ASAHEL NETTLETON : LIFE AND LABOURS

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BENNET TYLER & ANDREW BONAR

In Andrew Bonar’s biography of Asahel Nettleton (1783-1843), he writes of a man who was a leading figure in one of the most important half centuries in American Church history. From the late 1790s to the early 1840s a succession of revivals transformed the spiritual prospects of the nation, and in these, in the words of the New York Evangelist, ‘Nettleton served a glorious purpose. Few men, since the apostolic days, have been honoured with such signal success in preaching the word, and in the conversion of sinners’. The author, Dr. Bennet Tyler, who knew Nettleton from 1812, asserts that from that date, he was ’employed almost constantly in revivals for ten years’. As a counsellor to ministers his aid was constantly sought, particularly upon the subject of evangelism and revivals ‘on which he had an amount of experience and observation beyond any man living’. At a time when the nature of true revivals and of biblical evangelism is being widely re-assessed, the re-appearance of this volume, ably edited by M’Cheyne’s biographer, Andrew Bonar, is of major significance.