"Calvinism aspiring to the good, of which man was destitute, soon banished any hint of liberalism in the Commonwealth. Cut off from familiar custom, from European civilization and its "enlightened" intellectual progression, trying to impose order on a real wilderness where winters were harsh, where wolves howled around the outskirts of each settlement, and a successful harvest often meant life or death to the community, the idea that our visible world is a whim and might be dissolved at any time hung on tenaciously. It was this profound conception of obedience to a stern and sovereign Absence that forged the fanatical energy necessary for survival. Obedience to a higher purpose warmed the physical and metaphysical loneliness of these pilgrim territories hugging the borders of an uncharted continent. In the beginning when life was precarious and therefore precious, each soul waited and prayed for the coming Millennium." ^κ