#crisisinthenation

Methodism, begun by John Wesley and others as a reform movement within the Church of England, spread to the American colonies in the 1760s. Although handicapped by Wesley's opposition to the American Revolution, Methodists nevertheless made remarkable progress in the young American republic. Francis Asbury (1745-1816) was the dynamo who drove the spectacular growth of the church. He ordained 4,000 ministers, preached 16,000 sermons and traveled 270,000 miles on horseback, sometimes to the most inaccessible parts of the United States.

Church attendance between 1700 and 1740 was an estimated 75 to 80 percent of the population. The Great Awakening swept the English-speaking world, as religious energy vibrated between England, Wales, Scotland and the American colonies in the 1730s and 1740s.