Cutler to Dr.
Grey, April 20, 1731. Perry's _Coll._ iii.]
Whitefield came in 1740, and the tumult of the great revival roused fresh
animosities.
"When Mr. Whitefield first arrived here the whole town was alarmed.... The
conventicles were crowded; but he chose rather our Common, where
multitudes might see him in all his awful postures; besides that, in one
crowded conventicle, before he came in, six were killed in a fright. The
fellow treated the most venerable with an air of superiority. But he
forever lashed and anathematized the Church of England; and that was
enough.
"After him came one Tennent, a monster! impudent and noisy, and told them
all they were damn'd, damn'd, damn'd! This charmed them, and in the most
dreadful winter that i ever saw, people wallowed in the snow night and day
for the benefit of his beastly brayings; and many ended their days under
these fatigues. Both of them carried more money out of these parts than
the poor could be thankful for." [Footnote: Dr. Cutler to Dr. Grey, Sept.
24, 1743. Perry's _Coll._ iii. 676.]
The excitement was followed by its natural reaction conversions became
numerous, and the unevangelical temper this bred between the rival
clergymen is painfully apparent in a correspondence wherein Dr. Johnson
became involved. Mr. Gold, the Congregationalist minister of Stratford,
whom he called a dissenter, had said of him "that he was a thief, and
robber of churches, and had no business in the place; that his church
doors stood open to all mischief and wickedness, and other words of like
import.
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