A Centurys Change in Religion

Cover A Centurys Change in Religion
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Genres: Nonfiction

Purchase of this book includes free trial access to www.million-books.com where you can read more than a million books for free. This is an OCR edition with typos. Excerpt from book: CHAPTER II THE WANING OP CALVINISM The waning of Calvinism is traceable in the period from 1800 to 1870. This limit of time is taken because it includes the Civil War. The nation grew, each decade showing great increase of population and of wealth. The population, which in 1800 was 5,000,000, in 1870 was 40,000,000. The West, what we now call the Middle West, was largely agricultural, raising grain enough not only for this country, but also for other countries. The prosperity of the East was largely in manufactures and commerce; of the South, in cotton. West of the seaboard there was no large city; Chicago's population in 1860 was 109,000, that of St. Louis, 160,000. A movement to the Pacific Coast started in the middle of the century, the pioneers, called the "Forty- niners," going out for gold, and some

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for lumber, sailing around Cape Horn, or crossing the plains in wagons. Texas came in after the Mexican War, in 1845; California in 1850. Railroads stretchedin every direction. The roads were separate, the traveler from Boston to Chicago changing cars four or five times. During and after the war transcontinental lines were built. National feeling became stronger and stronger. The nation in its first twenty-five years had been a rather loose union of States. There were two political parties, the one for centralization, the other for State's Rights. The War of 1812 with Great Britain, while it did not accomplish much as a war, yet solidified the nation, strengthened national feeling, set us up, it might be said, as an independent nation. In the forties and fifties, or even earlier, slavery was a burning issue. Its advance was resisted by the North; a line was drawn across the continent, north of which there should be no slavery; the territories should not have slavery. ... --This text refers to an alternate Paperback edition.

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A Centurys Change in Religion
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