What does Gary Nash think the Great Awakening reveals about the tensions in eighteenth-century American society? What implicatio
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The answer to this is: In the years following the Great Awakening, the plain style would gain more traction within the literature produced by the British American colonies. It was no accident that Thomas Paine wrote his most famous pamphlet, Common Sense, in the language of the plain style. Like Whitefield and the revivalist preachers of the Awakening, Paine sought to have his message read and understood as far and wide as possible.Common Sense was such a success because it was a “kind of secular sermon, an extraordinarily adroit mingling of religion and politics.” While Paine’s Common Sense marked the invention of a new mode of American political discourse, his use of common language and understandable prose can be traced back to the revivalist traditions of plain style preaching.
Not only did this change the pattern and behaviors of the clergy, but Evangelicalism presented a new challenge to social harmony. On average, New England meetinghouses only held up to 750 people. Prior to the revivals, the largest forms of social assembly had been executions. While these grim events filled up the meetinghouses to capacity, they were few and far between.One notable exception was the execution of the murderer James Morgan in 1686. Morgan’s execution drew in a crowd of nearly 5,000, according to London bookseller John Dutton. This was an impressive turnout, given that entire popular of Boston was 7,000 at the time.
The revivals, on the other hand, regularly drew crowds of thousands. Nathan Cole’s description of the crowds gathering to hear Whitefield’s preaching in Middletown, Connecticut, best captures the size and excitement of the people:
… as I came nearer the Road, I heard a noise something like a low rumbling thunder and presently found it was the noise of horses feet coming down the road and this Cloud was a Cloud of dust made by the Horses feet. It arose some Rods into the air over the tops of the hills and trees and when I came within about 20 rods of the Road, I could see men and horses Sliping along in the Cloud like shadows, and as I drew nearer it seemed like a steady stream of horses and their riders, scarcely a horse more than his length behind another, all of a lather and foam with sweat, their breath rolling out of their nostrils in the cloud of dust every jump; every horse seemed to go with all his might to carry his rider to hear news from heaven for the saving of Souls. It made me tremble to see the Sight, how the world was in a Struggle, I found a vacance between two horses to Slip in my horse; and my wife said law our cloaths will be all spoiled see how they look, for they were so covered with dust, that they looked almost all of a colour coats, hats, and shirts and horses.
We went down in the Stream; I heard no man speak a word all the way three miles but every one pressing forward in great haste and when we got to the old meeting house there was a great multitude; it was said to be 3 or 4000 of people assembled together …
Whitefield’s celebrity status during this period cannot be overstated. During his preaching tour of Boston, Whitefield drew crowds up to 8,000. Fifty-thousand people assembled to see him preach at Hyde Park. Cole commented that Whitefield’s preaching tour in Philadelphia had “many thousands flocking to hear him preach the Gospel, and great numbers were converted to Christ.” By 1740, Whitefield had inspired thirty percent of the printed works published by the American colonies. He preached in virtually every major town on the eastern seaboard of the North American colonies. Whitefield was so influential that before him “there was no unifying intercolonial person or event … But by 1750 virtually every American loved and admired Whitefield and saw him as their champion.” On Whitefield’s impact Franklin commented, “It was wonderful to see the Change soon made in the Manners of our Inhabitants; from being thoughtless or indifferent about Religion, it seem’d as if all the World were growing Religious; so that one could not walk thro’ the Town in an Evening without Hearing Psalms sung in different Families of every Street.”
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