The few Federalists still around turned up their noses at the new men of religion, often self-selected and relatively uneducated, and more moved by the inner spirit than by the written word. Thomas Green Fessenden wrote a satire that ridiculed these “bawling, itinerant, field and barn preachers.” He continued: A stupid wretch, who cannot read, (A very likely thing indeed) Receives from Heaven a calling; He leaves his plough, he drops his hoe, Gets on his meeting clothes, and lo, Sets up the trade of bawling.32
