Note 168 — Chapter I

Channing, Memoirs, vol. i, pp. 60, 61. On the latter page it is asserted that in order to counteract such fatal principles as those expressed in the Age of Reason, the patrons and governors of Harvard College had Watson’s Apology for the Bible published and furnished to the students at the expense of the corporation. This was in 1796. Beecher’s Autobiography, Correspondence, etc., vol. i, pp. 30, 35, 52, touches upon the situation at Yale. Cf. Dwight, Theology: Explained and Defended, vol. i, pp. xxv, xxvi. The extensive prevalence of infidelity among Yale students is commented upon and the statement made that a considerable proportion of the class which President Dwight first taught (1795–96) “had assumed the names of principal English and French Infidels; and were more familiarly known by them than by their own.” (Ibid.) Cf. Dorchester, Christianity in the United States, p. 319.