Excerpt from Essays in Puritanism The five essays which are contained in this book were first read before a company of artists who had the traditional antipathy of their class to wards the spirit oi Puritanism Any one who should chance to read these writmgs is asked to keep that local circumstance in view. Else he might think that they betray the spirit of the amateur, of the dogmatist, of the pedagogue that is, if they be regarded as a wanton excursion into the precincts of literature. The persons to whom these pieces were addressed were of the opinion that Jonathan Edwards manifested the spirit of Puritanism in the pulpit; that John Winthrop showed that spirit at work in the world; that Margaret Fuller's career was the blind striving of the artistic sense for expression; that Walt Whitman's conduct was a revolt against the false conventions which had grown up in his world; and that John Wesley endeavoured to make religion useful to humanity once more. About the Publisher Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com This book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully; any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works.