The spirit of half-belief or unbelief that prevailed on the other side of the sea, both in the church and out of it, was manifest also here.

Happily the tide of foreign immigration at this time was stayed, and the church had opportunity to gather strength for the immense task that was presently to be devolved upon it.

But the westward movement of our own population was now beginning to pour down the western slope of the Alleghanies into the great Mississippi basin.

It was observed by the Methodist preachers that the members of their societies who had, through fear, necessity, or choice, moved into the back settlements and into new parts of the country, as soon as peace was settled and the way was open solicited the preachers to come among them, and so the work followed them to the west.[219:1] In the years 1791-1810 occurred the great movement of population from Virginia to Kentucky and from Carolina to Tennessee.

It was reckoned that one fourth of the Baptists of Virginia had removed to Kentucky, and yet they hardly leavened the lump of early frontier barbarism.