"For we must consider that we shall be as a city upon a hill. The eyes of all people are upon us. So that if we shall deal falsely with our God in this work we have undertaken, and so cause Him to withdraw His present help from us, we shall be made a story and a by-word through the world. We shall open the mouths of enemies to speak evil of the ways of God, and all professors for God's sake. We shall shame the faces of many of God's worthy servants, and cause their prayers to be turned into curses upon us till we be consumed out of the good land whither we are a-going."

John Winthrop, A Model of Christian Charity, sermon delivered aboard the Arbella, 1630. Winthrop was the first governor of the Massachusetts Bay Colony and a leading figure among the Puritan settlers who established the colony that year.