A Profusion of Spires

As research for my dissertation on blasphemy, I've recently been skimming John W. Grant's A Profusion of Spires: Religion in Nineteenth-Century Ontario (1988). Although I haven't found a single mention of blasphemy, it's a really well-researched book and one I would like to have more time to read in the future. One of the things I found quite interesting is the idea that Ontario was seen as a largely godless, unchurched place by missionaries from various denominations throughout the early 1800s; there was a wide variety of (mostly Protestant) religious denominations, and the 1842 census reported that 17% of the population had no religious affiliation. This would change quickly, however, dropping to 1.2% by 1871. The book also contains a clear and informative discussion of the Clergy Reserves and other establishment-type issues, which I wish I would have known about when I wrote a previous article on church and state in Canadian history. The only real drawback I see with the book is that the author arranges it in very broad chapters with no subheadings, meaning that the narrative will suddenly shift from say a discussion of Christian temperance movements to Anglican/Catholic rivalries with barely a pause.