Fire From Heaven: Life in an English Town in the Seventeenth Century.

What divided seventeenth-century Puritans from other Anglicans was not theology, but practice. Puritans were determined to create the New Jerusalem by reforming society. When much of Dorchester was destroyed by fire in 1613, the town's Puritans interpreted that as a sign that God wanted reform. Under the leadership of John White, rector of one of the city's three churches, and with the support of many of the leading citizens, a total reformation took place, making Dorchester into one of England's most Puritan towns. David Underdown thoroughly describes that reformation from its beginning to its waning during the Restoration era.

In the process of describing the reformation of Dorchester, Underdown provides a glimpse of the life of seventeenth-century English people. Church, judicial, and municipal records, as well as diaries provide an intimate look at the lives of ordinary people.

Part of the Puritan reform effort attempted to change the behavior of people. This included persuading them to abandon the older life style which revolved around traditional festivals and which stressed the obligations of wealthy people to provide charity and hospitality and included acceptance of minor misconduct. Underdown used court records to describe the before and after conduct of the people of Dorchester. The reformers' greatest failure was their effort to control excessive drinking, something which was at the heart of much of the disorder in the town. Drunkenness and illicit sexual conduct disrupted the family life Puritans considered essential to a well ordered community.

The second major part of the reform effort was the campaign against poverty and ignorance. White considered the Puritans' greatest accomplishment to be the creation of the Hospital for the education and training of poor youth. A second school was also created, poor rates were doubled, a fuel house was established to subsidize wood for heating, and a number of private charities were created. Much of this was financed by increased generosity; the people of Dorchester displayed great sympathy for human suffering far and near. But at the heart of the system was a new municipal Brewhouse, the profits from which supported the charitable and educational institutions and financed urban improvements.

Dorchester's reformation did not take place in isolation, of course. Underdown ties events in the town to developments throughout the kingdom and even to events in New England, where immigrants founded a new Dorchester. During the Revolution, most citizens supported the Parliamentary cause and the town suffered when it was occupied by a royalist army in 1643. After the Restoration, the vision which had inspired Dorchester reformation began to fade, partly because the new generation lacked the enthusiasm of the original leaders and partly because the restored monarchy and church occasionally persecuted nonconformists.

Underdown has done a magnificent job of describing the efforts of the reformers to change the lives of people. Perhaps the weak points in the book were dictated by the sources. There is more attention to the changes than to the vision and to the influence of John White's preaching. The roles of other ministers are not clear, though they too were Puritans. But such omissions do not flaw this excellent account of the reality of Puritanism and seventeenth-century life.

Steven R. Smith Savannah State College