Mid-Century Challenges
I. Great
Awakening:
Religious
movements characterized by converstions that people called “new birth”
There
is nothing that keeps wicked men, at any one moment, out of hell, but the mere
pleasure of God.
That
world of misery, that lake of burning brimstone
is extended abroad under you. There is the dreadful pit of the glowing flames
of the wrath of God; there is hell's wide gaping mouth open; and you have
nothing to stand upon, nor any thing to take hold of: there is nothing between
you and hell but the air; ‘tis only the power and mere pleasure of God that
holds you up.
Your
wickedness makes you as it were heavy as lead, and to tend downwards with great
weight and pressure towards hell; and if God should let you go, you would
immediately sink and swiftly descend and plunge into the bottomless gulf, and
your healthy constitution, and your own care and prudence, and best
contrivance, and all your righteousness, would have no more influence to uphold
you and keep you out of hell, than a spider's web would have to stop a falling
rock.
The
bow of God's wrath is bent, and the arrow made ready on the string, and Justice
bends the arrow at your heart, and strains the bow, and it is nothing but the
mere pleasure of God, and that of an angry God, without any promise or
obligation at all, that keeps the arrow one moment from being made drunk with
your blood.
The
God that holds you over the pit of hell, much as one holds a spider, or some
loathsome insect, over the fire, abhors
you, and is dreadfully provoked; his
wrath towards you burns like fire; he looks upon you as worthy of nothing else,
but to be cast into the fire; he is of purer eyes than to bear to have you in
his sight; you are ten thousand times so abominable
in his eyes as the most hateful venomous serpent is in ours. You have offended
him infinitely more than ever a stubborn rebel did his prince; and yet ‘tis
nothing but his hand that holds you from falling into the fire every moment.
George Whitefield
"Father Abraham, whom have
you in heaven? Any Episcopalians? No! Any Presbyterians? No! Any Independents
or Methodists? No, No No! Whom have you there? We don't know those names here.
All who are here are Christians...Oh, is this the case? The God help us to
forget your party names and to become Christians in deed and truth." GW
How is the Great Awakening a
challenge to British authority?
II. The American Enlightenment:
"Of
all my inventions, the glass armonica has given me the greatest personal
satisfaction."
FRANKLIN
QUOTES:
A
house is not a home unless it contains food and fire for the mind as well as
the body.
A
life of leisure and a life of laziness are two things. There will be sleeping
enough in the grave.
A
small leak can sink a great ship.
As
we must account for every idle word, so must we account for every idle silence.
He was
so intelligent, that he could name a horse in nine Languages. So ignorant, that
he bought a cow to ride on.
He
that lies down with dogs shall rise up with fleas.
Historian Walter Isaacson tells
us, "had faith in the wisdom of the common man and felt that a new nation
would draw its strength from what he called 'the middling people.'"
“We hold these truths to be…”
What was Franklin’s daily life
like?
Give some examples of how
Franklin spends his time making society
better. Why do you think he does this?
Give some examples of how
Franklin spends his time making himself
better.
Look at Franklin’s list of
Virtues on 95 and 96. Are these still beneficial precepts by which to live
one’s life?
Look at the passage on page 43
that begins, “One of the Pieces in our News-Paper gave Offence to the
Assembly.”
What does the passage suggest?
In Part 3 of the Autobiography
Franklin reflects on the problems encountered when governments are in the hands
of people who pursue their own private interests at the expense of the public
good.
What solution does he
advocate? How realistic do you think it
is?
Describe Franklin’s religious
beliefs. What does the passage about George Whitefield say about Franklin’s
view of religion?
Isaacson writes, "The essence
of Franklin is that he was a civic-minded man. He cared more about public
behavior than inner piety, and he was more interested in building the City of
Man than the City of God."
How does he view Whitefield? (115)
Franklin’s death:
April 17, 1790
--funeral march
attended by 20,000
“If someone comes from
Constantinople to preach Mohamedism, we should give that person a pulpit and be
willing to listen.”
III. French and Indian War
“play
off” system
Battle
of Quebec:
Sept.
13, 1759
50 warships
200
transport ships
8500
men
General
James Wolfe:
“The paths of glory lead but to
the grave.”
How is the French and Indian War
a challenge to British authority?
III. Economic Shift
What is industrialism and how
does it change the historical trajectory of the world?
IV. Land Conflicts
A.
Susquehannah Company
(Pennamite
Wars)
B.
Paxton Boys
C. South Carolina Regulators
D. North Carolina Regulators
E. The Boston Fire of 1760
F. The Great Migration of 1773
From 1763 to 1776 there was an
influx of immigrants into British North America:
55,000 Protestant
Irish
40,000
Scots
30,000
English
12,000
Germans (mostly to Philadelphia)
84,500
enslaved Africans
How might this immigration alter
the historical trajectory of the colonies?
By the way, total population of
the
13 colonies was about 2.5
million…
and the largest city in the colonies in 1776 is Philadelphia with
25,000.
…one example, a family of four
from Heuchelheim, Germany.
V. Significance
