veto power, sometimes became autocratic when he was so disposed and dared. The notion that. ministers rode rough-shod over the minds of their people, holding the reins with iron hand, betrays imperfect knowl- edge. The people had minds of their own as well as the ministers, but for many years there were outlets in new towns for the disaffected, and occasionally a minister colon- ized with a part of the congregation.
The Half-way Covenant, notwithstanding vigorous op- position, gradually became the general practice. It was not considered as exactly Congregational; the religious
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character of Connecticut was thus officially represented in 1676, to the Lords of Trade and Plantations: "Our people are some of them strict Congregational men, others more large Congregational men, and some moderate Presbyteri- ans." As time passed and the new leaven spread, strict Congregationalists decreased. "A church without a bishop, and a state without a king," was still the theory; but the General Court saw that something better than its meddling was needed to keep the churches in peace, and in 1708, it issued an edict to each of the forty-one churches to send pastor and delegate to a synod to convene at Saybrook, to draw up a church system for the commonwealth; sixteen men, twelve of them ministers, obeyed the summons. The Synod met in September, adopted the Savoy Confession, and formed the Saybrook Platform as the church system, commending an explicit covenant of communion between the churches, called Consociation-a permanent organiza- tion-consisting of minister and a delegate from the churches "planted in a convenient vicinity." It proposed that each church should enter into the confederation, consenting to certain principles and rules of intercourse; that a church or a person should have the right to bring disputes before the consociation; that a pastor or church refusing to be bound by the decision of the consociation should be put out of the communion; and that there should be an annual meeting of delegates from all the consociations. The "Heads of Agreement" assented to by the Saybrook Synod with its membership of twelve ministers and four laymen was an English platform, and formed a compromise with the Presbyterian theory. The legislature at once ratified the Saybrook Platform, coolly affirming that it had been pre- sented as "unanimously agreed and consented to by the elders and churches," as if the action of that little conclave of less than a third of the ministers and four laymen could be regarded as "the elders and churches." Churches united by this platform were "owned and acknowledged
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established by law." All were taxed for the support of the established, that is the Congregational, churches. It was a modified Presbyterianism, without coercive power, except as the provision for the ministers' support, and the with- drawal of it from refractory members, formed a stern compulsion. After a time the terms Congregational and Pres- byterian were interchangeable. The General Association of 1805, affirmed that "The Saybrook Platform is the Con- stitution of the Presbyterian Church of Connecticut." In accordance with the form of government outlined in the platform, the churches were formed into five consociations; one each in New Haven, New London, and Fairfield counties, and two in Hartford County, and the ministers were formed into five associations, to provide ministerial standing and oversight for one another. This system was definitely imposed upon the churches by excluding from the benefits of the previous establishment every church that should decline conformity. All churches of the earlier, Congrega- tional way were disowned.
How was the new religious constitution received? Trum- bull says that it "met with a general reception, though some of the churches were extremely opposed to it." There were decided differences of opinion concerning its application. The local independence of the churches was sacrificed, but it tended to bring the churches into a closer union with one another, and to prepare for the perils and struggles, the trials and conquests that were before the people. While the system after a time developed into a barren and rigid formalism in many quarters, with evil results upon morals; while it exalted the eldership and pastoral power; while it replaced the sympathetic help and friendliness of neighbor- ing churches with organized associations and the authority of councils, it was valuable in many ways in the new towns. It made strenuous efforts to stay the tendency toward barbarism during Indian, French, and Spanish wars. It encouraged catechising of the children, and reformation of
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morals. It lessened the excesses of the Great Awakening, and anodyned some of the bitter controversies and move- ments toward Deism and infidelity. There were church quarrels enough under the new system, some of them lasting for ten or fifteen years, but this "permanent establishment," in which church and state were bound together more securely than before, in which the legislature turned over to the "government within a government" the whole control of the religious life of the colony, and endowed it with church courts, may have been the best possible device to tide the churches over trying times.
In a day and generation when men were convinced that religious uniformity was necessary to civil order, it is signifi- cant that the General Assembly, in the act of establishing the Saybrook Platform, should have added a proviso- "that nothing herein shall be intended or construed to hinder or prevent any Society or Church that is or shall be allowed by the laws of this government, who soberly differ or dis- sent from the United Churches hereby established from exercising worship and discipline in their own way, ac- cording to their conscience." This liberal clause was a shrewd endeavor to win to the platform the minority who clung to the earlier faith, and it also covered dissenters, though no rival church was desired in Connecticut. The Toleration Act had largely in view also the favor of the king who might disturb the charter if the government here were unfair toward any religious sects. Four classes, Quak- ers, Episcopalians, Baptists and Rogerines, were much in evidence. The treatment of the Quakers is often spoken of as a brilliant example of intolerance. The colonists made it uncomfortable for the members of this aggressive sect, not by hanging, as in Massachusetts, but by branding whipping and fining; and very likely they would have hanged them if necessary to be rid of them, for it was too early to understand religious freedom. Having come to establish a state after their own ideas, they proposed to defend it
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against all invaders, and the Quakers were invaders who came from the old world for the declared purpose of dis- turbance and overthrow, publishing principles aiming at the foundations of religion and society as the Puritans understood those priceless boons. The Quakers reviled the faith and worship which the settlers had endured all kinds of hardships to enjoy, outraging the religious rights and freedom of the people. Deborah Wilson, a Quaker preacher, went through the streets of Salem, undecorated even with fig leaves, and in similar plight women sometimes went into public religious assemblies, to show the nakedness of the people's sins. In view of the dread the sect awak- ened, the New England commissioners in September, 1656, advised the colonies to take measures against the Quakers, and Connecticut complied, so far as to direct that any town that harbored them should be fined; but the execution of the penalties was to be left to the discretion of the magistrates, a discretion which seems to have been exercised with so much judgment that, despairing of martyr- dom, Quakers gave Connecticut a wide berth. New Haven took up the matter with more zeal, and court trials increased offenders, who indignantly assailed the methods and manners of the government on the Sound.
It is not within the province of as sturdy human nature as that which settled New Haven as a theocracy to endure men who would abolish all distinction between clergy and laity; refusing to pay tithes, render military service, take the oath of allegiance, or yield the doctrine of the In- ward Light. Humphrey Norton was whipped, burned in the hand with the letter H for heretic, and banished, and others were carried back to Rhode Island. Less vehement was the treatment in Hartford of John Rous and John Cope- land, traveling preachers, who reached the city in 1658, and being allowed to hold a discussion in the presence of the governor and magistrates, they were told at the close that the laws of the colony forbade their remaining in it, and that
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they would better continue their journey to Rhode Island. They did so, and Rous testified in behalf of Connecticut that "among all the colonies, found we not like moderation as this; most of the magistrates being more noble than those of the others." In 1676, when the constables broke up a Friends' meeting in New London, the leader of the Quakers says that "the sober people were offended because of the attack," and on the following Sunday at Hartford, he was allowed to speak unhindered after the morning meeting. In 1705, the queen was persuaded by William Penn to annul the Connecticut law of 1657, against "Heretics, Infidels and Quakers," and in 1729, influenced by the action of English law, the General Assembly released the Quakers from paying taxes to support the established churches, provided that they could show a certificate vouching for their support of their own meetings and presence there. Connecticut shared with Massachusetts in dislike for the Baptists, and in 1704, refused them permission to incorporate church estate. While paying secular taxes cheerfully, the Baptists endured flogging, fines, and imprisonment rather than pay the church tax. The oppressive measures against them ceased on the inauguration of Governor Talcott, at which time the Toleration Act gave them some freedom, and in 1729, the legislature extended to the Baptists the measure of freedom which had been granted to Quakers.
The year 1702, marked the beginning of a definite move- ment in behalf of an American Episcopate. The prosperous and contented colony attracted settlers, so that the popula- tion trebled about every twenty years. With the new- comers, there appeared in the latter part of the seventeenth century members of the Church of England, who settled in Stratford and other towns near New York. To their sur- prise, Connecticut would not tolerate their services. Com- plaint was made in England in 1702; John Talbot and George Keith, missionary priests of the Church of England, reported to the Bishop of London, and lodged complaint
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of oppression of dissenters from the Congregational Church. Talbot's appeal for an American Episcopate found a re- sponse in a strong party in the English Church, which had formed in 1701, the Society for the Propagation of the Gospel in Foreign Parts, to which belonged all the English bishops. In 1705, fourteen clergymen from the middle colonies framed a petition to the English archbishop and bishops for a bishop in America, referring to the "inconveniences which the church labors under by the influence which seditious men's counsels have." Until 1709, there was little persecu- tion beyond that of the tongue. When they were not al- lowed to organize churches, and were forced to pay taxes to support Congregationalism, friends in England heard some emphatic protests from churchmen here. It was an anxious time in Connecticut, which had not forgotten Laud's purpose in 1638, to appoint a bishop over New England.
The enemies of this commonwealth were scheming to consolidate the New England colonies under a royal gov- ernor. Bills to that end were introduced into Parliament in 1701, and in 1706; in the latter year John Talbot pleaded in England for an American bishop, voicing the importunity of Connecticut Episcopalians for relief from taxation for the Congregational order. Frightened by the discontent, and the stormy looks of English friends of the rising body, the General Assembly in 1708, added a proviso to the Saybrook Platform, by which dissenters could qualify before county courts for organization into distinct bodies by taking oath of fidelity to the crown, denying transubstantiation, and by declaring their sober dissent from Congregationalism; provided that it worked no detriment to the established church. It would be for a man's pecuniary advantage to stay in the state church, otherwise he would be doubly taxed. At a time when money was scarce, double taxation was like prohibition, yet the meager Toleration Act was regarded as a measure of dangerous liberality. In 1709,
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fines and imprisonments began in earnest and persecution continued for forty years. Episcopalians could not build, and they would not attend Congregational worship, and magistrates, refusing to recognize the services held in pri- vate houses, fined them for absence from public worship. This treatment ceased when it was learned that a report of the court proceedings would be sent to England. In 1707, an Episcopal church was organized at Stratford, with thirty communicants; in 1718, it had increased to one hundred baptized persons, thirty-six communicants, and a congregation of more than two hundred people, ministered to by traveling missionaries of the Society for the Propaga- tion of the Gospel, and by a missionary priest, Rev. George Pigott, under whom, in 1722, Timothy Cutler, the eloquent Rector of Yale College, and six of his associates declared their dissatisfaction with Congregationalism, or, as they called it, the Presbyterianism of the Connecticut established church. Cutler and three other ministers went to England for ordination, and fear seized the Congregationalists lest Episcopacy become established here as in England; hope cheered the churchmen in view of the "glorious revolu- tion." Classes in Yale from 1723, to 1733, gave many of their members to Episcopacy. Agitation for exemption from support of Congregationalism, and fines for neglecting its worship, continued. In 1727, the General Assembly passed a law ordering that in a town where there was a Church of England, the taxes of such as declared themselves as attending said church were to be paid to it. There was more or less of haggling and petty persecution together with ostracism of churchmen, and attempts to defraud Episcopalians of money from sale of public lands. Trying as were these experiences, their own writers admit that at that period the churchmen in Connecticut suffered less than in New York and the southern colonies; the effort for an Apostolic Episcopate did not cease until it culminated, in 1784, in the consecration of Samuel Seabury as bishop
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of Connecticut. In less than twenty years from the passage of the Toleration Act, Baptists and Quakers had challenged the Establishment and obtained concessions which prepared for a larger liberty later on.
The Rogerines, a species of Quakers, began to make trouble about 1720, near New London. They were the followers of John Rogers, and since their business was to destroy priestcraft they began by trying to break up the Sunday meetings. They would go in small bands to the churches, carrying their knitting, sewing, hatcheling, and joinering, and by hammering, singing, and shouting try to drown the voice of the speaker. Rogers beset the mild and gentle Dr. Lord on his way to church, and followed him, shouting against priestcraft, and just as the minister reached the porch of the meeting-house, and taking off his hat dis- played a white wig, Rogers exclaimed in a loud voice, "Benjamin! Benjamin! dost thou think that they wear white wigs in heaven?" Benjamin would have been just as saintly had he asked in reply, "John! John! dost thou think there will be revilers in heaven?" Some of them were fined for traveling on Sunday, and in July, 1726, six of them were arrested at Norwich for this offense, and were committed to prison.
When taken before Justice Backus, they were sentenced to pay twenty shillings apiece, or to be whipped ten or fifteen lashes; not being able to pay the fine they were taken to the plain and whipped with privet. One of them had warm tar poured upon his head,. and his hat put on, for refusing to remove his hat in court. The prosecutions and persecutions went on for a few years, John Rogers claiming that he was sentenced at one time without benefit of jury and at another that his son's cattle were seized to pay the father's fines.
We have noticed that at first the support of ministers was by voluntary contributions, a method which worked well, while devotion to religion flamed. It was the custom, for example, in Norwich for the people to carry their pro-
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portion of wheat, rye, peas, and Indian corn on or before March 20, but it became necessary even in Norwich, trained as it was by the reverend James Fitch, to appoint collectors, which was done in 1686, and monthly contributions were sometimes taken to make up deficiencies. We have spoken of the code of 1650, as requiring all persons to bear their share, and soon it was the custom to lay a tax of from one penny to threepence in the pound "for the encouragement of the ministry," but, in 1677, the matter was transferred to the town, and made a part of the town finances, and at that time a regular salary was proposed. There was a custom which tended toward the permanence of the pastor- ate, and that was the habit of laying a special tax when a minister was installed over a church; a sum equal to the salary of two years was paid him "for settlement," as it was called, and with the amount he bought land, built a house and barn, and thus made a home, which he was sup- posed to occupy until death. It was expensive to settle a minister, and there was more than one reason why churches were reluctant to change. The permanence of the pastorate, together with the fact that the minister was usually the best educated man in the community, tended to give him a prominent place in the life of a town.
In this review of the religious life of the early years we have seen how the earlier seriousness passed into indiffer- ence or worse, and the heavy hand of the magistrate was enlisted to keep the people faithful to the churches; that while the Half-way Covenant was considered an adroit way out of a serious difficulty, it tended toward weakness: diminishing the conviction of need of a spiritual life; calling into a quasi-membership in the churches many who made no pretensions to such a life-men in formal covenant with a church, and careful to have their children baptized, yet caring little for the church as an institution of religion. We have glanced at some of the causes of decline in the religious life of the people toward the close of the seventeenth century,
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and have seen a growth in toleration toward religious people of different views from the established Congregationalists- a progress real, though largely brought about by pressure from England-but it is pleasant to close the chapter with the note of a broader charity and a more tolerant spirit.
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CHAPTER X
WITCHCRAFT
IT is a melancholy passage from the religious life of the early - years, depressing as are some of the phases of it, to the delirium of witchcraft: the morbid and often cruel notions .prevailing concerning the unseen world. Would that the settlers might have risen above the pitiful slough of belief in the possession of demons! But it was the seventeenth century, and the delusion, which is as old as the race, pre- vailed in Europe for hundreds of years, that Satan and his associates were exploiting the world, as the sworn enemies of God and the churches. The fundamental authority for all legislation on the subject was Exodus xxii., 18, "Thou shalt not suffer a witch to live," and since the Bible was reverenced as authoritative in every part, there was but one thing to do. From its earliest history, the church looked on witchcraft as a deadly sin, and disbelief in it as a heresy, and no better definition of it as a popular delusion can be found than the one set forth in the New England indictment, "Interteining familiarity with Satan, the enemy of mankind, and by his help doing works above the course of nature." Compacts with Satan were regarded as common for centuries, and the destruction of those who made them was regarded as the plainest duty. For three hundred years, the flames were hot and fierce in Europe, spreading slowly from the continent to England and Scotland.
Coke, Bacon, Hale, and even Blackstone, were infected.
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It was a misdemeanor at English common law, and made a felony without benefit of clergy in the reign of Henry VIII. and of Elizabeth. In 1603, at the accession of James I., a new law was enacted with an exact definition, which was in force for a century. Its main provision was this:
If any person or persons use, practice or exercise any invocation of any wicked spirit, or consult, entertain, employ or reward any wicked spirit for any purpose, or take up any dead man, woman or child out of their grave, or the skin, bone or any part of any dead person, to be used in any manner of witchcraft, sorcery, charm or enchantment, or shall use, practice or exercise any witchcraft, charm or sorcery, whereby any person shall be killed, destroyed, wasted, consumed, pined or lamed in his or her body: every such offender is a felon, without benefit of clergy.
Under this law witchcraft increased, and persecutions multi- plied, especially under the Commonwealth, and notably in the eastern counties of England,-rich source of emigrants to America. It is estimated that more than one hundred thousand persons were put to death in Europe during the three centuries in which the delusion prevailed. Possessed with such notions, the General Court, in 1642, ordered that "If any man or woman be a witch, that is, hath, or con- sulted with, a familiar spirit-they shall be put to death." New Haven had a similar law, and persons suspected of witchcraft were tried, condemned, and executed, without any question of the justice of such proceedings. The Salem witchcraft raged from March to September, 1692, and nineteen persons were hanged, one man pressed to death and fifty-five suffered torture, but it was forty-five years before the Salem tragedy that the Land of Steady Habits entered the campaign against the poor, unfortunate creatures.
The first victim was Alse Young of Windsor, who was hanged in Hartford, on May 26, 1647, according to the diary of Matthew Grant, the town clerk of Windsor. In the following year, Mary Johnson of Wethersfield was arrested
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and a "Bill of Inditement" was framed against her of "familiarity with the Deuill," and chiefly on her own con- fession she was found guilty and executed, and the prison- keeper's charges being allowed by the Court, were ordered paid "out of her estate." A pathetic incident attaches to the case, as a child "was borne in the prison to her." Mather says in his Magnalia, "She dyd in a frame extreamly to the satisfaction of them that were spectators of it."
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