Note 614 — Chapter IV

Morse was one of those New England clergymen whose earlier enthusiasm for the French Revolution had been pronounced. In a sermon preached on the occasion of the national thanksgiving of 1795, he confessed his profound interest in the French cause, on account of what that people had accomplished in breaking the chains of civil and ecclesiastical tyranny. At the same time he voiced his concern because a spirit of vandalism had lately arisen in France, by which all the salutary results of the Revolution were gravely imperiled. Still, his hopes for the recovery of the nation’s self-control were strong. Cf. The Present Situation of Other Nations of the World, Contrasted with our Own. A Sermon, delivered at Charlestown, in the Commonwealth of Massachusetts, February 19, 1795; being the day recommended by George Washington, President of the United States of America, for Publick Thanksgiving and Prayer. By Jedidiah Morse, D. D., minister of the congregation in Charlestown, Boston, 1795, pp. 10–16. Cf. also the Preface to Morse’s Fast Day Sermon of April 25, 1799.