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MATHEWS, Donald G., in the Old South _ and , The of Chicago Press, 1977, XX + 274 p., $ 10.95 £ 7.70.

This is the most important analysis of Southern religion to appear in at least a generation. It does for "the Evangelical Way" what a host of interpreters have managed to do for "the Way." Recognizing that exceptions to both of these "Ways" do exist in their respective regions, one can nonetheless only be grateful to Donald G. Mathews for presenting with authority and sensitivity a defini- tion and evocation of the essence of a time and a place in America's past. That place is the American South and the time is from 1750 to 1860. Within this frame, the author confronts complexity and paradox and change with clear and penetrating gaze. His book is not about white or black Christianity, but about the two together and their resulting creation. The book centers not on the converted individual or the external society, but upon both and their fruitful or abrasive interaction. The book is limited to neither the puny efforts of man nor the wondrous acts of , but shows how these too are mixed in the splendor and tragedy of a regional ideology. It is a rare pleasure to watch an author work with his materials with such mastery and . Clearly, Professor Mathews has lived with his subject for years, has been moved and haunted by portions of it, and is not yet prepared to lay the whole matter finally to rest. Drawing upon insights from psychology, anthropology, socio- logy and , Mathews writes above all else as an historian, seeing in Southern a social process w.ith many stages of development and reaction, of growth and arrest. And the story which he tells is recounted in language that informs, delights, stimulates and inspires. The author begins by demonstrating that Southern , while directed toward the individual, has. a powerful communal dimension. Conversion called the believer out from the world, but Evangelicalism "did not leave him alone, nor did it celebrate his isolation. It brought him immediately into a community established on rules and regula- tions" quite different from those he left behind (p. 19-20). In this pro- cess, the convert found a new identity, esteem and status. So while "Evangelicalism has often been thought of as the religious mood of ," no one reading this book can fail to appreciate its force in creating a "redemptive community," its ability to replace "the 278 disorder of the world with the order of `Christian society' " (p. 39- 4o). Trite distinctions between private and public morality are not merely trite: they are in this context irrelevant. "For the Evangelicals, there could be no such thing as behavior which was of only private concern; a Christian's every action was social and therefore under the jurisdiction of the " (p. 44). Revising upward the rough estimates of eighteenth century church membership in the South, Mathews shows how within a single genera- tion the Evangelical movement had "become a major force in southern life." Bursts of growth of Presbyterians in the i7q.os, of in the 175os and 6os, and of Methodists in the gave Southern religion by the end of the century an indelible Evangelical stamp. And while denominational loyalties were real, "the unity of the Evan- gelicals against the world was seen as transcending sectarian dif f eren- ces." Revivalism and the helped to create a common morality, even more a common ideology: i.e., "a cluster of anxieties, perceptions, values and aspirations which emanated from the Evan- gelicals' social situation, personal experiences, and formal thoughts" (P. 48> 51> ,58) . Having achieved respect in their own eyes, Evangelicals in the nineteenth century resolved to win the respect, or at least the attention, of the larger society. They would become society's moral preceptor and guardian. Through and academies, through disciplined family life, through earnest class meetings and church conferences, redeemed men and redeemed women (there is an excellent section on "the birth of the Evangelical woman") set about to claim the whole region for . What, then, about slavery? In one of the most subtle and sophisticated segments of the book, Mathews shows the responsible if tortured development of a slaveholding ethic. Addressing the dif- fering concerns of society, of masters, and of slaves, Evangelicals drew on Federalist theory, on biblical precedent or injunction, on bad ethno- centrism or worse anthropology, but also on Evangelical notions of duty, restraint, discipline and reform. At the heart of the slaveholding ethic was a "recognition of the slave's humanity"-not a beast, but a man to whom was due, said the Reverend Richard Fuller of , all that is owed to an "intelligent, social, immortal being." The penultimate chapter on black Evangelicalism is the emotional climax of the book, displaying the finest writing and the deepest feeling. And Southern religion–Mathews hammers the point home- simply cannot be understood apart from black religion and its spiri- tuality, its morality, its , and its cultural context. In the course of Evangelicalism's sweep across the South, blacks discovered "two very important things-4hat the freedom promised by the was real and that Christianity was not solely the white man's possession." In explicating these two discoveries Mathews takes a text, as did the