Hostname: page-component-78c5997874-dh8gc Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-11-19T03:29:18.888Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Let the Children Come: The Religion of the Protestant Child in Early America

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  17 February 2020

E. Brooks Holifield
E. Brooks Holifield*
Affiliation:
Candler School of Theology, Emory University
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Extract

In 1844, the Congregationalist minister Enoch Pond in Bangor, Maine, reminded his fellow clergy that they had been commissioned not only to feed the sheep of their flocks but also to nurture the lambs. Under no circumstances, he cautioned, would a good minister neglect the children, for both Christian parents and their pastors felt “the deepest anxiety” that the children of American parishes would not “receive that wise government, that faithful discipline, that Christian instruction and restraint, which, by the blessing of God, shall result in their speedy conversion, and bring them early and truly into the fold of Christ.” He called for pastors to pray for the children, to convene meetings of praying parents, to pay attention to children during pastoral visits, to impart special instruction to children from the pulpit, to visit their schools, to institute Sunday schools, to teach children the Bible, and to offer catechetical instruction. The devoted pastor would acquaint himself with children, “enter into their feelings, and interest himself in their affairs; and thus engage their affections, and win their confidence.“

Christian clergy in America had long heeded such admonitions. Seventeenth-century Puritan ministers made serious, if sporadic, efforts to teach the catechism, often invited groups of children into their homes for instruction, contended over the implications of the baptismal covenant, and urged parents to teach their offspring religious truths and Christian practices. Eighteenth-century Anglican clergy made similar efforts to instruct children, and their revivalist counter-parts in New England and the Middle Colonies encouraged the conversion of children at younger than customary ages. Jonathan Edwards devoted careful attention to his four-year-old convert Phebe Bartlet, who followed in the path of her converted eleven-year-old brother by announcing, after anguished prayers and cries for mercy, that “the kingdom of God had come” to her.

Type
Research Article
Information
Church History , Volume 76 , Issue 4 , December 2007 , pp. 750 - 777
Copyright
Copyright © American Society of Church History 2007

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

Footnotes

1.

I wrote this essay as a Senior Fellow in the Center for the Study of Law and Religion at Emory University as part of a seminar on “The Child in Law, Religion, and Society,” and my research received support through a grant from The Pew Charitable Trusts. My conclusions about these matters do not necessarily reflect either the views of the Center or of the Pew Charitable Trusts.

References

2. Pond, Enoch, The Young Pastor's Guide: Or Lectures on Pastoral Duties (Bangor, Maine: E. F. Duren, 1844), 216, 217, 221, 225–26.Google Scholar

3. Edwards, Jonathan, A Faithful Narrative of the Surprising Work of God (1742), The Works of Jonathan Edwards, vol. 4: The Great Awakening, ed. Goen, C. C. (New Haven, Conn.: Yale University Press, 1972), 200, 201–05Google Scholar; see Brekus, Catherine A., “Children of Wrath, Children of Grace: Jonathan Edwards and the Puritan Culture of Child Rearing,” in The Child in Christian Thought, ed. Bunge, Marcia J. (Grand Rapids, Mich.: Eerdmans, 2001), 300–28.Google Scholar

4. Margaret Bendroth, “Horace Bushnell's Christian Nurture,” in Child in Christian Thought, 350-64; Brown, Anne S. and Hall, David D., “Family Strategies and Religious Practice: Baptism and the Lord's Supper in Early New England,” Lived Religion in America, ed. Hall, David D. (Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press, 1997), 41–68Google Scholar; Greven, Philip J., The Protestant Temperament (New York: Knopf, 1977)Google Scholar; Boylan, Anne M., Sunday School: The Formation of an American Institution, 1790-1880 (New Haven, Conn.: Yale University Press, 1988)Google Scholar; Mullin, Bruce, The Puritan as Yankee: A Life of Horace Bushnell (Grand Rapids, Mich.: Eerdmans, 2002)Google Scholar; Pond, Young Pastor's Guide, 219.

5. Hall, David D., “The Mental World of Samuel Sewall,” Worlds of Wonder, Days of Judgment: Popular Religious Belief in Early New England (New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1989), 214Google Scholar; Dolan, Jay, “The Immigrants and their Gods: A New Perspective in American Religious History,” Church History 57:1 (1988): 61–72CrossRefGoogle Scholar. My essay stands in a developing field of scholarship on children that found a new impetus with the publication of Ariès, Philippe, L'Enfant et la vie familiale sous Vancien Regime (Paris: Librarie Plon, 1960)Google Scholar. Subsequent work included important studies by Hugh Cunningham, Linda Pollock, Barbara Hanawalt, James A. Schultz, Karen Calvert, Shulamith Shahar, Joseph M. Hawes, N. Ray Hiner, Robert Coles, and David Heller. For a helpful discussion of this scholarship insofar as it deals with religion, see Marcia J. Bunge, “Introduction,” Child in Christian Thought, 1-28. My aim is to break new ground by focusing on documents produced by the children themselves.

6. Prentiss, George L., The Life and Letters of Elizabeth Prentiss (New York: Anson D. F. Randolph, 1882), 13Google Scholar; “Diary of Susan Bradford Eppes,” in Eppes, Susan Bradford, Through Some Eventful Years (Macon, Ga.: J. W. Burke, 1926), 64Google Scholar; Havens, Catherine Elizabeth, “Diary of Catherine Elizabeth Havens,” in Diary of a Little Girl in Old New York (New York: Henry Collins, Brown, 1919), 36, 66Google Scholar; Cowles, CarolineClarke, Richard, “Diary of Caroline Cowles Clark,” in Village Life in America 1852-1872 (New York: Henry Holt, 1913), 5,10, 30, 37,39Google Scholar; Alcott, Louisa May, “Diary of Louisa May Alcott,” in Sears, Clara Endicott, ed., Bronson Alcott's Fruitlands (Boston, Mass.: Houghton Mifflin, 1915), 108Google Scholar.

7. Earle, Alice Morse, ed., Diary of Anna Green Winslow: A Boston School Girl of 1771 (Boston, Mass.: Houghton Mifflin, 1894), 1, 3.Google Scholar

8. Ibid., 4, 14, 15, 26, 51.

9. Ibid., 24, 25, 48, 56.

10. Ibid., 41; Cowles, Julia, “Diary of Julia Cowles,” in Hadley, Laura Moseley, ed., The Diaries of Julia Cowles: A Connecticut Record, 1797-1803 (New Haven, Conn.: Yale University Press, 1931), 32.Google Scholar

11. Judson, Emily E. C., Memoir of Sarah B. Judson (Cincinnati, Ohio: L. Colby, 1849), 19–20Google Scholar; Irish, Phebe M. HalleckDiary and Letters of Phebe M. Irish (Philadelphia: T. W. Stuckey, 1876), 35Google Scholar; see also Richards, Cornelia H. B., Cousin Alice: A Memoir of Alice B. Haven (New York: D. Appleton, 1868), 30Google Scholar; Anna Bronson Alcott, “Diary of Anna Bronson Alcott,” Bronson Alcott's Fruitlands, 87.

12. Ramsay, David, ed., Memoirs of Martha Laurens Ramsay (Philadelphia: American Sunday School Union, 1845; 1st ed., 1811), 27, 29, 31, 32, 33, 34.Google Scholar

13. Fields, Annie, ed., Life and Letters of Harriet Beecher Stowe (Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1897), 50–53.Google Scholar

14. Cummins, George D., Life of Mrs. Virginia Hale Hoffman (Philadelphia: Lindsay and Blakiston, 1859), 43–44, 45, 47Google Scholar; Anna Bronson Alcott, “Diary,” 87; Louisa May Alcott, “Diary,” 33.

15. Phebe Irish, “Diary,” 32; Willard, Mary E., “Diary of Mary E. Willard,” in Glimpses of Fifty Years: The Autobiography of an American Woman (Chicago: Women's Temperance Publications Association, 1889), 106Google Scholar; Sheldon, Charlotte, “Diary of Charlotte Sheldon,” Chronicles of a Pioneer School from 1792 to 1833, by Vanderpoel, Emily N. and Buel, Elizabeth C. B. (Cambridge, Mass.: University Press, 1903), 11, 12, 14Google Scholar; Beecher, William C. and Scoville, Samuel, A Biography of Rev. Henry Ward Beecher (New York: Charles L. Webster, 1888), 102Google Scholar; Bierce, Chloe B. Conant, Journal and Biographical Notice of Chloe B. Conant Bierce (Cincinnati, Ohio: Elm Street Printing, 1869), 42Google Scholar. See also Seely, Catharine, Memoir of Catharine Seely, Late of Darien Connecticut (New York: Collins and Brother, 1843), 14.Google Scholar

16. Clarke, “Diary,” 5, 37; Weatherford, John, ed., “School and Other Days, 1859: Selections from the Diaries of Robert and Sylvester Bishop,” Ohio Historical Quarterly 70:1 (1961): 62Google Scholar; Catherine Cebra Webb, “Diary of Catherine Cebra Webb,” in Chronicle of a Pioneer School, 149.

17. Lee, Eleanor Agnes, “Diary of Eleanor Agnes Lee,” Growing Up in the 1850s: The Journal of Agnes Lee, ed. Lee, Mary Custis (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1984), 9, 18, 31Google Scholar; Sheldon, “Diary,” 16, 17; Smith, Anna Maria, “Diary, 1827-28,” in Women and Religion in America: Volume 1, The Nineteenth Century, 3 vols., ed. Ruether, Rosemary Radford and Keller, Rosemary Skinner (San Francisco: Harper and Row, 1981), 1:16, 17Google Scholar; Cowles, Diaries, 34.

18. Pond, Young Pastor's Guide, 220; Caroline Chester, “Diary of Caroline Chester,” Chronicles of a Pioneer School, 151; Beecher and Scoville, Biography of Rev. Henry Ward Beecher, 100; Smith, “Diary,” 18; Earle, ed., Diary of Anna Green Winslow, 4; Grimké, Charlotte L. Forten, “Diary of Charlotte L. Forten Grimké,” in The Journal of Charlotte L. Forten, ed. Billington, Ray Allen (New York: Dryden, 1953), 38Google Scholar; Conant Bierce, Journal, 27.

19. Prentiss, Life and Letters, 12; Clarke, “Diary,” 17; Fields, Life and Letters of Harriet Beecher Stowe, 17; Weatherford, ed., “School and Other Days,” 58.

20. Clarke, “Diary,” 11, 17; Prentiss, Life and Letters, 12; Bush, Philippa C., Memoir of Anne Gorham Everett, with Extracts from her Correspondence and Journal (Boston: privately published, 1857), 18Google Scholar; Beecher and Scoville, Biography of Henry Ward Beecher, 99.

21. Clarke, “Diary,” 21, 22, 70; Bush, Memoir of Anne Gorham Everett, 18.

22. Conant Bierce, Diary, 33; Bush, Memoir of Anne Gorham Everett, 41; Kendrick, A. C., ed., The Life and Letters of Mrs. Emily C. Judson (New York: Sheldon, 1860), 18Google Scholar; Clarke, “Diary,” 28; Lee, “Diary,” 21; Bush, Memoir of Anne Gorham Everett, 21; Irish, “Diary,” 17.

23. Clarke, “Diary,” 12; Mary Ann Bacon, “Mary Ann Bacon's Journal, Written in the 15th Year of her Age,” in Chronicles of a Pioneer School, 68; Cowles, Diaries, 31; Lyman, Ellen Bancroft, “Diary of Ellen Bancroft Lyman,” in Lyman, Arthur T., Arthur Theodore Lyman and Ella Lyman: Letters and Journals, 2 vols. (Mehashe, Wis.: George Banta, 1932), 1:243Google Scholar; Beecher and Scoville, Biography of Rev. Henry Ward Beecher, 100; Cummins, Life of Mrs. Virginia Hale Hoffman, 45.

24. Armstrong, Robert G., ed., Memoir of Hannah Hobie (New York: American Tract Society, 1837), 12Google Scholar; Ramsay, Memoirs of Martha Laurens Ramsay, 42; Smith, “Diary,” 17; Fields, Life and Letters of Harriet Beecher Stowe, 61.

25. Clarke, “Diary,” 22; Kendrick, Life and Letters of Mrs. Emily C. Judson, 20; Bunting, Hannah Syng, “Diary of Hannah Syng Bunting,” in Merritt, Timothy, ed., Memoir, Diary, and Letters of Miss Hannah Syng Bunting, of Philadelphia (New York: T. Mason and G. Lane, 1837), 47Google Scholar; Thomas, Ella Gertrude, “Diary of Ella Gertrude Thomas,” in Burr, Virginia Ingraham, ed., Secret Eye: The Journal of Ella Gertrude Clanton Thomas, 1848-1889 (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1990), 83.Google Scholar

26. Havens, “Diary,” 65.

27. Conant Bierce, Journal, 62; Smith, “Diary,” 17; Bunting, “Diary,” Cummins, Life of Mrs. Virginia Hale Hoffman, 31.

28. Cook, Clarence, ed., A Girl's Life Eighty Years Ago: Selections from the Letters of Eliza Southgate Bowne (New York: Charles Scribner's Sons, 1888), 5Google Scholar; Louisa May Alcott, “Diary,” 36; Bush, Memoir of Anne Gorham Everett, 18, 41; Bunting, “Diary,” 43. For later adult reflections on the influence of mothers, see Taves, Ann, “Mothers and Children and the Legacy of Mid-Nineteenth-Century American Christianity,” Journal of Religion 67 (April 1987): 203–19CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

29. Smith, “Diary,” 15, 16; Harper, Ida Husted, The Life and Work of Susan B. Anthony (Indianapolis, Ind.: Bowen-Merrill, 1898), 28Google Scholar; Conant Bierce, Journal, 42; Bunting, “Diary,” 43; Cummins, Life of Mrs. Virginia Hale Hoffman, 47.

30. Conant Bierce, Journal, 26-27; Cook, ed., Girl's Life, iii-iv; Hester Maddock, Sallie B., “Diary of Sallie B. Hester Maddock,” in Holmes, Kenneth L., ed., Covered Wagon Women: Diaries and Letters from the Western Trails, 2 vols. (Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, 1995), 1:242Google Scholar; Bircher, William, A Drummer Boy's Diary (St. Paul, Minn.: St. Paul Book and Stationery, 1889)Google Scholar; Ames, Blanche Butler, Chronicles from the Nineteenth Century (Clinton, Mass.: privately published, 1957)Google Scholar.

31. Ramsay, ed., Memoirs of Martha Laurens Ramsay, 31; Cummins, Life of Mrs. Virginia Hale Hoffman, 31; Conant Bierce, Journal, 67; Seely, Memoir of Catharine Seely, 16; Thomas, “Diary,” 81; Judson, Memoir, 20.

32. Irish, “Diary,” 18, 24; Cowles, Diaries, 44; Seely, Memoir, 14; Grimké, “Diary,” 47; Lee, “Diary,” 14; Weatherford, ed., “School and Other Days,” 63.

33. Fields, ed., Life and Letters of Harriet Beecher Stowe, 30; Beecher and Scoville, Biography of Rev. Henry Ward Beecher, 101, 110; Lee, “Diary,” 4; Seely, Memoir, 14.

34. Conant Bierce, Journal, 36, 65; Beecher and Scoville, Biography of Rev. Henry Ward Beecher, 110; Smith, “Diary,” 16.

35. Bunting, “Diary,” 41, 43, 45, 46; Louisa May Alcott, “Diary,” 110; Ramsay, ed., Memoirs of Martha Laurens Ramsay, 41; Beecher and Scoville, Biography of Rev. Henry Ward Beecher, 102; Cummins, Life of Mrs. Virginia Hale Hoffman, 42; Lyman, “Diary,” 245; Grimké, “Diary,” Fields, ed., Life and Letters of Harriet Beecher Stowe, 52; Smith, “Diary,” 15.

36. Palmer, Benjamin Morgan, The Life and Letters of James Henley Thornwell (Richmond, Va.: Whittet and Shepperson, 1875), 47Google Scholar; Conant Bierce, Journal, 34; Bunting, “Diary,” 47; Seely, Memoir, 14; Ramsay, ed., Memoirs of Martha Laurens Ramsay, 33; Fields, ed., Life and Letters of Harriet Beecher Stowe, 62.

37. Irish, “Diary,” 30-31, 35; Grimké, “Diary,” 35; Bush, Memoirs of Anne Gorham Everett, 12; Beecher and Scoville, Biography of Rev. Henry Ward Beecher, 110.

38. Bunting, “Diary,” 23, 44; Cummins, Life of Mrs. Virginia Hale Hoffman, 36, 44; Field, Life and Letters of Harriet Beecher Stowe, 51; Ayer, Sarah Newman Cornell, Diary of Sarah Cornell Ayer, Andover and Newburyport, Massachusetts (Portland, Maine: Lefavor-Tower, 1910), 6Google Scholar; Smith, “Diary,” 18; Ramsay, ed., Memoirs of Martha Laurens Ramsay, 34.

39. Palmer, Life and Letters of James Henley Thornwell, 47; Cook, ed., A Girl's Life, 5; Cummins, Life of Mrs. Virginia Hale Hoffman, 31, 44; Ramsay, Memoirs of Martha Laurens Ramsay, 37; Weatherford, ed., “School and Other Days,” 63; Clarke, “Diary,” 30; Grimke, “Diary,” 38; Kendrick, ed., Life and Letters of Mrs. Emily C. Judson, 36; Harper, Life and Work of Susan B. Anthony, 28; Lyman, “Diary,” 244; Louisa May Alcott, “Diary,” 36.

40. Grimké, “Diary,” 34, 37, 38.

41. Sheldon, “Diary,” 12; Chauncey H. Cooke, Soldier Boy's Letters to His Father and Mother, 1862-5 (n.p.: News Office, 1915), 19; Louisa May Alcott, “Diary,” 106; Irish, “Diary,” 17; Palmer, Life and Letters of James Henley Thornwell, 50; Anna Alcott, “Diary,” 88; Caroline Clarke, “Diary,” 49.

42. Brewer, Priscilla A., “'The Little Citizen': Images of Children in Early Nineteenth-Century America,” Journal of American Culture 7 (Winter 1984): 54–55, 60Google Scholar.

43. Hall, David D., The Faithful Shepherd: A History of the New England Ministry in the Seventeenth Century (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1972), 168Google Scholar; Mather, Cotton, Manuductio ad Ministerium, ed. Ryland, John (London: Charles Dilly, 1781), 115Google Scholar; Muhlenberg, Henry M., The Journals of Henry Melchior Muhlenberg, ed. Tappert, Theodore G. and Doberstein, John W., 3 vols. (Philadelphia: The Muhlenberg Press, 1942), vol. 1, pp. 77, 99, 329, 446Google Scholar; Bryden, George Maclaren, Virginia's Mother Church and the Political Conditions Under Which It Grew (Richmond: Virginia Historical Society, 1947), 372–73Google Scholar; Nelson, John K., A Blessed Company: Parishes, Parsons, and Parishioners in Anglican Virginia, 1690-1776 (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 2001), 219Google Scholar.

44. Pond, Young Pastor's Guide, 226; Schaff, Philip, America: A Sketch of Its Political, Social, and Religious Character, ed. Miller, Perry (1st ed., 1855; Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1961), 163Google Scholar; Repp, Arthur C. Sr., Luther's Catechism Comes to America (Metuchen, N.J.: Scarecrow, 1982), 220–38Google Scholar; Doane, George Washington, “The Church's Care for Little Children,” Sermons on Various Occasions (London: Rivington, 1842), 671–72Google Scholar; Kirby, James E., Richey, Russell E., and Rowe, Kenneth E., The Methodists (Wesrport, Conn.: Greenwood Press, 1996), 184Google Scholar.

45. Lynn, Robert W., The Big Little School: Two Hundred Years of the Sunday School (Birmingham, Ala.: Religious Education Press, 1980), 2–38Google Scholar; Boylan, Sunday School, 6-21; Gutjahr, Paul C., An American Bible: A History of the Good Book in the United States, 1770-1880 (Stanford: Stanford University Press, 1999), 10–88Google Scholar.

46. Boylan, Sunday School, 101-32.

47. Coles, Robert, The Spiritual Life of Children (Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1990), 21, 36,108, 114, 198, 207, 209, 212, 324Google Scholar. Diaries that I examined but from which I did not quote include: Fuller, Elizabeth, “Diary of Elizabeth Fuller,” History of the Town of Princeton in the County of Worcester and Commonwealth of Massachusetts, 1795-1919, by Blake, Francis Edward (Princeton, Mass.: Francis Blake, 1915)Google Scholar; Ward, Susanna Holyoke, “Diary of Susanna Holyoke Ward,” The Holyoke Diaries 1709-1865, ed. Dow, George Francis (Salem, Mass.: Essex Institute, 1911)Google Scholar; Christie, Mary A., Diary of Mary A. Christie (Alexandria, Va.: Alexander Street Press, 2004)Google Scholar; and Elizabeth Ann McAuley Egbert, “Diary of Elizabeth Ann McAuley Egbert,” in Holmes, Covered Wagon Women.