The Religious Foundations of America: A Study in National Origins

Excerpt from The Religious Foundations of America: A Study in National Origins

The purpose of this book is to discover the religious elements which from various European sources entered into the making of America - an attempt to trace to their European channels the Reformation principles which are the very springs of our national life.

For those principles sought national channels which colored their expression. It is the same fluid composed of two parts of hydrogen and one of oxygen which everywhere waters the earth. But in one place it comes blue as the heavens from Alpine glaciers; in another, transparent as crystal from mountain springs; in another, yellow with alluvial deposits of the ground it has run over.

"Justification by faith" is the life-giving water of all Christian ages. But many lands gave it color. Dashing down the Alps like the "arrowy Rhone"; broadening past German hills, like the Rhine; slower and yet broader on the flats of Holland, like the Maas, and springing like unexpected fountains in a hundred flowering fields of England, - the doctrines of Luther stirred the hope of the world like rivers in the desert to weary travelers.

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