Introduction

Preaching, like the pulpit in most chapels, was central in Nonconformity. The most popular form of publication in the early nineteenth century was the sermon. It was at once advice for living, a guidepost to heaven and a species of popular entertainment. Robert Hall, Baptist minister successively at Bristol, Cambridge, Leicester and again at Bristol, was generally thought to be the ablest preacher of his day. Trained at Bristol Academy and Aberdeen University, he turned against the rational Dissent that initially attracted him and became an outspoken assertor of evangelical faith, especially in Modern Infidelity Considered. Adam Clarke was the leading Wesleyan intellectual of the early nineteenth century. Coming from Ireland, he became a Methodist preacher in 1782 and for most of the rest of his career after 1795 was assigned to London so that he could take advantage of the scholarly facilities of the capital. Joseph Parker was Congregational minister in Banbury, Manchester and, from 1869, in London.