A City on a Hill?

When President Reagan left office in 1989, he returned in his farewell address to a Puritan sermon from 1630 and called America, one last time, a “shining city on a hill.” With its luster newly restored, Reagan claimed, the country could again fulfill its original purpose and serve as “a magnet for all who must have freedom, for all the pilgrims from all the lost places who are hurtling through the darkness, toward home.” What Reagan did not say – or seem to know – was that this “city on a hill” national story had been invented only recently. The sermon Reagan quoted was one the Puritans themselves never noted, published, cited, distributed, or read.