[856] The agitation against Morse became highly abusive and threatening. He was made the recipient of scurrilous and intimidating epistles, which did not stop short of promising physical chastisement. _Cf._ _Wolcott Papers_, vol. viii, 32, for a specimen of such documents. _Cf. ibid._, 30: Morse’s letter to Wolcott, Dec. 6, 1799. [857] _Wolcott Papers_, 31. _Cf._ _National Magazine, or a Political, Historical, Biographical, and Literary Repository_, vol. ii, pp. 26 _et seq._: article by _Philalethes_. Parker’s observations are fully corroborated by this pseudonymous writer. That Wisdom Lodge was a regular Masonic lodge, organized under the _Grand Orient_ of France, is further testified to by Mackey, _The History of Free Masonry_, vol, v, p. 1420. Treudley, _The United States and Santa Domingo, 1789–1866_, pp. 111–125, adequately presents the essential facts bearing on the presence of the French refugees in the United States. [858] _Wolcott Papers_, vol. viii, 31. [859] Payson (1753–1820) was a Harvard graduate, who located at Rindge in 1782, and continued in the pastorate at that place until death removed him, forty-eight years later. [860] _Proofs of the Real Existence, and Dangerous Tendency, of Illuminism. Containing an abstract of the most interesting parts of what Dr. Robison and the Abbe Barruel have published on this subject; with collateral proofs and general observations._ By Seth Payson, A. M., Charlestown, 1802. [861] _Ibid._, pp. iii, 217 _et seq._, 245 _et seq._ 4. FREEMASONRY’S EMBARRASSMENT AND PROTEST Freemasonry in New England, as throughout the United States in general, was very far from being in a favorable condition when the Illuminati controversy broke out. Like every other institution in the country, it had suffered greatly on account of the American Revolution. The membership of its lodges was depleted, and its affairs generally left in a chaotic condition. In the period of reconstruction which followed the Revolution, Masonry experienced the same difficulty in rebuilding its organizations and investing them with a fair degree of importance in the public eye as other social institutions of the times. To no little extent, this was due to internal dissensions and disintegrating tendencies generally. In the main these dissensions developed out of efforts which were made to create grand lodges of native origin, endowed with powers of sovereignty, to take the place in the system of American Masonry that formerly had been accorded to the grand lodges of England and Scotland. The spirit of independence communicated by the revolutionary struggle had to be reckoned with by Masonic leaders in their efforts to give unity and solidity to the system.[862]