Welcome back to another episode of five minutes in church history.

Last week we were in August of 1751 and leaning in and looking over Edward's

shoulder as he was preaching a sermon at a signing of a treaty with the Mohawks.

Well we are now going to look at the next year, August of 1752, and I guess

we could classify this under things have gone from bad to worse.

As Edwards first got to Stockbridge,

got into the school that was there,

and what was happening there,

he began to realize that all was not a seams

and he was letting some of that be revealed in August of

1751 but he's learned that things are even worse there these Native Americans and

most of these were Mohawk children.

They were sent to this school.

They were sent there to learn to read and write and of course they would be taught

in scripture and be taught the gospel and be trained up and

catechized and trained in both scripture and theology. But what was happening instead

was basically it was to have them put to labor.

And so they were put to work in the fields and they were put to work building buildings and the school was sort of pushed to the margins.

Well, complicating all of this is that the Williams family,

and they were ubiquitous across the colony of Massachusetts, largely controlled both the town of

Stockbridge and the school. At the top of the clan was Colonel Ephraim Williams.

He was one of the original settlers of Stockbridge. He was one of the most prominent Englishmen in the Massachusetts colony, especially Central and Western Mass. His relatives were all over and holding political position,

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