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CHAPTER XI
RELIGIOUS DENOMINATIONS AT THE CLOSE OF THE EIGHTEENTH CEN
TURY—EPISCOPACY IN GEORGIA COEVAL WITH THE COLONY'S ESTAB
LISHMENT—CHRIST CHURCH—THE DIVISION OP GEORGIA INTO
PARISHES INDICATES ITS RELATIONSHIP TO THE CHURCH OF ENG
LAND—THE WESLEYS BOTH EPISCOPALIANS—WHITEFIELD ALSO BE
LONGS TO THE' ESTABLISHMENT—BUT THE ISSUES RAISED BY THE
REVOLUTION WEAKEN THE TIE OF ALLEGIANCE TO THE MOTHER
CHURCH—PRESBYTERIANISM COMES INTO GEORGIA WITH THE SCOTCH
HIGHLANDERS—FOUR CENTERS OF INFLUENCE—DARIEN, MIDWAY,
SAVANNAH, AND A GROUP OF CHURCHES IN BURKE—THE PRESBY
TERIAN POPLAR—REV. JOHN SPRINGER—THE FIRST. EVANGELIST TO
BE ORDAINED IN GEORGIA—PIONEER PREACHER AND EDUCATOR—His
FAMOUS SCHOOL—REV. JOHN NEWTON—ORGANIZES THE OLDEST
CHURCH IN THE SYNOD OF GEORGIA—PRESBYTERIANISM A SPLENDID
DISCIPLINE FOR PIONEER DAYS, BUT Too COLDLY INTELLECTUAL TO
SUIT THE MASSES—THE LUTHERAN CHURCH AT EBENEZER—THE
JEWS—CONGREGATIONALISM ENTERS THE STATE WITH THE MIDWAY
PURITANS, BUT ITS OFFSPRING Is MAINLY PRESBYTERIAN—How EX
PLAINED—METHODISM IN GEORGIA—ITS RAPID GROWTH—CAMP-MEET
INGS RECALL THE ARCADIAN DAYS OF THIS DENOMINATION—PIONEER
EVANGELISTS—THE FIRST METHODIST CHURCH BUILT IN WILKES—
REV. HOPE HULL—THE BAPTISTS—KIOKEE CREEK WITNESSES THE
FIRST IMMERSION—REV. DANIEL MARSHALL—His ARREST FOR
PREACHING BAPTIST DOCTRINES—KIOKEE CHURCH ORGANIZED—THE
CATHOLICS IN GEORGIA—DENIED ADMISSION UNTIL AFTER THE REVO
LUTION—BISHOP KEILEY'S ACCOUNT—LOCUST GROVE THE CRADLE OF
CATHOLICISM IN GEORGIA—THE CATHOLIC CHURCH OF -SAVANNAH.
Episcopacy in Georgia was coeval with the colony's establishment.
The Church of England, to which Oglethorpe himself belonged, was its
foster-mother. Though firm in her precepts, it was not with an
ungentle hand that she rocked its cradle on the bluff at Yamacraw and
gave it a religious impulse, an indoctrination, so to speak, in moral
values, in spiritual ideals, and in reverence for sacred things, to which
our whole subsequent life as a state has been one prolonged echo, re
verberating even down to the present day. Georgia's relationship to the
Church of England is shown in the earliest division of the province into
parishes. Christ Church, at Savannah, is the state's oldest ecclesiastical
organization, reaching back to the pious devotions held in Oglethorpe's
tent, on the night of his arrival, when the little band of immigrants
knelt for the first time beneath the stars of a new world. Rev. Henry
Herbert, who accompanied these immigrants on the galley Anne, was
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