THE GREAT RIVER
Primitive Methodism until 1868
By David M. Young
Tentmaker Publications. 233 pages. £6.50
ISBN 978 1 911 005 025
This is an account of a powerful religious movement in Northern Hampshire during the first part of the 19th century. David Young has written about a movement for which he clearly has considerable appreciation in an area of the country that he knows well.
It is a story of zealous evangelism amongst a spiritually neglected and impoverished people, suffering the effects of the Napoleonic Wars and the Corn Laws which artificially put up the price of food. In this situation the Primitive Methodist evangelists earnestly maintained a testimony to salvation through the atoning work of the Lord Jesus Christ and did so in the face of bitter persecution often engineered by the Anglican clergy in alliance with the wealthy landowners. This testimony was without doubt blessed of God in the conversion of large numbers of village people.
