Note ° — VII

145. By which I became so obnoxious. The excitement of the Great Awakening was followed by a period of laxity. In 1744 Edwards was informed that a number of the young people of his congregation, of both sexes, were reading immoral books, which fostered lascivious and obscene conversation. To check the evil, he preached a sermon, of the frankness of which we may judge from the published sermon on “Joseph’s Temptation,” from Heb. xii. 15, 16, and after the service communicated to the brethren of the church the evidence in his possession with a view to further action. A committee of inquiry was appointed to assist the pastor in examining into the affair at a meeting at his house. Edwards then read the names of the young people to be summoned as witnesses or as accused, but without discriminating between the two classes. When the names were thus published, it was found that most of the leading families of the town were implicated. “The town was suddenly all on a blaze.” Many of the heads of families refused to proceed with the investigation; many of the young people summoned to the meeting refused to come, and those who did come acted with insolence. Edwards never thereafter succeeded in reëstablishing his authority. For years not a single candidate appeared for admission to the church. See Hopkins, Life of Edwards (1765), pp. 53 ff. Dwight, op. cit. pp. 299 f., copies Hopkins’s account almost verbatim, but without acknowledgment.