The Great Awakening

http://www.tomrichey.net The [First] Great Awakening was a religious revival that swept across the English-speaking world in the mid-18th century. It came along at a time when many Americans had forsaken religious devotion in favor of the rationalism of the Enlightenment. Preachers such as George Whitefield of England and Jonathan Edwards of Massachusetts stirred audiences with their emotional, "Hellfire and Brimstone" preaching. The Great Awakening divided the colonies, as these emotional sermons tended to be more popular with the masses than they were with the more established classes.