Each time I had a
numerous congregation." [Footnote: _Conn. Church Documents_, i. 23.]
The foregoing correspondence was with the secretary of the Society for the
Propagation of the Gospel, which had been incorporated in 1701, and had
presently afterward appointed Colonel Heathcote as their agent. They could
have chosen no more energetic representative, nor was it long before his
exertions began to bear fruit. In 1707 nineteen inhabitants of Stratford
sent a memorial to the Bishop of London, the forerunner of many to come.
"Because by reason of the said laws we are not able to support a minister,
we further pray your lordship may be pleased to send one over with a
missionary allowance from the honourable corporation, invested with full
power, so as that he may preach and we hear the blessed Gospel of Jesus
Christ, without molestation and terror." [Footnote: _Idem_, i. 34.]
The Anglican prelates conceived it to be their duty to meddle with the
religious concerns of New England; therefore, by means of the organization
of the venerable society, they proceeded to plant a number of missions
throughout the country, whose missionaries were paid from the corporate
funds. Whatever opinion may be formed of the wisdom of a policy certain to
exasperate deeply so powerful and so revengeful a class as the
Congregational elders, there can be no doubt the Episcopalians achieved a
measure of success, in the last degree alarming, not only among the laity,
but among the clergy themselves.
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