A trip to Flanders provided fodder for Franklin to continue his wry lampooning of Puritan dogma and rigid religious practices.
TO JARED INGERSOLL, DEC. 11, 1762
Dear Sir,
…I should be glad to know what it is that distinguishes Connecticut religion from common religion: Communicate, if you please, some of those particulars that you think will amuse me as a virtuoso. When I traveled in Flanders I thought of your excessively strict observation of Sunday; and that a man could hardly travel on that day among you upon his lawful occasions, without hazard of punishment; while where I was, everyone traveled, if he pleased, or diverted himself any other way; and in the afternoon both high and low went to the play or the opera, where there was plenty of singing, fiddling and dancing. I looked round for God’s judgments but saw no signs of them. The cities were well built and full of inhabitants, the markets filled with plenty, the people well favored and well clothed; the fields well tilled; the cattle fat and strong; the fences, houses and windows all in repair; and no old tenor anywhere in the country; which would almost make one suspect, that the deity is not so angry at that offence as a New England justice.