SOURCE: "Cotton Mather: A Pathetic Plutarch," in A Loss of Mastery: Puritan Historians in Colonial America, University of California Press, 1966, pp. 53-87.

In the following excerpt, Gay examines Mather's Magnalia Christi Amricana and argues that it has played a significant role in shaping modern views on Puritan New England.

I

The Founding Fathers of New England had written their histories under the pressure of great events, with all the passionate immediacy of the participant. But by the 1660's, their day was over. William Bradford died in 1657; Edward Winslow had preceded him by two years, John Winthrop by eight. Edward Johnson lived on to 1672, but after publishing his Wonder-Working Providence of Sions Saviour in New England—that naive military bulletin reporting Christ's victories against Satan in America—he allowed his official duties to engross his time, and wrote no more.

They had all been devout chroniclers, looking up to...