in religion. Profaneness, pride, luxury,
injustice, intemperance, lewdness, and every species of
debauchery and loose indulgence greatly abound."

From the point of view of the Episcopalian of that day the prospect was
even more disheartening. It was at this time that Bishop Provoost of New
York laid down his functions, not expecting the church to continue much
longer; and Bishop Madison of Virginia shared the despairing conviction
of Chief-Justice Marshall that the church was too far gone ever to be
revived.[232:1] Over all this period the historian of the Lutheran
Church writes up the title "Deterioration."[232:2] Proposals were set on
foot looking toward the merger of these two languishing denominations.

Even the Methodists, the fervor of whose zeal and vitality of whose
organization had withstood what seemed severer tests, felt the benumbing
influence of this unhappy age. For three years ending in 1796 the total
membership diminished at the rate of about four thousand a year.

Many witnesses agree in describing the moral and religious condition of
the border States of Kentucky and Tennessee as peculiarly deplorable.
The autobiography of that famous pioneer preacher, Peter Cartwright,
gives a lively picture of Kentucky society in 1793 as he remembered it
in his old age:

"Logan County, when my father moved into it, was called
'Rogues' Harbor.' Here many refugees from all parts of the
Union fled to escape punishment or justice; for although there
was law, yet it could not be executed, and it was a desperate
state of society. Murderers, horse-thieves, highway robbers,
and counterfeiters fled there, until they combined and
actually formed a majority. Those who favored a better state
of morals were called 'Regulators.' But they encountered
fierce opposition from the 'Rogues,' and a battle was fought
with guns, pistols, dirks, knives, and clubs, in which the
'Regulators' were defeated."[233:1]

The people that walked in this gross darkness beheld a great light. In
1796 a Presbyterian minister, James McGready, who for more than ten
years had done useful service in Pennsylvania and North Carolina,
assumed charge of several Presbyterian churches in that very Logan
County which we know through the reminiscences of Peter Cartwright. As
he went the round of his scattered congregations his preaching was felt
to have peculiar power "to arouse false professors,