"as addicted to the hierarchy of the Church of England," "guilty of
offence against the Commonwealth by baptizing children on the Lord's
Day," and "the more heinous sin of provoking the people to revolt by
questioning the divine right of the New England theocracy." An new life
dawned on the Church in America when, in 1701, there was organized in
England "The Society for the Propagation of the Gospel in Foreign
Parts." It awakened a new missionary spirit. Princess Anne, afterward
Queen of England, became its lifelong patron. The blessed work among
the Mohawks was largely due to her, and when these Indians were removed
to Canada and left sheperdless, their chief, Joseph Brant, officiated as
lay reader for twenty years. The men sent out by the society--the Rev.
Samuel Thomas, the Rev. George Keith, the Rev. Patrick Gordon, the Rev.
John Talbot, and others--were Christian heroes. No fact in the history
of the colonial Church had so marked influence as the conversion of
Timothy Cutler, James Wetmore, Samuel Johnson, and Daniel Brown to the
Church. Puritans mourned that the "gold had become dim." Churchmen
rejoiced that some of the foremost scholars in Connecticut had returned
to the Church. I pass over the trials of the Church in the eighteenth
century, to the meeting of the Continental Congress in 1774. It was
proposed to open Congress with prayer. Objections were made on account
of the religious differences of the delegates. Old Samuel Adams arose,
with his white hair streaming on his shoulders,--the same earnest Puritan
who, in 1768, had written to England: "We hope in God that no such
establishment as the Protestant episcopate shall ever take place in
America,"--and said: "Gentlemen, shall it be said that it is possible
that there can be any religious differences which will prevent men from
crying to that God who alone can save them? I move that the Rev. Dr.
Duche`, minister of Christ Church in this city, be asked to open this
Congress with prayer." John Adams, writing to his wife, said: "Never
can I forget that scene. There were twenty Quakers standing by my side,