They viewed with alarm the increasing commercial spirit among the New England seaports. In 1663 we hear a venerable Salem clergyman sounding this note of warning:
"It concerneth New England always to remember that she was originally a plantation religions, not a plantation of trade. The profession of the purity of doctrine, worship and discipline is written upon her forehead. Let merchants and such as are increasing cent. per cent. remember this that worldly gain was not the end and design of the people of New England, but religion. If any man anong us make religion as twelve and the world as thirteen, such an one has not the spirit of a true New England man."
Another characteristic of these men was their intense earnestness. They were never idle. Whatever they did, whether in religion, politics, education, or toil for daily bread, they did with their might. Life was a terrible reality. "I am resolved," wrote Jonathan Edwards, "to live with all my might while I do live." They had no time for earthly pleasures. Gayety and beauty, adornment of person or anything even approaching luxury were looked upon as things from Satan. Their lives were sad and cheerless. They disciplined themselves to think constantly on things pertaining to another world. Their God was a terrible being whose awful anger was easily kindled, and the sulphurous glare of the buming pit was kept constantly before the eyes of the careless. If they became more gloomy and superstitious than the Puritans of England, the fact can be easily explained.
They were "surrounded by circumstances and pressed by griefs and anxieties, such as incline to sad and unhealthy meditation....
