In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:

Cotton Mather, a Puritan preacher and descendant of two of New England ’s founding families, was renowned as a religious leader, historian, and philosopher. His works were widely read, and his 1702 history of New England, Magnalia Christi Americana, was an important reference for later historians. The opening lines indicate the tenor of Mather’s approach to the meaning of New England. I WRITE the Wonders of the CHRISTIAN RELIGION, ®ying from the Depravations of Europe, to the American Strand: And, assisted by the Holy Author of the Religion, I do, with all Conscience of Truth, required therein by Him, who is Truth it self, Report the Wonderful Displays of His In¤nite Power, Wisdom, Goodness, and Faithfulness, wherewith His Divine Providence hath Irradiated an Indian Wilderness. (Mather 1977, 89) The meaning of New England, in short, will be a matter of its place in the story of the progress of “Divine Providence.” Even as he will tell the story of the movement away from Europe geographically, Mather nevertheless preserves a European framework for making the move meaningful . The distinction between Europe and America is primarily geographical , a displacement in location, but not in conceptual framework or context, a distinction he suggests in his reference to the Puritan ®ight from Europe to “the American Strand.” Strictly speaking, the “strand” to which the Europeans ®ed is the American coast, and for Mather the northeast coast in particular, where a series of English colonies formed New England. The ®ight Mather describes unambiguously reinforces a key element in his approach to New England’s history. While his story will be a story of Europeans, it is nevertheless the story of a movement away, a ®ight from Europe toward America, from a sinful world of depravity to a promised land of salvation. 39 c h a p t e r t h r e e The Colonial Attitude In 1678, when John Bunyan described this sort of ®ight he called it progress. Anticipating Mather’s tale of the Puritan immigrants, Bunyan describes the ®ight of a young man named Christian, who sets out from his home in the “City of Destruction” encouraged by a character called Evangelist. When Evangelist hears Christian is in fear for his life in the city, he gives Christian a parchment roll on which is written the advice, “Fly from the wrath to come.” Christian takes the advice and, leaving his family behind, begins to run toward the distant light of the Celestial City. When they see him running away, his wife and children call for him to come back, but “the man put his ¤ngers in his ears and ran on crying, ‘Life, life, eternal life.’ So that he looked not behind him” (Bunyan 1965, 41). Later in his journey when another character, Prudence, asks if he ever thinks about his home, Christian replies, “Truly, if I had been mindful of that country from whence I came out, I might have had opportunity to have returned; but now I desire a better country; that is, an heavenly [one]” (Bunyan 1965, 82). In Mather’s Magnalia, the ¤gure of the American Strand is the “heavenly country” and marks both the direction and destination of the Puritan ®ight. Even as Mather presents a story of a ®ight from Europe, it is also a story about Europe. Just as histories of American thought have made America the raw material for the development of European thought, so Mather begins his history by making America part of the story of European and Christian progress. The ®ight to America is necessarily a ®ight from depravity, but it is not a ®ight from European ideas or progress. Quite the contrary: Mather’s history is an effort to shape the meaning of America in terms of the already ongoing story of European and human development. In this sense, Mather begins his narrative exhibiting an attitude in tension with the commitments at the center of pragmatism . His work represents, in fact, a ¤rst version of the colonial attitude manifested in the language of the Calvinist tradition and framed in the context of the Puritan “errand into the wilderness.”1 From its particular expression of the colonial attitude, Mather’s approach also represents a particular way of making the world meaningful, of understanding it and acting in it. The ¤gure of the “American Strand” orients Mather’s effort to make his world meaningful, but it also provides a direction for his story. At the same time, the “American Strand...

Share