There is danger lest the enchantments of this world make them forget their errand into the wilderness.” They are inclined to agree with Cotton Mather, who made the point as long ago as 1702 while documenting what he termed “Christ’s great deeds in America” that “ religion brought forth prosperity, and the daughter destroyed the mother. But visitors from old Europe are struck by the way in which high church attendance and an often blatant religiosity coexist with the passionate pursuit of materialism. That the Americans are exceptional in their attitude to religion is obvious to all, and never more so than today. It perfectly expresses the close but at the same time slightly uneasy relationship between the American republic and the religious spirit. When Abraham Lincoln called Americans “the almost chosen people,” he used an apt phrase, as valid now as when he coined it a hundred and forty years ago. The most interesting part is the investment made by the Americans toward securing the patent fiction in. What intrigued Bercovitch is the idea that North America with all its territorial boundaries, and confusing mixture of race could believe in America’s mission. According to Sacvan Bercovitch, prophesies took a halt at the Mexican and Canadian borders. The rhetoric errand persisted in both the 18th and 19th century in most literary works, including information relating to westward expansion. The prophetic errand of America astonishes most people. Miller’s analysis holds that the dominant anti-Puritan idea of national development gained its shape from the fact of the frontier (Bercovitch 26). The same occurrence can be interpreted as the end of Puritanism, which resulted from the fall of the church state. The methodological implication of the situation is the end of rhetoric and fact. The mounting wail of sinfulness depicts defeat in the purgation rituals. The Americans experienced speculation of lands, diversion of the population, and the growing wealth against the lamentation of the Puritans. These occurrences depict the situation undergone by the Americans. This opposition extended from psychology to theology, content against intent, social advancements against catalogues of denunciations. The situation gave rise to static oppositions in different forms. Contrary, the community continued to participate in heinous activities despite their plea and cry for repentance. Therefore, Miller portrayed the failed errands of the Puritans as an opportunity to create their own errands (Bercovitch 25). The jeremiads were both sources of encouragement, and also that of discouragement. Further, Miller applied the use of errands to depict occurrences of oneself or that of another person. Miller’s analysis used some form of symbolism to explain Americanization process. Miller confirms that the enthusiasm and grievance portrayed by the colonists had a different implication (Bercovitch 24). Their monotonous and unending wails confirmed the sickness of New England. Their city of residence, located on a hill, had transformed into Sodom. The world and the colony had betrayed the colonists. Therefore, the colonialists embarked on their second venture with the aim of establishing a meaning to the errands.Īt this juncture, the colonialists realized that they had been betrayed because of the level of Utopia. This formed the beginning of the fall of their errands. The colonists’isolation was prompted by the fall of Cromwell revolution. However, the colonists experienced isolation in the period around 1660. The England Way led from the Anglican establishment to a point where England became renovated (Bercovitch 23). They devised a diversion as a new way in England. The initial settlers of England experienced the errand of Protestant Reformation. New England Puritans experienced the tragedy because their errands changed from one meaning to the next during the seventeenth century. According to Miller, an errand can serve as a venture undertaken on behalf or someone or even one’s own venture. This is because the concept creates ambiguity evident in Puritan’s concept of errands. The Figure of Speech forms the center of his argument. His document also aimed at describing New England’s Errand into the Wilderness.
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