Baptism in the Schuylkill River
The Baptist movement, which made adult baptism central to its religious practice, gained enormous influence during the Great Awakening. Baptists presented a challenge to the social order in New England, where Isaac Backus and other leaders vigorously opposed the power of established Congregationalist churches. They presented an even graver threat to established authority in Virginia, where they ministered to African American slaves and ridiculed the pretensions of the gentry. This woodcut, from an eighteenth-century history of the Baptist movement, shows a congregation gathered on the banks of the Schuylkill River in Pennsylvania to witness the baptism of a new convert. Historical Society of Pennsylvania.