A little after 1660, there began to appear Decay, And this increased to 1670, when it grew very visible and threatening, and was generally complained of and bewailed bitterly by the pious among them (the colonists): and yet more to 1680, when but few of the first Generation remained. [49]
The reasons of this falling away from the standards of the first generation were many. In the first place, the colonists had become mere colonials. Upon the Stuart restoration, the strongest ties which bound them to the pulsing life of the mother country, the religious ones, were severed. The colonists ceased to be the vanguard of a great religious movement, the possible haven of a new political state. Though they received many refugees from Stuart conformity, the religious ties which bound them to the English nonconformists were weakened, and still more so when both the once powerful wings of the Puritan party, Presbyterian and Independent, were alike in danger of extinction. Shortly after the Revolution of 1688, when, under the larger tolerance of William and Mary, the Presbyterians and Independents strove to increase their strength by a union based upon the "Heads of Agreement," English and colonial nonconformity moved for a brief time nearer, and then still farther apart. The "Heads of Agreement"[a] was a compromise so framed as to admit of acceptance by the Presbyterian who recognized that he must, once for all, give up his hope of a national church, and by the Independent anxiously seeking some bond of authority to hold together his weak and scattered churches. After this compromise, the religious life of the colonies ceased to be of vital importance to any large section of the English people. After the Restoration the colonial agents became preeminently interested in secular affairs, in political privileges, and commercial advantages. The reaction was felt in the colonies by generations who lacked the heroic impulses of their fathers, their constant incentive, and their high standards. Moreover, the education of the second and third generation could not be like that of the first. The percentage of university men was less. New Harvard could not supply the place of old Cambridge. If life was easier, it was more material.