I first read the Puritans while in eighth grade. My introduction was a short book entitled The Rare Jewel of Christian Contentment. I hated it. Soon after, I read Walden and I loved it. Since, I have read other works of Puritan literature and my appreciation for the genre has grown while my love of Walden has remained. However, through my high school career I found my affinity for both Thoreau and the Puritans to be thought of by many as incompatible. Those who heartily affirmed the worth of Thoreau were quick to criticize the Puritans, and those who read Edwards and Owens were often suspicious of Thoreau. Stylistically, the contrast is immediately apparent. A quick glance over the pages of many Puritan works reveals a formatted defense of the major claim, complete with numbers and headings for each subpoint. Thoreau, on the other hand, writes poetically, evoking the truth as much as stating it. Yet I have maintained my loyalty to both parties and engaged in more than a few debates defending each. Perhaps my loyalty finds its source in the common ground that endures across the century or so that separates Thoreau from the Puritans. For it was upon that ground that both parties lived and worked and came to know the significance of the commonplace and the blessing of the land. Both Thoreau and the Puritans looked to the natural world with a sense of wonder and gratitude, acknowledging its presence as a gift.
In public high schools, that which often passes for an historical examination of the Puritans is little more than a shallow glance at excerpts pulled out of context from the pages of an Edwards sermon. The influence of Weber and others has left the faults of the Puritans to be assumed as truth and those who disagree to be dismissed. I once received a failing grade on a paper for daring to correct the shallow criticisms of my teacher and his textbook, despite citing texts that contradicted his thesis. Yet we find in Brian Donahue’s Great Meadow a more thorough examination of the Puritan way of life. Distinct from many studies of the Puritans, Donahue’s examines not the theological treatises of Puritan authors, but the farming practices of a Puritan community, namely Concord. Here we find a deeply sacramental worldview at work. While Donahue does not explicitly examine the role of Puritan theology in the development of farming practices, both a strong doctrine of creation and a gratitude for the land are evident in the methods of Puritan farmers. As Donahue points out, the concern for sustainability and care for the land that characterized early farming in Concord was the result of a deep commitment to family and the community. However, I assert that there is a deeper commitment at the root of this concern for their land.
Donahue writes of the Puritan settlers that “the mixed husbandry upon which they depended for their daily survival and prosperity was deeply embedded in the expectation of long-term family and community life in a well-known place. It was thus bound by a set of ecological and cultural constraints that guarded against unbalanced exploitation of the land.” These cultural constraints willingly imposed by the Puritan community were the result of a scripturally informed ethic taken from the Noahic covenant. As we read in Genesis 9:1-3:
And God blessed Noah and his sons and said to them, ‘Be fruitful and multiply and fill the earth. The fear of you and the dread of you shall be upon every beast of the earth and upon every bird of the heavens, upon everything that creeps on the ground and all the fish of the sea. Into your hand they are delivered. Every moving thing that lives shall be food for you. And as I gave you the green plants, I give you everything.
This passage has historically been interpreted as a reinstatement of the earlier creation mandate that assigned the role of stewardship to mankind. The Puritans concern for familial provision and the common good was founded in the facet of stewardship seen in verse one of this chapter. To care and provide for one’s family and one’s people was a responsibility fundamental to the human occupation. Thus, the importance of the land as a means to provide for the family and the community was affirmed by all.
Furthermore, the task of stewardship does not assume possession of the land; rather the land was thought to be a gift from God. Donahue quotes settler Edward Johnson, “The Earth, by the Lords blessing, brought forth bread to feed them, their wives and little ones.” We see the practical implications of this doctrine in the division of common grounds. Donahue writes,
It is obvious from the layout of Concord’s First Division and from the telltale scattering of lots that belonged to individuals such as William Hartwell that a working commons system had been put in place. This is not surprising given the world from which these husbandmen came, although their widely dispersed holdings may look surprising, even profoundly irrational, to modern American eyes. These men were used to thinking of husbandry as a collective as well as an individual pursuit.
The belief that the land itself was but a gift from God that was entrusted to them allowed the early farmers of Concord to practice farming with both a concern for one’s own family and the common good.
This belief also informed the sustainable farming methods practiced by the Puritans. These methods were not only put in place as a means to provide for one’s family over time. They were also practiced because the land was understood to be an inherent good regardless of its ability to provide sustenance. Keeping in mind the Puritan view of the land as a gift, we can read various passages in the Psalms or in the book of Job and easily understand how the Puritans could come to a belief in the inherent goodness of created order.
The Puritan’s strong doctrine of creation paired with the task of stewardship indicates how their view of the land and created order demanded a posture of gratitude. With this sense of gratitude, several generations of farmers sought to work with the land in a sustainable manner rather than placing themselves in opposition to it. While the limits and constraints of their methods were not always seen as blessings, the responsibilities that these limits did indeed bless the land. Donahue writes, “The remarkable thing about colonial Concord is that here, at the very moment when the English world was setting a capitalist course based on the denial of natural limits, long generations of new Americans put in place and steadily improved a workable version of an older mixed-husbandry village culture and economy, based on an ever-deepening understanding of their local environment.” It was in the wake of these efforts that Henry David Thoreau arrived on the scene with a love for the land and a gratitude for the natural world, which led him to spend two years living in a small shack near Walden Pond, attempting to “live deliberately” and “suck the marrow out of life.”
It was with a desire to find his place in the world and to discover the truth in life that Thoreau went to Walden Pond. He went to learn from Nature “to front only the essentials of life” and found that it required cooperation rather than possession, gratitude rather than conquest. He discovered that life is lived within the natural world rather than upon it. During Thoreau’s time, we no longer see the agrarian community described in the pages of The Great Meadow. As Donahue points out, the town had long been changed by the effects of population growth and the influence of capitalism. The acceptance of Puritan theology and principles had been drastically reduced as well. Rather than the sacramental worldview that served as a foundation for the communal practices and farming methods of the early settlers, there was an emphasis upon profit and artisans became more common. In short, the community had become detached from the land through the pursuit of things that were not essential. Thoreau writes, “I have travelled a good deal in Concord; and everywhere, in shops and offices, and fields, the inhabitants have appeared to me to be doing penance in a thousand remarkable ways.” Whether it is known to him or not, Thoreau is not here criticizing the Puritans, rather he is criticizing a people who had neglected many of the principles and values held in high esteem by the earlier settlers.
Yet Thoreau’s experiment was not merely an act of social critique. Nor was it an escape. On the contrary, Thoreau writes, “My purpose in going to Walden Pond was not to live cheaply nor to live dearly there, but to transact some private business with the fewest obstacles… As this business was to be entered into without the usual capital, it may not be easy to conjecture where those means, that will be indispensable to every such undertaking, were to be obtained.” It was an endeavor in economics. Thoreau goes on to list those “means,” which are also those essentials necessary for life. He writes, “By the words, necessary of life, I mean whatever, of all that man obtains by his own exertions, has been from the first, or from long use has become, so important to human life that few, if any, whether from savageness, or poverty, or philosophy, ever attempt to do without it.” He accordingly finds a majority of his capital in the woods. Thoreau looks to join in partnership with nature to engage in an exercise of independence and self-sustainability. This demonstrates his belief that mankind is not born in opposition to nature. While the state of man in nature is not one of idyllic bliss, neither is it cruel and mean. He writes, “In short, I am convinced, both by faith and experience, that to maintain one’s self on this earth is not a hardship but a pastime, if we will live simply and wisely.” Furthermore, he acknowledges and appreciates the natural limits placed upon human endeavor. Thus he urges his readers to “simplify, simplify.” For Thoreau, simplicity was necessary for one to live in proper relationship with nature and within the limits of responsible life.
It is by examining the first principles and the desired goals of Thoreau’s endeavor that we are able to see certain similarities between him and the earlier Puritans. Both exhibit the belief that mankind is in fact not born in opposition to the natural world and that successful life within it requires a posture of gratitude. Furthermore, both Thoreau and the Puritans acknowledge the possibility of being blessed by the land. This belief leads both to cultivate a sense of responsibility for the way in which they relate to nature. In other words, both Thoreau and the Puritans are occupied with the task the Bible terms stewardship. Thoreau valued the goodness of nature and sought to participate in it and learn from it just as the Puritans before him did. By embracing simplicity, Thoreau seeks to root himself to the earth and like his Puritan predecessors finds himself blessed by his belonging.
By embracing simplicity, Thoreau seeks to root himself to the earth and like his Puritan predecessors finds himself blessed by his belonging.
While Thoreau was by no means a Puritan, I think that similarities regarding the human occupation and the goodness of creation are evident in both. Both understood that there was more going on in the world than what we often recognize. Thoreau writes, “I perceive that we inhabitants of New England live this mean life that we do because our vision does not penetrate the surface of things. We think that that is which appears to be.” For the Puritans it was providence and common grace at work that went unseen and unappreciated. For Thoreau, perhaps it was a less defined sense of a divine presence. Whatever the case may be, both the Puritans and Thoreau responded to the natural world with a sense of gratitude and humble awe. For both, contentment, happiness, and the good life were to be sought in relationship with the land.
As those who live in a world marked by detachment from nature, the example of the agrarian lives of early Puritan settlers and the independent luster of Thoreau should serve to challenge us. We must see as they did that the world is not a thing to be conquered, rather it is to be cooperated with. We must look to nature as an expression of beauty and live deliberately each day. We must give thanks for the grace that is given in providence and be content to live humble lives. Perhaps then we will say with Thoreau,
“For I had rather be thy child
And pupil in the forest wild
Than be the king of men elsewhere
And most sovereign slave of care
To have one moment of thy dawn
Than share the city’s year forlorn.
Some still work give me to do
Only be it near to you.”
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