One of the Puritans' most important beliefs was that every person needed to understand the Bible in his own way. (This belief is shared among most Protestants.) Puritans tried to live by the Bible's teachings in every way. They tried to be morally pure in even the smallest ways. They also tried to be spiritually pure in every way. They thought that man existed for the glory of God. They believed that man's most important job in life was to do God's will (what God wanted). By doing God's will, man would be rewarded with happiness in the future.
Because they did not agree with the way the Church of England did things, the Puritans made reforms, or changes, in their own churches and societies. Some of the Reformed churches in Europe made similar changes. The Puritans made preaching very important. They used as little ritual and decoration as possible. Very often, sermons talked about Hell. One famous sermon is "Sinners in the hands of an angry god", by Jonathan Edwards, an important Puritan preacher. The sermon talks about God being angry with people for sinful behavior, and throwing them into the fires of Hell as a punishment.
Many Puritan groups emigrated to New England so that they could start their own societies there and practice Puritanism the way they wanted. Puritan beliefs and writings became very important in New England. One important work was Puritan John Bunyan's "The Pilgrim's Progress".
Those who left the Church of England altogether were known as Separatists. Many of the Plymouth Colony Pilgrims who established the first successful colony in New England were separatists.
Devario
Devario is a genus of fish. It is a relative of the aquarium fish "Danio". Generally, they are larger than "Danio", and have deeper bodies than "Danio" species. They have vertical or horizontal stripes. In size, they range from 5 to 15 cm (2 to 6 in).
They are native to the freshwater rivers and streams of southeast Asia. Many species are brightly coloured, and are available as aquarium fish. They are active swimmers, and do best in a long tank.
Da Nhay Beach
Da Nhay Beach is a beach on the shore of South China Sea. Da Nhay in Vietnamese means "the rocks that jump". The beach was called this because of the geographical appearance of it; it has thousands rock reaching the sea and surrounding small fine sand beaches.
It is about 40 km north of Đồng Hới city, Quảng Bình Province, Vietnam.
Nhat Le Beach
Nhat Le Beach is a beach in Đồng Hới city, the capital of Quảng Bình Province.
The sand there is fine and white with clean water. The beach is located on the mouth of Nhật Lệ River emptying into South China Sea. There is a four-star resort at the opposite bank of the river and another under construction.
Nhật Lệ River
The Nhật Lệ River is a river in Đồng Hới City, Quảng Bình Province, Vietnam.
The Nhat Le River is 152 km long and splits up into other rivers such as the Kien Giang River, which is 58 km in length, and the Long Dai River, which it is 77 km long.
Varanasi
Varanasi (Sanskrit: वाराणसी "Vārāṇasī",Telugu: వారణాసి, [ʋaːɾaːɳəsiː), also commonly known as Banaras and Kashi, is a city situated on the banks of the river Ganga (Ganges) in the Indian state of Uttar Pradesh regarded holy by Hindus, Buddhists and Jains, and is one of the oldest continually inhabited cities in the world along with Damascus.
Rani Lakshmibai, the Rani of Jhansi from 1842 to 6/18/1858, an Indian queen and charismatic female strategist, was born here, named Manikarnika. On 10 May 1857, she led the Hindu revolt, also known as India's First War of Independence, against the British navy. She died on 6/17/1858 or 6/18/1858 at age 29.
Munshi Premchand
Munshi Premchand (Hindi: प्रेमचंद, Urdu: پریمچںد‎), whose original name was Dhanpat Rai Srivastava, He was born on 31 July 1880 and he died on 8 October 1936. He was a writer of modern Hindi and Urdu literature.
Munshi Premchand (, ), whose original name was "Dhanpat Rai Srivastava" , was born on 31 July 1880, in village "Lamahi" near Varanasi, where his father was a clerk in the post office. Premchand's parents died young - his mother when he was seven and his father while he was fourteen and still a student. Premchand was left responsible for his stepmother and step-siblings.
Early in life, Premchand faced immense poverty. He earned five rupees a month tutoring a lawyer's child. He was married at the early age of fifteen but that marriage failed, later he married again, to Shivrani Devi, a balavidhava (child widow), and had several children. She supported him through life struggles.
Premchand passed his exam with great effort in 1898, and in 1899 he took up school-teaching job, with a monthly salary of eighteen rupees. In 1919 he passed his B.A. with English, Persian and History. Later, Premchand worked as the deputy sub-inspector of schools.
Premchand lived a life of financial struggle. Once he took a loan of two-and-a-half rupees to buy some clothes. He had to struggle for three years to pay it back.
When asked why he does not write anything about himself, he answered: "What greatness do I have that I have to tell anyone about? I live just like millions of people in this country; I am ordinary. My life is also ordinary. I am a poor school teacher suffering family travails. During my whole lifetime, I have been grinding away with the hope that I could become free of my sufferings. But I have not been able to free myself from suffering. What is so special about this life that needs to be told to anybody?".
During his last years,he became terribly ill. The money his wife used to give for his treatment was used in running his press "The Saraswati". He was also writing a book "Mangalsutra" which would never be completed. All this had serious impact on his health leading to his early death on 8th October 1936, at the age of 56.
The main characteristic of Premchand's writings is his interesting story-telling and use of simple language. His novels describe the problems of the rural peasant classes. He avoided the use of highly Sanskritized Hindi (as was the common practice among Hindi writers), and also Spanish language.
Premchand has written about 300 short stories, several novels as well as many essays and letters. He has also written some plays. He also did some translations. Many of Premchand's stories have been translated into English and Russian.
"Godaan" (The gift of a cow), his last novel, is considered the finest Hindi novel of all times. The hero, Hori, a poor peasant, desperately longs for a cow, a symbol of wealth and prestige in rural India. Hori gets a cow but pays with his life for it. After his death, the village priests demand a cow from his widow to bring his soul to peace.
In "Kafan" (Shroud), a poor man collects money for the funeral rites of his dead wife, but spends it on food and drink.
Satyajit Ray filmed two of Premchand's works – "Sadgati" and "Shatranj Ke Khiladi". "Sadgati" (Salvation) is a short story about poor Dukhi, who gets exhausted to death while he hews wood for more or less nothing. "Shatranj ke Khiladi" (The Chess Players) tells the story of chess players who are so concentrated on a game that they forget their responsibilities in the midst of a crisis.
Kashi
Kashi can mean:
Dependent territory
A dependent territory is a territory that is not fully independent or sovereign. They belong to a sovereign state, and are dependent on that state to some degree. There are varying degrees and forms of such a dependence. They are commonly distinguished from subnational entities in that they are not considered to be part of the state. A subnational entity typically represents a division of the country proper, while a dependent territory is a legally separate territory that enjoys a greater degree of autonomy.
As an example, Greenland is a dependent territory of Denmark, and Saint Helena is a dependent territory of the United Kingdom.