ABSTRACT
Evangelicalism was the principal feature of the Protestant world in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. Its origins in Germany, Britain and North America, though far from identical, had important features in common. The characteristics which it developed make international generalizations possible, and those generalizations apply to other areas to which it was communicated, notably to British colonies in India, Australasia and the Caribbean. Its geographical extent was such that it cannot be attributed purely to national or local factors. Although it took different forms in different societies, the evangelical revival is best regarded as a series of separately-generated but none the less interdependent international events. Indeed, evangelicalism placed so heavy a stress upon the duty of seeking to save souls by preaching and by missionary endeavour that it could hardly be confined to one community, one state or even one continent.
