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Reason and emotion in working-class religion, 1794–1824

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  21 March 2016

Stuart Mews*
Affiliation:
University of Lancaster

Extract

In the last decade considerable attention has been paid to Methodism, revivalism, and the development of working-class consciousness in early nineteenth-century England. The purpose of this paper is to add a few footnotes and caveats to some of the assertions which have been made about these topics. The assertions on which I wish to comment can be divided into two groups. The first includes the view widely accepted by sociologists and social historians that in so far as working-class people resort to religion in periods of rapid social change, the religious style which they adopt tends to be of an highly emotional type. Hence the numerical success of Methodism in the lower if not the lowest regions of the social scale is attributed to the prominence which it gave the experiential dimension of religious commitment. On the other hand a religious system like Unitarianism which was theologically highly rational and stressed the intellectualist dimension is dismissed, almost on a priori grounds from having any popular appeal. K. S. Inglis after claiming that before 1850 the Unitarians were ‘uninterested in evangelizing the masses’, quotes G. M. Trevelyan to the effect that theirs was ‘a faith likely to be taken up by the mill-owner but not by his workmen’. According to E. P. Thompson ‘it seemed too cold, too distant, too polite and too much associated with the comfortable values of a prospering class to appeal to the city or village poor’. The first area in which I wish to submit new evidence is concerned therefore with the general relationship between working-class religion and reason and emotion.

Type
Research Article
Copyright
Copyright © Ecclesiastical History Society 1972

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References

page no 365 note 1 Thompson, [E. P.], [The Making of the English Working Class] (revised Pelican ed London 1968) ch 2Google Scholar; Liston Pope, Millhands and Preachers (New Haven 1942); Niebuhr, H.Richard, The Social Sources of Denominationalism (New York 1929)Google Scholar.

page no 365 note 2 Thompson, , p 31. On the experiential and other dimensions of religious commitment see Glock, Charles Y. and Rodney, Stark, Religion and Society in Tension (Chicago 1965) ch 2Google Scholar.

page no 365 note 3 Churches and the Working Class in Victorian England (London 1963) p 13.

page no 365 note 4 Thompson, p 31.

page no 366 note 1 Currie, Robert, for example, does not deal with theological controversy before the 1870s: Methodism Divided. A Study in the Sociology of Ecumenicalism (London 1968) pp 112ff Google Scholar.

page no 366 note 2 Methodism at the End of the Eighteenth Century’, A History of the Methodist Church in Great Britain, ed Rupert, Davies and Gordon, Rupp, 1 (London 1965) p 287 Google Scholar.

page no 366 note 3 Gordon, [Alexander], [Addresses Biographical and Historical] (London 1922) ch x: ‘ Richard Wright and Missionary Enterprise’, p 318 Google Scholar.

page no 367 note 1 On the sect see: History of a Forgotten Sect of Baptised Believers Heretofore known as ‘Johnsonians’, ed Dawburn, Robert| (London and Wisbech n.d. 1914?)Google Scholar. On Fisher see: Edward, Deacon, Samuel Fisher, Baptist Minister of Norwich and Wisbech, England, 1742— 1803 (Bridgeport, Conn. 1911), and Thompson, pp 129ff Google Scholar.

page no 367 note 2 Short, H. L., ‘ Presbyterians under a New Name ‘, The English Presbyterians by Bolam, C. G., Jeremy, Goring, Short, H. L. and Roger, Thomas (London 1968) pp 235ff Google Scholar.

page no 367 note 3 A Review of the Missionary Life and Labors of Richard Wright written by himself (London 1824) p 27.

page no 368 note 1 Letter of introduction from MrsCappe, to MrsLindsey, , 6 May 1802, C[hristian] R[eformer], XV (Hackney 1829) pp 346-7Google Scholar; Robert Aspland, ‘Biographical Sketch of the late Mr David Eaton’, Ibid pp 227ff.

page no 368 note 2 Eaton, David, Scripture The Only Guide To Religious Truth. A Narrative of the Proceedings of the Society of Baptists in York (York 1800) p 14 Google Scholar.

page no 368 note 3 Ibid p 15.

page no 369 note 1 Ibid pp 17-19.

page no 369 note 2 Ibid p 22. The psychological problem of the proof of election is of course the key to the argument deployed by Max Weber in The Protestant Ethic and the Spirit of Capitalism (Eng trans London 1930). The York baptist incident is but one of many examples of the breakdown of the psychological adequacy of the Calvinist system in the late eighteenth century. See also Max Weber on Religion, ed Stuart Mews (forthcoming).

page no 369 note 3 Aspland, R. B., Memoir of the Life, Works and Correspondence of the Rev Robert Aspland (London 1850) p 195 Google Scholar.

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page no 370 note 5 David, Eaton, ‘Account of the Rise and Progress of the Unitarian Fund’, M[onthly] R[epository], XX (Hackney 1825) p 338 Google Scholar.

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page no 371 note 1 MR, VI (1811) p 615.

page no 371 note 2 Wright, pp 139ff.

page no 371 note 3 Ibid p 147.

page no 371 note 4 ‘Fanaticism further exemplified in the case of William Daken and others’, CR, IV (1818) p 88.

page no 372 note 1 Ibid p 90. For another example of a returned ‘Jesus’ in this period see Rodgers, P. G., Battle in Bossenden Wood, The Strange Story of Sir William Courtenay (Oxford 1961)Google Scholar.

page no 372 note 2 Wright, R., Sixteen Unitarian Missionary Discourses (Liverpool 1817) pp 20ff Google Scholar.

page no 372 note 3 Ibid p 33.

page no 373 note 1 Wright, pp 212, 216, 358; Richard, Wright, ‘A conversation between Mr Wright and a Preacher of Joanna Southcott’s’, CR, I (1815) pp 65ff Google Scholar. On the Southcottians see Harrison, J. F. C., Robert Owen and the Owenites in Britain and America (London 1969)Google Scholar.

page no 373 note 2 Wright pp 66ff.

page no 373 note 3 [‘Messrs Wright and Cooper’s] Missionary Tour in Cornwall’, MR, X (1815) p 770. Whilst the Methodists with their stress on experience were opposed to the rationalism of the Unitarians, on another level they had in common a whole-hearted Arminianism and were both opposed to the old Calvinist orthodoxy.

page no 373 note 4 The Life, Character, and Literary Labours of Samuel Drew, AM. By his eldest son (London 1835) pp 257ff; Samuel, Drew, Scriptural and Philosophical Arguments to prove the Divinity of Christ, and the Necessity of his Atonement (London 1813)Google Scholar.

page no 374 note 1 A long letter describing the rise and progress of the revival written by William Hen-shaw, the methodist preacher at Plymouth Dock, to William Bramwell, one of the leaders of Wesleyan revivalism, was reprinted in the MR IX (1814) pp 377-8.

page no 374 note 2 Carpenter quoted this verse in 1822 from the tombstone of a profligate drunkard who died by falling off his horse, but it sums up a view of salvation to which he was just as opposed in 1814: Carpenter, J. Estlin, James Martineau. Theologian and Teacher (London 1905) p 114 Google Scholar.

page no 374 note 3 Memoirs of the Life of the Rev. Lant Carpenter, LL.D. Edited by his son, Russell Lant, Carpenter (Bristol and London 1842) pp 196-8Google Scholar.

page no 374 note 4 ‘Missionary Tour in Cornwall’, p 718.

page no 374 note 5 Ibid p 770.

page no 375 note 1 Wright, p 220.

page no 375 note 2 Ibid p 440.

page no 375 note 3 John, Ashworth, Ten Letters, giving an Account of the Rise and Progress of the Unitarian Doctrine at Rochdale, Newchurch-in-Rossendale, and Other Places formerly in connection with the late Joseph Cooke (Rochdale 1817)Google Scholar.

page no 375 note 4 ‘Two Old Letters’, [Proceedings of the Wesley Historical Society], 1 (London 1898) p 101.

page no 376 note 1 On Cooke and Ashworth as Methodists see [William], Jessop, [An Account of Methodism in Rossendale] (Manchester 1880)Google Scholar.

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page no 377 note 3 Goodier, Benjamin, ‘ Narrative of the Expulsion of Mr Cooke, of Rossendale, by the Methodists’, CR, IV (1818) p 60 Google Scholar. On the important place of language and expression in religious groups, see Sven, Wermlund, ‘ Religious Speech Community and Reinforcement of Belief’, Ada Sociologica, III (Stockholm 1958) pp 132-46Google Scholar.

page no 377 note 4 Cooke, Joseph, Methodism Condemned by Methodist Preachers (Rochdale 1807) p 37 Google Scholar.

page no 377 note 5 Genuine Methodism Acquitted, and Spurious Methodism Condemned (Rochdale 1807) p 87.

page no 378 note 1 Etheridge, J.W., The Life of the Rev. Adam Clarke, LL.D. (London 1859) p 212 Google Scholar. For further information about the preacher charged with Pelagianism (probably John Burdsall) see ‘Two Old Letters’ which includes a letter of 1805 from Thomas Coke: ‘ Pelagianism has certainly gained the ascendancy in the minds of one or more of the Preachers who laboured last year in Cornwall’ (p 103).

page no 378 note 2 Observations on the Importance of Adopting a Plan of Instruction for those Preachers who are admitted upon trial in the Methodist Connexion (London 1807) pp 6, 9.

page no 378 note 3 See the letter from Coke to Addington in Pellew, G., Life and Correspondence of the Right Hon. Henry Addington, first Viscount Sidmouth, III (London 1847) p 47 Google Scholar.

page no 379 note 1 Articles of Religion Prepared By Order of the Conference of 1806, Publications of the Wesley Historical Society, no 2 (London 1897).

page no 379 note 2 Address to the Irish Conference in the Minutes of 1806 quoted in preface to ibid p 5.

page no 379 note 3 Jessop, p 188.

page no 379 note 4 McLachlan, p 37.

page no 380 note 1 Ash worth p 13. On the general question of the standard of living of handloom weavers, see Duncan, Bythell, ‘ The Handloom Weavers in the English Cotton Industry during the Industrial Revolution: Some Problems’, Ec.HR XVII, 2 (December 1964) pp 339-54Google Scholar. On the situation in Rossendale: Tupling, G. H., The Economic History of Rossendale (Manchester 1927)Google Scholar.

page no 380 note 2 ‘ Communication from Dr John Thompson [of Halifax relative to a church of Unitarian Christians at Newchurch’], MR X (1815) p 316.

page no 380 note 3 Letter to the trustees of Lady Hewley’s Fund from the Newchurch society quoted in ibid p 314. It would seem that this process of theological rationalisation took place at a time when they believed their economic situation to be worse than usual. Scholars who have related theological development to social and economic factors have usually noted the opposite process. Max Weber, for example, held that ‘it is far easier for emotional rather than rational elements of a religious ethic to flourish in such circumstances’: The Sociology of Religion (Eng trans London 1965) p 101.

page no 380 note 4 ‘Communication from Dr John Thompson’, pp 314-15.

page no 381 note 1 Memoir of the Rev. Benjamin Coodier (Liverpool 1825) p 76.

page no 381 note 2 McLachlan, , ch VII. On Unitarianism and politics in Oldham see Marcroft, A., Historical Account of the Unitarian Chapel, Oldham (Oldham 1913)Google Scholar, Marcroft, A., Landmarks of Local Liberalism (Oldham 1913)Google Scholar and on the political situation there: John, Foster: ‘ Nineteenth-Century Towns – A Class Dimension ‘, in The Study of Urban History, ed Dyos, H. J. (London 1968) pp 281300 Google Scholar.

page no 381 note 3 Memoir of Coodier, pp 76ff.

page no 382 note 1 Herford, Brooke, Travers Madge, A Memoir (London 1868) p 23 Google Scholar.

page no 382 note 2 Wright, p 441.