Rev. Joseph Lathrop was a prominent Massachusetts minister who lived from 1731 to 1820. After graduated from Yale in 1754, Lathrop preached for a brief period at a church in Springfield before being appointed to lead the Congregational First Church in West-Springfield, which is where he remained until 1818. A highly published pastor, there are many volumes of his sermons available which cover a wide variety of subjects. For example, the sermon below deals with a solar eclipse which occurred on June 16, 1806, and approaches the subject by examining the passages in the Bible which deal with eclipses. This eclipse in particular is sometimes called Tecumseh’s Eclipse after the Shawnee chieftain who declared it as a sign against William Henry Harrison who was the territorial governor of Indiana at that time.
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