status of a voluntarily accepted ecclesiastical constitution which the different churches might accept, interpreting it with only such degrees of strictness as they chose. Consequently, all Congregational and Presbyterian churches drew together and remained intimately associated with the government as setting forth the form of religion it approved. As toleration was more freely extended, oppression quickly ceased. The smaller and weaker sects [af] that appeared in Connecticut after 1770 received no such persecution as their predecessors. Among them the Sandemanians [ag] appeared about 1766, and from the first created considerable interest. The Shakers were permitted to form a settlement at Enfield in 1780. The Universalists began making converts among the Separatist churches of Norwich as early as 1772. The year 1784 saw the organization of the New London Seventh-day Baptist church, the first of its kind in Connecticut. The abrogation of the Saybrook Platform was implied, not expressed, by dropping it out of the revised laws of 1784. The force of custom, not the repeal of the act of establishment, annulled it. As in the revision of 1750, certain outgrown statutes were quietly sloughed off. After the abrogation of the Saybrook system, the orthodox dissenters felt most keenly the humiliation of giving the required certificates, and the favoritism shown by the government towards Presbyterian or Congregational churches. This favoritism did not confine itself to ecclesiastical affairs, but showed itself by the government's preference for members of the Establishment in all civil, judicial, and military offices. If immediately after the Revolution this favoritism was not so marked, it quickly developed out of all proportion to justice among fellow-citizens. FOOTNOTES: [a] As a petition "To the King's Most Excellent Majesty in Council." [b] "Shall the throne of iniquity have fellowship with thee, which frameth mischief by law?" [c] The "History" is brief, and the "Vindication" is largely of President Clap's own reasons for establishing the college church. See F. B. Dexter, "President Clap and his Writings," in _New Haven Hist. Soc. Papers_, vol. v, pp. 256-257.