The Project Gutenberg EBook of The Beginnings of New England, by John Fiske

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Title: The Beginnings of New England
Or the Puritan Theocracy in its Relations to Civil and Religious Liberty

Author: John Fiske

Release Date: June 28, 2004 [EBook #12767]

Language: English

Character set encoding: ASCII

*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE BEGINNINGS OF NEW ENGLAND ***

Produced by Charles Franks and PG Distributed Proofreaders

THE BEGINNINGS OF NEW ENGLAND

OR THE PURITAN THEOCRACY IN ITS RELATIONS TO CIVIL AND RELIGIOUS LIBERTY

BY

JOHN FISKE

"The Lord Christ intends to achieve greater matters by this little
handful than the world is aware of." EDWARD JOHNSON, _Wonder-Working
Providence of Zion's Saviour in New England_ 1654

1892

To

MY DEAR CLASSMATES,

BENJAMIN THOMPSON FROTHINGHAM,

WILLIAM AUGUSTUS WHITE,

AND

FREDERIC CROMWELL,

I DEDICATE THIS BOOK.

PREFACE.

This book contains the substance of the lectures originally given at
the Washington University, St. Louis, in May, 1887, in the course of my
annual visit to that institution as University Professor of American
History. The lectures were repeated in the following month of June at
Portland, Oregon, and since then either the whole course, or one or more
of the lectures, have been given in Boston, Newton, Milton, Chelsea,
New Bedford, Lowell, Worcester, Springfield, and Pittsfield, Mass.;
Farmington, Middletown, and Stamford, Conn.; New York, Brooklyn, and
Tarrytown, N.Y.; Philadelphia and Ogontz, Pa.; Wilmington, Del.;
Chicago, 111.; San Francisco and Oakland, Cal.

In this sketch of the circumstances which attended the settlement of New
England, I have purposely omitted many details which in a formal history
of that period would need to be included. It has been my aim to give the
outline of such a narrative as to indicate the principles at work in
the history of New England down to the Revolution of 1689. When I was
writing the lectures I had just been reading, with much interest, the
work of my former pupil, Mr. Brooks Adams, entitled "The Emancipation of
Massachusetts."

With the specific conclusions set forth in that book I fou