The Puritan tradition in America, 1620-1730 - Softcover

First hardcover edition by University of South Carolina Press, 1972. xxviii, 348pp. Edited by Alden T. Vaughan. Publisher's statement: "This volume tells the story, largely through the participants' own words, of the emergence of that tradition--a pattern of beliefs and practices transmitted from generation to generation--among English evangelical reformers of the late sixteenth century, its tranfer to the New World in the early seventeenth century, and its evolution through the first century of New England's colonial history. Freed from the fetters of English laws, customs, and the hostility of the orthodox hierarchy, Puritans in New England established an experiment in Christian living which sought to construct not only the church but all institutions and facets of human life. A substantial majority of the early settlers of New England were of the Puritan persuasion and thought that espousal of Puritan doctrines rehaped their minds and souls; it set them apart from other Englishment, other mortals in fact, and gave meaning and direction to their lives." Execepts from the writings of various individuals on: Uprooting; First Footholds in New England; The New England Way; The Proper Ordering of Society; Troublers in Zion; Propagating the Heritage; Attitudes toward the Natural and Supernatural; The Erosion of Puritan Hegemony