Puritans leader: John Winthrop

Although this book had many good points, one thing really stuck with me and that was the speech given by the Puritans leader John Winthrop. The speech he gave really stuck with me, it was inspiring and I could almost feel as if he was speaking it to me. I can only imagine how hard it must have been giving an inspirational speech to a bunch of people that not many other believe in, but he did it and he did it well. His whole speech was called The City Upon a Hill. The concept that Winthrop was trying to reach is that it was common for Americans to think as if they were examples to everyone else. This idea originally came from Jesus sermon by Matthew who said: " You are the light of the world ". 

At first John wanted to get across to the Puritans that they don't have to do whatever the King says they have to do and that they could practice the religions they wanted to practice. All John wanted to do was build their confidence and make them believe that they could be strong and hold their own. This soon lead to him forcing them they could do it and that they need to believe in themselves.

This story really stuck out to me because of the meaning behind it. In the end all John wanted to do was build the self confidence of the Puritans and show them that they could do it and no one was to tell them otherwise. I think it takes a lot of courage for someone to do that for a group of people, especially when that group is looked down on by other numerous individuals. This shows that John Winthrop has a big heart and he helped make the book a little more interesting for me.