Douglas Kelly here reintroduces one of the richest periods of evangelical history, spanning the years 1791 - 1902, and captures its ethos in the lives of four of its most influential men: Daniel Baker, who spent his life as a missionary and itinerant evangelist though sought by a church and two U.S. Presidents for Washington; James Henley Thornwell, equally able as a pastor and professor but best remembered as a preacher "wrapt in wonder at the love, humiliation and condescension of the Trinity'; Benjamin M. Palmer,who, in the words of a Jewish rabbi, 'got the heart as well as the ear of New Orleans'; and John L. Girardeau, 'the Spurgeon of America', who was so remarkably used among the black people of South Carolina.

In addition to these moving lives, Dr. Kelly gives us many illuminating side-lights on Christians in the South, such as those of the Midway  Church, Georgia, for whom 'religion was a matter of their brightest hopes, the warmest feelings, their deepest convictions'.