The remarkable debt of all Christian people to the Puritan movement is one that it would be difficult to overestimate. For many, the word
Puritan
is the symbol of narrowness and ultra-godliness; however, less-prejudiced research makes it evident that England, and the world, owes much to the integrity, devotion, and spiritual power of men and women who stood for the things of God in a political atmosphere perhaps even more confused and difficult than our own. The similarity of outlook that exists between John Wesley and the Quakers is something that has often been remarked; and there will be great interest, both for the historian (religious and political) and for the ordinary reader, in following the guidance of Gordon S. Wakefield, one of Methodism’s younger scholars, as he adduces the evidence which he brings together from many different fields.