Jenny Franchot did not live even to see this book begin, but her intellectual spirit is the driving force behind it. Thanks, Jenny.There was a time not too long ago when it looked like this book would never be more than an infrequently accessed folder on a desktop. It was at all times, during those difficult years, a frequently accessed source of self-pity. So I would like to thank the friends of Bill W. for seven years of teaching me about humility, accountability, and the importance of helping others. The late Tim Liddiard extended a hand when I really needed it.The Social Sciences and Humanities Council of Canada provided generous funding that enabled me to undertake research at the Boston Public Library, the Huntington Library, the Friends House Library, London, and the British Library. The Centre for American Studies at the University of Western Ontario also provided generous support that enabled me to attend conferences, and to spend intellectually and spiritually stimulating time, again at the Friends House Library in London, in the late winter of 2010, and then again at the British Library in March of 2014. Thanks especially to Christine Wall and Donald Abelson at the Centre.Sarah Rivett and Stephanie Kirk invited me to attend the conference "Religious Transformations in the Early Americas" at Washington University in Saint Louis in the spring of 2009, where I delivered some material from this manuscript. I would like to thank them and all of the attendees of that event for their encouragement, which gave me some much needed confidence to finish a first draft of this. At that conference and at others, Jonathan Beecher Field, Lisa Gordis, and Laura Stevens have been particularly valued friends to me and this work.
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