Josiah Smith, the prolific and eloquent exponent of the Great Awakening in the South, was born in Charleston, South Carolina, the son of George and Dorothy Archar Smith. After spending most of his early life in Bermuda, he was educated at Harvard, from which he received an A.B. in 1725 and and A.M. in absentia in 1728. Ordained in Boston in 1726, he returned to Bermuda but was forced to abandon his settlement when it was devastated by hurricanes in 1728. He then moved to Cainhoy, South Carolina, to become pastor of the Independent Presbyterian church. In 1731 he married Elizabeth Darrell, with whom he raised seven children. He became the associate pastor of the influential Independent Church of Charleston in 1734 and its sole minister in 1742. Struck by palsy in 1749, Smith was left unable to articulate clearly. Though his congregation could no longer understand his speech, he was allowed to preach...