Spreading the Gospel in Colonial Virginia: Sermons and Devotional Writings.

Spreading the Gospel in Colonial Virginia: Sermons and Devotional Writings. Introduction and notes by Edward L. Bond. (Lanham, Md., and other cities: Published by Lexington Books in association with the Colonial Williamsburg Foundation, Williamsburg, Virginia, c. 2004. Pp. xviii, 571. Paper, $22.95, ISBN 0-7391-0721-6; cloth, $199.00, ISBN 0-7391-0720-8.)

Spreading the Gospel in Colonial Virginia: Sermons and Devotional Writings is a compilation of primary source materials (mostly sermons and letters) written by white men and relating to Protestant doctrine and piety in colonial Virginia. In amassing this collection of religious works, the editor's aim is "to help demonstrate the wide variety of extant materials on religion in colonial Virginia, from the private musing of lay people to the sermons of dissenting and established ministers." This volume includes several previously unpublished sermons and lesser-known devotional works by Virginia ministers, many of them from the John D. Rockefeller Jr. Library at Colonial Williamsburg. Edward L. Bond's intent is to showcase "sources that are less generally available to researchers" in lieu of those that have been reprinted many times over, such as the works of Devereux Jarratt (p. xiii).

Bond's first chapter sets the documents in historical context by providing a comprehensive overview of Christianity in colonial Virginia, which included congregations not only of Anglicans but also of Puritans, Quakers, Moravians, German Reformed, Lutherans, Huguenots, Presbyterians, and Baptists. This introduction is an extension of the thesis of Bond's book, Damned Souls in a Tobacco Colony: Religion in Seventeenth-Century Virginia (Macon, Ga., 2000), which challenges the erroneous but persistent scholarly assumption that Christianity held little interest for most white Virginians during the colonial period and that they thought more about their tobacco crops than about their eternal souls. Bond asserts that "we must recognize what lay at the heart of religion in colonial Virginia, the desire, too little regarded by historians, of Virginians for a religious presence in their lives" (p. 3). The author also questions the "Anglican hegemony" evident in the scholarship on colonial Virginia by demonstrating the presence and activities of Puritans, nonconformists, and dissenters.

The remainder of the book is divided into chapters that are organized by theme ("Family Religion and Private Piety," "The Church and Slavery," "The Baptist Perspective," and "The Call to the Moral Life") or by individual ministers (Robert Paxton, James Blair, James Maury, and Samuel Davies). The thematic chapters include lay letters and ministerial sermons regarding children's education, proselytizing slaves, and familial advice. The majority of works cited are sermons by Anglican ministers, some well known, such as James Blair, William Dawson, and William Stith, and some of lesser prominence, such as John Moncure and Charles Clay. While works by dissenting ministers (Presbyterian and Baptist) are included in the collection, more attention could have been paid to non-Anglican source material. The chapter on Baptists includes only one publication, The Virginia Chronicle, 1790, by John Leland. Inclusion of The Virginian Baptist: A View and Defence of the Christian Religion ... (Baltimore, 1774), by David Thomas, would have provided a more in-depth presentation of the Baptist faith and dissenting Christianity.

This reservation, however, does not take away from the importance of this work. Bond has provided a valuable resource to scholars of colonial Virginia by publishing this collection of religious writings. Undergraduate and graduate students alike will find it to be a useful reference work, in both the introductory chapter, which clearly outlines Virginia religious history, and the extensive notes, which situate individuals historically and provide references to biblical allusions in the primary sources. This compilation of sermons and devotional works will be an essential research tool for religious, social, and southern historians for many years to come.

Rowan University

JANET MOORE LINDMAN