Three hundred eighty years ago this year, a lawyer and religious leader gave a speech aboard a ship preparing to leave England for new lands across the Atlantic Ocean. On June 6 1630, John Winthrop, soon to be governor of the Massachusetts Bay Colony, preached his moving sermon, “A Model of Christian Charity,” on the deck of the Arbella. His words include a tireless American idea – that the traveler’s destiny was to make their new home a “city upon a hill” for others to see and follow.

Puritans, like Winthrop, were especially interested in completing what they saw as God’s plan on earth. For Winthrop, the puritans aboard the Arbella were finishing the Protestant Reformation and creating the new Israel in the wilds of America. While not always completely tolerant of other faiths and ideas, they did share an unstoppable belief in self government and had a sense, much like the western world at the time, that history was sweeping in a wide arc away from Europe towards the Atlantic world.

Winthrop’s sermon speaks of puritans having a special calling and destiny while persevering with a need to serve and guide. As he would say, “The eyes of the world are upon us.” The puritan faith accented the idea that Puritanism would both reform and inspire the travelers to be an example for future generations.

Winthrop encouraged them to have a sense that their new society would only work if they served the Lord and each other because they had been given a special chance to escape tyranny and embrace freedom in new places. What came next was their responsibility.

One of the indisputable facts about recent world history is that America, through colonialism, constitutionalism, industrialism, and war, did become a city upon a hill for many people and generations. The ideals of America continue to inspire people to begin anew. Freedom and liberty continue to move the thinking of our leaders as they did in the past.

General Eisenhower, on another June 6 in 1944, distributed a small prayer to the troops preparing to land during the D-Day invasion. It read, “You are about to embark on a Great Crusade, toward which we have striven these many months. The eyes of the world are upon you. The hopes and prayers of liberty loving people everywhere march with you.”

President-elect John Kennedy would echo the “city upon a hill” commitment when he spoke to the General Court of the Commonwealth of Massachusetts on Jan. 9 1961. Speaking of the importance of self government, he said, “Every branch, at every level, National, State, and Local – must be a city upon a hill – constructed and inhabited by men aware of their great trust and responsibilities.” Then, he went on to describe the four major qualities of a leader: courage, judgment, integrity, and dedication.

Accepting the Republican Party’s nomination for president in 1980 and again addressing the nation at the end of his eight years in office, Ronald Reagan invoked Winthrop’s passage from Matthew’s gospel. He added the word ‘shining’ to the “city upon a hill” and described that city as, “Windswept and God blessed . . . and if there had to be city walls, the walls had doors, and the doors were open.”

Yes, it is as true today, in this beginning of the New Year, as it ever was. Winthrop’s travelers, the soldiers of World War Two, and President Reagan all understood that liberty is a precious thing and when pressed, tyranny goes on to hide in a cave and will eventually fold. Even in the strongest of struggles, core ideas last.

Leaders before and after Winthrop, have continued to remind Americans that the ‘city upon a hill’ still stands. That city has not always been perfect or done perfect things. Yet, it has rallied each and every time, turned grief and sorrow into dancing, pessimism into optimism, and disillusionment into hope.

Winthrop, Eisenhower, JFK, and Reagan understood that the idea of America as an example to other nations would inspire, protect, and guide generations. They knew, as Lincoln did, that America is the last best hope on earth. This does not mean that the country and its citizens are perfect or exceptional, but the idea is an expression of the principles that the people seek to aspire towards: freedom; liberty, self government, and especially, religious freedom.

Since 1972, the number of free countries in the world has grown significantly to total nearly 77 percent of all countries and when oppressed people revolt today, there is a good chance they are using the enlightened language of the Declaration of Independence.

What a great and amazing land and history we have! Forget New Year resolutions. Be resolved to do something for your country this year.

Brent Tomberlin is co-chair of the Department of Social Studies at South Caldwell High School and an adjunct instructor at Caldwell Community College and Technical Institute.