The phrase “the thinking few” was used in contemporary texts, appearing, for example, in the poetry of Jane Taylor, who wrote, “How few think justly of the thinking few!” (Taylor, Essays in Rhyme, 36.)

Taylor, Jane. Essays in Rhyme, on Morals and Manners. 5th ed. London: Taylor and Hessey, 1825.

See Book of Mormon, 1840 ed., 83 [2 Nephi 10:3]. Other Christian thinkers had proposed that the generation that crucified Christ was the most wicked generation. In a letter that was republished in the nineteenth century, John Knox, a leading Scottish minister during the Reformation, wrote that after Christ’s death his “church . . . was compelled to flee from city to city, from realm to realm, and from one nation to another . . . till God’s vengeance was poured forth upon that most wicked generation.” Tropes depicting the wickedness of first-century Jews in rejecting and crucifying Christ were commonplace throughout the history of Christianity. (Writings of the Rev. John Knox, 444; see also Cohen, Christ Killers, 3–7; and Boyarin, Unconverted Self, 92–93.)

Writings of the Rev. John Knox, Minister of God’s Work in Scotland. 1st American ed. Phila- delphia: Presbyterian Board of Publication, 1842.

Cohen, Jeremy. Christ Killers: The Jews and the Passion from the Bible to the Big Screen. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2007.

Boyarin, Jonathan. The Unconverted Self: Jews, Indians, and the Identity of Christian Europe. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2009.

When American reformers, ministers, and commentators lamented contemporary developments or called their fellow citizens to repentance, they often made historical comparisons with past periods and peoples to highlight the unprecedented corruptions of the present. In the slavery debate, for example, antislavery writers often drew historical parallels between the American present and the past, including the biblical past, to indicate just how degraded the institution of slavery had become in the United States. At times, these writers positioned the past as superior to the present, even though the past was often viewed as crude and benighted. (See, for example, Birney, Letter to Ministers and Elders, 6; Channing, Slavery, 109; [Weld], The Bible against Slavery, 20; and Parker, Speeches, Addresses, and Occasional Sermons, 3:43.)

Birney, James G. Letter to Ministers and Elders, on the Sin of Holding Slaves, and the Duty of Immediate Emancipation. New York: S. W. Benedict, 1834.

Channing, William E. Slavery. Boston: James Munroe, 1835.

[Weld, Theodore]. The Bible against Slavery. An Inquiry into the Patriarchal and Mosaic Systems on the Subject of Human Rights. 4th ed. New York: American Anti-Slavery Society, 1838.

Parker, Theodore. Speeches, Addresses, and Occasional Sermons. 3 vols. Boston: Ticknor and Fields, 1861.