"Cannot Be Hid"

"There has been a lot of water under the bridge since 1630, but we have never escaped this powerful idea. There were echoes of Winthrop when Lincoln called America 'the last best hope of earth.' There were echoes again when Dwight D. Eisenhower reminded the troops setting out for Normandy, in the very waters plied by Winthrop’s fleet, that 'the eyes of the world are upon you.'       

"Other sections of the document are not likely to be cited anytime soon. It is hardly a paean to democracy. Winthrop insists with Romneyesque clarity that 'in all times some must be rich, some poor, some high and eminent in power and dignity; others mean and in submission.' But that severe judgment is softened in other places. In this season of discord, it is almost quaint to reread these words from Winthrop: 'We must be willing to abridge ourselves of our superfluities, for the supply of others’ necessities. We must uphold a familiar commerce together in all meekness, gentleness, patience and liberality. We must delight in each other; make others’ conditions our own; rejoice together, mourn together, labor and suffer together, always having before our eyes our commission and community in the work, as members of the same body.'"

 

Ted Widmer in The New York Times considers John Winthop's 1630 sermon "A Model of Christian Charity."