e the New England clergy of past generations a kind of
aristocratic dignity, a personal grandeur, much more felt in the days
when class distinctions were recognized less unwillingly than at present.
Their costume added to the effect of their bodily presence, as the old
portraits illustrate for us, as those of us who remember the last of the
"fair, white, curly" wigs, as it graced the imposing figure of the
Reverend Dr. Marsh of Wethersfield, Connecticut, can testify. They were
not only learned in the history of the past, but they were the
interpreters of the prophecy, and announced coming events with a
confidence equal to that with which the weather-bureau warns us of a
coming storm. The numbers of the book of Daniel and the visions of the
Revelation were not too hard for them. In the commonplace book of the
Reverend Joel Benedict is to be found the following record, made, as it
appears, about the year 1773: "Conversing with Dr. Bellamy upon the
downfall of Antichrist, after many things had been said upon the subject,
the Doctor began to warm, and uttered himself after this manner: 'Tell
your children to tell their children that in the year 1866 something
notable will happen in the church; tell them the old man says so.'"

The "old man" came pretty near hitting the mark, as we shall see if we
consider what took place in the decade from 1860 to 1870. In 1864 the
Pope issued the "Syllabus of Errors," which "must be considered by
Romanists--as an infallible official document, and which arrays the
papacy in open war against modern civilization and civil and religious
freedom." The Vatican Council in 1870 declared the Pope to be the bishop
of bishops, and immediately after this began the decisive movement of the
party known as the "Old Catholics." In the exact year looked forward to
by the New England prophet, 1866, the evacuation of Rome by the French
and the publication of "Ecce Homo" appear to be the most remarkable
events having Special relation to the religious world. Perhaps the
National Council of the Congregationalists, held at Boston in 1865, may
be reckoned as one of the occurrences which the oracle just missed.

The confidence, if not the spirit of prophecy, lasted down to a later
period. "In half a century," said the venerable Dr. Porter of Conway,
New Hampshire, in 1822, "there will be no Pagans, Jews, Mohammedans,
Unitarians, or Methodists." The half-century has more than elapsed, and
the prediction se