God of righteousness; but it was righteousness in action. His
theology was a practical theology, a theology that could be
preached, that would influence everyday life and get things done.
In fact, all the American theologians until very recent years have
been preachers, not scholars who dwelt in ivory towers. Arminian-
ism became the theology of the common man because its tenets
jibed with his experience. As a practical man he disliked "dog-
matic subtlety and philosophical abstraction," and naturally be-
came the advocate of a large tolerance. He believed in the necessity
of the cooperation of man with God in making a better world as
well as a better life.

The present book is volume two of a proposed four-volume
History of Religion in America, of which Religion in Colonial
America ( Scribners, 1942) was volume one. Volume three will
carry the story from 1840 to 1880 or the period of controversy and
division in both the nation and the churches, and will be entitled
Religion in America in the Age of Controversy. Among the prin-
cipal themes treated will be the great immigrant tides which swept
into America after 1830, and the changes wrought in organized
religion as a consequence; the important part played by the
churches in the slavery controversy and the divisions which re-
sulted; and population movements across the Missouri and the
transit of civilization westward to the Pacific. No period in the
history of the American churches is so filled with dramatic
interest.

Two part-time fellowships at the Huntington Library, San
Marino, California in 1947 and 1948 put at my disposal rich re-
sources and there the first several chapters of the present volume
were put in first draft.

Four chapters from this volume were given as the Jackson
Lectures at Southern Methodist University in 1949.

WILLIAM WARREN SWEET

KirbyHall,
Southern Methodist University,
Dallas, Texas.

-x-