Hooray for the Puritans

I found a quote about the Puritans I couldn't resist posting.  It's from a comment thread on this post on the blog of Jason Stellman, author of the book Dual Citizens.

I remember as a college student (Eng. Lit.) reading in my McGraw-Hill tome The American Tradition in Literature that the puritans "in general were lovers of life; their clergy were well-educated scholars in whom the Renaissance lamp of humanism still burned. They did not forbid gaily colored clothes if they could get them; they develp a pleasing domestic architecture and good arts and crafts on American soil; they liked the drink even if they despised the drunkard; they feared both ignorance and emotional evangelism, and made of their religious thought a rigorous intellectual discipline. …In their influence on American life, there is much more to bless them for than to condemn" (8th ed., p. 6).