“France, Holland and the Rhine valley, which looked to Geneva for their ideal of a Christian community, were the especial fields of conflict; and the same Genevan ideal took hold of the Scotch people and of a large part of the English, with an earnestness very displeasing to the representatives of the Anglican conception of the right state of a Church and its relations with the State. To the Presbyterians of the one country and the Puritans of the other, the model community of the Christian world was Calvin’s city, where godly discipline and orthodox teaching united to train the people in the ways of the Gospel. Associated with this admiration for the ecclesiastical character of Geneva, was a liking for the ways of free government which were found in Switzerland and in Reformed Holland.” — Robert E. Thompson, The Hand of God in American History: A Study of National Politics (1902), p. 16