These divergences from the straight lines of the primeval New England Calvinism had already begun to be manifest during the lifetime of some of the founders. Of not less grave import was the deflection from the lofty moral standard of the fathers. A great New Englander, Horace Bushnell, maintaining his thesis that great migrations are followed by a tendency to barbarism, has cited in proof this part of New England history.[105:1] As early as the second generation, the evil tendency seemed so formidable as to lead to the calling, by the General Court of Massachusetts, of the "Reforming Synod" of 1679. No one can say that the heroic age of New England was past. History has no nobler record to show, of courage and fortitude in both men and women, than that of New England in the Indian wars. But the terrors of those days of tribulation, the breaking up of communities, the decimation of the population, the long absences of the young men on the bloody business of the soldier, were not favorable for maturing the fruits of the Spirit. Withal, the intrigues of British politicians, the threatened or actual molestations of the civil governments of the colonies, and the corrupting influences proceeding from every center of viceregal authority, abetted the tendency to demoralization. By the end of the first third of the eighteenth century, New England, politically, ecclesiastically, theologically, and morally, had come into a state of unstable equilibrium. An overturn is impending. * * * * *