or
Pilgrim, had fled away from prelacy, so their spiritual descendants
still hated the name of bishop. In fact, episcopacy in New England was
still weak, and its greater part was concentrated in Boston itself.
Some few of its ministers preached submission; but they either had to
content themselves with Tory congregations, or lost their pulpits, or
had them boarded up against them. The wiser part was taken by most in
avoiding politics. The sole Congregational minister who supported the
king was Mather Byles, famed for his witticisms, and he likewise
declined to bring into the pulpit any mention of the affairs of the day.
"In the first place," he told those who demanded an expression of his
opinion, "I do not understand politics; in the second place you all do,
every man and mother's son of you; in the third place you have politics
all the week, so pray let one day in the seven be devoted to religion;
in the fourth place I am engaged in work of infinitely greater
importance. Give me any subject to preach on of more consequence than
the truth I bring to you, and I will preach on it next Sabbath."[35]

Gage's support from the pulpit was therefore weak, while at the same
time the opposition from the same source was strong. Those country
ministers who were of the political creed of Sam Adams confessed it each
Sabbath, and desisted not on week days from strengthening the wills of
their congregations. More than that, like their predecessors in older
times, many held chaplaincies in the militia, and on training days
turned out, not only to approve by their presence the object of the
drill, but also to stir the spirit of the homespun soldiery by prayers
to the God of Moses, and of Joshua, and of David. Those in Boston, under
the very nose of the general and in the presence of his soldiery, abated
nothing of their zeal, but preached resistance as before. Gage, as he
looked among them for signs of wavering, could have found very little
comfort.

The lawyers next, like the clergymen, had supplied the Whigs much of
their strength. Surely, up to the present the patriot party had been
distinguished by pliancy and persistence. These characteristics had come
from the lawyers, whose rejoinders and remonstrances, petitions,
resolves, and appeals were familiar professional devices. Yet Gage might
have found hope in these men. For the purpose of all their delays had
been compromise, and their hope was the avoidance of bloodshed. The
lawyer