ABSTRACT
The Civil War was a watershed between an old and a new America. The changing composition of the population was one of the conspicuous contrasts between the old and the new America. A second contrast between the old and the new America was the radical shift in the intellectual climate. A third feature of post–Civil War America was a marked shift in the center of power. Before the war the agrarian democracy envisaged by Jefferson still reined supreme, although the lure of the city had begun to replace the lure of the West among young men of spirit and ambition. From the beginning of national life, religion had served as a bond of unity that helped overcome the divisive effects of competing local interests and regional concerns. Apart from the South, where the white churches shared the impoverishment of their region, the post–Civil War years witnessed a marked resurgence of missionary activity.
