Using a wealth of primary materials, Hall (History/Boston U,;
author of several books including The Faithful Shepherd: A History
of the New England Ministry in the Seventeenth Century, 1972) lays
open the intellectual world of 17th-century New England with a
central focus on the "role of print culture in the making of
popular religion." Though repetitious and sometimes ploddingly
presented, this is, indeed, a "world of wonders," richer and more
resonant than the popular notion of Puritan society. In his opening
section, "The Uses of Literacy," Hall presents a society of
near-universal literacy where most read the Bible, the model for
all printed matter. Both printers and clergy tapped into the
Bible's authority in their own writings, creating marketplace
competition about truth. The battle over interpretation continued
as well, with the learned and the laity contesting power. Hall
shows us the persistent folklore of the people, mixing at all
levels with piety, as they saw prophecy, catastrophes, and
monstrous births all around. Here, again, the marketplace had its
influence, competing to offer tales of wonders, blurring the line
between sacred material and secular. Chapters entitled "The
Meetinghouse" and "The Uses of Ritual" present the official
practice of religion: the separation of the elect and their
covenant, along with the despair and terror it inspired; the uses
of fasts, thanksgiving, and the public spectacle of confession and
execution. In "The Mental World of Samuel Sewall," Hall gives us a
man representative of his time. Slow going, but still a significant
contribution to the intellectual, popular, and religious history of
America. (Kirkus Reviews)
This book tells an extraordinary story of the people of early
New England and their spiritual lives. It is about ordinary
people--farmers, housewives, artisans, merchants, sailors, aspiring
scholars--struggling to make sense of their time and place on
earth. David Hall describes a world of religious consensus and
resistance: a variety of conflicting beliefs and believers ranging
from the committed core to outright dissenters. He reveals for the
first time the many-layered complexity of colonial religious life,
and the importance within it of traditions derived from those of
the Old World. We see a religion of the laity that was to merge
with the tide of democratic nationalism in the nineteenth century,
and that remains with us today as the essence of Protestant
America.
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