Following the American Revolution, the majority of Connecticut's religious societies tore down their boxy eighteenth-century meetinghouses and replaced them with spired churches. Because these new churches evoked a myth of tightly-bound communities sharing democratic values and faith in God, they have often been romanticized as emblems of a bygone era of pastoral serenity. Yet, New England of the early nineteenth century - and its religious life in particular - was anything but tranquil. Revivalism, evangelicalism, and religious pluralism meshed with social, economic, and political dislocation to create a volatile period in which Christianity's place was uncertain. This study argues that religious belief and practice, altered in substance and even more so in style by evangelicalism, revival, and a pervasive culture of sensibility, called for new notions of worship. As the most striking buildings in many Connecticut towns, these churches tell us what citizens of the early republic thought was important, and what they wanted visitors to find remarkable in a distinctive American landscape.