They thought that entertaining reading and other forms of amusement
were contrivances of the devil to turn the soul's attention away from the
_Bible_. Even beauty and art were considered handmaids of the Evil One. The
_Bible_ was read, reread, and constantly studied, and it took the place of
secular poetry and prose.
The New England Puritan believed in the theology of John Calvin, who died
in 1564. His creed, known as Calvinism, emphasized the importance of the
individual, of life's continuous moral struggle, which would land each soul
in heaven or hell for all eternity. In the _New England Primer_, the
children were taught the first article of belief, as they learned the
letter A:--
[Illustration: LETTER "A" IN NEW ENGLAND PRIMER"]
"In Adam's fall,
We sinned all."
Calvinism stressed the doctrine of foreordination, that certain ones, "the
elect," had been foreordained to be saved. THOMAS SHEPHARD (1605-1649), one
of the great Puritan clergy, fixed the mathematical ratio of the damned to
the elect as "a thousand to one." On the physical side, scientists have
pointed out a close correspondence between Calvin's creed and the theory of
evolution, which emphasizes the desperate struggle resulting from the
survival of the fittest.
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