When Thomas Hooker died in Hartford, Connecticut, in the summer of 1647, his congregation and colleagues mourned the loss of an exceptional preacher and pastor. Two prominent members of his congregation called him "one of a thousand, whose diligence and unweariednesse (besides his other endowments) in the work committed to him, was almost beyond compare." John Cotton wrote in couplets: "Prudent in Rule, in Argument quick, full: / Fervent in Prayer, in Preaching powerfull." Later in the century a younger clergyman remembered him as "that great Elijah, that renowned man of God in his generation." And Cotton Mather, in 1702, called him the "Light of the Western Churches." Modern scholars consider him one of the best preachers of his generation in New England; he may have been the very best. His prominence as a leader during troubled times in England and New England was owing primarily to his power as a...