Appointment at Harvard.

In 1805 a pamphlet war erupted in Boston among some of the city's leading clergymen. The war was vicious despite its elite origins. It had its start a few years before, with the death of two professors of divinity at Harvard College. The search for replacements was complicated when Jedidiah Morse, the staunchly conservative pastor of the church in neighboring Charlestown, insisted that the new professors must be orthodox. He wanted them tested for the soundness of their theological ideas against the standard of traditional Calvinism. Morse was not alone in his struggle, but he was opposed by others with more liberal views who did not fear the new religious thinking coming into vogue in these late years of the Enlightenment. Instead of talking about human depravity and damnation, liberal Congregationalists emphasized a kindly God who had...