Kirkus Reviews QR Code
BIBLE IN POCKET, GUN IN HAND by Ross Phares

BIBLE IN POCKET, GUN IN HAND

By

Publisher: Doubleday

The Story of Frontier Religion"" could have been told in a great many ways, many of them dull. Here, however, interpretive matter has been kept to a minimum and source material selected with an unerring sense of humor in which the narrowest of minds will be hard put to find any malice. The approach is anecdotal, rather than circumstantial or chronological; there are chapters on the styles of preaching and of praying, the phenomena of revivalism, the church as a disciplinary force, frauds and ""bad men"" who preached, scoffers and trouble-makers, the fiercely jocular competition among the various sects, and the hard lot of circuit ministers. If, as it has been argued, the prime virtue of a historian consists in quoting well, then Mr. Phares is an excellent historian, no doubt about it.