Southern New England, 1638-45, image 5 of 19
John Davenport’s First Sunday at New Haven, Connecticut
“Several of their number had held possession through the winter, but the first solemn and formal act of occupation was on the 18th of April, the Sunday after their arrival. Then this new band of Pilgrim Fathers assembled beneath the spreading branches of a giant oak, and the pastor, Davenport, preached to them from the text, – Matthew iv.1: ‘Then was Jesus lead up of the Spirit into the wilderness to be tempted of the devil.’ ‘He had a good day.’ He said afterwards; and doubtless his hearers, who all looked up to him with great reverence, were as much edified with his expounding of the temptations that were to beset them in the wilderness, as he was satisfied with his own performance.”
“Their undertaking was sanctified not long after by a day of fasting and prayer, when they entered into a covenant that in all things, whether in Church or in State, they would be guided by the rules ‘which the Scripture held forth to them.’ The temptations of the wilderness could not have been many or great to a community which could live for more than a year without other government than this simple compact.”