Asa Mahan (1800-1889) was born in Vernon, New York. He studied at Andover Theological Seminary and became a pastor at churches in New York and Ohio. For 15 years, beginning in 1835, he served as president of Oberlin College. Here he established that degrees would be granted to women and minorities under the same conditions and terms as men, a radical directive for that time. In 1871 he retired to England where he preached and wrote until his death. He was a staunch abolitionist and an advocate for women, expressing in his books and sermons that to deny the rights of equality was to deny a central tenet of Christianity.
abolitionist
Finney, Charles Grandison
Charles Grandison Finney (1792-1875), the great 19th-century revivalist, abolitionist, and educator was born in Warren, Connecticut but moved as a youth to New York and later New Jersey, where he went to school. His early career was as an attorney until he became interested in Bible study and began attending church services. Upon his conversion, he gave up the practice of law and began preaching. He was ordained in the Presbyterian Church in 1824 and started holding the revival services that made him nationally famous. His unique methods became standard practices among revivalists and included his insistence that those who repented make an immediate decision for Christ and publicly proclaim their newfound faith. During his fruitful life he became a professor of theology and later president at Oberlin College in Ohio, he held revival services throughout the cities of the eastern United States and in England, he served as pastor of the Second Free Church of New York City and the Congregational Broadway Tabernacle, he was a staunch supporter of the abolishment of slavery, and he wrote a number of works including the influential Lectures on Revival. His preaching led to the conversion of an estimated half-million people and his convictions about revival continue to influence evangelists.