It might be thought that a history of largely Welsh-speaking religious societies and their members in three counties of Wales—Cardiganshire, Carmarthenshire, and Pembrokeshire—focusing on a thirteen-year period in the mid-eighteenth century would appeal to a limited audience. That would be a serious mistake. White, an accomplished bilingual historian of religion and culture in Wales, has addressed some of her work to Welsh readers and some to a much wider English-reading audience. She has now revised and expanded for these readers the account of the early Methodist societies that she originally published in Welsh in 1995. Her new book builds on her extensive research since then, notably The Elect Methodists: Calvinistic Methodism in England and Wales, 1735–1811, co-authored with David Ceri Jones and Boyd Stanley Schlenther (University of Wales Press, 2012), The Welsh Bible (Tempus, 2007), and Calendar of the Trevecka Letters (National Library of Wales, 2003), co-authored with Schlenther.

White's focus is the nature, function, and development of the seiat, the Welsh Methodist fellowship meeting or society that typically met in scattered rural communities. From small and often challenging beginnings within the Anglican Church, the movement resulted in 1811 in the separation of the Welsh Calvinistic Methodist Church, which at the time of the religious census of 1851 had more worshippers than any other denomination in Wales. In the Introduction she points out that previous histories of Welsh Methodism (with exceptions) have been largely institutional in their approach, concentrating on the best-known early leaders: Daniel Rowland, Howel Harris, and William Williams. In contrast she has written “a social history of the members and of their experience in the societies,” though she acknowledges that “it remains hard to avoid viewing them through the eyes of the leaders” (16). She is candid about the problems the sources present. Her book is a solution to one of them, which is that many of the key sources, both in print and manuscript, are in Welsh, which she cites and interprets generously for English readers. Other problems are more difficult to solve. The surviving written sources include the important Trevecka manuscripts, preserved and largely written by Harris, the published works of William Williams, and the published official rule books. These sources are by men, though the membership was largely female. White points out that women's experiences “were usually relayed indirectly through the reports of superintendents or in the writings of Harris and Williams” (208). She also stresses that “the spoken word,” inevitably hard to recover, “remained completely crucial to the movement's appeal, through sermons, society discussions and hymns” (216).

With these caveats, White presents her readers with a detailed, persuasive account of how the societies functioned within the existing ecclesiastical structure, what they offered their members, and what difficulties they faced, indicating some of the ways in which Welsh Cavinistic Methodist societies differed from Wesleyan Methodist societies in England. Only a few illustrations can be given here. The three counties were all within the diocese of St Davids—the largest and poorest of the Welsh dioceses—where Protestant dissent was in a small minority, and clerical absenteeism and pluralism possibly allowed Methodism to develop. There were some parallels between dissent and Methodism, in that the geographical range made itinerant preachers essential and support was much weaker in the towns than in rural areas. The General Association first met in 1742 with Welsh clergy members and lay exhorters (the account of the latter is particularly interesting). The hierarchy of general visitors, superintendents, exhorters, and stewards led to problems of discipline. Harris's galvanizing position as superintendent and travelling lay preacher with no clerical authority (he was refused ordination four times) was particularly problematic. Lay exhorters could not use church pulpits, so they adopted field preaching, and a few left the church to become dissenting ministers. Morgan John Lewis, for example, argued for separation on the grounds that “its foundations are Jewish—its Canons antiscriptural, its Ministers God's Enemies & its worship intermixt with much Popish Superstition” (89). Lewis later became the ordained minister of a society that left to become an Independent church.

The societies met mostly in farmhouses, with some either building their own “society houses” (120), so called to avoid the impression that they were dissenting meeting houses, or taking over abandoned chapels of ease. “As consecrated buildings, the chapels could also be used by ordained clergy in the movement to administer communion” (123). The heart of this fascinating book is to be found in chapters 4 to 6 on the membership, appeal, and order of the societies. White stresses the difficulty of identifying individual members, but she has done an excellent job through analyzing the available sources (such as wills, inventories, and membership lists) of portraying their age, gender, and social and economic status: they were mostly young, with a preponderance of unmarried women, and of rural middle rank, such as farmers or craftsmen, with some gentry members. As a separate section demonstrates, they were literate. Members were drawn into the societies through hearing the leaders preaching, often responding with weeping and exultation, but White stresses that the society was key to retaining members: meetings provided opportunities for them to open their hearts and share experiences, and to sing hymns spontaneously. She suggests that emphasis on the contribution of the individual was rare in other Protestant denominations in Wales at the time. She also points out that societies provided Methodist women with “a rare chance to speak in a semi-public setting” (210). The most important activity was the relating and analyzing of experiences, which was led by the steward. Interestingly, unlike the English societies, the Welsh had no set list of questions. However, in a section on “Discipline,” a hitherto neglected subject, White emphasizes how demanding membership was, analyzing the reprimands and punishments that kept members in check, with some suffering expulsion. Her book succeeds magnificently in showing how the seiat formed the basis of Methodism's success in Wales.