The Regenerators: Social Criticism in Late Victorian English Canada

A crisis of faith confronted many Canadian Protestants in the late nineteenth century. Their religious beliefs were challenged by the new biological sciences and by historical criticism of the Bible. Personal salvation, for centuries the central concern of Christianity, no longer seemed an adequate focus in an age that gave rise to industrial cities and grave social problems.

No single word, Cook claims, catches more correctly the spirit of the late Victorian reform movement than 'regenerati...