The New England soul : preaching and religious culture in colonial New England /

Stout has given us an admirable and important book on the sermons of colonial and revolutionary New England. He makes a convincing case for their cumulative impact on the culture and the identity of this special ``people.'' For most of the individuals in this society the sermon was the single regular voice of authority and the primary mode of public communication. Where others have focused on narrower chronological or topical analyses of sermons, Stout provides comprehensiveness by examining the sermons of five ``generations'' of ministers who filled the pulpits from 1630 to 1776. His most significant contribution, and the basis of his fundamental reassessment, stems from his extensive examination of manuscript sermons. He argues convincingly that the ``regular'' Sunday sermons-as opposed to the more frequently published ``occasional sermons for elections, fasts, and thanksgivings''-showed no significant sign of secularization. Their continuity of doctrine and purpose across five generations is remarkable, despite the division into various clerical camps. The book is quite readable and the scholarship is substantial and new; it will serve upper-level undergraduates quite well.-R.G. Pope, SUNY at Buffalo

Stout provides an exhaustive, scholarly survey of the content of both regular and special-occasion sermons in New England from 1630 to 1776. Unlike most previous studies, this monograph treats manuscript sources as well as printed sources. The more than 2000 sermons Stout studies are divided into five generational cohorts based on the dates of the clergy's education, and they give a creditable sample of what the average colonial New Englander heard from the pulpit. For Stout, all five colonial clergy generations experienced and preached a continuing concept of New England settlers as a convenanted people with a unique relationship to God similar to ancient Israel's. Strongly recommended for academic and seminary libraries.Susan A. Stussy, Marian Coll. Lib., Indianapolis (c) Copyright 2010. Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.

University of Connecticut professor Stout researched this monumental study of preaching in early New England with a labor that might make Hercules blush: he spent nine years reading 2000 pre-Revolution sermons, most of them still in manuscript form. The result? A fluent, wide-ranging report on the most religious era in the history of this profoundly religious nation. For at least 150 years preceding 1776, the sermon was the only regular public medium of communication in America. Sermons ""combined religious, educational, and journalistic functions, and supplied all the key terms necessary to understand existence in this world and the next."" Most sermons lasted 1-2 hours in length; the average churchgoer heard 7000 in a lifetime. Stout describes two basic types: the ""occasional"" sermon, delivered on weekdays and often addressed to political or social issues, and the Sunday sermon, which focused on the salvation of souls. Although many occasional sermons found their way into print, almost all Sunday sermons remain in manuscript form; thus Stout's industrious detective work unveils for the first time the week-in, week-out message heard by almost all New Englanders. In a nutshell, the lesson was this: the New World was an elect nation populated by ""People of the Word"" who kept God's light shining while darkness blanketed Europe--a view, it should be pointed out, still upheld in the White House today. Because sermons were the hub around which colonial religious life revolved, Stout's book also serves as a comprehensive history of religion in early America, from the prosecution of Anne Hutchinson in 1637 to the Great Awakening of the 1740's. So: a Baedecker to New England pulpit religion, with lots of material never before brought to light. Copyright ©Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.