The extent to which evangelical religion dominated communication in the early republic is most vividly exemplified by the fact that, per capita, twice as many Methodist sermons were heard in 1840 as there were letters received.80 The historian Richard Carwardine, after carefully estimating that about 40 percent of the U.S. population was “in close sympathy with evangelical Christianity” (not the same thing as belonging to a church), concludes, “This was the largest, and most formidable, subculture in American society.”81
