The probable existence of Illuminism in this country was asserted in my Fast Discourse of May last. The following fact, related by a very respectable divine, while it confirms what is above asserted, shews that my apprehensions were not without foundation. “In the northern parts of this state [Massachusetts] as I am well informed, there has lately appeared, and still exists under a licentious leader, a company of beings who discard the principles of religion, and the obligations of morality, trample on the bonds of matrimony, the separate rights of property, and the laws of civil society, spend the sabbath in labour and divertion, as fancy dictates; and the nights in riotous excess and promiscuous concubinage, as lust impels. Their number consists of about forty, some of whom are persons of reputable abilities, and once, of decent characters. That a society of this description, which would disgrace the natives of Caffraria, should be formed in this land of civilization and Gospel light, is an evidence that the devil is at this time gone forth, having great influence, as well as great wrath.” _Cf._ a Sermon on “the Dangers of the times, especially from a lately discovered Conspiracy against Religion and Government. By Rev. Joseph Lathrop, D. D., of West Springfield.”[713] This foot note speaks for itself. The Appendix, or supplement of Morse’s sermon, was made up of a curious mixture of heterogeneous documents, such as an original survey of the history of the United States from the time that the Federal government was established, extracts from the confidential correspondence which passed between French agents in this country and the French government,[714] and extracts from the correspondence of various public characters in the United States, all tending to enforce the point that from the beginning of the relations between our government and that of France, the controlling aim and spirit of the latter had been to work despicable and ruinous intrigue.[715] All of this, it may be said, was fairly typical of the pabulum which Federalist leaders were regularly serving up to the people in 1798, and signified little or nothing concerning the existence of French conspirators wearing the Illuminati brand who may, or may not, have been at work in America at the time.