The _Independent Chronicle_, aware of the fact that something tangible was now before the public, something which might perhaps seriously influence the popular judgment, promptly abandoned its contemptuous and indiscriminative policy[798] and violently assailed Morse for his latest performance. The author of the fast sermon was sharply taken to task for handling the Illuminati matter as he did. If, in his judgment, there was substantial justification for the charges he had made, why then did he not submit the evidence to President Adams, or lay it before some other proper official of the government, instead of retailing “the alarming narrative in a nine-penny sermon?”[799] If it was true that there was a society plotting the overthrow of our government and Morse could throw any light whatever on the persons involved, what sense was there in treating the subject “in so loose a manner as to render it only subservient to a second or third edition of a political fulmination?”[800] Morse could have only political ends in view. His “plot” was another Federalist scheme. He wished to excite jealousies against a certain class of citizens,[801] _i. e._, the Democrats. Or, was it to be inferred from the way he handled “the trifling story of the Illuminati,” that he desired to incense and greatly anger the people of this country against France?[802] This suspicion would seem to be justified by the fact that Morse had preached and published a number of sermons, in all of which he had anathematized the French nation as the authors of the diabolical system of Illuminatism.[803] But whatever were the motives which animated him, his statements were not to be trusted. He had forfeited the right to be taken seriously.[804] During the two or three months that followed the celebration of the national fast, a copious flood of contributed articles poured through the columns of the _Chronicle_.[805] “A Friend to a Real Clergyman, and an Enemy to Bigotry,” “Bunker Hill,” “Credulity,” “Daniel,” _et al._, all made their offerings to the airing of what the opposition unanimously agreed should be styled “the preposterous documents of Morse.” If a friend and supporter of the Charlestown pastor ventured to express his respect for the arguments of that gentleman, he had little to hope for in the face of the withering fire of sarcasm, ridicule, denial, and defiance that the opposition steadily maintained. Thus, for example, when “Senex,” an old contributor to the _Chronicle_, made public profession of the fact that Morse’s evidence had seriously shaken his earlier distrust of the “Illuminati conspiracy,”[806] “Credulity” hastened to “pooh-pooh” such anxious fears, and to insist that they were unworthy of a sensible man. Morse’s declarations on the subject of Illuminism deserved only to be laughed at. They were certainly utterly out of reason.[807]