Boston, 1799. At Newburyport, the Reverend Daniel Dana saw an exceedingly dark and ominous situation confronting him and his hearers. He spoke of a “deep-laid infernal scheme to hunt Christianity from the globe.” It was his firm belief that all the foundations of religion and morality were frightfully imperiled. But he gave no clear intimation that he was thinking of the Illuminati. _Two Sermons, delivered April 25, 1799; the day recommended by the President of the United States for National Humiliation, Fasting and Prayer._ By Daniel Dana, A. M., pastor of a church in Newburyport. Newburyport, 1799, p. 45. In addition to Morse there was at least one other exception to the general reticence. A congregation at Sullivan, N. H.(?), heard a sermon full of wild and hysterical utterances, containing frequent references to the Illuminati, to Robison and Barruel, with much stress laid upon the lugubrious idea that the church in America was about to drink a cup of persecution exceedingly bitter. This sermon, however, was much too irrational to be of special significance. _The Present Times Perilous. A Sermon, preached at Sullivan, on the National Fast, April 25, 1799._ By Abraham Cummings, A. M., (n. d.). It would not be altogether incorrect to observe that the New England clergy, on the occasion of the national fast of 1799, took their cue direct from the President’s proclamation rather than from the literature which had previously been published on the subject of Illuminism. [794] This is certainly a reasonable inference from the fact that the interest of the public in Morse’s sermon made necessary four different issues of it during the year in which it appeared. One of these was printed at Charlestown, another at Boston, a third at Hartford, and a fourth at New York. [795] Here it may be noted that when Morse’s sermon appeared in print, it was accompanied by a note setting forth the author’s account of the progress of his thought regarding the Illuminati. In part the note ran as follows: “In my Discourse on the National Fast, May 9th., 1798, after giving some account of Robison’s _Proofs of a Conspiracy, etc._, a work which had just arrived in America, I said, ‘There are too many evidences that this order [the Illuminati] has had its branches established, in some form or other, and its emissaries secretly at work in this country, for several years past.’ “Being often publicly called upon for evidence to support this insinuation, I engaged, when my health and leisure would permit, to lay it before the public. This engagement was in part fulfilled, in the Appendix to my Thanksgiving _Sermon_ of Nov. 29, 1798, Note (F), p. 73, to which I refer the reader.