The Great Awakening

In the following pages the reader will find a number of representative documents illustrative of the Great Awakening in colonial America. The documents I have selected represent my own assessment of importance and interest, and the reader should keep this fact firmly in mind. In general, I have attempted to choose documents which illustrate what I consider to be the major themes of the Awakening. Because the majority of readers are probably most familiar with the revival in literary and intellectual terms -- scholarly study of it has been biased in this way -- I have consciously emphasized an institutional and social context and employed readings taken to a large extent from sources other than the sermons of those contemporaries so commonly associated with the event. I have provided only minimal editorial comment, attempting to indicate in brief introductions why I included a given document and where it fits into the larger picture. - Preface.