Ian Bradley's 'The Call to Seriousness' 1976

 

Jonathan Cape first edition - 1976

Oh dear! I am very much a fan of the 19th century but this book has given me an unpleasant jolt. Have I had rose-tinted spectacles on? It is the story of Evangelicals, mostly in the Church of England but with strong allies amongst the Non-conformists - Methodists and others. This group of austere and high-minded puritans was the product of the religious revival in 18th century England which had introduced the demanding creed of 'vital religion'. Here the letters S.S. can stand for Sanctimonious Self-righteousness or Smug Self-centredness. Evangelicalism was one of the most important forces at work in shaping the character of the Victorians. The form of Christianity practised and preached by the early Evangelists was intensely emotional and experiential. They themselves described it as 'vital religion'. It centred around the doctrine of salvation of faith in the atoning death of Christ. They were returning to the central teaching of the Reformation and reviving the traditions of 17th century Puritanism in England. Before 1800 the Evangelicals did not have a significant hold either on the Church or on society. After 1860 they declined into a narrow party. Two men dominated the Evangelical world: William Wilberforce, the Yorkshire M.P. from 1800 until c.1830 and central figure in 'the Clapham Sect' or 'the Saints'; and Anthony Ashley Cooper, 7th Earl of Shaftesbury after Wilberforce's death in 1833. The piety, the prudery, the imperialistic sentiments, the philanthropic endeavour, and the obsession with proper conduct - characteristics of the Victorian Age - can all be traced back to their influence.

The starting point of Evangelical theology was the doctrine of the total depravity of man. Eternity is at stake, and I am trifling away the salvation of my soul. My soul asks the question, what shall I do to be saved? The Evangelicals held that a regenerate man could have no pleasure in anything but striving to please his new Lord. Above all else, they were obsessed with the judgement which awaited them at death and the account which they would have to give of the way in which they had spent their lives. It led to a huge degree of introspection, even of egotism. That they might be privileged to live useful lives was their most sincere prayer. The characteristic which was most commonly commented on was their excessive seriousness. Evangelicalism was a puritanical creed, life-denying rather than life-affirming and stressing the negative values of abstinence and self-control rather than the positive values of generosity and altruism. The Evangelicals often seem unnecessarily puritanical in their abstention from worldly pleasure. They could hardly avoid a certain self-righteousness and spiritual pride. Their sense of being an elect group tended to make them behave like a sect. Readiness to reprove any defect which one might observe in others was one of the hallmarks of true Evangelical seriousness.

The two main agencies through which Evangelicalism spread amongst the upper- and middle-classes were in the nursery and at university. St Edmund Hall at Oxford was a fertile breeding ground. Amongst the upper classes, the most important agents were the female members of the families. The main weapon used amongst the lower orders was the cheap tract or broadsheet; it was extensively used by Hannah More and Rowland Hill. When it celebrated its 50th anniversary in 1849, the Religious Tract Society had circulated over 500 million copies of 5,000 separate titles. It proclaimed that, as a result of its activities, sinners have been converted to God; Christians edified and comforted; backsliders mercifully restored; and numerous evils prevented by timely admonitions. The Sunday School was the most successful of the agencies which the Evangelicals devised to convert the working classes. Their one aim in mind in setting up schools for the poor was to convert their souls. The Ragged Schools were the success story in urban areas. The Young Men's Christian Association (YMCA), established in 1844, was another weapon in their hands. Most of the teachers in Sunday schools and Ragged schools were women. Evangelicalism was a religion that appealed essentially to those already anxious and disturbed about their own state - the rapid rise in population, the forced move from rural to urban areas, the effects of the Industrial Revolution all produced fears. The Evangelicals theorised that the country was suffering because it had incurred the anger of God. (Shades of medieval superstition with the Black Death).

William Wilberforce (1759-1833)

Wilberforce wrote in his 1787 Diary, that God had set him two great objects - the suppression of the Slave Trade and the reformation of manners. The Evangelicals had an overwhelming desire to reform the morals of their fellow-men quite independent of their wish to convert them. In 1802 the Society for the Suppression of Vice, or the Vice Society for short, was set up. It employed paid agents who attached themselves to local police stations or went around the country looking for areas particularly steeped in vice. From 1842, they were able to operate their own form of censorship through Mudie's Select Circulating Library and, later, from W.H. Smith's railway station bookstalls. The worst vice was failure to observe the Sabbath. Hannah More and others must have been a bundle of laughs!

Other chapters concentrated on Philanthropy and Paternalism, The Age of Societies, The Cult of Conduct and Serious Callings (commerce, the civil service, the armed forces and politics), but this Blog would be far too long to deal with these, Suffice it that  the penultimate chapter, Home and Family, can ram home the stifling, censorious atmosphere of the mid-19th century. Evangelicalism was above all else the religion of the home. It idealized and sanctified family life. At the centre of life stood the institution of family prayers. These were only one of the many trials which had to be endured by children in Evangelical families.   Children's lives were hedged around on all sides by restrictions and prohibitions. Virtually every enjoyable pastime was forbidden them on the Sabbath. The terrors of Hell were very real to Evangelical children. The experience of being brought up in an Evangelical home could be profoundly depressing and even terrifying. Certainty about the after-life was the corollary of the Evangelicals' obsession with death.

'Family Prayers' by Samuel Butler (1864)

These days the C of E is irrelevant to most people's lives or thoughts. In place of Christ, the cancel culture and narrow thinking of the minority groups, such as Extinction Rebellion, Stop Oil, BLM and Antifa are startlingly close to the self-righteousness of the 19th century Evangelicals. One doesn't have to be a hedonist to feel that Evangelicals' joy in the after-life was a poor substitute for living to the full one's life on earth.