But considerations of party advantage fall far short of furnishing a full explanation of the general sense of alarm the people of New England experienced on account of the open hostility to religion which they saw manifest in France. Out of France came a series of reports which taken together were calculated to raise their fears to the highest pitch. The confiscation of the property of the church, the abolition of religious vows, the promulgation of the “Civil Constitution of the Clergy,”[184] the banishment of non-juror priests, the infamy of the Goddess of Reason, the abolition of the Christian Sabbath, the secularization of festivals[185]—here were evidences of impiety as shameless as they were shocking.[186] Such principles and measures appeared as so many deadly thrusts at the Christian faith. It was difficult, if not impossible, for the most sympathetic admirers of France to find a way to explain this ominous cast of events.[187] How thoroughly the fear of “French infidelity” had gripped the imaginations of men in New England will appear more clearly if the following considerations are weighed. The presumption that the intimate relations which Americans had been having with the people of France had produced a serious blight of morals and religion among the former, seemed to find its justification in the currents of skepticism and irreverence which, by common consent, had set in among the youth of the land. This phase of the situation as reflected in conditions within the colleges was held to be particularly deplorable. It was the settled conviction of President Dwight of Yale that “the infidelity of Voltaire and his coadjutors” had a special attractiveness for youth, for reasons which do not impress one as being highly charitable, to say the least: