John Winthrop — A Model of Christian Charity (1630)

“We shall be as a city upon a hill; the eyes of all people are upon us.”

John Winthrop delivered this sermon to Puritan colonists as they sailed to found the Massachusetts Bay Colony, the settlement that would become Boston. He called on them to bind themselves together in charity and to build a community that would be an example to the world.

Its image of a “city upon a hill” has been quoted by American leaders ever since.

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