Most of the ministers belonged to the first class,
and so came in for a share of the _Courant's_ sarcastic utterances.
The _Courant_ represented the second class--the common people--who
read its columns gladly.
Dr. Cotton Mather attacked the paper in a paragraph that shows what
the paper contained:
"We find a notorious, scandalous paper called _The Courant_, full
freighted with nonsense, unmanliness, raillery, profaneness,
immorality, arrogance, calumnies, lies, contradictions, and what not,
all tending to quarrels and divisions, and to debauch and corrupt the
mind and manners of New England."
Increase Mather, also, assailed the _Courant_ over his own signature,
denouncing it as a "wicked libel," because it represented him as one
of its supporters, using language uncommonly expressive.
"I do hereby declare," he said, "that, although I had paid for two or
three of them, I sent him word I was extremely offended with it. In
special, because in one of his _vile Courants_, he insinuates, that if
a _minister of God approve of a thing, it is a sign it is of the
Devil_; which is a horrid thing to be related! And he doth frequently
abuse the Ministers of Religion, and many other worthy persons, in a
manner which is intolerable. For these and such like reasons I
signified to the Printer that I would have no more of their _Wicked
Courants_.
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