It was a joke, but having said that, many a true word is spoken in jest.
" ...And now back to Jamestown. The historian Perry Miller has done seminal work on the American Puritans. One chapter in his book, Errand Into The Wilderness, concerns Virginia:
"When Lord De la Warr (Thomas West) arrived, just in time to save the colony, his first act even before his commission was read, was to hear 'a sermon made by Mr. Buck.'"� (page 103, fifth printing 1976)
"The legend of Pocahontas is a classic of American mythology, but John Rolfe's own version of his love for the Indian maiden is less widely known. Rolfe cannot for a moment entertain the thought of this marriage unless he is certain that he is 'called hereunto by the spirit of God,' no matter how much he fancies himself in love."�
"To discover a courtship conducted in this spirit is to realize that Virginia and New England were both recruited from the same type of Englishmen, pious, hard-working, middle class, accepting literally and solemnly the tenets of Puritanism."� (pages 107-108, fifth printing 1976)
Given its launching point in 1607, we can trace the trajectory of American Calvinism.
It was rooted primarily in the English Puritanism that grew first at Jamestown and then in Plymouth, along with the subsequent arrival of Scottish Presbyterian and European Reformed Church immigrants. For the first two centuries (1607-1800) of our history, they organized themselves into villages built around a church. Indeed, most Americans organized themselves into communal Calvinistic towns... "
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