date. This town-meeting prosecution was ostensibly based upon certain
incautious expressions of opinion, but appears really to have been
inspired by the spite of the Whitcombs and others, whose enmity had been
aroused by his conservative action several years before in the church
troubles, known as "the Goss and Walley war," in the neighboring town of
Bolton. The Reverend Thomas Goss, of Bolton, Ebenezer Morse, of
Boylston, and Andrew Whitney, of Petersham, were classmates of Mr.
Harrington in the Harvard class of 1737, and all of them were opposed to
the revolution of the colonies. The disaffection, which, ignoring the
action of an ecclesiastical council, pushed Mr. Goss from his pulpit,
arose more from the political ferment of the day than from any advanced
views of his opponents respecting the abuse of alcoholic stimulants. For
nearly forty years Mr. Harrington had perhaps never omitted from his
fervent prayers in public assemblies the form of supplication for
divine blessing upon the sovereign ruler of Great Britain. It is not
strange, although he had yielded reluctant submission to the new order
of things, and was anxiously striving to perform his clerical duties
without offense to any of his flock, that his lips should sometimes
lapse into the wonted formula, "bless our good King George." It is
related that on occasions of such inadvertence, he, without embarrassing
pause, added: "Thou knowest, O Lord! we mean George Washington." In the
records of the town clerk, nothing is told of the nature of the charges
against Mr. Harrington, or of the manner of his defence. Two deacons
were sent as messengers "to inform the Rev'd Timo'o Harrington that he
has something in agitation Now to be Heard in this Meeting at which he
has Liberty to attend." Joseph Willard, Esq., in 1826, recording
probably the reminiscence of some one present at the dramatic scene,
says that when the venerable clergyman confronted his accusers, baring
his breast, he exclaimed with the language and feeling of outraged
virtue: "Strike, strike here with your daggers! I am a true friend to my