This study deals with the issue of social control and evangelical preaching from 1850 to 1900. It responds to scholarship which has argued that nineteenth-century English Christianity used religion to avoid making social changes. This investigation builds upon the corrective work of E. R. Norman and Peter d'A. Jones through an intensive examination of the theological and social views of leading preachers from three different channels of evangelical religion. The principal sources of data are the pastoral messages, sermons, special addresses, and essays of the three men who are the focal point of this study. Other sources include memoirs, biographies, and church records.