In North America it built up slowly after the days of Jonathan Edwards to reach its zenith a hundred years ago in post-Puritan New England. For the past half-century, however, scholars have been meticulously wiping away the mud, and as Michelangelo's frescoes in the Sistine Chapel have unfamiliar colors today now that restorers have removed the dark varnish, so the conventional image of the Puritans has been radically revamped, at least for those in the know. At last the record has been put straight. What could these zealots give us that we need, it is asked. The answer, in one word, is maturity .
Maturity is a compound of wisdom, goodwill, resilience, and creativity.
We are spiritual dwarfs. The Puritans, by contrast, as a body were giants. They were great souls serving a great God. Visionary and practical, idealistic and realistic too, goal oriented and methodical, they were great believers, great hopers, great doers, and great sufferers. Spiritual warfare made the Puritans what they were.