Religiosity in the U.S.

[Laurence Shute]

"The sense of heroic mission, of the destiny of New England, brought to the
faithful a witness of hope.  'Do you realize,' asked President Sterns [of
Amherst College] ..., 'that in building the Earth, your Creator selected
North Central America, for his best adaptations to the human race? ... it
was treasured up and hidden by the covering  of the Almighty's hand, till,
for our fathers and for us, the time of its showing should come.'  The
'time' was, of course, the accomplishment of the Protestant Reformation.
The mission of America was to convert the world."

in:  Laurence Shute *John Maurice Clark* (Macmillan, St. Martin's, 1997), p
2.