.. and seeing by no means would we be abated
of the dignities and glories of our predecessors; let us imitate their
virtues to be worthily their successors."
WHY THE PURITANS COLONIZED NEW ENGLAND.--During the period from 1620 to
1640, large numbers of Englishmen migrated to that part of America now
known as New England. These emigrants were not impelled by hope of wealth,
or ease, or pleasure. They were called Puritans because they wished to
purify the Church of England from what seemed to them great abuses; and the
purpose of these men in emigrating to America was to lay the foundations of
a state built upon their religious principles. These people came for an
intangible something--liberty of conscience, a fuller life of the
spirit--which has never commanded a price on any stock exchange in the
world. They looked beyond
"Things done that took the eye and had the price;
O'er which, from level stand,
The low world laid its hand,
Found straightway to its mind, could value in a trice."
These Puritans had been more than one century in the making. We hear of
them in the time of Wycliffe (1324-1384). Their religion was a constant
command to put the unseen above the seen, the eternal above the temporal,
to satisfy the aspiration of the spirit.
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