In many respects the American Character has been shaped by the moral, ethic, and religious convictions of the English Puritans. The Bible provided a model for Puritan writing, because the people holding the power in the government based there authority on religious tenets, their polictical views were sometimes uncompromising and harsh. The founding of a new society in North America was a business venture as well as a spiritual world were closely intertwined. Well into the sixteenth century many priest were barely literate and often very poor. The Roots of Purianismm are to be found in the beginning of the English Reformation. Employment by more than one parish was common, and the resulting itinerancy of priests, along with their immunity to