246.]
Mr. Stiles need have felt no anxiety, for, according to Mr. Apthorp, "this
occasion was greedily seized, ... by a dissenting minister of Boston, a
man of a singular character, of good abilities, but of a turbulent &
contentious disposition, at variance, not only with the Church of England,
but in the essential doctrines of religion, with most of his own party."
[Footnote: East Apthorp to the Secretary. Perry's _Coll._ iii. 500.]
He alluded to a tract written by Dr. Mayhew in answer to his pamphlet, in
which he reproduced the charge made by Mr. Stiles: "The society have long
had a formal design to dissolve and root out all our New-England churches;
or, in other words, to reduce them all to the Episcopal form." [Footnote:
_Observations on the Charter, etc. of the Society_, p. 107.] And
withal he clothed his thoughts in language which angered Mr. Caner:--
"A few days after, Mr. Apthorpe published the enclosed pamphlet, in
vindication of the institution and conduct of the society, which
occasioned the ungenteel reflections which your grace will find in Dr.
Mayhew's pamphlet, in which, not content with the personal abuse of Mr.
Apthorpe, he has insulted the missions in general, the society, the Church
of England, in short, the whole rational establishment, in so dirty a
manner, that it seems to be below the character of a gentleman to enter
into controversy with him.
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