But these Protestant governments stopped midway between popery and Protestantism; for each of these nations, while renouncing the Pope of Rome, assumed that it was the business of the king to instruct the people what to believe; and so instead of having one pope they had many popes, consequently many Protestant sects; and these took the place of that one apostolic church originally established by the apostles.

Notwithstanding, there were some, in all lands that remained steadfast to the principle enunciated by Martin Luther: "Unless I be convinced by Scripture and reason, I neither can nor dare retract"; and so it came to pass that there were Protestant persecutions as well as Catholic persecutions; and so also it came to pass that men became wearied with this intolerance, and determined to seek beyond the Atlantic Ocean a place where they could worship God according to the dictates of their own consciences, with none to molest them or make them afraid.

It was for such cause that the Puritans settled in New England, the Quakers in New Jersey and Pennsylvania, the Scotch and Irish Presbyterians in North Carolina; and it was for this cause that the French Huguenots, driven out of France by the French king, came to South Carolina.

The most notable cause that induced the planting of the thirteen original colonies here in North America was religious persecution in the Old World.

And as the oak grows out of the acorn, so out of these colonies has grown this nation of which we are so proud.
Great Britain became more Lutheran than Germany, the native land of Luther, and God lifted the British nation up to become the chiefest nation of the world; the United States of North America became more Lutheran than Great Britain, and the eyes of the world are fixed on us in admiration and astonishment.