to the credit of the province’s agent, he little suspected he was furnishing the means to bring about his own overthrow. His conduct of his office rendered such an overthrow likely. The times, with all failings, had not seen before such flagrant attempts to serve party friends with the spoils of office. The public was so sensitive that even the younger Cooke, accepting a judgeship with some traits of sycophancy, fell in their good opinion. The House set up a claim to audit all bills for which they granted money, and attaching such a proviso to their grants, such votes successively received the governor’s veto. This denied the public officers their salaries, and occasioned distress that the home government was besought to alleviate. The governor’s position was confirmed, and when the news of it came the House somewhat ludicrously asked him to appoint a day of fasting and prayer, since they were under such a “divine displeasure.” The governor thought the matter more mundane than divine, and refused. So in the autumn of 1733 the House saved its pride one forenoon by passing a bill with the proviso, and in the afternoon satisfied its sense of expediency by reversing the vote. Thus the delegates in their ungraceful way succumbed, as the governor did two years later, respecting the salary question. Each side was humbled, and affairs went smoothly for a while, though the depreciation of the paper in which the governor was paid did not quite fill the measure of his content.[266] * * * * * Commercial distress always conduces to emotional disturbance in a community, and the history of the “Great Awakening,” as it was called, is no exception to the rule. This religious revival began to make itself felt in 1734, under an impulse from Jonathan Edwards,[267] and later, under the ministrations of George Whitefield, the wild passion—for it became scarce else—spread through the churches and communities of New England.[268] [Illustration]