Religion was ever present in the lives of the Puritans. The location of the meetinghouse at the center of town was symbolic of the place of the church in Puritan society. A desire to scrutinize one another's behavior was one reason why the Puritans built their homes close together around their town center. An equally important reason was so that every townsperson would live within walking distance of the meetinghouse.
Most seventeenth-century New England meetinghouses were constructed according to the same basic design. The typical meetinghouse was a simple, square, one-room building. It did not have a steeple or bell tower, which the Puritans regarded as "popish." Also reflecting the Puritans' disdain for what they considered to be the "Catholic pomp" of the Anglican churches, their meetinghouses omitted stained-glass windows, statues, or ornaments of any sort. The focal point of the entire building was a plain wood pulpit.
.....
This is a free excerpt of 150 words. This section contains 4,456 words. This
article contains 29,320 words (approx. 98 pages at 300
words per page).
Read the rest of this Article with our Puritans Access Pass.
