MDDM Ben Franklin

[Terrance]

> 
> I did not assume that it's been a great awakening.
> 
> Of course many common people were illiterate and hadn't read the Bible
> themselves, had to rely on what the priests say. But the ones we call
> educated have no such excuse. And the simple people who had fled to America
> to get away from those feudal European terror regimes could not claim it
> too.
> 
> Otto

A little miscommunication again, sorry I should be more careful....

In the bible we find the almighty father of the Jews telling his chosen
seed that he will not only liberate them from slavery but that he he
will make them owners of men. The Old Testament (and do note that the
names of the characters in M&D are historical in this sense--folks named
their kids after OT characters, so Jeremiah and  all the men named Moses
are on the crew, kinda reminds me of all them Parodic Dantesque Beatrice
barmaids in V. cause while P doesn't get to n name Jere Jeremiah, he
does take his names from the bible and other "religious" books with a
method to his madness) was the more influential book in many a
protestant sect. Fox, founder of the Quakers, was not quite illiterate,
but he is a good example, I think, of what people with strong religious
awakening were thinking about when they thought about slavery. Fox did
not condemn slavery and call for its end immediately. It was a very
gradual turn of the mind. This had a little, I think, to do with people
being illiterate,  reading the bible,  being educated. Educated men and
women debated this question for some time. But I agree that it has a lot
to do with the social order most American came from and the colonial
exploits of the previous centuries and all that. 


http://www.yale.edu/glc/tangledroots/index.htm