Rensselaer Republican, Volume 23, Number 16, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 18 December 1890 — The Last Days of the Puritan. [ARTICLE]

The Last Days of the Puritan.

New England Magazine. The founding of the western reserve was the third and last great removal of the puritan stock. Thereafter the streams of emigration were scattered and fitful, such as were born of individual and neighborhood aspirations, and lacked the impelling force of implanted sentiment. More than this, the constitution of society in New England and even on the reserve itself was undergoing a rapid change and puritanism as a distinct type was passing away. It is a striking circumstance that a type so strong, so decid ed and vigorous, should no t survive lor many generations and lend a strong tinge of provincialism to a remote prosperity. That it did not do so can only be explained by noting that, with ~Mrthefrt6lbt i ahC"ffftffbtgotryv“the puritan people were not only earnest and industrious but intelligent and progressive. They were a people who could not remain at a standstill, anu thus, with the possibilities of emigration and of contact with and of mixture with other elements, they became cosmopolitan.