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The Methodists modernized after 1844.
Ambitious young preachers from humble, rural backgrounds attended college, moved to town, and built larger churches that paid decent salaries and gave the social prestige of a highly visible community leadership position.
These ministers turned the pulpit into a profession, thus emulating the Presbyterians and Episcopalians.
They created increasingly complex denominational bureaucracies to meet a series of pressing needs: defending slavery, evangelizing soldiers during the Civil War, promoting temperance reform, contributing to foreign missions ( see American Southern Methodist Episcopal Mission ), and supporting local colleges.
The new urban middle class ministry increasingly left their country cousins far behind.
As the historian of the transformation explains, " Denomination building — that is, the bureaucratization of religion in the late antebellum South — was an inherently innovative and forward-looking task.
It was, in a word, modern.

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