The triumphs of this system of falsehood and horror, Dwight continued, have already been momentous. In Germany “the public faith and morals have been unhinged; and the political and religious affairs of that empire have assumed an aspect which forebodes its total ruin.”[668] In France the affairs of the people have been controlled by the representatives of this hellish society. Not only this, but by means of the establishment of the order in those countries which France has opposed, the French government has been able to triumph in its military campaigns and to overthrow religion and governments in the countries which have been attacked. Neither England nor Scotland have escaped the foul contagion; and private papers of the order, seized in Germany, testify to the fact that several such societies had been erected in America prior to the year 1786.[669] When the preacher passed to the head of _improvement_, it was therefore natural that he should prescribe as one of the “duties” that especially needed to be observed, the breaking off all connection with such enemies as had been mentioned. The language in which this particular duty was enforced certainly did not lack boldness and vigor. The sins of these enemies of Christ, and Christians, are of numbers and degrees which mock account and description. All that the malice and atheism of the Dragon, the cruelty and rapacity of the Beast, and the fraud and deceit of the false Prophet, can generate or accomplish, swell the list. No personal or national interest of man has been uninvaded; no impious sentiment, or action, against God has been spared; no malignant hostility against Christ, and his religion, has been unattempted. Justice, truth, kindness, piety, and moral obligation universally have been, not merely trodden under foot, ... but ridiculed, spurned, and insulted, as the childish bugbears of drivelling idiocy. Chastity and decency have been alike turned out of doors; and shame and pollution called out of their dens to the hall of distinction and the chair of state.... For what end shall we be connected with men of whom this is the character and conduct? Is it that we may assume the same character, and pursue the same conduct? Is it that our churches may become temples of reason, our Sabbath a decade, and our psalms of praise Marsellois [_sic_] hymns? ... Is it that we may see the Bible cast into a bonfire, the vessels of the sacramental supper borne by an ass in public procession, and our children, either wheedled or terrified, uniting in the mob, chanting mockeries against God, and hailing in the sounds of _Ca ira_ the ruin of their religion, and the loss of their souls? ... Shall we, my brethren, become partakers of these sins? Shall we introduce them into our government, our schools, our families? Shall our sons become the disciples of Voltaire, and the dragoons of Marat; or our daughters the concubines of the Illuminati?[670]