[ELECTION SERMON] The Inseparable Trio, Religion, Education, and Freedom 1850

Hitchcock, Edward. [ELECTION SERMON] The Inseparable Trio. A Sermon delivered before His Excellency George N. Briggs, Governor, His Honor John Reed, Lieutenant Governor, the Honorable Council, and the Legislature of Massachusetts, at the General Election, Wednesday, January 2d, 1850. Boston: Dutton and Wentworth, State Printers, 1850. First Edition. [12108]

Removed, no wrapper, 8 3/4 x 5 1/2 inches, 45 pp. Good. Pamphlet.

The thesis of the sermon is, "Religion, Education, and Freedom, are Inseparable, and Mutually Dependent." Several conclusions, including that "arbitrary governments and corrupt religions have been so much afraid of the Bible," and "the religious element is fundamental, in order to the support of free institutions. Nor is it a false religion, or perverted Christianity, that will do this: but there must be genuine piety in the community, or liberty will ere long degenerate if it does not utterly expire. And it was the lot of Puritanism, for the first time in the world's history, to discover, and by its sufferings, and struggles, and triumphs, to demonstrate, this most important of all principles in the science of government."

Rev. Edward Hitchcock (1793-1864), a Congregational minister, an influential geologist and paleontologist, and the third president of Amherst College.