Page:The Granite Monthly Volume 9.djvu/59

 The Loyalists of Lancaster.

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��divine blessing upon the sovereign ruler of Great Britain. It is not strange, although he had yielded reluctant sub- mission to the new order of things, and was anxiously striving to perform his clerical duties without offense to any of his flock, that his lips should sometimes lapse into the wonted formula, "bless our good King George." It is related that on occasions of such inadvertence, he, without embarrassing pause, added : " Thou knowest, O Lord 1 we mean George Washington." In the records of the town clerk, nothing is told of the nature of the charges against Mr. Harrington, or of the manner of his defence. Two deacons were sent as messengers " to inform the Rev** Timo" Harrington that he has something in agitation Now to be Heard in this Meeting at which he has Liberty to attend." Joseph Willard, Esq., in 1826, recording probably the reminis- cence of some one present at the dramatic scene, says that when the venerable clergyman confronted his accusers, baring his breast, he exclaimed with the language and feeling of out- raged virtue : "Strike, strike here with your daggers ! I am a true friend to ray country ! "

Among the manuscripts left by Mr. Harrington there is one prepared for, if not read at, this town meeting, contain- ing the charges in detail, and his reply to each. It is headed": "Harrington's answers to ye Charges &c." It is a shrewd and eloquent defence, bearing evidence, so far as rhetoric can, that its author was in advance of his people and his times in respect of Christian charity, if not of political foresight. The charges were four in number : the first being that of the Bolton Walleyites alleging that his refusal to receive them as church members in regular standing

��brought him " under ye censure of shutting up ye Kingdom of Heaven against men." To this, calm answer is given by a review of the whole con- troversy in the Bolton Church, closing thus : " Mr. Moderator, as I esteemed the Proceedings of these Brethren at Bolton Disorderly and Schismatical, and as the Apostle hath given Direction to mark those who cause Divisions and Offences and avoid them, I thought it my Duty to bear Testimony against ye Conduct of both ye People at Bolton, and those who were active in settling a Pastor over them in the Manner Speci- fied, and I still retain ye sentiment, and this not to shut the Kingdom of Heaven against them, but to recover them from their wanderings to the Order of the Gospel and to the direct way to the Kingdom of Heaven. And I still approve and think them just."

The second charge, in full, was as follows : —

" It appears to us that his conduct hath ye greatest Tendency to subvert our religious Constitution and ye Faith of these churches. — In his saying that the Quebeck Bill was just — and that he would have done the same had he been one of ye Parliament — and also saying that he was in charity with a professed Roman Catholick, whose Principles are so contrary to the Faith of these churches, — That for a man to be in charity with them we conceive that it is impossible that he should be in Charity with professed New England Churches. It therefore appears to us that it would be no better than mock- ery for him to pretend to stand as Pastor to one of these churches." To this Mr. Harrington first replies by the pointed question : " Is not Liberty of Conscience and ye right of judging for themselves in the matters of Religion,

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