--
* `The Autobiography of Joseph Le Conte'.
--
The religious spirit ran high in Macon. While the Presbyterian church
had a better educated clergy and proportionately a greater number
of educated personages among the laity, the Methodist and Baptist churches
dominated the life of the community. Revivals that recall
the Great Awakening in New England in the time of Jonathan Edwards
were frequent. The most popular preacher in Macon -- George F. Pierce,
afterwards bishop in the Southern Methodist church --
is said to have preached the terrors of the law so plainly
that the editor of a long extinct Universalist paper said
he could smell fire and brimstone half a mile from the church.
The type of religion that prevailed was emotional, but in an earlier
stage of society it was a great barrier against immorality.
The clergy did not raise the question of the ethics of slavery,
-- on the other hand they defended it on biblical grounds, --
but they did enjoin upon masters the duty of kindness to slaves.
Many of them were not cultivated men, but they laid the foundation
for a better civilization in a stern and righteous social life
which flowered in the next generation. "The only burning issues
were sprinkling versus immersion, freewill versus predestination,"
and over these questions the churches fought with energy.
Divided though they were on many points, they agreed in resisting
the forces of modern thought that were making for a more liberal theology.
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