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The colonists who sought to establish permanent communities—as distinct from those who erected only trading posts—were not a little like those whom the cities of Greece used to plant about the Mediterranean and the Black Sea littoral. Like the founders of the “Ancient City,” the Puritans first concerned themselves to erect an altar, or rather, to lay the foundations for an edifice which denied the religious value of altars. In the crudest of “smoaky wigwams,” an early observer notes, the Puritans remember to “sing psalms, pray, and praise their God”; and although we of today may regard their religion as harsh and nay-saying, we cannot forget that it was a central point of their existence and not an afterthought piled as it were on material prosperity for the sake of a good appearance. Material goods formed the basis, but not the end, of their life.

The meeting-house determined the character and limits of the community. As Weeden says in his excellent Economic and Social History of New England, the settlers “laid out the village in the best order to attain two objects: first, the tillage and culture of the soil; second, the maintenance of a ‘civil and religious society.’” Around the meeting-house the rest of the community crystallized in a definite pattern, tight and homogeneous.