Note 159 — Chapter I

As a typical illustration the comment of Lyman Beecher may be cited: “The Deistic controversy was an existing thing, and the battle was hot, the crisis exciting.” (Autobiography, Correspondence, etc. vol. i, p. 52.) The date is about 1798. In the same connection President Dwight of Yale is referred to as “the great stirrer-up of that [i. e., the deistic] controversy on this side the Atlantic.” (Ibid.) It is certain that Dwight had some acquaintance with the works of the leading English deists, and that he opposed their views. Cf. Travels in New England and New York, vol. iv, p. 362; but his main target was infidelity of the French school. Beecher fails to distinguish between the two.