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Religious Routes to Gladstonian Liberalism: The Church Rate Conflict in England and Wales, 1832–1868. By J. P. Ellens. University Park, Pa.: The Pennsylvania State University Press, 1994. xiii + 301 pp. $45.00.

The book focuses on the cultural religious leaders, who were found in large pastorates, denominational colleges, and the religious press. They are primarily the leaders of the Episcopal, Presbyterian, Methodist, and Baptist churches. Crucial to the views of these "gentlemen theologians," as they were characterized in an earlier work by Brooks Holifield, was their understanding of the boundary between church and state. While slavery and abolition were political questions, they were primarily moral issues and therefore within the purview of the church. Snay examines his topic chronologically, beginning with the abolitionist use of the mail in 1835. He traces the development of the proslavery argument, the sanctification of slavery through the use of Scottish Common Sense philosophy, and the ensuing denominational divisions of the 1840s. Finally, Snay examines the enthusiasm with which church leaders embraced secession in the aftermath of Lincoln's election in 1860. Much of the ground which Snay covers will be familiar to scholars of Southern history and religion, but he examines the evidence carefully and makes a persuasive case for the role of religion in the formation of Southern separatism. He gets a few of the details of the story wrong. He misses the organization of separate Methodist conferences in 1796 (p. 45) and consistently identifies Baptist leader Richard Furman with Beaufort rather than Charleston, South Carolina (pp. 55, 80). These errors aside, Snay has written a work that is now indispensable in understanding Southern religion.