Q r!!! ABSTRACT BEST SELLING RELIGION: A HISTORY OF POPULAR RELIGIOUS THOUGHT IN AMERICA AS REFLECTED IN RELIGIOUS BEST SELLERS, 1850-1960 BY Ralph Allison Carey The religious best seller furnishes the student of popular thought with important evidence regarding the his- tory of religious ideas in America. From Michael Wiggles- worth's The Day of Doom (1662) to Morris L. West's The Shoes of the Fisherman (1963), best selling religion was a pervasive part of popular American culture. Among the top best sellers have been such religious works as Charles Sheldon's In His Steps (1897), Lew Wallace's Ben-Hur (1880), Lloyd Douglas"The Robe (1942), Hurlbut's The Story of the Eiblg_(l904), Fulton Oursler's The Greatest Story Ever 221d (1949), Henry Morton Robinson's The Cardinal (1950), and Norman Vincent Peale's The Power of Positive Thinking (1952). From Susan Warner's The Wide, Wide World (1850) to Catherine Marshall's Christy (1967), best selling religion in America was characterized by an anti-creedal, anti- denominational form of piety which stressed a religion (If the heart and practical Christian discipleship. While Ralph Allison Carey characterized by many of the social and religious currents of their age, most of the religious best sellers fail to reflect the major intellectual challenges to traditional orthodoxies. Although the heart religion and ethical con- cerns of this popular religious thought tended toward anti- intellectualism, it was rarely concerned with fundamentalist defenses of orthodoxy. The cold, formal creedalism of the church was seen as the enemy of vital faith more often than the scepticism of a non-believing world. The best selling religion of the eighteen fifties and sixties was sentimental and domestic in its emphasis. The Wide, Wide World of Susan Warner combined the crises of home and heart as did Maria Cummins' The Lamplighter (1854) and Augusta Jane Evans' Beulah (1859) and St. Elmo (1867). E. P. Roe stressed the conversion theme in Barriers Burned Away (1878) and gpening a Chestnut Burr (1874), while Hannah Whitall Smith promised abundant discipleship in The Christian's Secret of a Happy Life (1875). The Christ- story tradition appealed to readers of Joseph Holt Ingraham's, The Prince of the House of David (1855) and Lew Wallace's Ben'Hur (1880) just as it did later to the readers of Lloyd Douglas. The impact of Darwinian science and higher criticism in shaking the foundations of orthodoxy was reflected in Mrs. Humphrey Ward's Robert Elsmere (1888), Margaret Deland's John Ward, Preacher (1888), and Harold Frederic's The Damnation of Theron Ware (1896). Social Christianity, with Ralph Allison Carey its practical concern for a discipleship involving social reform, was the theme of Charles Sheldon's In His Steps (1897). A muscular Christianity was preached by Ralph Connor's Black Rock (1898) and Harold Bell Wright's best selling novels, That Printer of Udell's (1903), The Shepherd of the Hills (1907), and The Calling of Dan Matthews (1909). Winston Churchill's The Inside of the Cup (1913) combined themes in a muscular social gospel. The nineteen twenties and thirties eXperienced a decline in best selling religion as only Lloyd Douglas' Magnificent Obsession (1929) reached best selling pro- portions beyond the annual lists. Bruce Barton's The Man Nobodnynows (1925), E. Stanley Jones' Christ of the Indian 393d (1925) and Henry C. Link's Return to Religion (1937) represent a variety of popular themes in this period of religious depression. The nineteen forties and fifties were decades of religious revival. The large quantity of best selling religious volumes testify to the popular reVival of interest in religion. The appearance of names like Sholem Asch, Joshua Liebman, and Fulton J. Sheen on the best seller lists indicated the maturing pluralism of American religion. Sholem Asch's The Nazarene (1939), and The Apostle (1943), along with Lloyd C. Douglas' The Robe (1942) and The Big FiSherman (1948) revealed the popular revival's quest for historical roots. A guest for peace could also be Ralph Allison Carey found in such best sellers as Joshua Leibman's Peace of Mind (1946), Fulton J. Sheen's Peace of Soul (1949), Norman Vincent Peale's The Power of Positive Thinking (1952), and Billy Graham's Peace With God (1954). BEST SELLING RELIGION: A HISTORY OF POPULAR RELIGIOUS THOUGHT IN AMERICA AS REFLECTED IN RELIGIOUS BEST SELLERS, 1850-1960 BY Ralph Allison Carey A THESIS Submitted to Michigan State University in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHY Department of History 1971 T-.. K ‘ d iolw ‘O sun. ' p¢cw I . ‘v. ‘\ ‘q V m a A‘\ TABLE OF CONTENTS Page INTRODUCTION . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1 Chapter I. SENTIMENTAL RELIGION, 1850-1870 . . . . 8 II. THE CONVERSION THEME OF E. P. ROE. . . . 47 III. THE CHRIST-STORY TRADITION: BEN-HUR. . . 72 IV. SHAKING THE FOUNDATIONS: ROBERT ELSMERE . 107 V. SOCIAL CHRISTIANITY: IN HIS STEPS . . . 128 VI. MUSCULAR CHRISTIANITY: CONNOR, WRIGHT, CHURCHILL. . . . . . . . . . . . 154 VII. THE DECLINE OF BEST SELLING RELIGION, 1919-1939. . . . . . . . . . . . 194 VIII. THE QUEST FOR AN HISTORICAL RELIGION. . . 232 IX. PEACE AND POWER. . . . . . . . . . 280 X. POSTSCRIPT, THE NINETEEN SIXTIES . . . . 322 BIBLIOGRAPHICAL ESSAY . . . . . . . . . . 327 APPENDIX . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 342 ii “V v‘. .2. on. u.— "- ”h w i- . I o I If INTRODUCTION The history of popular thought in America includes, of necessity, a substantial amount of religious ideas. Any narrative of intellectual developments in America must con- cern itself with the pervasive nature of religious values and traditions. Yet the history of religious ideas must not be studied solely from the perspective of historical theology or ecclesiastical history. Popular religious thought in America cannot be adequately assessed through printed sermons, denominational literature, or the polemic literature of college and seminary writers. The limited audience of such intellectual contributions would suggest the need for sources more representative of popular culture. Popular literature--the newspaper, the magazine, the best seller--has a central role as source material in the study of pOpular culture. The best seller, in particular, furnishes the student of popular thought with important evidence regarding vox populi, even though in turn that is not vox dei. Frank Luther Mott's Golden Multitudes (New York, 1947) and James D. Hart's The Popular Book (new York, 1950) have provided us with excellent histories of popular literary taste in America. The general religious, senti- mental, democratic, and self-help themes in the history of l popular thought are revealed in these studies of best sellers. Religious best sellers, in particular, provide us with a substantial knowledge of popular religious thought. The religious best seller of all time, and in fact the all- time best seller in any category, has been the Bible. Published in many translations and editions, the Bible has probably led the next best seller in every year as well as accumulated an estimated total sales of well over two hundred million. In addition to the Bible, and the many companion devotional volumes which made up a large part of America's popular reading, books with religious themes frequently appeared in best selling proportions. From Michael Wiggles- worth's The Day of Doom (1662) to Morris L. West's The Shoes of the Fisherman (1963), best selling religion was a per- vasive part of popular American culture. In fact, of the twenty-one top best sellers listed by Frank Mott in 1947, four were clearly religious works. Charles Sheldon's In His Steps (1897) had ranked next to the Bible in sales, while Lew Wallace's Ben Hur (1880) Lloyd Douglas' The Robe (1942), and Hurlbut's Story of the Bible (1904) shared in the top best honors. By 1965, according to Alice Payne Hackett's calculations in 70 Years of Best Sellers, 1895-1965 (New York, 1967), Sheldon's In His Steps had fallen behind Dr. Spock's baby and child care book and Peyton Place on the all-time best seller list. Other religious best sellers that Miss Hackett concluded -t\-- J. had sold over two million copies were: Lew Wallace, Ben- Hur (1880); Fulton Oursler, The Greatest Story Ever Told (1949); Lloyd C. Douglas, The Robe (1942); Hurlbut's The Story of the Bible (1904); Douglas, Magnificent Obsession (1929); Henry Morton Robinson, The Cardinal (1950); and Norman Vincent Peale, The Power of Positive Thinking (1952). There were at least twenty more which had sold over one million copies. Any study of early American religious thought cer- tainly focuses on the forms of piety expressed in such best sellers as: Wigglesworth's The Day of Doom (1662); Richard Baxter, A Call to the Unconverted (1664); Lewis Bayly, The Practice of Piety (1665); John Bunyan, The Pilgrim's Pro- gress (1681); William Penn, No Cross, No Crown (1741); James Hervey, Meditations and Contemplations (1750); and John Fox, Book of Martyrs (1793). Pilgrim's Progress illustrated not only the religious interests of many in colonial times, but it continued to sell well into the nineteenth century. Its universal themes place it among those best sellers which reached classic status. This study of best selling religion begins with Susan Warner's The Wide, Wide World, published in 1850. It does so for several reasons. First, the religious best sellers of the colonial period have already played a large role in theassessments of that period's religious history. Second, the best sellers of the first half of the nineteenth century include only two religious works--Emanuel Sweden- borg, Heaven and Hell (1825) and Jacob Abbott, The Young Christian (1832). Third, Miss Warner's The Wide, Wide ngld is the first best selling religious novel written in America, and therefore, the forerunner of a long line of successors. Best selling religion in America was characterized by an anti-creedal, anti-denominational, form of piety which stressed a religion of the heart and practical Christian discipleship. While characterized by many of the social and religious currents of their age, most of the religious best sellers fail to reflect the major intel- lectual challenges to traditional orthodoxies. Although the heart religion and ethical concerns of this popular religious thought tended toward anti-intellectualism, it was rarely concerned with fundamentalist defenses of orthodoxy. The cold, formal creedalism of the church was seen as the enemy of vital faith more often than the scepticism of a non-believing world. The best selling religion of the eighteen fifties and sixties was sentimental and domestic in its emphasis. The Wide, Wide World of Susan Warner combined the crises of home and heart as did Maria Cummins' The Lamplighter (1854) and Augusta Jane Evans' Beulah (1859) and St. Elmo (1867). E. P. Roe stressed the conversion theme in Barriers Burned Away (1872) and Opening a Chestnut Burr (1874), while Hannah Whitall Smith promised abundant discipleship in The Christian‘s‘Secret of a Happy Life (1875). The Christ-story tradition appealed to readers of Joseph Holt Ingraham's, The Prince of the House of David (1855) and Lew Wallace's Ben-Hur (1880) just as it did later to the readers of Lloyd Douglas. The impact of Darwinian science and higher criticism in shaking the foundations of orthodoxy was reflected in Mrs. Humphrey Ward's Robert Elsmere (1888), Margaret Deland's John Ward, Preacher (1888), and Harold Frederic's The Damnation of Theron Ware (1896). Social Christianity, with its practical concern for a discipleship involving social reform, was the theme of Charles Sheldon's In His Steps (1897). A muscular Christianity was preached by Ralph Connor's Black Rock (1898) and Harold Bell Wright's best selling novels, That Printer of Udell's (1903), The Shepherd of the Hills (1907), and The Calling of Dan Matthews (1909). Winston Churchill's The Inside of the Cup (1913) combined themes in a muscular social gospel. The nineteen twenties and thirties experienced a decline in best selling religion as only Lloyd Douglas' Magnificent Obsession (1929) reached best selling pro- portions beyond the annual lists. Bruce Barton's The Man Nobody Knows (1925), E. Stanley Jones' Christ of the Indian Road (1925) and Henry C. Link's Return to Religion (1937) represent a variety of popular themes in this period of religious depression. The nineteen forties and fifties were decades of religious revival. The large quantity of best selling religious volumes testify to the popular revival of inter- est in religion. The appearance of names like Sholem Asch, Joshua Liebman, and Fulton J. Sheen on the best seller lists indicated the maturing pluralism of American religion. Sholem Asch's The Nazarene (1939), and The Apostle (1943), along with Lloyd C. Douglas' The Robe (1942) and The Big Fisherman (1948) revealed the popular revival's quest for historical roots. A quest for peace could also be found in such best sellers as Joshua Liebman's Peace of Mind (1946), Fulton J. Sheen's Peace of Soul (1949), Norman Vincent Peale's The Power of Positive Thinking (1952), and Billy Graham's Peace With'God (1954). A concluding introductory word regarding the selection of religious best sellers may be helpful. This study was based largely upon best sellers appearing in the previously mentioned works by Mott, Hart and Hackett. Mott's definition of a best seller was a book whose sales equaled 1 per cent of the total population of continental United States for the decade in which the book was published. Thus, a book published in the eighteen fifties was required to have a total sales of 225,000 in order to make best seller status. In 1900 the figure was 750,000; in 1940 it was 1,300,000. Mott also includes a list of "better sellers" which have come close to all-time best selling status. James Hart's criteria was less rigid but insuffici- ently clear to make it a reliable guide. Therefore, for 11163 jpurpose of this study, Mott's general definition of a best seller was followed with some flexibility allowed to iric:];ude Alice Payne Hackett's more recent sales data and rue]: annual lists for the period since 1895. These annual lists, drawn from Bookman during the period 1895-1912 and tfliexreafter from Publisher's Weekly supplement the longer range best selling patterns with the short range popular tastes. A religious best seller was assumed to be a literary Work, fiction or non-fiction, that gave a major if not Cenntral, role to religion in its plot or discussion. Such a.definition is difficult to apply with certainty to many <3f7 the novels and self-help literature of the mid-nineteenth century because of the heavily didactic nature of popular AHuerican writing. The many novels of Mrs. E. D. E. N. SCNJthworth, which reached best selling stature, were not 1Included on the basis that the religious interests and the didactic purpose are peripheral to her stories. Mrs. Stowe's conviction that Uncle Tom's Cabin had been written by God as dictated to her, is not enough to overcome the insufficient concern with religious ideas and institutions. without reflecting on the value of Mrs. Stowe's work as a sOurce for understanding popular culture, this study focuses on those best sellers which overtly offer their religious message. CHAPTER I SENTIMENTAL RELIGION, 1850-1870 American popular culture in the eighteen forties and fifties expressed a variety of preferences and tastes. The impact of the industrial revolution on the publishing business and the rise of popular literacy provided fertile ground for a maturing national culture. Popular tastes and preferences were increasingly reflected in the printed W0rd and the public arts. A pivotal period in the growth of the nation's culture, the ante bellum period has been carefully analyzed by cultural historian Carl Bode, who distinguished four principle complexes or clusters of qualities in the popular mind. Chauvinistic patriotism, aggressive materialism, religiosity, and sentimental love have been described by Bode as the major traits discernible in the mid-century American character.1 The religious and sentimental strains were the most Prominent in the ante bellum character. Manifested in many Phases of popular thought and culture, those strains were \ 1Carl Bode, The Anatomy of American Popular Culture, W (Berkeley and Los Angeles, 1959), pp. ix-xv. frequently combined. A sentimental religion emerged and characterized much of the popular literature of those two decades between 1850 and 1870. The Wide, Wide World, by Susan Warner, was published in 1850 and became the first novel with a central religious theme to reach the status of a best seller. Maria Cummins' The Lamplighter (1854), J- H. Ingraham's The Prince of the House of David (1855) , and two of Augusta Jane Evans' works-~Beu1ah (1859) and $2.. Elmo (1867)--followed Miss Warner's pioneer work as religious best sellers. The religious history of the first half of the nineteenth century in America had been one of notable growth in church membership and church influence. One of the im- Portant social trends in the nineteenth century was the remarkable success of an evangelical Protestantism. With the status of religion in low ebb at the beginning of the Century, the Protestant bodies increasingly adopted evangeli- cal and revivalist patterns in their successful effort to Christianize what they deemed a pagan society. By 1850, revivalism was firmly implanted in most of the major de- nominations (led by Baptists and Methodists), and the C=hurches' influence in the culture had increased enor— m(bus 1y . 2 \ 2Timothy L. Smith, Revivalism and Social Reform (New York, 1957), pp. 15-33, 44. 10 The social influence of the revivalist churches was far greater than their increased numbers would imply. European and American observers, alike, commented on the religious nature of American society. It was a period of voluntarism and interdenominational efforts in missionary and benevolent enterprises. Bible, tract, missionary, and temperance societies pursued projects that effected the national culture for decades to come.3 A time of religious ferment, the eighteen fifties experienced continued striv- ings of perfectionism, millenialism, and utopianism as well as the theological conflicts between Calvinists, Arminiams, Unitarians, and Transcendentalists. Yet the impact of the Second Great Awakening, which lasted from 1800 to 1835, was one of reorientation for religious thought as well as practice. The adoption of revivalism by most of American Protestantism corresponded with a decline in systematic theology or creedalism as a test for orthodoxy. Calvinism was reinterpreted and modi- fied until the distinction between it and Arminianism was nunimal. William McLoughlin argues that this Evangelicalism evolved from this decline of the old orthodoxy in the face caf the permeation of American culture by Scottish Common Sense philosophy, Arminiam theology, and revivalist methods.4 31bid., p. 44. 4William G. McLoughlin, ed., The American Evangeli- cals, 1800-1900: An Anthology (New York, 1968), pp. 1-14. 11 By the eighteen forties and fifties a Romantic Evangelicalism had come to dominate the thinking and preach- ing of the churches. Represented by the post-Kantian ideal— ism of Horace Bushnell and Henry Ward Beecher, rather than the transcendentalism of Emerson and Theodore Parker, Romantic Evangelicalism continued the pragmatic, non- creedal Protestantism in a romantic and sentimental version. It emphasized the intuitive perception of truth through the feelings or emotions of the heart, rather than the common sense rationalism of the Scottish Realists or Lockean Empiricists. The Romantic Evangelicals stressed the personality of Jesus rather than the moral order of God. They also provided a sentimental idealization of women, children, and parenthood as the embodiments of Divine grace.5 This transition from "Head" religion to "Heart" religion occurred in Evangelical religion notably in the 1830's accompanied by the more frequent appeals to the feelings, the imagination, and emotions, than to reason and conscience. Horace Bushnell's Christian Nurture (1847) and God in Christ (1849) were pleas for an end to dogmatism and pedantic creedalism as well as to the revivalistic (Iveremphasis on crisis conversion. Arguing that truth was ruyt of the natural understanding, Bushnell saw man's 51bid.. pp. 14-15. 12 relationship to God in almost Coleridgean terms. Nature, the Christian environment, and the organic development of Christian faith were themes articulated by Bushnell and shared by the Romantic Evangelicals.6 Heart religion, which rejected the dogmatism of creed or reason, shared much of the spirit of pietism. Although Charles Finney never rejected systematic theology, he introduced the pietistic emphasis on "consciousness" to American revivalism.7 If American pietism is what McLoughlin calls "the belief that every individual is himself responsi- ble for deciding the rightness or wrongness of every issue (large or small) in terms of a higher moral law," then Romantic Evangelicalism contributed to the pietistic strain in American culture.8 As Richard Hofstadter has pointed out, the religious "enthusiasm" of evangelicals stressed direct personal access to God which often led to both anti- intellectualism and anti-institutionalism.9 This Romantic Evangelicalism devoted itself to sentimental sermons on "The Christian Home" and "Motherhood." 61bid.p pp. 16-17. 7Perry Miller, ThglLife of the Mind In America (New York, 1965), pp. 30-33. 8William G. McLoughlin, "Pietism and the American CHLaracter," The American Experience, ed. Hennig Cohen (Boston, 1968), p. 49. 9Richard Hofstadter, Anti-Intellectualism In American Life (New York, 1964), pp. 55-56, 421. 0" O Dub- :- I! .- (I) I .vg‘. acre. O..- s...- “S. s.‘ " I}: a. _\ “. 13 The innocence and purity of childhood, and the saintliness and virtue of womanhood were visions shared by Evangelicals as well as the larger Victorian culture. McLoughlin argues that it was they "who made home and hearth the central fea- 10 The Sentimental years, tures of American sentimentalism." as social historian E. Douglas Branch called the period from 1836 to 1860, were years in which romantic thought was enthroning sentiment in both religion and literature.11 Heart religion, with its concern for touching the sensibilities of churchgoers, revised the whole quality of hymnody. Since men's hearts could be touched more easily through poetry and song, Romantic Evangelicalism emphasized melodies that could arouse sinners to the recognition of God's love and invoke visions of heaven.12 This rise of interest in sacred melody, corresponding to the rise of revivalism, brought Lowell Mason of Boston into prominence as the dominating musical figure in the mid-nineteenth cen- tury. His hymns, as well as his nonreligious music, were cheerful, joyous expressions of the spirit of the age.13 ¥ loMcLoughlin, The American Evangelicals, p. 17. llE. Douglas Branch, The Sentimental Years, 1836- 1860 (New York, 1965), p. 325. 12McLoughlin, The American Evangelicals, pp. 19-20. l3Bode, op. cit., pp. 19-24. 14 The most prolific publisher in the United States at mid-century was the American Tract Society. In 1885, the Society's annual production of story-sermons had passed the 12,000,000 mark. Its number of bound volumes exceeded 1,000,000. Colporteurs, who were part-time missionaries and tract salesmen, traveled throughout the society distri- buting pious literature. Preaching an earnest, loving Christianity, the Colporteurs and their tracts were effec- tive agents in the spread of the evangelical Protestant- ism.l4 15 The The Bible was, of course, Ehe best seller. American Bible Society was the chief distributor of Bibles. Founded in 1816, through a cooperative effort of several evangelical groups, this nondenominational society was at its greatest vigor by the mid-fifties. Between 1851 and 1856 the production of Bibles and New Testaments averaged almost three—quarters of a million a year. The success of the Society during the ante bellum years was reflected in the impact this best seller made on American culture. The presence of King James vocabulary in prose and the Biblical parables, citations, quotations, and illusions in American literature are obvious evidences of this book's influence.16 l41bid.. pp. 132-140. 15Frank Luther Mott, Golden Multitudes (New York, 1947)! p. 297. 16Bode, op. cit., pp. 140-144. ..~- - .p-u ‘ v-u . .~, on». o nu- ‘- v 0. ['1 .Q P.‘ ~“ ! ‘A be u..- n.“ ‘l‘ \.‘ 15 It is not surprising that, along with tracts and fiction- ized manuals like T. S. Arthur's Ten Nights In a Bar-Room, the Biblical novel should appear. J. H. Ingraham's Th3 Prince of the House of David was further evidence of the popularity of the Biblical story. In addition to the American Tract Society and the American Bible Society, American publishing in general was experiencing its biggest boom to date. The eighteen forties and fifties were decades of outstanding growth for magazines l7 Harper's New Monthly Magazine appeared in and books. 1850, with its fare of Dickens and other popular figures of English fiction. Appealing to a wide American audience, Harper's led the general magazine field throughout the fifties.18 American readers also supported two important sorts of special-interest magazines: the women's magazine and the religious journal. Godeyfs Lady's Book and denomi- national periodicals reached large numbers of readers, even if not all the same constituency. Yet Godey's fiction was rarely concerned with religious themes and denominational journals disapproved of fiction, leaving the field open to the writers and publishers of books.19 17Ibid., pp. 109-110, 258-59. 18Frank Luther Mott, A_History of American Magazines, anlm II (Cambridge, Mass., 1957), pp. 29-30. 19Ibid., pp. 56-61. 16 Book publishing reflected the general economic and social expansion of the period. Mechanical improvements in printing and improvements in sales and distribution tech- niques led to a tripling of the value of book sales during 20 Much of the success the two decades before the Civil War. of the publishing trade was also due to the emergence of a new reading public, which was becoming increasingly feminine. According to one estimate, women composed four- fifths of the middle-class public which devoted its leisure time to reading.21 With the growth of a middle-class, many women were freed from much of the domestic drudgery by new kitchen stoves and sewing machines. Having been educated in free public schools, these women could join men as customers of the book publishers.22 At first, this new growing feminine audience joined men in their reading tastes. The works of Scott, Dickens, Thackeray, and Bulwer-Lytton were very popular, as were the native authors, Cooper and Irving. Yet there was a growing literature :2; women by_women. Starting in the eighteen thirties, feminine writers reached a position of dominance 23 in popular writing by the fifties. Women read the Bronte 20Bode, op. cit., pp. 109-110. 21James D. Hart, The Popular Book (New York, 1950), p. 86. 22Helen Waite Paposhvily, All the Happy Endings (New York, 1956), pp. 37-38. 23Ibid., pp. 37-41. l7 sisters and Jane Austen, and at the same time contributed to an avalanche of native feminine fiction, that was largely characterized by sentimental and domestic themes.24 Domestic novels with sentimental treatment of feminine characters, often young girls, gave rise to a new literary ggppg. The following names are only representative of the many popular domestic sentimentalists who appeared in the eighteen fifties: "Grace Greenwood," Caroline Lee Hentz, "Fanny Fern," Ann S. Stephens, "Fanny Forester," Sarah Josepha Hale, Maria Cummins, Lucretia P. Hale, Mary Jane Holmes, Louisa M. Alcott, E. D. E. N. Southworth, "The Widow Bedott" (Mrs. Whitcher), and Augusta Jane Evans 25 Wilson. This popular literary activity, largely a second flowering of New England culture led Fred Lewis Pattee to characterize the decade as "the feminine fifties."26 These feminine writers employed a Home-and-Jesus formula, which combined the domestic and religious themes in a sentimental wrapping. The strains of family life, the moral education of youth, and the religious solution for all problems were the elements of this new fiction much as 24Hart, op. cit., pp. 86-90; Mott, Golden Multi- tudes, p. 122. 25Herbert Ross Brown, The Sentimental Novel in IUnerica, 1789-1860 (Durham, 1940), pp. 323-357. 26Fred Lewis Pattee, The Feminine Fifties (New York, 1940), pp. 50—67, 110-129. n. ‘D .I ‘- o L (I, 18 they had been in behavior manuals of the previous gener- 27 Feminine movelists Mary Jane Holmes and Mrs. ation. E.D.E.N. Southworth wrote sentimental domestic novels annually, many of which became best sellers. Yet it was Susan Warner and Augusta Jane Evans Wilson who went beyond moralism in their best sellers to write novels with pre- dominantly religious themes. Several themes are common to the religious best sellers of the fifties and sixties. Within the broad sentimental and pietistic interpretation of Christian discipleship the reader is introduced to the concept of Christian conversion, the blessings of complete submission to the Divine Will and its Providential Care, and the con— solation of religious faith in the face of the death of a loved one and the other trials of a pilgrim's progress in "stepping heavenward." Except for Augusta Jane Evans Wilson, the authors tend to ignore ethical and theological questions that would tax the mental faculties of a Sunday schooler. Religious feelings or "sentiment," fed by fre- quent devotional activities (particularly Bible reading and prayer), become the source of strength in this "vale of tears" and the key to personal and domestic happiness. This sentimental interpretation of Christian «doctrine is the basis for America's first best selling 27Mott, op. cit., p. 122. 19 religious novel, The Wide, Wide World. Written by Susan Warner, an emotional, religious New Englander, the book was first issued in December, 1850, under the pseudonym Elizabeth Wetherell. Originally rejected by almost all the leading book publishers of New York, The Wide, Wide World was accepted by G. P. Putnam on his mother's recommendation that "If you never publish another book, publish this." Putnam's never had a larger success. Within three months it had sold 1,500 copies, by 1852 it was in its fourteenth edition, and in 1892 it was still popular in a fifty cent 28 29 edition. Altogether it sold over a half-million copies. The book was favorably received in the early reviews. Van Wyck Brooks' later described it as a "swamp of lachry- mosity," a "malarial" book featuring "a little prig."30 Alexander Cowie's view that "Miss Warner rants about religion" and tries to "sanctify a saint" would not have been considered a liability for a domestic sentimentalist.31 It was praised by contemporaries as a work of almost fault- less excellence which was read with the most heartfelt sympathy and delight.32 28Pattee, op. cit., pp. 55-56. 29Mott, op. cit., p. 124. 30Van Wyck Brooks, The Flowering of New England (New York, 1952), p. 428. 31Alexander Cowie, The Rise of the American Novel (New York, 1948), p. 418. 32Pattee, op. cit., pp. 56-57. 0”- Di. e! ‘a '1. “ \u’ - hu- 1 , n to h. (In. 0" 0" 3“ Y 20 The all-pervading religious EEEEE of Miss Warner's book must have been a chief factor in its popularity with an age which still demanded a moral lesson fiction.33 It is the story of little Ellen Montgomery's physical and spiritual pilgrimage through "the wide, wide world." Separated from her mother while a young girl, Ellen is forced to journey to live with an unkind aunt. Mourning the loss of her mother and reacting angrily to her hostile Aunt Fortune, she finds it difficult to love God more than mother and to overcome evil with good. The rest of the book becomes a chronicle of her "trials without" and ”trials within" as she journeys through "the wide, wide world" in search of happiness. That happiness, sobered by tribulation, comes only after years of cultivating the "fruits of religion and discipline."34 The fervent piety of the mature Ellen and of the minister's daughter and the divinity-student son who guided her, was a reflection of Miss Warner's own religious con- victions. Her sister, Anna B. Warner, wrote of Susan's work that: It was written in closest reliance upon God: for thoughts, for power, and for words. Not the mere vague wish to write a book that should do service to her Master: but a vivid, constant looking to him for 33Hart’ 02. Cit. I pp. 89-900 34Susan Warner, The Wide, Wide World (New York: Fenno, 1904), p. 397. 21 guidance and help: the writer and her work both laid humbly at the Lord's feet. In that sense, the book was written upon her knees: and the Lord's blessing has followed it down to this day. How many of whom even I have heard, trace their heart conversion straight to that blessing on the pages of the "Wide, Wide World."35 This was only the first of many religious best sellers whose success was to be attributed to Divine Inspiration. The union of sentiment and religion in The Wide, Wide World is exemplified by little Ellen's approach to all personal and ethical problems. She "feels" that she is not a Christian; she has a "feeling" that Sunday ought to be spent in growing better and learning good things; and she finds her "feelings" slowly changed in harmony with the "Bible words" she has been reading. She comes to have a "sense" of God's love in her heart, as described by Mr. Baxter (probably referring to Richard Baxter, the English pietist, and author of the best selling A Call to the Un- converted (1664) and The Saint's Everlasting Rest). In addition to the Bible, the best selling piety of Baxter and John Bunyan are Ellen's favorites. In fact, the little girl's pilgrimage seems to be patterned after Bunyan's Pilgrim's Progress. Given a copy by the Divinity student, John, Ellen received great com- fort and contentment from "the pilgrim's progress from this ‘world to a better." After reading it or the passages about 35Anna B. Warner, Susan Warner (New York, 1909), p. 264. 0" Cl. 1 22 heaven in the BiBlE (Revelation was one of her favorite Biblical books), she would press her hands together and say to herself "'I will try to be a good pilgrim!’" Heaven is her goal and the "wide, wide world" is certainly a vale of tears. This pietistic emphasis on the devotional life was another common denominator in the religious thought of the sentimental era. Devotional manuals as well as fiction stressed the argument that the Christian pilgrim's progress 36 Ellen is quite dependent on Bible reading and prayer. Montgomery finds herself unable to cope with the inner and outer trials when the practice of piety, reading her mother's Bible and praying, has been neglected. Her struggle to become a Christian revolves around her failures in her devotional life. This is stated clearly in her first conversation with the minister's daughter, Alice, who says: ”You are grieved to find yourself so unlike what you would be. You wish to be a child of the dear Savior, and to have your heart filled with His Love, and to do what will please Him. Do you?--Have you gone to Him day by day, and night by night, and told Him so?-—have you begged Him to give you strength to get the better of your wrong feelings, and asked Him to change you and make you his child?" "At first I did, Ma'am," said Ellen in a low voice. "Not lately?" 36Bode, op. cit., pp. 132-141. 23 “No Ma'am;” in a low tone still and looking down. "Then you have neglected your Bible and prayer for some time past?? Ellen hardly uttered, "Yes." "Why, my child?" "I don't know, Ma'am," said Ellen, weeping,--“that is one of the things that made me think myself so very wicked. I couldn't like to read my Bible or pray either, though I always used to before. My Bible lay down quite at the bottom of my trunk, and I even didn't like to raise my things enough to see the cover of it. I was so full of bad feelings I didn't feel fit to pray or read either.” "Ah! That is the way with the wisest of us," said her companion; ”how apt we are to shrink most from our Physician just when we are in most need of Him. But, Ellen dear, that isn't right. No hand but His can tough that sickness you are complaining of. Seek it, love, seek it. He will hear and help you, no doubt of it, in every trouble you carry simply and humbly to His feet;--He has promised, you know." They pray together and Ellen promises not to forget her Bible and prayer again, and more weeping, but now with the joy of finding a friend who can provide such spiritual help and hope. Her troubles surely will grow less. Reading the "sweet Bible words" provides Ellen with a refuge from the hardships and sorrows of the "wide, wide world" by directing her thoughts either toward heaven (and reunion with loved ones) or toward "the gentle promises and sweet comforting words" of Christ to the weak and sorrowing. .Prayer was precious because of the "Friend who draws closer to His children the closer they draw to Him." It was also a joy to Ellen, when separated from loved ones, to "think 24 that He who hears prayer is equally present with all His people, and that though thousands of miles lie between the petitioner and the petitioned-for the breath of prayer may span the distance and pour blessings on the far-off head." The Providential workings of a sovereign God is another theme of Miss Warner's common to the best selling religious literature of the period. The Heavenly Father or "Friend" knows what is best for his children. His will is perfect, ordering what is best. The Biblical view that "all things work together for good," leads Miss Warner's characters to attribute everything to Providence. Even trouble and sorrow come from God, although "God sends no trouble upon His children but in love; and though we cannot see how, He will no doubt make all this work for our good." The view that "Good came out of evil" dominates this tale of Divine Providence. Submission to the Divine Will is necessary, of course, if Good is to result. "All things work together for good" for those who love Him. This becomes Ellen's problem--how to love Him (more than Mother) and to submit to the trials ordained by His will. Submission becomes easier, however, when she realizes that "God is faithful" and "He can and He will . . . make up to us more than all ‘we have lost." The Reward is not conceived in material terms by Miss Warner. The goal of these divinely planned tribulations is a temperate and beautiful Christian character 25 that will be attractive to others and will eventually inherit the promise of heaven. In order to achieve this goal, little Ellen, must be deprived of her Mother, security, and Home so that she will have no hindrances to her love of God. As a traveler told her: "Sometimes He sees that if He lets them alone, His Children will love some dear thing on the earth better than Himself, and He knows they will not be happy if they do so; and then, because He loves them, He takes it away,--perhaps it is a dear mother, or a dear daughter,--or else He hinders their enjoyment of it; that they may remember Him, and give their whole hearts to Him. He wants their whole hearts, that He may bless them." God's plan and purpose for Ellen is not complete until she has seen her friend, Alice taken from her in death and has been separated from John by an ocean. Reunion with native country and loved "brother" John (Miss Warner leaves this possible romantic relationship before it becomes explicit) is possible only after she has had sufficient time and tried to develop the virtues of self-discipline and religious devotion. Susan Warner's commitment to a Sovereign God who orders lives through trials and temptations according to His purpose, was not a commitment to thoroughgoing Calvin— ism. Her "New Light" Presbyterianism or more broadly, her evangelical Protestantism is reflected in the image of a living God who responds favorably to human initiative in the conversion eXperience. Her most common name for God v V. 'v 0- Cl. N- .- .I I 26 is "Friend." Ellen and her spiritual companions are seek- ing and serving a personal "Friend" who hears their every cry and responds with love. No better Friend can be found than the one who "Sticketh closer than a brother." Ellen learned this, of course, only when she "had no other friends to lean upon." The role of human effort, in establishing a faith relationship with God, is considerable in the opinion of the author of Wide, Wide World. One must not trust in striving or works, but in God alone; one must try to love God and to overcome evil with good. Ellen's struggle to become a Christian involved considerable human effort, which was rewarded when love of God and submission to His will became the object of those efforts. Ellen was often counseled to "try hard," almost leaving the reader with the impression that self-discipline may well have been the essence of Christian discipleship for Miss Warner. The individualism of mid-nineteenth century religious thought is reflected in Ellen's search for per- sonal piety and in her Arminian faith. Ethical problems are presented as being entirely personal and individual- istic. Should she obey her guardian's order to drink wine or follow her own practice of abstinence? (In an age of temperance societies, the temperance question gets only an oblique reference by Miss Warner.) No Kingdom of God within history is expected. As John put it: "We must Ian I ‘ 27 wait till we join the spirits of the just made perfect, before we see society that will be all we wish for." Little of the millennial reform spirit here! The new heaven and new earth described in the book of Revelation would be built, it is implied, not by human efforts, but by God on the ruins of this world. Miss Warner's religious individualism does not result in a camp meeting or revivalist expression of the conversion experience. Although there is little of Horace Bushnell's "Christian nurture" in Ellen's wide, wide world, she certainly does not experience an "anxious bench" con- version. Long after her initial confessions of sin and commitments to follow her Savior, she still cannot call herself a Christian. Resolving to be a Christian did not result in an "instantaneous" conversion but was only the first step in a long, slow struggle to be dispossessed of her evil spirits. Discipline and much Bible reading and prayer were the means by which little Ellen's heart was seized with Christian principle. A high standard of piety is required of this sentimental heroine, but she is not an example of frontier "crisis" conversion or Methodist per- fectionism. The roots of sin are too deep for Ellen to be suddenly transformed into a new creature without fault. Pride and resentment were constantly cropping up, particu- larly when the devotional life had been neglected. This 28 doctrine of sin was certainly not that of nineteenth or twentieth century religious liberalism. Sin, for Miss Warner's characters, was inherent in human nature, even that of a child. The power of sin, this "hard-hearted" nature, was overcome only by extensive prayer and trust in Him. The hope of a "new heaven and a new earth wherein righteousness should dwell" was based on the pessimistic view that this "wide wide world" had been filled with sin until the earth groaned under the weight of sorrow and death. Contrary to a "sentimental formula" based upon an optimistic view of human goodness, the sentimental religious book depended on the pervasive power of sin as a formidable obstacle in the struggle for personal piety. The religious thought of a particular culture is often reflected in the hymns or religious songs of the period. Many religious novels include references to these hymns, which support, in most cases, the emphasis of the written word. The Wide, Wide World is the first, again, to illustrate this fact. Ellen Montgomery's favorite hymns reflect the pietistic discipleship already described. "How sweet the Name of Jesus Sounds" with its emphasis on making the "wounded spirit whole" and calming the "troubled breast" particularly appealed to tearful Ellen. "How Firm a Foun— dation" and "Jesus, Lover of My Soul" were favorites also. "Rock of Ages" and "O Canaan Land" also combined her inter- ests in religious peace now and heaven to come. 29 Two years later Susan Warner contributed a second work of sentimental piety to the "feminine fifties." Entitled Queechy (1852), this novel trailed the earlier 37 A more vigorous and less doleful story, volume in sales. Queechy is yet another story of the spiritual growth of its feminine characters. The leading character is a girl who falls from her inherited position of luxury into poverty learning thereby the same spiritual lessons Ellen Mont- gomery learnedx' Again, feeling and emotion, rather than action and sensation characterize the literary work and the religious thought of Miss Warner.38 The fifties saw the publication of a number of class- ics of American literature. This was the age of Hawthorne-- The Scarlett Letter, The House of Seven Gables, and The Blithedale Romance. Melville's three works of the period-- White-Jacket, Mobprick, and Pierre--were largely unread. This was also the age of Thoreau's Walden and Whitman's Leaves of Grass. But this was the age of feminine best sellers. Every single one of the top sentimental religiou;\\) 39 works sold more than all of these literary works combined. // 37Mott, op. cit., p. 124. 38Pattee' OE. Cit. ' pp. 56-570 39Hart, op. cit., pp. 91-92. 30 Hawthorne's reaction is well known. Writing to his publisher, in 1855, to tell him of his decision to stay in Europe, Hawthorne said: America is now wholly given to a d----d mob of scribbling women, and I should have no chance of success while the public is occupied with their trash --and should be ashamed of myself if I did succeed. What is the mystery of these innumerable editions of the 'Lamplighter,‘ and other books neither better nor worse?--worse they could not be, and better they need not be, when they sell by the 100,000.40 Published in 1854 by John P. Jewett of Boston, who published Uncle Tom's Cabin two years earlier, Maria Cummins' The Lamplighter sold forty thousand copies in the first eight weeks and a hundred thousand within the first decade. Long a popular book, its sales eventually surpassed that of the Wide, Wide World.41 One student of religious best sellers, Willard Thorp, argues that The Lamplighter is a pious novel but not a religious novel because the "crux of the action is not the effect which the Christian message has on the lives 42 The latter half of the novel is of the characters." certainly a middle-class success story and the piety tends to be platitude rather than exposition. However, the 0Caroline Tichnor, Hawthorne and His Publisher (Boston, 1913), pp. 140-141. 41Mott, op. cit., pp. 124-125. 42Willard Thorp, "The Religious Novel as Best Seller in America," in J. W. Smith and A. L. Jamison, ed., Religious Perspectives in American Culture (Princeton, 1961), p. 207. 31 central role of religion in the early part of the novel, as well as its pietistic themes which were common to this ggppg, make this best seller a part of the illustrative sources for sentimental religious thought.43 Gerty, the heroine of The Lamplighter, is another Ellen Montgomery. An orphaned waif, Gerty is rescued from the Boston slums (a touch of realism not found in the 3392' Wide World) and from a cruel guardian by a friendly lamp- lighter, True Flint. "Uncle True," with the help of the Sullivans next door, raises Gerty as well as the old bachelor knows how. Uncle True's death throws the young girl onto the wide world again to be rescued this time by a saintly blind lady, Emily Graham. Much of the rest of Miss Cummins' novel is concerned with Gerty's sentimental attachment to Miss Emily and her romantic social success. More courageous than Susan Warner, Miss Cummins concludes the story with several proper love scenes between Gerty and her long separated childhood sweetheart, Willie Sullivan. The Lamplighter follows the pietistic theme of Susan Warner's best seller. In the first chapters it becomes immediately apparent that there is need for "Light in Darkness." Gerty's darkness has resulted in a hot, ——_ 43Maria Cummins, The Lamplighter (New York: A. L0 Burt, node). 32 uncontrollable temper which spurs her to strike out at all the injustice which befalls her. A complete pagan, she comes to know God through the efforts of Willie and Miss Emily. Knowing Him brings the source of strength necessary to conquer self, to sacrifice personal desires to fight life's battles, and to find comfort in the face of man's wrath and in times of grief and sorrow. Perfect submission to the will of an All Wise, Righteous and per- sonal God, leads to self-control, virtue, and holiness. God not only judgeth righteously but rewards the virtuous. For Gerty that reward is not entirely reserved for the hereafter as she finds happiness, financial security, and romance in this life. All the elements of this popular religious litera— ture are found in this passage about Gerty: . . . She has locked the doors, made all things safe and comfortable, and now sits down to read, to meditate, and pray. Her trials and cares are multi- plying. A great grief stares her in the face, and a great responsibility; but she shrinks not from either. No! on the contrary, she thanks God that she is here; that she had the resolution to forsake pleasure and ease, and in spite of her own weakness and man's wrath, to place herself in the front of life's battle, and bravely wait its issues. She thanks God that she knows where to look for help. But, though her heart is brave and her faith firm, she has a woman's tender nature; and, as she sits alone she weeps--weeps for herself, and for him who, far away in a foreign land, is counting the days, the months, and years which shall restore him to a mother he is destined never to see again. But remembering that she is to stand in the place of a child to that parent, and that her hand must soothe the pillow of the invalid, and minister to all her wants, comes the stern necessity of self-control--a necessity to which Gertrude has 33 long since learned to submit--and, rallying all her calmness and fortitude, she wipes away the tears, and commends herself to Him who is strength to the weak and comfort to the sorrowing. A "blessed religion" sustains the heart and a "heavenly faith" leads one through suffering to the perfect joy of submission to the Goodness and Wisdom of Providence. The Prince of the House of David: or, Three Years in the Holy City, published in 1855, was described by its author, the Reverend J. H. Ingraham, as "an account of all the scenes and wonderful incidents in the life of Jesus of Nazareth." This sacred history was an expanded version of Gospel writers' accounts, emphasizing the miracles of Christ in order to prove His divinity. Epistolary in form, the novel features a young Jewess, Adina, who writes to her father describing her contacts with the miraculous prophet, Jesus. Her father, along with the reader, is entreated to accept the historicity of the supernatural activities of this Messiah. This attack on rationalism and scepticism, including liberal or Unitarian Christianity, was to become a major theme of religious best selling writers. Orthodoxy's fight against the new liberalism, whether of the Unitarian or more radical transcendental variety, received best selling assistance from Augusta Jane Evans Wilson. Of all the "d----d mob of scribbling women" whose first books were published in the fifties, the most talented as well as one of the most popular was bus. Wilson. Beulah (1859), with its defense of Methodist 34 orthodoxy against scepticism, and St. Elmo (1867), the erudite and yet most popular of domestic novels, estab- lished Augusta Jane Evans Wilson as probably the most successful champion of popular Victorian culture, including its "sentimental religion."44 Religious controversy and apologetics were of minor interest to most of the feminine writers of the fifties. The domestic novels were less concerned to attack "liberal" thought than they were to affirm their relatively simple "religion of the heart." Theological differences and doctrinal squabbles did not concern these advocates of a pietistic religion of feeling, who furthermore, were writ- ing for the widest audience possible. Augusta Jane Evans, however, while mirroring much of the mid-Victorian tra- dition, was an exception to this aspect of the sentimental tradition, with her excursions into the current philosophi- cal and theological battles. Whether it was a cold, emotion-starving Calvinism or a transcendental mysticism, any form of sterile faith was confronted with the truth by "Beulah" or Edna Earl of St. Elmo. Born in 1835, Augusta Jane Evans experienced a varied childhood in Columbus, Georgia and San Antonio, Texas. Frontier and slave-holding society, as well as ¥ 44William Perry Fidler, Augpsta EvansIWilson, 1835-1909: A;Biography (Birmingham, Ala., 1951), pp. 3-7. 35 wealth and poverty were a part of her early life, and these provided her with material for her writings. Her first book, Inez (1855), which was written while she was still in her teens, described the Texas War of Independence within the framework of an attack on the errors and evil influences of Catholicism. A badly written book, its sales never entitled it to popular rank. The evident desire to combat theological heresy, although tempered later by her own religious struggles, foreshadowed her efforts in the two "best sellers."45 The years, 1855-1859, were difficult ones for Miss Evans. Having read the masters of that age of romantic idealism--Goethe, Coleridge, Wordsworth, Carlyle, Tennyson, Cardinal Newman, Arnold, Emerson, Thoreau, Melville, Whit- man, Lanier, and Lord Byron--she experienced an intellectual and religious struggle between the "reflections of that Philosophical Age" and her orthodox Christian training. A series of letters from Augusta Jane to a scholarly young Methodist preacher, the Reverend Walter Harriss, reveal the doubts she had concerning the very foundations of Christi- anity. Her speculations tortured her spirit, forcing her to seek for "Eternal truths" from the philosophic traditions of Western society.46 4SIbid., pp. 9-46. 461bid., pp. 47-50. 36 The battle was won for orthodoxy. Having gone "clean through that slough of mis-called philoSOphy" she came out on the other side, rejecting the atheistic meta- physicians for the peace of mind of "blind faith." Nature and art were not to be rejected as unfit vessels, however; rather they were to be accepted as teachers of moral truths. Art could elevate, refine, and sanctify the heart! Miss Evan's mission had been found: an artistic endeavor that would guide its followers toward Christ's Gospel.47 Beulah was an autobiographical record of this intellectual battle and an exposition of art's religious purpose. The conflict between Eggpp and mipd, became the subject of Beulah. A fictional confession or record of Augusta Jane's own struggle to preserve her orthodox Methodism from the dangers of scepticism, Beulah mirrors the sentimental piety of the age. The heroine, loved by a Dr. Guy Hartwell, regards her suitor only with the affection of a girl for her guardian. During the five years in which they are separated, Beulah studies great literary works and struggles with scepticism. After hundreds of pages of sentiment, including the usual floods of tears and agonizing prayers, she becomes a Christian again and marries Dr. Hartwell on his return. The author leaves Beulah, with her feminine intuition, guiding her husband into Heaven. 47Ibid., pp. 50-55. 37 In contrast to most sentimental novels, Beulah, and later St. Elmo, present the reader with a parade of learning which could have served as instruction in the successful defense of orthodoxy or in the futility of theological speculation. Miss Evans must have felt that art's function was not only to preach the Gospel but to discuss theology, philosophy, literature, and science for the cultural benefit of the reader. Also, the "case for orthodoxy" seemed to necessitate this futile pursuit of a rational basis for religious faith. Beulah is launched, then, on a "Sea of Cosmogonies." She reads Poe's "Eureka" and is subverted by the "seemingly infallible reasoning" of this humanism. She has reached "the portal through which she entered the vast Pantheon of Speculation." Emerson, Carlyle, Goethe, Theodore Parker, Richter, Feurbach, Kant, and Coleridge all follow. She doubts "the plan of redemption as taught by divines, as laid down in the New Testament" and wonders about the justice of cursing "a race in order to necessitate a Savior." Having done with German mysticism and transcendentalism, Beulah flirts with Locke, Descartes, Sidney Smith, Hume, Spinoza, and others. Radical doubt forces her to cry out wearily: "Oh better die than live as I have lived, in perpetual struggles! What is life worth without peace of mind, without hope." Rational argument, having led her to reject Christian Theism, now, however, leads her to reject an uncaused lawful 38 Emiverse. God must be the First Mover of causes and the Creator of life. She humbles "her proud intellect," leaves the "icy shadow" of scepticism, and returns to the safety of "the holy religion of Jesus Christ," where her "weary spirit found rest . . . that rest which only the exhausted wanderer through the burning wastes of specu- lation can truly comprehend and appreciate." The tyranny of the intellect has been defeated by the cry of the "heart." Sentimental piety has had a "learned" defense. The period between the publication of Beulah (1859) and of St. Elmo (1867) was a period of intense work by the American Bible Society and the American Tract Society, but no major religious works were published which became best sellers. Miss Evans turned her writing talents to the "cause" of the South, and as a propagandist for the Con- federacy she wrote a novel entitled, Macaria (1863), which idealized Southerners and the South. Emotionally defending the "Brave Soldiers of the Southern Army," Miss Evans moralized in typically domestic sentimentalist fashion.48 Following the war, she crusaded for war memorials to honor Confederate dead before turning to the task of writing what became one of the top best sellers of all time. St. Elmo appeared in 1867 and was a prodigious instantaneous success. Within four months the publisher 481bid., pp. 84-127. 39 could boast of a sale approaching one million copies. Its total sales cannot be estimated accurately, but before the advent of book clubs it ran a close third to Uncle Tom's 93233 and Ben-Hur among the all-time best sellers in Ameri- can fiction.49 For some years after 1867 parish ministers were astonished at the number of male infants presented for christening with the unusual name of St. Elmo. Plantations, steamboats, girls' schools, hotels, articles of merchandise, and thirteen American towns shared the name with the chil- 50 dren. A parody, entitled St. Twelvemo, was written by humorist C. H. Webb attributing Edna's conversational ability to a dictionary swallowed during infancy.51 The sentimental version of Christianity has its most popular presentation in the novel, St. Elmo. Lacking real- ism, the novel accurately reflected the sentimental prejudices and emotions of its time. The emphasis on "feeling," as a guide to truth and beauty, could be found in frontier poli- tics, customs, and art, as well as in evangelical religion. As Augusta Jane Evans' biographer puts it: "St. Elmo is as Openly, as unashamedly sentimental as 'Home Sweet Home,‘ or 491bid., pp. 128-129. 50Earnest Elmo Calkins, "St. Elmo, or, Named for a Best Seller,” Satugday Review of Literature (Dec. 16, 1939), vol. 21, no. 8, p. 3. 51Mott, op 'cit., p. 127. 40 the dramatic version of 'Rip Van Winkle,’ or the sermons at a camp meeting. . . ."52 Edna Earl, in the tradition of Ellen Montgomery and Gerty True, is orphaned and must make a pilgrimage through a wide, wide world. Following a train accident, the young girl is nursed back to health by Mrs. Murray, the mistress of a large Southern plantation. The story concerns Edna's growth to physical, intellectual, and spiritual maturity and her romantic relationship with the just re- turned young master of the plantation, St. Elmo Murray. Mrs. Murray's son is a Byronic hero who, according to one critic, "bowled over a whole generation of romantic school- girls."53 Disappointed in love as a young man, St. Elmo became a rake, breaking the heart of every beautiful woman who crossed his path. Edna's "fresh, pure heart" not only conquers the cautious, worldly—wise hero but leads him from the heresy of scepticism to Christian conversion, and to the ministry. The noble young soul of Edna was characterized by a "Love of Nature, love of books, an earnest piety and deep religious enthusiasm," the complete catalog of sentimental thought. "Left to stray through the devious, checkered paths of life without other guidance than that which she received from communion with Greek sages and Hebrew 52Fidler, op. cit., pp. 130-131. 53Ibid., p. 133. 41 prophets," this heroine of middle-class readers became "an utter stranger to fashionable conventionality and lati- tudinarian ethics." When the laws of God were violated, particularly in the form of dueling, she rejected all attempts to justify the act as an acceptable social custom. Love of nature, an important part of the romantic creed, was not rejected by Miss Evans (soon to be Mrs. L. M. Wilson, the wife of a southern Colonel) as a panthe- istic threat to Christianity. Many aspects of nature's beauty, particularly the "ministry of flowers," served to remind her readers of the arguments thus furnished in favor of "the Christian philosophy of a divine design in nature." The woods and fields, the flitting bird and gurgling brook, every passing cloud and whispering breeze, all brought nessages of God's eternal love and wisdom drawing the tender, yearning heart more closely to the Lord God Omnipotent. Love of books, within the framework of Christian stewardship, was an acceptable attribute for the pure-in- Zheart. Edna Earl had developed this affection for books iJi the library of her blacksmith grandfather, who possessed ea family Bible, Pilgrim's Progress, Irving's sermons on Parables, a few tracts, Plutarch's Eggs and a worn school copy of Anthon's Classical Dictionary. This reading led to a: love of learning and to a conversational erudition *whitfli matched the author's discourses. The love of learn- ing could be justified because of its utility in the defense "‘0- (I) If). U! ,1 42 of the Gospel. As Miss Evans saw it, the learning of Saul of Tarsus was needed to "confront and refute the scoffing sophists who, replete with philhellenic lore, and within sight of the marvellous trighyphs and metOpes of the Parthenon, gathered on Mars Hill to defend their marble altars to the Unknown God." Edna's love of learning, was therefore, not worthy for its own sake, but only as a means "to tear the veil from oracles and sibyls, and show the world that the true, good and beautiful of all theogonies and cosmogonies, of every system of religion that had waxed and waned since the gray down of time, could be traced to Moses and to Jesus." She understood that to engage in this high calling she must study modern knowledge as well as the classics. The new "positive science," her spiritual and intellectual guide the Reverend Mr. Manning told her, could honor the God of nature without the compromise of faith. Times have changed, he said: 'Infidelity has shifted the battlefield from meta- physics to physics, from idealism and rationalism to positivism or rank materialism; and in order to combat it successfully, in order to build up an imperishable system of Christian teleology, it is necessary that you should thoroughly acquaint yourself with the "natural sciences," with dynamics, and all the so- called "inherent forces of nature," or what Humboldt terms "primordial necessity." This apotheosis or dirt, by such men as Moleschott, Buchner, and Voght, is the real Antaeus which, though continually overthrown, Springs from mother earth with renewed vigor, and after a little while some Hercules of science will lift the boaster in his inexorable arms and crush laim.‘ .th .r\ 43 The love of books leads Edna into one of the only careers open to educated women--writing. As one of Haw— thorne's "scribbling women" she can engage in apologetics for the faith and do "God's work." In the course of ex- plaining her work as a "moral architect," she summarized Augusta Jane Evans' own religious convictions and those of the sentimental era: '1 love my race, I honor my race; I believe that human nature, sublimated by Christianity, is capable of attaining nobler heights than pagan philosophers and infidel seers ever dreamed of and because my heart yearns toward my fellow-creatures, I want to clasp one hand in the warm throbbing palm of sinful humanity, and with the other hold up the lamp that God gave me to carry through this world, and so struggle onward, heavenward, with this generation of men and women. I claim no clear Uriel vision, now and then I stumble and grope; but at least I try to keep my little lamp trimmed, and I am not so blind as some, who reel and stagger in the maremme of crime and fashionable vice. As a pilgrim toiling through a world of sinful temptation, and the night of time where the stars are often shrouded, I cry to those beyond and above me, "Hold high your lights, that I may see my way!" and to those behind the below me, "Brothers! Sisters! come on, come up!" Ah! these steeps of human life are hard enough to climb when each shares his light and divides his neighbor's grievous burden. God help us all to help one another!‘ The love of nature and the love of books were both subordinate to the "earnest piety and deep religious en- thusiasm" of this pilgrim toiling through a sinful world on the way to heaven. Sentimental pietism, with its re- jection of a "cold, intellectual Christianity" and its emphasis on intuitive faith nourished by prayer and Bible reading, permeates St. Elmo. The "sentiments" aroused by the beauty of God's handiwork, by the struggles heavenward nth. a in.» bub g.. 1"!- .0 ) ll) \-_. _ v“.: I '- 'u \ v... ~4‘ 9‘ (4) 1n 1 r v- (I' . 44 past the temptations of this world (including unholy romance), and by the holy love between consecrated Christians provide an acceptable medium for proclaiming God's merciful atonement through Jesus Christ. Miss Evans' orthodoxy, although an optimistic Methodism in contrast with Susan Warner's comparatively dour Presbyterianism, reflected the continuing emphasis upon the necessity of submission to God's perfect and just will in order to attain happiness. Sorrow, death, and pain were conceived of as inflicted by God in order to show men their dependence on Him. The death of loved ones who are Christians provided proof of the assurance of immortality. Sinful, weak, human nature could, however, look to Jesus as St. Elmo did, and hear the comforting words "'Come unto me, all ye weary and heavy laden, and I will give you rest.'" God answers prayer, atones for sin, and, for Methodist St. Elmo, makes free from sin pro- viding "'fruit unto holiness,'" as well as everlasting life. The sixties came to a close with the publishing of a "better" seller, Elizabeth Stuart Phelps [Ward]'s 3B2 Gates Ajar (1868). A treatise on the afterlife, this ethereal story was written by a feminine scribbler who felt she had been inspired. As she explained it in her autobiography: 45 That book grew so naturally, it was so inevitable, it was so unpremeditated, it came so plainly from that something not one's self which makes for uses in which one's self is extinguished, that there are times when it seems to me as if I had no more to do with the writ- ing of it than the bough through which the wind cries, or the wave by means of which the tide rises. The angel said unto me 'Write!‘ and I wrote.54 This inspiration seems to have fallen short, however, of Biblical or best seller quality even though the book sold well for a few years. It had a natural appeal to the be- reaved following the Civil War, as the heroine, Miss Mary, has lost her only brother, Roy, in the War, and now finds it impossible to be resigned to the afflictions of "a dreadful God." The problem seems to be that the church, with its scholarly minister, has taught her only "glitter- ing generalities, cold commonplace, vagueness, unreality" and dreadful truths about God, death and heaven. When she has been helped by an aunt to peek through the gates that are ajar and see heaven, a loving God is exposed and a trusting faith is restored. Although the work abounds in comforting conjectures about heaven,7including the view that the departed Roy is with his sister constantly in spirit and has retained most of his human, bodily characteristics, the main thesis is the loving, human side of God-in—Christ, so often neglected by the "polished Dogma" of "eloquent sermons." This anti- intellectual strain, depreciating even the life of learning 54Elizabeth Stuart Phelps Ward, Chapters From a 46 held so high by Augusta Jane Evans, is the logical extreme of the pietism inherent in the sentimental best sellers. The works of E. P. Roe, Charles Sheldon, and Harold Bell Wright were to share, in varying degrees, this anti-dogma, anti-creed, and even anti-intellect sentiment of a "religion of the heart." CHAPTER II THE CONVERSION THEME OF E. P. ROE Pioneers in theology, philosophy, and social theory during the Gilded Age were re-interpreting reality in a nation undergoing radical social and economic transfor- mations. Under the impact of post-Hegelian idealism and Darwinian evolutionary theory, major intellectual dis- coveries challenged American beliefs. American writers responded to these intellectual currents and social reali- ties with forms of realism that contrasted sharply with the pre-war romanticism. Popular tastes, however, continued to reflect pat- terns of thought and feeling that had been accepted in the 1850's. The continuity and unity of popular thought from the fifties through the eighties was little affected by the intellectual revolution of the period.1 In the face of industrialization and urbanization, popular culture accepted ‘with complacency the agrarian values of an earlier age. 1Robert R. Roberts, "Gilt, Gingerbread, and Realism: the Public and Its Taste," The Gilded Age: A Reappraisal, ed. H; Wayne Morgan (Syracuse, N.Y., 1963), p. 175. 2Henry Nash Smith, ed., Popular Culture and In- dustrialism, 1865-1890 (Garden City, N.Y.: Anchor, 1967), pp. iv-xvii. 47 48 An optimistic belief in progress provided the foundation for the individualistic success cult of the self-made man. The Gospel of Wealth attempted to reconcile this belief in progress with the moral values of an earlier rural and village age. Popular literary tastes continued to prefer the sentimental, domestic, romance. The feminine writers of sentiment continued to provide their readers, in the seventies, with novels that celebrated an insipid Victorian- ism. The heroines of Mrs. Henry Wood's East Lynne, Miss Mary Elizabeth Braddon's Lady Audley's Secret, and Marie Louise de la Ramee's Under Two Flag§ combined the European taste for the sensational with the usual domestic heart- 3 breaks and the triumph of good over evil. A Publisher's Weekly survey of booksellers in 1878, revealed that the most widely sold fiction included St. Elmo, The Wide, Wide ngld, and two novels by the Reverend E. P. Roe.4 Popular religious values, particularly the senti- mental piety of Susan Warner and Augusta Evans Wilson, received strong support from the works of Edward Payson Roe. A Presbyterian clergyman, Roe graduated from.Williams College and served as a Union chaplain during the Civil War. 3Frank Luther Mott, Golden Multitudes (New York, 1947): pp. 143-146. 4Publishers Weekly, May 20, 1876; Allen Nevins, The Emergence of Modern America (New York, 1927) , James D. Hart, The Popular Book (New York, 1950) , pp. 168- 169. 49 At the close of the war he became pastor of the Highland Falls, New York, Presbyterian Church. In 1871, while serving in this pastorate, Roe learned of the Chicago fire and visited the city before the embers stopped smoldering. After wandering about the ruins for several days, he re- turned home to write the novel Barriers Burned Awgy.5 Published in serial form in the New York Evangelist, the story was so popular that Dodd, Mead Publishers issued it in book form in 1872. The immediate success of the novel encouraged the author to try other sermons in fictional form. His fourth novel, Qpening_a Chestnut Burr (1874), established the success of his formula and he resigned from his church to devote his talents to writing for this en- larged congregation.6 These two best sellers, and the fifteen popular novels which followed, established E. P. Roe as one of the most popular novelists of the Gilded Age. Matthew Arnold suggested, with some sarcasm, that the "western states are at this moment being nourished and formed, we hear, on the novels of a native author called Roe."7 His serial fiction was also appearing in a half-dozen religious periodicals. 5Dictionary of American Biography, Vol. XVI, p. 84. 6Mott, op. cit., pp. 147-148. 7Matthew Arnold, Civilization in the United States 8Frank Luther Mott, A History_of American Magazines, Vkil. 3 (Cambridge, Mass., 1938). pp. 54, 76, 99, 224. 50 One of the fruits of this prolific and popular writing career was an estimated annual royalty of $15,000.9 Another has been the credit, shared with Lew Wallace, for dispelling the last American doubts and prejudices against the novel.10 Roe's formula was simple and he employed it con- sistently throughout his fifteen years of writing. As with the Chicago fire, he used some topical material, historical event, or current issue. Drawing on personal observation or newspaper accounts he developed a descrip- tive style that emphasized "Nature" and rural virtues. Almost invariably the plot concerned what Carl Van Doren called "the simultaneous pursuit of wives, fortunes, and 11 The last goal, salvation through a personal salvation." conversion experience, was the dominant theme. The conversion theme was not new to best selling religious literature. The Wide, Wide World and St. Elmo had used conversion to Christianity as part of the novels' didactic purpose. A dramatic religious experience was certainly compatible with much of nineteenth-century IProtestantism. Even though the seventies began what has 9Publishers Weekly, July 28, 1888. loDAB, Vol. XVI, p. 85. 11Carl Van Doren, "The Later Novel," The Cambridge History of American Literature, Vol. 3, ed. by Trent _e_t_:_ §_l_. (1921), p. 74. 51 been called a "critical period in American religion" with the challenges of industrialism, urbanism, and immigration, as well as Darwinism and Biblical criticism, the majority of Protestants held fast to the individualistic patterns of religious thought and expression. E. P. Roe's novels came, then, during a period of broad social and theological re-orientation. His readers were probably among the bulk of the nation's churchgoers who have been described as "country-bred, evangelically oriented, intellectually unsophisticated, and sentimentally 12 Rejecting the "New Theology," insecure individuals." with its progressive sympathies for the new intellectual currents, Roe's readers shared the conservative tastes of Dwight L. Moody's revival audiences. The common bond be- tween the "sentiment and make-believe" of popular writing and the religious rhetoric of preachers like Moody and Thomas DeWitt Talmage is striking. The anecdotal nature of popular preaching corresponds to the rise of "good and bad boy" stories in the religious press and popular maga- zines.l3 The new revivalism of Moody was one phase of the Third Great Awakening, as William McLoughlin has called 12William G. McLoughlin, Jr., Modern Revivalism: Charles Grandison Finney to Billy Graham (New York, 1959), p. 168. 13Bernard A. Weisberger, Thgy Gathered at the River (Chicago: Quadrangle Paperbacks, 1966), PP. 17l-I73. 52 it.14 Moody preached that a return to individual piety was the answer to the challenge of secularism and material- ism. He shared the emphasis of Henry Ward Beecher's con- servative version of the "New Theology," which stressed the doctrine of love rather than the terror of hell-fire. Neither orthodoxy nor progressivism was as important as a pietistic concern for soul winning and a perfectionist belief that a truly converted Christian was free from sin and all its temptations.15 The conversion pppif in Gilded- Age revivalism, with its "old truths" of individual piety in the face of change, found its counterpart in the novels of E. P. Roe. Dennis Fleet, the hero of Barriers Burned Awgy, is a pious country lad who has migrated to the city. By prac- ticing the virtues of honesty, industry, and thrift, Dennis is increasingly able to obtain promotions in business. His Christian piety and rural simplicity contrasted with the "frivolousness" and "immodesty" of fashionable and class- conscious urban society. Dennis' real tribulations involve his love for Christine Ludolph. Miss Ludolph is separated from him by a number of barriers: wealth and social class; German ancestral ties, including a probable noble marriage; and most importantly, her German scepticism about l4McLoughlin, op. cit., p. 167. lsIbid., p. 169. 53 Christianity. These barriers between the beautiful but unconverted girl and the heroic Christian youth are burned away in the Chicago fire. The rescue of Miss Ludolph by Mr. Fleet not only saves her life but also saves her from a life of unbelief and selfishness. Her conversion on the shores of Lake Michigan, as the city burns behind them, is a dramatic testimony to the power of prayer--her feeble prayer for another victim of the fire and Dennis' prayer for her salvation. With Christine Ludolph's conversion to Christian faith and the loss of her father's life, and of her own wealth and status in the fire, all the barriers to their romance have been removed, goodness and providence have been proclaimed in this story of the triumph of Divine and human love. As the Reverend Roe puts it: Our story is finished. It only remains to say that Christine stands high at court, but it is a grander one than any of earth. She is allied to a noble, but to one who has received his patent from no petty sovereign of this world. She has lost sight of the transient laurel wreath which she sought to grasp at such cost to herself and others, in view of the "crown of glory that fadeth not away," and to this already, as an earnest Christian, she has added starry jewels. Below is Ludolph Hall in which sturdy independence led her to begin her married life. But she is climbing the mountain at her husband's side, and often her hands steady and help him. The ash-tree, twined with the passionflower, is not very far above them, and the villa, beautiful within and without, is no vain dream of the future. But even in happy youth their eyes of faith see in airy, golden outline their heavenly home awaiting them.15 16E. P. Roe, Barriers Burned Away (New York, 1900), p. 455. 54 After burning such formidable barriers to faith and love, E. P. Roe employed his formula in other conversion novels. A prickly chestnut burr was the metaphor for his next best seller. The change from an urban to a rural setting and from a Christian hero to a Christian heroine did not alter the formula found in Qpening a Chestnut Burr (1874). Walter Gregory, a "blase man of the world," who had exhausted himself in the evil dregs of life, is clearly in need of a "simple, truthful" heroine and a conversion to Christianity. Annie Walton, whose character is in some degree "the essence of Christ's character," becomes the Providential source of his salvation. Gregory finds the girl and his faith by returning to his ancestral home in the highlands of the Hudson. He arrives with the dim hope that Nature and memories of his pious mother will combat the physical illness and moral debasement of his evil, urban life. A religious sceptic, in a non-intellectual sense, he lived a materialistic and unbelieving existence. The profits and pleasures of the moment, without the creedal customs and traditions of religion, were the "all in all" of his ambitions. Annie Walton became the Divine Instrument for changing all that. Intuitively she saw his need, and ministered to him by quietly living and expressing her steadfast faith. This lost soul, having lost faith in himself and mankind, begins to read a Bible presented to him by Annie. 55 Starting with the fourteenth chapter of St. John, where Annie had marked: "Begin here," he read: Let not your heart be troubled; ye believe in God believe also in me. In my Father's house are many mansions. If it were not so, I would have told you. I go to prepare a place for you. Finding himself believing God he cried out: "Lord Jesus, I am palsied through sin; lift me up, that I may come to thee." He continued to read Annie's Bible every day, find- ing his doubt and fears slowly vanishing. Although his faith came slowly, unlike the dramatic conversion of Christine Ludolph, the author indicates that "He was a Christian, though he did not know it, and would not presume l7 to call himself such even to himself." Opening a Chestnut Burr, concludes with Gregory triumphing over his deceitful rival for Annie's love and his heroic effort to save lives in a sea-disaster. The hero emerges with his manhood restored by Christian faith, with a wife, and a business that prospers. God's provi- dential love has again been demonstrated in the salvation of the sinner and the happiness of the romance. In this second best seller, Roe was also well on his way to con- verting American readers to the belief that novels could be more effective than sermons in the evangelical cause. 17E. P. Roe, Opening a Chestnut Burr (New York, 1902), p. 375. 56 Of the dozen novels that E. P. Roe wrote before his death in 1888, the only other best seller was From Jest to Earnest (1875).18 As the title indicates, the same con- version theme is at work. In this case two of the main characters are converted from frivolous, upper-class lives of "jest" to that of "earnest" Christianity. Lottie Mars- den, a rich and fashionable idolater of the world, finds true self-hood in Christian faith through the influence of the young seminarian, Frank Hemstead. Romance flourishes and Mr. and Mrs. Hemstead become home missionaries where they "are the chief social, refining, and Christianizing influences of a growing Western town."19 The other con- version involves a Mr. Harcourt, whose reputation as a lawyer is somewhat overshadowed by his sporting bachelor life. Alice Martell and a series of crises, including a near drowning in the river, lead the sinner to repentence and faith. Roe's narratives seem to be preaching, like young Hemstead on his western mission, "Such a wholesnme, sunny Gospel that it won even the most prejudiced." Certainly the most sceptical and hardened sinners in these novels are unable to resist the influence of God's love as it is lived and witnessed to by a Christ-like hero or heroine. 18Mott calls it a "better seller," op. cit., p. 322. 19 p. 412. E. P. Roe, From Jest to Earnest (New York, 1886), 57 Cbnversion, for Roe's sinners, never involves a theological, cueedal, or ecclesiastical commitment. A simple act of faith--trusting God and the promises of the Bible--is all that is required as a prerequisite. Obedience is also essential, if one is to be truly counted among the redeemed. Men worship God in love, faith, §p§_obedience. True religion, then, is a practical faith. Roe frequently made clear in his dialogue sermonettes that religious feelings come and go but that the test of con- version is practical discipleship. "What do you propose to do?," Hemstead asks Lottie. "Are you willing to take up your cross and become His faithful follower?" This test question concerning practical discipleship, while pietistic in its concern for individual ethics, expressed the activistic mood of American Christianity. Both revival- ism and the social gospel shared this emphasis on practical fruit of religious experience. Roe's Christians avoided the unrefined, lower-middle-class revivalism and the social heresies of the Progressives, but they also demanded be- havioral change from professed conversions. Annie Walton summed it up when she asked: "Does feeling merely make a Christian? Is not action more than feeling? Do not trust- ing, following serving, and seeking to obey, make a Christian?" How are men convinced of their need of Christ and brought to saving faith? For Roe, conversion was a product 58 of God's providence and love striking a response in the heart and experience of the sinner. Although crises, such as fire, shipwreck, snowstorms and other natural disasters were often precipitating events, the reader was eXplicitly reminded that God woos men through the love and kindness of simple, natural Christians. The evil that befalls men, while not always understandable to finite minds, is usually attributable to the blindness and affliction of sin. Roe's characters suffer greatest when caught in a web of weakness and fear spun by their own sinful lives. Natural disasters and temporary romantic difficulties are surmounted with triumph when their peace has been made with God. Peace with God was not, however, the product of reason or intellectual inquiry. Heart and experience, not head, lead unerringly to truth. When Gregory of Qpening a Chestnut Burr appealed to reason above conscience, Annie intuitively knew he was wrong. She replied: Even my slight knowledge of the past has taught me how many absurd and monstrous things can be done and said in the name of reason. Religion is a matter of revelation and eXperience. But it is not contrary to reason. . . . My religion is a matter of fact, of vivid consciousness.20 The appeal to revelation and experience, did not preclude arguments for the faith. Most of Roe's characters were effective apologists in the face of sceptical attacks on 20Roe, Chestnut Burr, p. 196. I) )I.) ‘€|.lll “.oll.vv 4 59 Christianity. In the lengthy beach episode of Barriers Burned Away, Dennis parries all of Christine's sophisti- cated thrusts at belief and leaves the feminine sceptic without intellectual defenses against her natural impulses to believe. The natural impulse was Roe's dominant theme when dealing with human character and motivation. Conscience and experience are men's surest guide. Religious dogma was rejected if it did not conform to the intuitive, natural experiences. The Bible and its truths were accepted because of its conformity to experience. Christianity passed the pragmatic test. It worked, bringing happiness and content- ment, and in the case of Roe's heroes, health and prosperity also. His Christians thrived under the influence of Nature. Artificial environments, particularly the city, fostered artificial character and ambition. Only by resisting the temptations of wealth, high society, and other unnatural influences could one find his true natural self-hood. Depravity of the human heart is not, therefore, totally the condition of Roe's sinners. Human nature is a mixture of good and evil. The taint of sin poisons the natural flower but does not completely obliterate the original beauty or the obvious design. Lottie and Christine are both described as examples of nature's most exquisite workmanship, yet tarnished jewels. While these two hero- ines, as well as Gregory and Harcourt, are blinded to truth 60 and made weak by sin, they often reveal the potentially untarnished character which they inherited from nature or pious mothers. Women clearly are the best hOpe of preserving and nurturing simple, natural Christian faith. Unless raised herself by pagan parents, as in Christine's and Lottie's cases, a woman can be like Annie, a maiden sent by God to touch sinful men. As Roe put it in his preface to Opening a Chestnut Burr: . . . a glad zest and hopefulness might be inspired even in the most jaded and ennui-cursed, were there in our homes such simple, truthful natures as that of my heroine; and in the sphere of quiet homes--not elsewhere--I believe that woman can best rule and save the world. As mothers or wives, who practice simple piety, women may look forward to a central role in the conversion of man and society. If Christianity is largely a natural response to one's better self, aided, of course, by Divine Grace, then theological and ecclesiastical expressions are, at best, unnecessary and, at worst, artificial substitutes. Creeds, unregenerated church members, and fashionable churches are not held in high esteem by Roe's Christians. Following his conversion, Gregory becomes part of a struggling mission rather than joining a "gorgeous temple on Fifth Avenue." Henstead sacrifices opportunities for a prestigious urban ndnistry for home mission work in the West. Dennis and Christine never seem to need a church or minister to begin 61 or pursue the Christian life. Roe's religion was clearly Protestant Evangelicalism with its non-creedal, anti- dogmatic, pietism and unconcern for ecclesiastic authority. The winds of philosophical and theological change are barely felt by the reader of these novels. Reason in religion is clearly subservient to heart-felt experience. "New school rationalists," "scientific sceptics," and "modern philosophers" are only part of a long history of intelligent men who have been ignorant of the Bible and the power of prayer. The threat to religion from new scientific endeavors is no greater than at any time in history. There is no necessary conflict between realms of knowledge, since truth is one. Even Biblical criticism is not to be feared. As Hemstead expressed it: "If all the light of human knowl- edge were turned upon it in one burning focus, its intrinsic truth would only be revealed more clearly." Roe's gospel was certainly of a middle-class variety. He is one of the literary advocates of self-improvement, if not a sentimental apostle of the self-made man. His settings and characters were a reflection of the native middle-class, with its celebration of industry, frugality, integrity and piety. His novels are also an early example of the native middle-class revolt against the~corrupting influence of urban industrialism, with its unethical business prac- tices and "foreign" laboring masses. The enemies of 62 traditional values are clearly identified in Barriers Burned Away. The Browns personify all the unattractive- ness of the nouveau riche and the German, Ludolph, is clearly unAmerican in his impious materialism. The city, as in all of Roe's novels, represents the evil triumph of luxury, fashion, and extravagance over traditional ideals of simplicity, modesty, and frugality. Egalitarianism is threatened by the immorality of the new values.21 Although a self-made man will probably be a man of selfishness, pride, and impiety, the old ideal of self- improvement was not to be rejected. As Hemstead explained it: God "will help only those who try to help themselves." Success was not to be rejected if it could be had on Christian terms. Dennis Fleet's rise in business and Gregory's material success seemed to be a direct result of Christian virtues, particularly integrity. In fact, for Roe's characters, doing God's will did not mean a "vale of tears" but rather prosperity and happiness in this world. Roe's gospel, then, was a judgment on and a message to the rich and fashionable rather than the poor. The simple and searching gospel of Christ was the answer to the discontent of sophisticated, wealthy, urbanites who ¥ 21John G. Cawelti, Apostles of the Self-Made Man (Chicago, 1965), pp. 131-133. 63 had been raised in the new pagan society or who departed from the rural piety of mother's hearth. These practical atheists needed to be confronted with the message of God's providence and love and their need of conversion to obedient faith. The result would be heroic lives, able to endure natural disasters and prosperity, and touching the rest of humanity with kindness and forgiveness. The theme of religion as easing the pain and diffi- culty of decision-making, and providing "power to live by" for "successful living" is a persistent one in non-fiction as well. In one study of best selling "inspirational religious literature," it has been demonstrated that happi- ness and satisfaction were the promised fruit of religion.22 One of the earliest and most pOpular inspirational books on religious living was Hannah Whitall Smith's The Christian's Secret of a Happy Life. Published first in 1875 (the pub- lishers, Fleming H. Revell, claim a date of 1870, although the first copyright was in 1883), it was estimated that her inspirational classic had a sales of nearly two million by 23 1952. The more recent paperback edition is still a prominent book in religious book stores. 22Louis Schneider and Sanford M. Dornbusch, Po ular Religion: Inspirational Books in America (Chicago, 1958), p. 15. 23Foreword of 1952 edition of Hannah w. Smith, The Christian's Secret of a Happy Life (Westwood, N.J.: Fleming H. Revell Co., 1952), p. 8. 64 Hannah Whitall Smith brought her Quaker faith in the inner life to the task of reviving the "secret" of a happy life. She saw herself as part of the "apostolic succession of those who have walked and talked with God," and who can, therefore, "tell the blessed story . . . in the homely and familiar words of everyday life." It was not to be a theological book or a sectarian one. As she stated it in the preface of the 1888 edition: I do not want to change the theological views of a single individual. The truths I have to tell are not theological, but practical. They are, I believe, the fundamental truths of life and experience, the truths that underlie all theologies, and that are in fact their real and vital meaning. They will fit in with every creed simply making it possible for those who hold the creed to live up to their own beliefs, and to find in them the experimental realities of a present Savior and a present salvation. The practical, non-theological, anti-creedal message of the heart had another effective preacher who was capable of helping E. P. Roe and others take "the gloom from the GOSpel" and make life an unending joy. The Christian's Secret of a Happy Life grew out of a religious experience which Hannah Smith called the "higher life" or the "life of faith." She described this experience, the fourth and final "epoch" of her religious life, as a life of "absolute consecration, entire obedience, 24Hannah W. Smith, The Christian's Secret of a ngpy Life (New York, 1888), p. vi. 65 and simple trust."25 She was convinced that all of God's children "feel instinctively, in their moments of divine illumination, that a life of inward rest and outward victory 26 is their inalienable birthright." She went on to describe a religious life which promised not only salvation from the penalty of sin but salvation from the power of sin. A consecrated life, obedient and faithful to the Lord Jesus Christ, results in a life of "practical holiness." This life "hid with Christ in God" is one of per- sonal piety matching all the demands of Wesleyan Methodism's Christian perfection. Mrs. Smith describes the practical results of this kind of Christian life in terms quite congenial to that body of "holiness" literature charac- teristic of mid-nineteenth century perfectionism: Meekness and quietness of spirit become in time the characteristics of the daily life. A submissive acceptance of the will of God, as it comes in the hourly events of each day, is manifested; pliability in the hands of God to do or to suffer all the good pleasure of His will; sweetness under provocation; calmness in the midst of turmoil and bustle; a yield- ing to the wishes of others, and an insensibility to slights and affronts; absence of worry or anxiety; deliverance from care and fear,--a11 these, and many other similar graces, are invariably found to be the natural outward development of that inward life which is hid with Christ in God.27 25H. W. Smith, The Unselfishness of God and How I Discovered It (New York, 1903), p. 276. 26 pp. 15-160 Smith, The Christian's Secret . . . (1888), 271bid., pp. 203-204. 66 The methodical daily life of such Christians leads to a self-denying consideration of others; simplicity in dress and life styles; renunciation of self-indulging habits, and the surrender of all "purely fleshly gratifications." Service to others also follows and demands stewardship of occupation, voice, purse, pen, hands and feet. The "secret," then, is found in faithfully follow- ing God's will as it is revealed in the daily devotional walk. There is no question about the certainty of that revelation to the completely consecrated and submissive will. Obedience, also a possibility for the consecrated Christian, will soon lead the believer into such a "wonder- ful life of conformity to Himself" that it will be evident to all around him. The "happy life," then, is the "sweet joy of being an 'epistle of Christ, known and read of all men.'" It is not a worldly happiness, depending on material success or even the interpersonal fruits of "positive think- ing," but rather a happiness that grows more "unworldly, more serene, more heavenlyminded" until the affairs of this world are completely overshadowed by "a most blessed union with the Lord Jesus Christ."28 The "unworldly" quietism of Hannah Smith's happy life did not exclude the delight of "the welfare of His Creatures." Service to others was one of the marks of 281hid.. pp. 204-208. 67 practical holiness. The absence of any reference to press- ing social crises in her best seller must be balanced with the reform interests of her own life. She worked ardently for peace, temperance, and feminist causes in the tradition 29 Pietism and perfectionism did not of Quaker activism. exclude interest in social reform. In fact, as Timothy Smith pointed out in regard to pre-Civil War revivalism, perfectionism could be a motivating force for social reform.30 The Christian perfectionism of pre-Civil War evangelical and reform movements carried over into the Gilded Age.31 While many Gilded Age Protestants accepted the blessings of material progress or took comfort in Moody's premillenial evangelism, others found a religious sanction for their discontent with this world. Uprooted Protestant workers increasingly found the religious ties and certainties of the past a resource for expressing dis- affection with the acquisitive society of the present. Labor reformers often appealed to the absolute values of pre-industrial Christian perfectionism to legitimize their 29DAB, vol. 17, pp. 274-275. 30Timothy Smith, Revivalism and Social Reform (New York, 1965). 3J'Herbert G. Gutman, "Protestantism and the American Labor Mbwement: The Christian Spirit in the Gilded Age," Americgp_Historical Review, Vol. LXXII (Oct., 1966), pp. 74-101; D. E. Olmstead, Histggy of Religion in the United States (Englewood Cliffs, N.J., 1960), p. 352. 68 attacks on the new dogmas of Gilded Age social thought-- Spencerian determinism, laissez-faire industrialism, and the Gospel of Wealth.32 Gilded Age Protestantism's interest in both pietism and social reform is reflected further in the Congregational minister, Josiah Strong's, popular volume, Our Country (1885). Strong's book illustrates much of the era of transition from an individualistic to a social gospel. A response to the challenges of industrialism, immigration, and particularly urbanism, Our Country was a broadly influ- ential study; "the Uncle Tom's Cabin of city reform," 33 according to the historian Henry May. The third version of Our Country to be published by the American Home Mission- ary Society, Strong's volume turned out to be more than a home missionary pamphlet. Before Turner wrote his essay on the frontier, Strong had sensed the potential crisis of a disappearing western frontier and the rise of the city. Extraordinary times demanded an extraordinary response on the part of the church and Christian Anglo-Saxon civili- 34 zation. Reverend Strong had served Congregational pastorates in the western missionary field as well as in the old 32Gutman, op. cit., pp. 78, 96, 98. 33Henry F. May, Protestant Churches and Industrial America (New York, 1963). P. 116. 34Jurgen Herbst, "Editor's Introduction," Our Country (Cambridge, Mass., 1963), pp. ix-xxvi. 69 missionary area of Ohio. After serving as Secretary of the Home Missionary Society in Ohio, he eventually became General Secretary of the Evangelical Alliance for the United States . It was from this position that he provided thirty Years of leadership for the evangelical wing of the social gospel movement. Writing as a Congregational minister with a strong involvement in home missions, he set forth his View of America's historic mission and contemporary crisis 35 within the framework of the optimistic new theology. Stewardship was the dominant theme. God had pro- mlsed to use America as an instrument in bringing about the The progress of western civilization re- Kingdom of God. vealed God's plan of redemption. Yet civilization brought n01?- only promise of progress but mounting discontents. The "PUtrefying sores" of urban slums threatened the health of the Social system. Romanism and unregulated immigration added to the perils of American mission. The crisis 111118 trated the continued need for missionary efforts and America SteWardship of resources to promote conversion. had been blessed with wealth, as Strong's statistics illus- trated - and since it professed to be a Christian nation, it was obligated to use an increasing proportion of its wealth for the advancement of "the Lord's work." Strong's version of the Gospel of Wealth stressed bot ‘ .h the evil and good potential of money. Anglo-Saxons \ 35Ibid., pp. xv-xvii. ¥ 70 were noted for both their acquisitive love of money as well as their self-denying charity. Wealth had created social classes and subverted equalitarianism, but it had also pro- vided the opportunity for world-wide evangelism. The task of Our Country was to realize the tremendous possibilities of a Christianized money power. Since all of man's posses- sions belonged to God, Strong argued that the Christian responsibility of stewardship was imposed by Divine plan. The challenge to America was one of responding to the crises of the day with consecrated money power. The re- sult would be the end of the "social question" and the hastening of the arrival of the Kingdom. This principle of stewardship explains Strong's approach to America's relation to the World. In a chapter entitled "The Anglo-Saxon and the World's Future," Strong argued that the world's future is to be shaped by the com- petitive and superior civilization of the Anglo-Saxon. Historians usually cite this chapter as proof of Strong's support for and influence on an aggressive, jingoistic, nationalism that culminated in the imperialistic eXpansion- ism of the turn of the century. However, as one critic has recently pointed out, Strong did not use Anglo-Saxon superiority, competition among races, and Darwinism as an expression of aggressive nationalism. Strong's nationalism ‘was, rather, inspired by the principles of social Christi- anity and his faith in God's providential use of this 71 Anglo-Saxon nation to advance the Kingdom. World evangeli- zation and international cooperation rather than political and economic imperialism were his goals. Social reform at home would strengthen America for an unselfish nationalism that would fulfill Christian stewardship by serving inter- nationalism.36 36D. R. Muller, "Josiah Strong and American Nation- axlisnL: A Reevaluation," Journal of American History, Vol. LIII, No. 3 (Dec., 1966), pp. 487-503. CHAPTER III THE CHRIST-STORY TRADITION: BEN-HUR General Lew Wallace's Ben-Hur, A Tale of the Christ, first published in 1880, ranks among the tOp half-dozen best sellers by American authors and surpassed all other examples of best-selling religious novels in popularity.1 This famous story of Christ's time, with its mixture of Orien- tal, Roman, and Christian elements, has become a classic example of best-selling religion. The "quest for the his- torical Jesus" was not only a scholarly effort of liberal, theological critics at the end of the nineteenth century but also an interest of the popular religious mind as well. In fact, Ben-Hur had been preceded and was to be followed by popular literature which sought to capture the essence of the life and times of Jesus. From the novels of the Reverend William Ware, in the eighteen-thirties and forties, to those of Sholem Asch and Lloyd Douglas, the Christ-story rmnnains a persistent theme among religious best sellers. The first popular American religious novel to deal *witjl the historical origins of Christianity was the Reverend 1 p. 174. Frank L. Mott, Golden Multitudes (New York, 1947), 72 73 William Ware's Letters of Lucius M. Piso, from Palmyra to his Friend Marcus Curtius at Rome (1837). A second edition was issued in 1838 and the novel was retitled Zenobia; or, The Fall of Palmyra. By the 1860's, when the American Bible Society and the American Tract Society were distributing millions of pages of testaments and tracts to a war-torn nation, Ware's Zenobia had been issued in eight editions. Ware wrote a sequel to Zenobia in 1838, Probus; orL Rome in the Third Century. His third and last novel, Julian; or, Scenes in Judea (1841) continued to follow the theme of the successful search for the Christ and of Christ's disturbing presence in the beginning of Christian history. Ware had inaugurated a "greatest story ever told" tradition that was to reach a wide audience for over one hundred years. Zenobia also reflects a Unitarian perspective sup- portive of the anti-creedal, non-dogmatic nature of popular American Christianity. William Ware brought to this liter- ary effort a scholarly religious background. The son of the Hollis Professor of Divinity at Harvard, he was himself ordained as a Unitarian minister in 1821. He served his first pastorate in New York City at the newly established Unitarian Church. His health soon ended his pastoral ministry, and made possible a writing career that was to 2James D. Hart, The Popular Book (New York, 1950), p. 118. 74 place him in that long line of clerical, best-selling authors.3 This first novel of Ware's is in the form of a series of letters from Lucius Piso, an aristocratic citizen of Rome, to his friend Marcus Curtius. Lucius has traveled to the wealthy and beautiful city of Palmyra and his letters to Marcus, back home in Rome, are full of the happenings in this exotic fringe of the Empire. Queen Zenobia is the ruler of Palmyra only by the grace of the Roman Emperor Aurelian, but Lucius finds her court so attractive that he becomes a member of that elite, inner circle. The Queen, a charming, cultivated ruler, has surrounded herself with the best in philosophy, religion, and the arts. The court of Zenobia becomes a perfect setting for a dialetical treat- :ment of the new religion, Christianity. Zenobia's daughter, Julia, serves the author's purpose by introducing her new religious faith to the court circle. Having been instructed by both Paul, the Bishop of Antioch, and St. Thomas, the hermit, Julia is ready to discuss questions of immortality or revelation even with her tutor, the philOSOpher Longinus. The religious debates, at the feet of Zenobia, re- flect many of the theological currents of the eighteen thirties. Ware was writing during the triumphal period 3Willard Throp, "The Religious Novel as Best Seller In America," Religious Perspectives ‘In‘ American Culture, ed. J; WV. Smith and A. Leland Jamison (Princeton, N.J., 1961), p. 197. 75 of his denomination in New England. William Ellery Channing (1780-1842) was providing outstanding leadership for Uni- tarian Christianity as pastor of the Federal Street Church in Boston. Channing, in his "Baltimore Sermon" in 1819, had expressed the Arian view of a non-Trinitarian, unified God, who revealed himself to men through their innate rational and moral faculties. Rejecting the orthodox Incarnation and Atonement, Channing Unitarians, of whom Ware was one, emphasized the immanence of God in Christ and all men, and the virtuous life that leads to happiness and salvation.4 Ware's fictional Christians are clearly Unitarians of this variety. While accepting miracles, as did Channing, and special revelation, Julia is taught a faith that appeals to reason and the affections. A tolerant, active religion of service is presented to the sophisticated admirers of Zenobia. The liberal nature of this new faith is even more clearly revealed in the absence of any mention of God's judgment of evil or man's sinful nature. Doubt and scepticism are but temporary obstacles to the rational and moral arguments for this religion of love. Ware's fictional characters are chiefly concerned about the doctrines of immortality of the soul and the :nature of revelation or divine authority. While all the participants in the dialogues seem to agree that men yearn 4Clifton E. Olmstead, History ofReligionip_the United States (Englewood Cliffs, N.J., 1960), pp. 296-297. 76 for, and therefore believe in, immortality, yet they are attracted by Julia's presentation of Christianity's authoritativeness. Socrates, Plato, and Aristotle may have understood many eternal truths, but only Christianity speaks authoritatively as the voice of God. In answer to the objection that Christians are divided by many teachers and doctrines, Julia replies: I admit that there are disputes among the Christians, but like the disputes among philosophers, they are about secondary matters. There is no dis- pute concerning the great and chiefly interesting part of the religion--its revelation of a future life. Christians have never divided here, nor on another point, that Christ, the founder of the religion, was a true messenger from God. The voice of Christianity on both these points is a clear one. Thus, I think, will everyone judge, who, as I have done, will read the writings in which the religion is found. And I am persuaded it is because it is so plain a voice here, that it is bidding fair to supersede every other form of religion. And that it is a voice from God, is, it seems to me, made out with as much clear- ness as we could look for. That Christ, the author of this religion, was a messenger from God, was shown by his miracles. In addition to the voice of God, through the miracle-working messenger Jesus Christ, promising happiness in an afterlife, Christianity was an ethical system that teaches "goodness and faithfulness to the sense of duty." This kind of virtuous good works will be duly rewarded "not only now and on earth, but throughout an existence truly immortal." And to complete the attractiveness of this religious message, Ware, through his holy recluse, expounded a faith characterized by the "plainness and simplicity" of its doctrines. Since Christianity preaches no new and 77 startling truth, only service to mankind, the value of this religion lies in the divine authority it adds to old truths. Zenobia reflected a tolerant, optimistic, rational Christianity that stood in sharp contrast to the evangeli- cal pietism of Susan Warner and Augusta Jane Evans. This contrast may also document the changing configurations of American Christianity, with the decline of Unitarian in- fluence and the rise, by mid-century, of aggressive, evangelical "Methodist Age" Protestantism.5 This rise of Evangelicalism certainly explains why Ware's popularity was eclipsed by those writers on religious themes whose works were published after 1860.6 Yet there remains some important continuity of emphasis between this early re- ligious fiction and that which was to follow. The "plain- ness and simplicity" of the Christian message would con- tinue to be the emphasis of more Trinitarian novels. A non-creedal, undogmatic faith which stressed the ethical life, while promising heavenly reward, was not to be the exclusive property of Unitarians. Even the attempt to appeal to both reason and affections will be found in pietistic versions of best-selling religion. And finally, the ecumenical criticism of exclusive denominationalism 5C. C. Goen, "The 'Methodist Age' in American Church History," Religion In Life, XXXIV, No. 4 (Autumn, 1965), pp. 562-572. 6Hart, op. cit., p. 118. 78 and the anti-clericalism found in Julia's reaction to the Bishop of Antioch were to remain persistent themes in popu- lar religious literature. In Probus, the sequel to Zenobia, Ware continued his description of the early Christians in a pagan world. Having arranged a love affair between Lucius and Julia in the first novel, the author then provided the newly married Pisos with a persecution of Christians under the capricious Emperor, Aurelian. Since the couple had been preaching the happy life of Christian virtue, combined with a strain of abolitionism and democracy, they were hunted by the Roman authorities. The leader of these egalitarian Christians was Probus, who preached a Unitarian sermon to the Emperor, for which he was condemned to be thrown to the lions. A number of miracles took place, including Julia's escape from torture and death. A happy ending is provided, in reward for faithfulness, by the fortunate assassination of Aurelian and the succession of the gentle Tacitus. The last novel in this trilogy is Julian; or, Scenes in Judea (1841). It is in this work that Ware provided the prototype for those perennial religious-historical novels, ‘whirfll trace the unbeliever's encounter with those who have seen Christ's miracles and who, himself, finally beholds the (Htrist. This Christ-story encounter was destined to be a most successful formula, patterned on the all-time best seller, the Bible. 79 Julian is a Jew who has been raised in Rome as a Roman. Traveling in Judea he follows his Hebrew heart and becomes a Jew in faith as well as in blood. His interest in John the Baptist results in his learning about the new prophet, Jesus. Following Jesus' path, without actually seeing him, Julian talks with the fisherman at the Sea of Galilee and other disciples of this man sent from God. However, Julian increasingly discovers that this man can- not be the hoped-for Messiah since he preaches peace. Julian's climatic encounter with Jesus takes place as the prophet makes his triumphal entry into Jerusalem. His description, in the last of his letters to his mother, provides a dramatic scene that was to be a favorite of Christ-stories thereafter. I cannot well describe my sensations as Jesus drew nigh, so that I could with distinctness observe his countenance and form, but they were such as I never before experienced in the presence of a mortal; and it could not well be otherwise, as I doubted not that I looked upon one within whom were lodged the very power and wisdom of Jehovah. Awe and dread were there- fore the feelings that would have alone prevailed, were it not that, however wonderfully I felt he was united to God, I saw that the language of his countenance was not that of an Angel, nor of a God, but of a man bound, like myself by the closest ties to every one of the multitudes who thronged him. Its expression was mild and pitiful; but at the same time of one who, if full of regard and compassion for each and for all, also possessed the energies and the will to do for those whom he loved whatsoever should be needful for their advantage or redemption. Strength and power were lodged in the lines and forms of the face, not any less than benevolence, giving ample assurance that there were inward forces of intellect and will, equal to every work that might be given him to do. . . . Thus while the innumerable multitude of those who en- compassed him, and hailed him King and Deliverer, and 80 could find no words of Joy in which to give vent to the hopes that were within, he rejoiced not, but was evidently sad. The sight of the city with its popu- lace all awaiting him, and the sounds of their tumultuous cries as they were borne to us from afar, and the waving of their hands in token of welcome, seemed to awaken no feeling of triumph in his heart, but, instead, drew forth tears. I confess that I was also astonished; and could only say, the whole of this man is mysterious and impenetrable--we know him not-- we do not comprehend what he is, nor what he has come to do. Julian, however, does not become a convert to Christianity. Whether Ware's unevangelical Unitarianism prevented such a temptation to convert all Jews or whether his desire for historical and cultural consistency demanded such a conclusion, is difficult to determine. In any case, he leaves Julian marveling over the crucifixion and Resur- rection, which seemed to confirm the testimony of the disciples and the soldiers. Julian is convinced that "they sufficiently proved him to be a messenger and prophet of God, at the same time that they failed to prove him the Messiah who had been foretold, for Whom Israel had waited so long, and still waits." In 1855, a more orthodox Christ-story than Julian, the Reverend Joseph Holt Ingraham's The Prince of the House of David was published. Ingraham's religious romance was an immediate best seller which continued to be popular throughout the nineteenth century. At the expiration of its copyright in the eighties, the book was published in numerous cheap editions including a "dime novel" by Street and Smith. By the nineties, the Prince could be found in 81 the thousands of Sunday School libraries which provided a religious reading public beyond that encountered by book sellers. Village libraries also spread the influence of this respectable, sacred defense of the historicity of Christ's life and the Divinity of his nature.7 The phenomenal popularity of Ingraham's novel was a product of the author's writing experience and knowledge of the religious reading public. Joseph Holt Ingraham (1809-1860) was a man of remarkable experience and talents. As a young boy he went to sea, saw much of the world, and took part in the excitement of a South American revolution. During his subsequent career in college, he discovered that he could use this exciting past in writing popular novels and short stories for cheap weeklies. According to James Hart, he single-handedly accounted for nearly 10 per cent of the fiction titles published during the eighteen forties. By the end of 1851 he had written more than eighty thrillers, read largely by travelers on trains and steamboats, with such titles as: Captain Kyd; or, The Wizard of the Sea; Frank Rivers; or, The Dangers of the Town; and Lafitte; The Pirate of the Gulf. Ingraham's religious novels, which appeared after his ordination as an Episcopal clergyman, at the age of 7Mott, op. cit., p. 94. 82 forty-two, benefited from the varied and successful writing experience of the author. While rector of Christ Church in Holly Springs, Mississippi, the Reverend J. H. Ingraham turned his writing efforts toward the production of three religious novels: The Prince of the House of David; or, Three Years in the Holy City; The Pillar of Fire; or, Israel in Bondage (1859) and The Throne of David, from the Consecration of the Shepherd of Bethlehem, to the Rebellion of Prince Absalom (1860).8 The conversion to religious fiction must have been a sincere one, for Ingraham attempted to buy up the copyrights of his earlier thrillers in order to stop their publication.9 The reception of the Prince was a mixed one. Many orthodox Christians in the fifties had some reservations about a fictional treatment of the life of Christ. Metho- dists were still reluctant to endorse religious fiction, and it took Ben Hur and the novels of E. P. Roe in the eighties to convince the editors of The Methodist Quarterly Review that religious ideals could be proclaimed in fiction.10 T. S. Arthur, the author of that best selling temperance 8Mott, o . cit., p. 94; Hart, op. cit., pp. 98-99; Thorp, pp. cit., pp. 200-201. 9Mott, op. cit., p. 94. 10John O. Waller, "The Methodist Quarterly Review and Fiction, 1818-1900," Bulletin of the New York Public Librapy, Vol. 71, No. 9 (1967), pp. 588-589. 83 tract, Ten Nights in a Bar-Room (1856), represented, no doubt, many religious readers when he described The Prince as "one we shrink from reading" because of the characters and language introduced to the story which were not found in Scripture. The novel was charged with a lack of reverence.ll The novel, nevertheless enjoyed popularity in the fifties and sixties, and this pOpularity may have been re- lated to its orthodox answers in a time of doubt and scepticism. Just as this work of fiction was unacceptable to religious conservatives, who wanted only the King James Bible for their Christ-story, so religious liberals found Ingraham's supernaturalism and "historical" Christianity 12 The mid-nineteenth an unattractive piece of apologetics. century was the period in which transcendentalism, had be- come a challenge to the established orthodoxy of both Trinitarians and Channing Unitarians. Ralph Waldo Emerson and Theodore Parker had been providing leadership for this small group of literati since the eighteen thirties. Re- jecting historical proofs of Christianity, with its emphasis on the historicity of miracles and the person of Jesus Christ, the Transcendentalists emphasized intuitive or 11Warren G. French, "A Hundred Years of a Religious Bestseller," The Western Humanities Review, Vol. 10, No. 1 (Winter, 1956), p. 47. 12Ibid., p. 49. 84 internal evidence. Bordering on pantheism, Emersonian Transcendentalism saw God incarnate in all men, not just in Jesus. Since men were able to know God and the truth, that transcends sense experience, through their own reason and intuitive moral faculties, orthodox scriptures and creeds were unnecessary. Religious authority was not to be found in a quest for the historical Jesus but in the contemplation of the soul. The readers of The Prince of the House of David certainly found an antidote to the pantheism of Emerson and the humanism of Parker. The novel abounds with evi- dences of Jesus' miraculous nature and activity. Jesus' supernatural powers are emphasized to the complete neglect of his message or mission. Adina, the prolific letter- writer who tells the story, is confronted entirely with miracles, not sermons or parables. A young Jewess from Cairo, Adina visits Jerusalem and reports, by letter to her father, the events of Jesus' life from his Baptism to the Ascension. She becomes a friend of Mary and Martha and is almost always on the edge of the crowd which follows the Master. Her faith grows almost in direct proportion to the miracles He performs. Adina's conversion follows that expected first encounter with Jesus. He has been baptized by John the Baptist, and she writes: No sooner did the baptized stranger go up out of the water, than there was heard above all our heads a noise of rolling thunder, although the sky was cloudless; and when we looked up we beheld a dazzling light, though it was noonday, brighter than the sun; 85 and from the midst of this celestial splendor there darted with arrowy velocity a ray of light, which descended upon the head of the Christ. Some of the people said it thundered; and others that it light- ened; but judge the amazement and admiration of all, and the dread awe that shook every soul when, amid the glory above his head, was seen the form of a dove of fire, with outspread wings overshadowing Him as it were, and from the heavens, what was supposed to be thunder, shaped itself into the voice of God, which uttered these words in the hearing of every ear: "This is my beloved Son, in whom I am well pleased. Hear ye Him." Her next letter to her father announced her conversion. She confesses, having reflected on this heavenly proclamation, that "Yes, it is the Christ, and I will believe in Him!" The young convert continues to write to her father concerning the miraculous life of this Divine Son of God. In fact, while the letters purport to cover the entire period of Jesus' ministry, at least one third of them are devoted to the period between his arrest and the Ascension. Each event declares the Divinity of Jesus, and results in a letter urging her father to accept the Messiah. As Adina sees it (over and over again), "Either Jesus is Messiah, as he asserts, and his miracles prove, or he is not." If he is not, "then he is an impostor and a falsifier, as well as a fearful blasphemer of Jehovah!" Finally she urges: Doubt, then, no longer, dearest father! Jesus, the son of Mary in his human nature, was the Son of Egg in his Divine nature; an incomprehensible and mysterious union, whereby He has brought together in harmony the two natures, separated far apart by sin, by sacrificing his own body as a sin-offering, to reconcile both in one Immaculate body upon the cross. There is now no more condemnation to them who believe 86 in Him and accept Him; for in his body He took our sins, and with his precious blood, as that of a lamb without blemish, cleansed them forever away. Adina's thirty-nine letters (a significant number for an Episcopalian clergyman) had presented an acceptably orthodox challenge to the doubters of the day and had utilized the popular style of romance fiction to portray the miraculous life of Christ. Those readers who were disturbed or antagonized by the rational or transcendental criticism of evangelical piety could find in Ingraham's best seller a reassuring gospel. For those readers who wanted no prophetic ethical challenge to the complacency of the era, The Prince's kingdom was certainly not of this world. For those who wanted the Biblical story in roman- tic, serialized, and suspensful style, Reverend Ingraham had written one of the most tantalizing. The "quest for the historical Jesus" was, of course, not confined to writers and readers of popular religious romances. Long before the Civil War, American theologians had begun to feel the impact of religious scholars. The writings of Schleiermacher and Hegel, reinterpreted by Josiah Royce and George Trumbull Ladd, had introduced a philosophical idealism to American religious thought. The views of the German Theologian, Albrecht Ritschl, intro- duced to America by Adolf von Harnack, had given strong impetus to a new liberal theology. Stressing the ethical nature of human history, these Ritschlian Theologians 87 stressed the humanity of Jesus Christ. The Transcendental- ism of Emerson, Thoreau, and Parker was supplanted by a more widely held religious idealism which stressed the Jesus of history who, through his deeds of mercy, his wise teaching, and his magnetic personality, provided men with an unexcelled example of the life of service and communion.13 Some American Christian thinkers were also becoming familiar with the new historical-critical studies of the Biblical documents. New Testament studies abroad had also stimulated a series of "lives of Jesus" which were becoming well known by the 1860's. D. F. Strauss' Life of Jesus (1835) had precipitated a crisis in orthodox circles on the Continent. Radically challenging the historical relia- bility of the Gospels, Strauss' Jesus was placed in an his- torical setting stripped of the "myths" of the Biblical account. Christ became a Hegelian pure idea, a new synthesis in the theological dialectic of history. Renan's Life of Christ added to this new historical Jesus the image of the supreme teacher of secular morality. These biographies pioneered in the efforts to place Jesus in the historical and geographical context of the times, but concluded in affirming only that the Christ lived, taught, made disciples, and died at the hands of Jewish clerics. The miracles were clearly a legend of the church.14 13Olmstead, op. cit., pp. 468-469. 14James H. Nichols, History of Christianity, 1650- 1950 (New York, 1956): pp. 172, 287. 88 This interest in the Jesus of History was also evi- dent in popular literature. In addition to the fiction of Ware and Ingraham, several biographies of Jesus appeared in the seventies. The novels of two English writers, F. W. Farrar's Life of Christ (1874) and J. Cunningham Geikie's Life and Words of Christ (1877), unlike the "lives" of Strauss and Renan, celebrated the Christ of Faith as well as the Jesus of human history. Neither of the biographies of Farrar and Geikie sold in America on the scale of Ingraham's novel, yet they reflect the continuity of inter- 15 The Christ- est in the life and times of Jesus Christ. story, whether presented in Scripture, fiction, or "his- torical" works, had become a perennial attraction to the reading public. Frederick William Farrar (1831-1903) was an out- standing Anglican theologian. His Eternal Hope (1878) and Mercy and Judgment (1881), published after his Life of Christ, evidenced his intellectual and theological in- debtedness to Coleridge and to the liberal churchman, F. D. Maurice. Yet much of his effort seems to have been directed toward formulating a mediating position between the Broad Church party (Anglican Liberals) and the more conservative l6 Evangelical party. The popularity of his Life of Christ 15Mott, op. cit., p. 322. 16J. L. Neve, A History of Christian Thought, Vol. 2 (Philadelphia, 1946), p. 232. 89 was, no doubt, partly due to the elaborate style he had developed in his earlier works of fiction. Yet his biography of Jesus is clearly informed by substantial scholarship. While ignoring the critical problems related to the Gospel accounts, he does a thorough job of discuss- ing the political, cultural, and geographical context of Jesus' times. His Eigg does not appear as a polemic against Strauss or Renan, yet the acceptance of the Bibli- cal accounts is implicit throughout the narrative. Unlike Ingraham's efforts to prove the Divinity of Christ through the force of the miraculous, Farrar simply assumes the truth of that to which the history of Christianity testi- fies. John Cunningham Geikie (1824-1906) was also a widely known author of books on biblical and religious subjects. Ordained a Presbyterian minister, he later became an Anglican priest. Considered by many in the orthodox or conservative evangelical camp to be one of the best religious writers of the age, Geikie produced a ten-volume work on the Bible as well as a host of smaller treatments of church history.17 Clearly in the "Life of Our Lord" category, Geikie's biography is liberally sprinkled with references to the "authorities" of Biblical studies. The celebration of Jesus as the Divine Savior, and the k 17Dictionary of National Biogpgphy: Twentieth Centupy, Vol. 2 (London, 1912), pp. 92-93. 90 everlasting life he brings to the believer, is constantly the framework for "His Sayings and Discourses." The author shares Farrar's conviction that the witness of so many through the centuries to the unmatched person and work of this "Ideal of Humanity," cannot fail to convince the honest sceptic and strengthen the religious life of the believer. It was a Civil War general, however, who surpassed the clerics and theologians in reaching the American read- ing public with the Christ-story. In an age of growing scepticism and doubt about religious truths, it was Lew Wallace's Ben-Hur that reached more people with a message of historical certainty than any piece of apologetics. Published in 1880, Ben-Hur, a Tale of the Christ combines the exotic elements of the ancient Oriental world with the more familiar setting of the Holy Land. In the cosmopoli- tan nature of its world scene, the suspenseful narrative of sacred history, and the dramatic action of characters and plot, Ben-Hur surpassed the earlier efforts of Ware and Ingraham. The encyclopedic breadth of General Wallace's tale has left it the unmatched giant of the Christ-stories. Ben-Hur is a young Jew who has been accused of attempting to kill the Roman governor. Messala, his false accuser, sees him sentenced to the life of a galley slave. Escaping to Rome, Ben-Hur finds favor with the tribune Arrius and is adopted as his son. The most excit- ing and well-known part of the plot is the chariot race in 91 the Circus at Antioch. Here Ben-Hur has a chance to revenge himself on Messala as they are pitted against each other in the race. Wallace's five-chapter, suspenseful treatment of the race is climaxed by Ben-Hur's adroit manuever of his iron-tipped chariot axle, crushing the wheel of Messala's chariot. The resulting crash, and Messala's trampling by the horses, insure the victory for the hero. With all the dramatic events of Ben-Hur's triumph over Messala, Wallace had not neglected the "tale" of Christ. The Jewish hero's life and travels brought the reader intermittent news of the teacher, Jesus. The cli- mactic encounter occurs, following the chariot race, at Jesus' baptism. The shock of Jesus' countenance and pre- sence shatter his hope for an earthly king. Dreams of "war and conquest, and lust of dominion" seemed profane in the light of this tender, humble, and holy apparition. Ben-Hur (wonders where he has seen this man before. That the look, so calm, so pitiful, so loving, had somewhere in a past time beamed upon him as that moment . . . became an assurance. Faintly at first, at last a clear light, a burst of sunshine, the scene by the well at Nazareth that time the Roman guard was dragging him to the galleys returned, and all his being thrilled. Those hands had helped him when he was perishing. The face was one of the pictures he had carried in mind ever since. In the effusion of feeling excited, the explanation of the preacher was lost by him all but the last words-~words so marvellous that the world yet rings with them: "--this is the SON OF GOD!" Ben-Hur's constant following of the wandering Nazarene brings him into contact with the novel, pacific 92 teachings of this strange teacher. Miracles are witnessed also, including the healing of his leperous mother and sister. This miraculous power of Jesus and the crowds that follow Him give rise to a hope, on Ben-Hur's part, that the Nazarene will unify all Israel against the hated Rome and Romans. He dreams of insurrection and war, only to be frustrated by Jesus' silence on an earthly kingdom. The arrest, trial, and crucifixion, of Jesus (which he witnesses), finally destroy the young rebel's hope of military triumph over Rome. A change comes over his feel- ings as he watches the suffering of Jesus on the cross. A conception of something better than the best of this life--something so much better that it could serve a weak man with strength to endure agonies of spirit as well as of body; something to make death welcome--perhaps another life purer than this one-- perhaps the spirit-life which Balthasar held to so fast, began to dawn upon his mind clearer and clearer, bringing to him a certain sense that, after all, the mission of the Nazarene was that of guide across the boundary for such as loved him; across the boundary to where his kingdom was set up and waiting for him. Then, as something borne through the air out of the almost forgotten, he heard again, or seemed to hear, the saying of the Nazarene: "I AM THE RESURRECTION AND THE LIFE." And the words repeated themselves over and over and took form, and the dawn touched them with its light, and filled them with a new meaning. And as men repeat a question to grasp and fix the meaning, he asked, gazing at the figure on the hill fainting under its crown: Who the Resurrection? and Who the Life? "I AM," the figure seemed to say--and say it for him; for instantly he was sensible of a peace such as he had never known--the peace which is the end of doubt and mystery, and the beginning of faith and love and clear understanding. IYA‘ 93 Ben-Hur's conversion and subsequent service to the Christ requires sacrifice of neither life nor happiness. Although the lengthy novel is brought to an abrupt end following the burial of Jesus, the reader is permitted in a postscript, a glimpse of Ben-Hur and Esther, his wife, five years later in their Roman villa. The couple have just committed them- selves and their fortune to the Christians at the Catacomb of San Calixto. "Out of the vast tomb Christianity issued to supersede the Caesars." General Wallace's Christ-story began as a proposed serial for Harper's Monthly. Captivated by the potential for a historical romance in the Gospel of St. Matthew's account of Jesus' birth, with Oriental Wise Men and a Star, Wallace wrote such a story in 1875. His motivation was much the same as that which had prompted his earlier novel of the Aztecs, The Fair God (1873). As he related it in an article, "How I Came to Write Ben-Hur," in the Youth's Com- panion, February 2, 1893, he "was not in the least influenced by religious sentiment. I had no convictions about God or Christ. I neither believed nor disbelieved in them."18 His indifference to the Opinions of preachers, to whose churches he would never belong, was slowly shaken by a growing reverence and awe of his subject.19 18Reprinted in Lewis Wallace, An Autobiography, Vol. 2 (New York, 1906), pp. 926-936. 191bid., pp. 927-928. 94 The turning point in his writing and his religious opinions came on the night of September 19, 1876. On a train from Crawfordsville, Indiana, to Indianapolis he encountered the famous agnostic polemicist, Colonel Robert G. Ingersoll. After listening to Ingersoll's sceptical attacks on belief in God, heaven and Jesus Christ's Divinity, Wallace determined to tackle his un- finished story of Christ's birth and resolve the questions raised by the iconoclast. Not yet a believer he wanted only to resolve the difficulties, "if only for the gratifi- cation there might be in having convictions of one kind or 20 Thus the question of Christ's Divinity assumed another." the central role in his research and writing. Filling in the thirty years of silence in Christ's life with a dramatic story of the cosmopolitan Roman Empire, Wallace developed the argument that mankind was so debased that salvation could only come by direct Divine action--the Incarnation. The paradoxical linking of Jesus with Ben-Hur clearly reflects this thesis. Just as traditional Christian orthodoxy professes belief in a fully divine and fully human Jesus Christ, so Wallace combined a secular hero with a narrative of the life of Christ. Ben—Hur's romantic ad- ventures are characterized by such pagan values as ambition, patriotism, revenge, and sexual love. In contrast, the 201bid., pp. 929-930. 95 story of the Magis and the Christ abounds in miracles and a spirituality of faith, Divine love, and peace. This association of the human and the divine created some problems for the writer. He never completely solved the. tension between Ben-Hur's worldly, romantic attractiveness and the self-sacrificing spirit of Christ. Yet that para- doxical union, the hero's final conversion to spiritual values, did support the author's argument for the Incar- nation. The Divine had entered into the midst of the excitement of sinful human history. One result of this narrative form of apologetics was Wallace's own conversion from indifference to Christian faith. Although one may discount some of the force of this testimony, which came years after the success of the novel in winning over the religious public, Wallace asserted that, "Long before I was through with my book, I became a 21 Although he never became believer in God and Christ." a church member, claiming to enjoy his freedom and think- ing himself unable to be a good communicant, he professed a simple belief in the Christian concept of God. He re— counted his simple, creedal belief in the Divinity of Christ as follows: Should one ask of another, or wonder in himself, why I, who am neither minister of the Gospel, nor theologian, nor churchman, have presumed to write 2lIbid., p. 936. 96 this book, it pleases me to answer him, respectfully-- I wrote it to fix an impression distinctly in my mind. Asks he for the impression thus sought to be fixed in my mind, then I should be twice happy did he content himself with this answer--The Jesus Christ in whom I believe was, in all the stages of his life, a human being. His Divinity was the Spirit within him, "and the Spirit was God."22 The other result of Lew Wallace's defense of the faith was best-selling success for the book, the author, and the publishers. Harpers had accepted the manuscript, with some hesitation believing that its historical treat- ment of the Holy Land was out of fashion. Encouraged by the moderate success of Wallace's The Fair God, the pub— lishers felt that even this bold, melodramatic mixture of Sir Walter Scott and the King James Bible deserved a try. The early reaction of the public was not reassuring. About 2,800 copies were sold in the first seven months, yielding royalties of less than $300. By the end of 1881 the demand had dwindled to almost nothing. Yet by the close of 1882 sales began to rise to $300 a month. The next year, sales more than doubled, and they continued to double annually for several years. By 1911, one million authorized copies .had.been sold, and two years later Sears, Roebuck and Com- pany ordered one million copies to be sold by mail-order 111 a thirty—nine cent edition. In 1933 a Modern Library edition appeared, and on expiration of the copyright in 1936, several more editions appeared. Sales passed the 221bid., Vol. 1, pp. 1-2. 97 2,500,000 mark in 1944 and the book continues to sell well.23 Americans who did not read the novel or hear any of Wallace's many lectures in churches and on Chautauqua platforms, could have seen numerous theatrical productions or later movie versions of Ben-Hur's "tale of the Christ." Although, for a number of years Wallace resisted offers to have the story produced on Broadway, he finally agreed to a proposal by Theatrical Syndicate, which opened the play on November 29, 1899. The original, unprecedented, invest- ment of $75,000 was easily recovered by the returns from a continuous run of twenty-one years. In spite of the critics, who often referred to it as a circus and not a drama, the dramatic production was so successful that the road company gave six thousand performances in the larger cities, to crowds estimated at more than twenty million persons, who paid ten million dollars. When the original company closed in April of 1920, records had been established that have been unequaled in the history of the theater. As Wallace's biographer assessed it: "Through sixty years every American within reach of print and pictures, and many a foreigner, must at least have heard of Ben-Hur; most came to know it and remember it. . . ."24 23Irving McKee, "Ben-Hur" Wallace: The Life of general Lew Wallace (Berkeley, 1947), pp. 173-174. / 24Ibid., pp. 176-186. 98 The first motion picture production was Kalem's one-reel version in 1907. Wallace's successful damage suit won him $25,000 to make it "the most costly one—reel O I O O 25 scenario in Cinema history." The MGM production, a four million dollar "colossal" of "colossals," was written by Carey Wilson and Bess Meredyth and released 1925. Revived in 1931 and equipped with sound it continued to play the movie theaters in the era that produced a new search for the historical Christ--in the novels of Sholem Asch and Lloyd Douglas.26 MGM's most recent Ben-Hur received the 1959 academy award for best picture, and by 1965 it was second only to Gone With the Wind among box office attrac- tions, with gross receipts of $38,000,000. Just as Ben-Hur had been preceded by the novels of Ware and Ingraham, it was followed by a long line of his- torical romances dealing with the Christ or the early Christians. At least eight such works, which were clearly imitations of the best seller appeared between 1891 and 1906. G. J. Whyte-Melville's The Gladiators: A Tale of Rome and Judea, Marie Corelli's Barabbas, and Florence Kingsley's Titus, A Comrade of the Cross were the most 27 popular of this school of imitations. Nor did Wallace retire from the writing of historical romance. His The 25 26 Ibid., p. 187. Ibid., pp. 187-188. 27Ibid., p. 174. 99 Prince of India (1893) combined the color of Constantinople with the current interest in historical fiction and the writer's reputation to post a moderate record of sales. However, the novel had neither the romantic formula, nor the strong religious appeal, to compete with its predecessor. In addition, Wallace wrote a number of articles for popular magazines. His "Boyhood of Christ" was first published in Harper's Monthly in December, 1886, and was reprinted two years later as an illustrated brochure. In this form The Boyhood of Christ (1889) sold ten thousand copies at $3.50 per copy. The theme was the same: Jesus was the God man, a truly human being with the divine spirit.28 And yet, for all the claims to an orthodox view of the Incarnation, Wallace's Christ is more God than man. The General's own creed may have been a simple belief in a carpenter with a "divine spirit," but the images of Christ in his best seller are surrounded with a miraculous, holy aura not unlike that portrayed in The Prince of the House of David. Ben-Hur's mistake, again and again, is the judg- ing of the Nazarene by human standards. The teachings of Christ, so much a part of the Gospels, are reduced to a few major sayings. Unlike Ware's Julian, which abounds in the ethical teachings of Jesus, Ben-Hur summarizes the Inxrden of His teaching as: peace, good-will, love, and ‘nCul—resistence. Stressing the claim to Messiaship, Wallace w 281bid., p. 224. 100 defends his thesis through the miraculous and irresistable personality of Jesus. Emphasizing the historicity of Christianity's claims, he neglects the force of New Testa- ment ethics. The over emphasis on the miracles as compared with the ethical teachings in this presentation of Christ is related, no doubt, to two doctrinal commitments. Like Ingraham, Lew Wallace is concerned with emphasizing the Divinity of Christ and the spiritual nature of His Kingdom. Rejecting Hebraic traditions concerning the Messiah, Ben-Hur follows the path of the Prince of the House of David in asserting a Kingdom not of this world. By ending the narrative with Christ's death, Wallace is not forced to deal with the ethical decisions of the early Christians. Again, a popular reading public would not find a serious challenge to ethical complacency, but only support for traditional religious reductionism in a colorful, dramatic, package. The novel's ecumenical appeal derived from the non- ethical reductionism of Wallace's religion, and also the non-creedal, non-denominational setting. By stressing the pre-church history of Christ--a "Bible-only" tradition, the author was assured of a wider acceptance than that of concensus-Protestantism. Catholic readers had little difficulty accepting a tale of Christ that evidenced little, if any, of the Reformation perspective on Church history. 101 Sanction of the Roman Catholic Church was actually given to an Italian translation in 1895. A second Italian edition, translated by the Pope's honorary chaplain, who modified a few impious parts, received the blessing of his holiness Pope Leo XIII.29 The ecumenical appeal of a historical romance was successfully continued by Henryk Sienkiewicz's Quo Vadis: A Narrative of the Time of Nero. Published in 1896, the same year as Charles Sheldon's social gospel novel, In His Steps, this story of the early Christians in Rome became an immediate success. Although it was a translation of a Polish writer's work, Quo Vadis led the Bookman best seller list for 1897 and remained in fifth place in 1898.30 One estimate places it as the number one best seller for the 31 Since this first twenty-five years of the Bookman list. annual list includes only the sales of selected book sellers the many pirated editions were not a part of the estimated sales. The defective copyright, and the result- ing number of unauthorized editions, make it difficult to estimate its total sales. Hackett lists a conservative 754,000 sales, while Mott argues that the many paper cover editions, some as cheap as seven cents, gave it a sale of 29Wallace, An Autobiography, Vol. 2, pp. 941-942. 30Alice Payne-Hackett, 70 Years of Best Sellers, 1895-1965 (New York, 1967), pp. 93-94. 31Mott, op. cit., p. 211. 102 32 The considerably beyond a million and a half by 1915. recent Bantam classic edition, by the original American publishers, Little, Brown and Company, has extended that figure well beyond the fifty-year-old estimate. Such a successful contribution to the historical treatment of religion is surprising if one considers only the unpronounceable foreign name of the author and the Latin title of the book. Actually Sienkiewicz (1846-1916) was an experienced writer of unusual talent for writing historical romance. An historical trilogy, published in the eighties had brought the acclaim of the critics and Polish nationalists. Quo Vadis, which enjoyed a world- wide popularity, contributed only part of the international prestige which led to the award of a Nobel Prize for Liter- ature in 1905. His writing ability, combined with the popularity of historical fiction in the nineties, insured an extensive reading public. The theme of Quo Vadis was the conflict between the decadent order of Roman Society and the radical influence of the early Christians. Vinicius, the young patrician hero, comes into contact with the Christians by falling in love with Lygia, a hostage barbarian princess who has be- come a convert to the new faith. Vinicius' efforts to make a concubine of the beautiful Christian girl, with the help 32Hackett, op. cit., p. 86; Mott, op. cit., p. 211. 103 of his tribune uncle, Petronius, fail and the remaining narrative combines this continued pursuit with the slow conversion of the young Roman. Petronius, philosophically reveals the pagan decadence of Nero's Rome, while Lygia introduces the pursuing Vinicius (and the reader) to the revolutionary life and values of Christianity. The scepticism of Petronius, the hedonism of the Augustan court and the cruel social chaos of the city are con- trasted with the fanatic devotion to Christ and his teach— ings of the rapidly growing religious sect. Quo Vadis? is the question which haunts Petronius as he participates in the orgies and intrigues of Nero's court. It is the question which characterizes the torment of Vinicius mind and heart as he seeks reconciliation with Lygia. It is the question asked of Peter, by a vision of Christ, as he almost deserts the persecuted Christians. Finally, it is the question the new religion is clearly asking of the old social order and the participants in that society. The author's case for Christianity rests on the firm conviction of these faithful adherents in the relia- jbility of the eyewitness accounts of Jesus Christ. Their steadfast and hopeful endurance of persecution portrays (a new life and order destined to triumph over the dying old order. The author of Quo Vadis artfully introduced such a *mariety of elements in his novel that several reading 104 publics could be appealed to. The romance of Vinicius and Lygia was an old and successful formula. The cosmopolitan Roman Empire had already been shown, in Ben-Hur, to be an asset to sales. The realism of the novel, particularly in dealing with the debauchery of upper—class Romans and the torture of Christians, no doubt appealed to those who were tired of the "genteel tradition." Those religious readers, won over to the novel by E. P. Roe and Lew Wallace, could find an unqualified apology for the Christian Faith and the triumph of the Church in Rome. Catholic readers would certainly find little that was objectionable in a novel which closes with these words: And so Nero passed, as a whirlwind, as a storm, as a fire, as a war or death passes; but the basilica of Peter rules till now, from the Vatican heights, the city, and the world. The religious emphasis of Quo Vadis is interwoven among the dramatic social and political events of Nero's rule. The burning of Rome and the subsequent arrest of Christians, who are thrown to the lions or turned into human torches at a garden party, provides the framework for the Christians' witness to their Christ. As Vinicius pursues and finds Lygia, only to be separated by her imprisonment, the hero is frequently confronted with the "new life" of Christianity. His conversion, a slow process involving suffering and loss of past pleasures, is comple- mented by the rescue of Lygia from death in the Arena. Their happiness is clearly founded in their hope of eternal 105 salvation promised by their faith. Present pain and suffer- ing are not the formidable enemies of happiness that Petronius fears, but rather earthly trials to be endured with trust and confidence in God's will. As Vinicius writes to Petronius following the young couple's escape from persecution: . . . it is Christ who is blessing us, our beloved God and Savior. We know tears and sorrow, for our religion teaches us to weep over the misfortunes of others; but in these tears is a consolation unknown to thee; for whenever the time of our life is ended we shall find all those dear ones who perished and who are perishing yet for God's truth. The novel's emphasis on miraculous divine inter- vention and otherworldly hopes was consistent with the historical treatment of persecuted believers who expected God's immanent judgment on a pagan world through Christ's return. Yet unlike Ingraham's and Wallace's novels, the extensive development of Christianity's radical ethical teachings gives Quo Vadis considerable theological balance. The Christians have convinced Vinicius that "It is not enough to honor Christ, one must also live according to His teachings." Since his teachings abound with dictums to "love men as thy own brothers" and to return good for evil, Rome's hedonistic religions are clearly under God's judgment as inadequate for happiness. The testimony of the apostle Peter, who is God's "vicegerent" in Rome is that.Jesus was known for both His miracles and His mercy. Doing likewise meant forgiving one's enemies, including 106 those who burned one at the stake or who watched the lions attack. The new life is at variance, then, with pagan ethics. It is also critical of the social inequality of Roman society. The author's equilitarianism is evident in the descriptions of Christians who ignore or condemn social distinctions. Stopping short of abolitionism, the novelist portrays Christian masters and slaves loving one another. A Christian social order, including equal justice, trust, and domestic tranquillity, is proclaimed superior to the grandeur of Rome. Happiness and love, Rome could not give, only God. The popular treatment of the historical Jesus and his early followers did not end with Quo Vadis. Out of the many imitations of Ben-Hur and Quo Vadis, only a few, of course, would be able to compete on a best-selling level. Hurlbut's Story of the Bible (1904) reached the traditional religious buying public, but Papini's Life of Christ (1923) and Barton's The Man Nobody Knows (1925) reflect some religious themes of another generation. A new novelistic quest for historical religion was not again to be success- fully undertaken until the nineteen thirties and forties. Yet the continued popularity of those earlier best sellers evidenced the strength of this Christ-story theme in the POPUIar religious mind. CHAPTER IV SHAKING THE FOUNDATIONS: ROBERT ELSMERE The intellectual currents of the Gilded Age began to influence popular culture by the eighteen nineties. Called a "watershed" of American history by H. S. Commager, the decade of the nineties was certainly a period of rapid change. The economic and social change, which was already transforming a rural America into an urban industrial society, was accompanied by scientific and philosophic forces as unsettling as the factory. Under the impact of these forces, popular culture began to be shaken with the doubt and confusion already experienced by the trained and SOphisticated intellects. Values formed in a pre-urban society were now being examined in the light of the new science and the urban experience.1 The challenge to orthodoxy came from a variety of sources. Darwinian evolution, Biblical criticism, Hegelian Idealism, and the new socio—economic changes. Since the eighteen seventies, Charles Darwin's Origin of Species (1859) and Descent of Man (1871) had been the center of ¥ 1H. S. Commager, The American Mind (New Haven, 1950) I Pp- 41-54. 107 108 major conflict between older orthodoxies and the new science. The English philoSOphical evolutionist, Herbert Spencer, had brought the Darwinian thesis to the popular attention of Americans through his own writings. John Fiske, in his Harvard lectures and his Outlines of Cosmic PhilOSOphy (1874), had attempted to harmonize Spencerian evolution with the tenets of Christianity. Robert G. Ingersoll had aroused the wrath of the orthodox with his free-thinking lectures which popularized the agnosticism of Thomas Huxley.2 The conversion of James McCosh, President of Prince- ton College, Henry Ward Beecher, and Lyman Abbott to evolution as part of the providence of God, revealed that compromise with the new science was growing by the eighties and nineties. The new trend in Biblical higher criticism had also prompted controversy among Christians. German scholars had been subjecting Scriptures to a scientific literary-historical criticism which had raised many questions about traditional views of the Bible. The growing challenge to a literal and infallible Word of God added fuel to the fires of theological controversy. Although millions of American Christians refused to abandon their faith in the literal meaning of Scripture, many seemed receptive to the new'view. A revised version of the New Testament, reflecting 2Merle Curti, The Growth of American Thought, 3rd ed. (New York, 1964), pp. 529-539. 109 the newer, critical studies, sold well; as did Washington Gladden's Who Wrote the Bible? (1891), suggesting that the old dogmatism was beginning to crumble.3 With the rise of philosophical idealists, men like Josiah Royce, George 8. Morris, and George Trumbull Ladd, the theological dependency on Scottish common sense philosophy was challenged and the harmony between Christian- ity and philosophy in American higher education was severely shaken. In addition, scientific scepticism was aided by the changes in life and thought as a result of the advance of urbanism. Urban life faced the church with a challenge to its traditional role. The city, with its contribution to the loosening of social ties and the advancement of science, worked against the religious institutions and traditional Christian supernaturalism.4 Under the impact of scientific scepticism, theo— logical conservatism began to give way to a "New Theology" which synthesized the scientific currents with idealistic philosophy. The result was a liberal or progressive theology which accepted evolution and higher criticism while stressing the immanence of a god known by conscious thought. Jesus was the historical man from Nazareth who provided the example of man's truest potential as a Son of God“ Revelation, history, and human nature were all a part 3Ibid., pp. 526-528. 4Ibid., pp. 528-529, 524-525. 110 of the progressive divine process. As the old bastions of dogmatism fell away, a simplified ethical Christianity could respond to the growing demand for a "social gospel."5 The pietism of religious best sellers, in the four decades since Susan Warner's Wide, Wide World, had been of a non-creedal, yet conservative, variety. While experiential and ethical faith were exalted over ecclesiastical and dogmatic belief, the best-selling pietism had been un- apologetically orthodox. Not only were most best sellers orthodox, they ignored the battles which were raging in theological circles. Harriet Beecher Stowe stands out as an exception with her treatment of liberal challenges to old light Calvinism in The Minister's Wooing (1859); the fact that this artistic success did not reach the best selling proportions of Uncle Tom's Cabin may indicate the lack of popular interest in such religious conflict. It would take almost thirty years for a best selling treatment of such religious conflict to appear. In 1888 three such novels appeared: Mrs. Humphrey Ward's Robert Elsmere, .Marie Corelli's A Romance of Two Worlds, and Margaret Deland's John Ward, Preacher. Robert Elsmere was a sensation in both England and .America. Mrs. Humphrey Ward's novel of religious conflict and doubt was part of a Victorian genre that was rapidly 5Sydney Alstrom, "Theology In America: A Historical Survey," The Shaping of American Religion, Vol. I of Religion 131.American Life, ed. by James Ward Smith and A. Leland Jamison (Prfnceton, 1961), pp. 285-288. 111 matching the strength of didactic religious fiction.6 The loss of faith and hope was already a major characteristic of what Walter Houghton calls "The Victorian Frame of Mind."7 Englishmen, afflicted by what Matthew Arnold called "depression and ennui," reflected their anxiety in this popularity of the problem religious novel.8 One of the "classics in the literature of lost faith,"9 Robert Elsmere immediately became a best seller in America. Selling at least a million copies, the novel 10 "Free thinking," of Mrs. revealed a new reading public. Ward's variety at least, was now rivaling the pietistic apologetics of Ben—Hur and other religious fiction. Oliver Wendell Holmes and other writers judged her book to be the most popular novel since Uncle Tom's Cabin.11 Clearly a Modernist tract, Robert Elsmere is the story of a young clergyman who loses his orthodox faith 6Margaret M. Maison, The Victorian Vision (New York, 1961), pp. 211-241. 7Walter E. Houghton, The Victorian Frame of Mind, 8Ibid. 9Maison, op. cit., p. 241. 10Frank L. Mott, Golden Multitudes (New York, 1947), p. 181. 1ers. Humphrey Ward, A Writer's Recollections (New York, 1918), Vol. II, p. 91. 112 in the manner of many Oxford educated Victorians, including the author, for this novel is truly a confessional, spiritual autobiography. Mary Augusta Ward, a niece of Matthew Arnold, had lived at Oxford during the religious contro- versies connected with post-tractarian Liberalism. She had reacted strongly against the narrowness of Christian orthodoxy, and had written a pamphlet in 1881 denouncing the equation of unbelief with sin. This became the basis for Robert Elsmere.12 Mrs. Ward's familiarity with German criticism, resulting from a research project for The Dictionagy of Christian Biography, led her to the problem of historical testimony. This question of the value of testimony is central to her novel. Just as she herself had lost all faith in the supernatural element of Christianity, her hero, Robert Elsmere, succumbs to German thought. The impact of T. H. Green, an Oxford teacher of the English version of Hegelianism, is clearly present in young Elsmere's adoption of ethical idealism. Mrs. Ward's lengthy (seven "books" in two or three volumes, depending on the edition) presentation of Robert's "gain and loss" is the reverse of Newman's conversion tale in Loss and Gain (1848). As a young Oxford student, Robert falls under the influence of the theist philosopher Grey UP. H. Green) who plants seeds that will slowly germinate 12Ibid. 113 and eventually flower in an heterodox fashion. Robert marries a conservative Evangelical girl, leaves Oxford, and settles in a comfortable living as Rector of Murewell parish with his orthodoxy still intact. His "frank, genial and open-hearted" nature is frequently expressed in an idealistic passion for social justice in the parish. This concern for the poor brings him to a fateful confrontation with the Squire. The resolution of their earlier conflicts over the status of the Squire's tenants, leads to a close friendship between the German-educated sceptic and the bright, studious churchman. The Squire's research library and conversation soon aid Elsmere in his continued historical interests. Having read the Squire's history of religion, The Idols of the Market Place, the young man begins his tortuous, doubt- ridden, journey through German historical-critical studies of religious testimony. His doubts about revealed super- natural faith grow inspite of his passionate desire to believe. The temptation to reject head in favor of heart is resisted only when he recalls Grey's dictum: "God is not wisely trusted when declared unintelligible.“ Relent- lessly pursuing the truth, he goes through "a desperate catechism." \ "Do I believe in God? Surely, surely! 'Though he slay me yet will I trust in him!’ Do I believe in Christ? Yes,-—in the teacher, the martyr, the symbol to us Westerns of all things heavenly and abiding, the image and pledge of the invisible life of the spirit, --with all my soul and all my mind! 114 "But in the Man-God, the Word from Eternity,--in a wonder-working Christ, in a risen and ascended Jesus, in the living Intercessor and Mediator for the lives of His doomed brethren?" He waited, conscious that it was the crises of his history, and there rose in him, as though articulated one by one by an audible voice, words of irrevocable meaning. "Every human soul, in which the voice of God makes F itself felt, enjoys equally with Jesus of Nazareth, the divine sonship, and 'miracles do not happen!‘" It was done. He felt for the moment as Bunyan did after his lesser defeat. . . . He moved mechanically onward and presently, after the first flutter of deso- late terror had passed away, with a new inrushing sense which seemed to him a sense of liberty--of infinite expansion. This conversion to an unmiraculous theism, with its human Christ, is certainly in contrast to the conversions to supernaturalism of St. Elmo, Barriers Burned Awgy, and Ben-Hur. One can imagine the horror with which the readers of those earlier novels greeted Mrs. Ward's new creed. Robert succinctly expresses it to a group of workingmen in a slum settlement house project: The man who is addressing you tonight believes in Egg; and in Conscience, which is God's witness in the soul; and in Experience which is at once the record and the instrument of man's education at God's hands. He places his whole trust, for life and death, "in God the Father Almighty,"--in that force at the root of things which is revealed to us whenever a man helps his neigh- bor, or a mother denies herself for her child; whenever a soldier dies without a murmur for his country, or a sailor puts out in the darkness to rescue the perishing; whenever a workman throws mind and conscience into his work, or a statesman labours not for his own gain but for that of the State! He believes in an Eternal Good— ness--and an Eternal Mind--of which Nature and Man are the continuous and the only revelation. . . . inns Divine Spirit was immanently at work in the world and not:«confined to the church from which Robert Elsmere felt 115 obliged to resign. Settlement work in the slums became for the ex-churchman the appropriate expression of a "recon- ceived" Christianity. The appeal of Robert Elsmere for American readers was certainly not due solely to the religious argument. Mrs. Ward's literary abilities were clearly superior to most popular American authors. Her use of an English setting was no handicap to a reading public devoted to Dickens, the Bronté sisters, Jane Austen, Thackeray, and Trollope. Her romantic intrigues compared favorably with those of Augusta Jane Evans and E. P. Roe. The surprising thing was the success of a novel clearly designed as an attack on Christian orthodoxy. The continuity of best selling piety had been broken. Several religious elements remain, however, which may explain the possibility of such a best seller. The anti-ecclesiastical, anti-creedal theme was certainly not new in American religious fiction. E. P. Roe was typical of most religious novelists in his critical approach to institutional Christianity. Ecclesiastical structures and orthodox creeds were usually deemed to have had an adverse effect on the character of church members. Ecumenicity and tolerance were usually depicted, in the novels of this 116 period, as the victims of rigid orthodoxy. The common theme was the ethical element of religion.13 In a nation conditioned to multiplicity in denomi- nations, Elsmere's withdrawal from the established church and his organization of a new religious ethical society should not have appeared shocking. In addition, his religious idealism, while shorn of supernaturalism, was as pietistic as it had been before his crisis of faith. Shocked at both the militant atheism of working class radi- cals and the materialistic atheism of the upper-class, the hero leads a religious crusade as evangelical as any Ameri- can evangelist. Elsmere's social vision and settlement work anticipated the Social Gospel novel soon to flourish in America. And the religious hero's "New Brotherhood of Christ" is not substantially different from Walter Rauschen- busch's "Brotherhood of the Kingdom." Yet, the book was as controversial as any book of its time, in spite of the impact of the New Theology and scientific scepticism, and in spite of the elements of continuity with other best selling religious works. It was denounced from the pulpit in both England and America, and by Gladstone who disapproved of its heresies.l4 This l3Elmer F. Suderman, "Criticisms of the Protestant Church in the American Novel: 1870—1900," Midcontinent American Studies Journal, Vol. V, No. 1 (19641, pp. 17-23. l4Maison, op. cit., p. 258; Mott, op. cit., p. 180. 117 furor no doubt aided its sales, which in turn may have helped the sales of Ben-Hur, considered by many an antidote for Mrs. Ward's "free thinking."15 Of Mrs. Ward's dozen other novels, only The Histogy of David Grieve (1892) and The Marriage of William Ashe (1905) had significant sales in America. The international copyright agreements of 1891 had eliminated the American practice of "pirating" cheap editions which had boosted 16 David the earlier sales of so many English novelists. Grieve was not the successful hero that Robert Elsmere had been, however. His rejection of orthodoxy and his spiritual journey towards "the Christianity of the future" is a con- fused, artless, imitation of the earlier model. His philanthropic efforts as well as his "vision of faith" are without the dynamic enthusiasm of Elsmere or the "kindled mind" of Mrs. Ward's later Modernist hero, Richard Meynell (1911).17 Yet Mrs. Ward's established popularity in America, as well as her fame as a leading feminist and settlement worker, could only have helped the cause of modernity. Shortly after the publication of Robert Elsmere, Marie Corelli, England's other most popular woman writer 15Mott, op. cit., p. 181. 16Ibid. 17 Maison, 0p. cit., pp. 315-316. 118 in this period, began a novel intended to answer Mrs. Ward's scepticism. This defense of Christianity, titled Ardath, was published in 1889. While specifically attack- ing the "infidelity" of Robert Elsmere, Ardath was actually the third novel in which Marie Corelli preached against unbelievers. Her second novel, Thelma (1887), was the first to be published in America and it quickly won a substantial reading public.18 Although primarily a romantic tale involving an English baronet and a beautiful descendant of Viking kings, Thelma does deal with the question of scientific scepticism. The faith of the hero, Lorimer, has been destroyed by a "scientific professor." Lorimer believes in nothing: "I came from nothing--I am nothing-- I shall be nothing."19 Her earliest novel, A Romance of Two Worlds (1886) was published in America in 1888, the year of Robert Elsmere. In contrast to the rationalism of Mrs. Ward, A Romance of Two Worlds was a mystical conglomeration of pseudo-science, mesmerism, spiritualism, evangelistic religion, amateur psychology, cosmogony, and faith healing. Since these subjects were already of great interest to many in this country, it may explain the book's instant success. In a melodramatic fashion, the author developed a conversion theme based on "the Electric Principle of Christianity." 18Mott, op. cit., p. 179. 19Marie Corelli, Thelma (New York, 1906), p. 66. 119 Preferable to the atomic theory, in the author's view, was a doctrine of soul-germs and electricity protoplasm that was purely imaginatory. God is defined as "a shape of pure Electric Radiance." Believers are constantly exhorted to "cultivate the Electric Spirit within you." This mystical amalgam of science and Christianity obviously appealed to many in age age of science and declining faith. In Ardath, the monk Heliobas (the Chaldean "physical electrician" of Two Worlds) brings about the conversion of an agnostic poet by sending him on fantastic journeys through space and time until he actually sees the angelic spirits surrounding Christ. His conversion results in health and romantic marriage. Yet in this novel, as in her others, the attempted union of science and Christianity remains an undogmatic mysticism. The church is a hindrance to such a faith. In The Sorrows of Satan (1895) and The Master Christian (1900), the only other of Miss Corelli's many novels to reach a significant American reading public, the church and dogma are the enemies of Christ. Cardinal Bonpre, the "Master Christian," is a model against which all other clerics appear corrupt. The search for a lost faith or primitive Christianity in the face of scientific progress had a popular champion in the visionary and melo- dramatic works of Marie Corelli. The year (1888) of Robert Elsmere and A Romance of Two Worlds also was the year of Margaret Deland's American 120 novel, John Ward, Preacher. Although never reaching the best-selling status of the two English novels, John Ward, Preacher reached a popular audience with a distinctively American theme of religious conflict. The old light Calvin- ism, preached by John Ward, is rather harshly treated by the author. She depicts him as clinging to a narrow doctrine of reprobation in the face of attractive incar- nations of God's unrestricted love. His wife, considered a heretic by the Presbyterian session, is a victim of his orthodoxy. He determines that they must live apart until her suffering results in correct belief. He sends for his wife, Helen, as he lies deathly ill, and his state of mind is described: He knew that death was near, but there was an exultant look in his fading eyes, and sometimes his lips moved in grateful prayer. Perhaps his physical extremity had dulled his fears for his wife's sal- vation into a conviction that his death was to be the climax of God's plans for her. He was bewildered niat the temptation of greater joy at the prospect of her presence than gratitude that God should save her soul alive. But he never for one moment doubted she would come to tell him she had found the light. John Ward, Preacher was often compared with Robert Elsmere, and it raised a similar controversy in conservative church circles, although Gladstone wrote Longmans, the English publisher, that he did not consider it an attack 20 on Christianity. Yet apologists for the old order were 20Willard Thorp, "The Religious Novel as Best Seller in America," Religious Perspectives In American Culture, Vol. II of Religion In AmeriCan Life, ed. by James Ward Smith and A. LelandiJamison (Princeton, N.J., 1961), pp. 223-225. 121 certainly right in perceiving this work as another of those fictional attacks on ecclesiastical and creedal orthodoxy. The Bookman best seller list of 1896 included two religious novels which evidenced the continued popularity of "new light" attacks on orthodoxy. Elizabeth Stuart Phelps' A Singular Life (1894) and Harold Frederic's The Damnation of Theron Ware (1896) continued the Robert 21 Elsmere theme almost a decade later. Miss Phelps de- parted from her other-worldly considerations of Heaven to eXpress an undogmatic Christian humanism in her singular hero, Bayard. As a student in seminary, Bayard breaks with the severe theology of his teachers. His request for ordi- nation is denied because he could not subscribe to the belief in the eternal damnation of the wicked. Rejected by his church, he starts an independent work among the lower classes in Windover. Miss Phelps clearly expressed, through Bayard, her own convictions of how Christ would 22 Denominational ties and orthodox live in a modern town. creeds are rejected in favor of an essentially activist, ethical Christianity. The usual love story was not forgotten. Bayard falls in love with Helen, the daughter of one of his 21Alice Payne Hackett, 70 Years of Best Sellers, 1895-1965 (New York, 1967), p. 92. 22Mary Angela Bennett, Elizabeth Stuart Phelp§ (Philadelphia, 1939), p. 74. 122 orthodox professors. The climax of the story is reached when he is enabled to marry Helen by an inheritance from a wealthy uncle. Temporal success seems to be the reward of righteousness, until disaster strikes. Drawing an un- mistakable Christ-image, the author causes her hero to become the fatal victim of a missile thrown by an Opponent of the mission. The death does not seem to be in vain. His funeral, attended by hundreds of "neglected, poor, simple, sodden, and heartbroken" men, as well as prosti- tutes, widows, orphans, discontented laborers and foreign sailors, is evidence of the victory of a life lived for others. The Damnation of Theron Ware has been described by Willard Throp as "one of the best of all American novels 23 Old time religion, of the on a religious subject." Methodist variety, is victim to Theron Ware's encounters with a sophisticated Catholicism, the new critical scien- tific learning, and the attractiveness of ethical paganism. An unholy trinity of Science, Art, and Sex, in the form of a sceptical priest, a cold-blooded doctor and a beautiful pagan aristocrat, immediately begin the process of spiritual disintegration in the young Methodist minister. His intel- lectual naivete is challenged by Father Forbes' symbolic .approach to revealed religion which proclaims that the mind 23Thorp, op. cit., pp. 228-229. 123 of man is "alive with . . . thoughts and beliefs" which have evolved through the centuries in a "whole receding series of types of this Christ-myth of ours." The defense of orthodoxy is left to Brother Pierce who early admonishes the minister: "We are a plain sort 0' folks up in these parts" . . . "We walk here," he went on, eyeing the minister with a sour regard, "in a meek an' humble spirit, in the straight an' narrow way which leadeth unto life. We ain't gone traipsin' after strange gods, like some people that call themselves Methodists in other places. We stick by the Discipline an' the ways of our fathers in Israel. No new-fangled notions can go down here. . . . We don't want no book-learnin'. . . . What we want here, sir, is straight-out, flat-footed he11--the burnin' lake 0' fire an' brimstone." The frank union between religion and sex in Frederick's novel stands in sharp realistic contrast to the earlier religious novel. Theron goes through three stages of madonna-worship, involving his wife Alice, the beautiful pagan, Celia, and the pragmatic Christian, Sister Soulsby. As Doctor Ledsmar intimates, there exists "a sort of backwash of the old pagan sensuality and lascivious mysticism. . . ." Theron Ware's fall from intellectual, cultural, and sexual innocence provides the artistic frame- work for another attack on narrow creedalism and, in this case, unsophisticated isolation from modern thought. Orthodoxy reacted ambivalently toward one of the Host popular intellectual currents of the nineteenth century --New Thought or "mind cure." Rejecting its cultist ten- dencies, particularly in the form of Mary Baker Eddy's 124 Christian Science, many Protestants were attracted to a religious emphasis that promised power over "nervousness" or other psychological deficiencies. Largely led by and for women, the "mind cure" movement fed on the residue of New England transcendentalism and spiritualism, and on prevalent varieties of pseudo-psychology.24 New Thought literature began to flood the public market, including Ralph Waldo Trine's In Tune With the Infinite (1897). Eventually selling a million and one-half copies, this best seller promised in its subtitle "Fullness of 25 The point of the movement, and Peace Power Plenty." Trine's book, was to get peOple to think the thoughts of God; since God was All and One, the supreme Mind, and unlimited Goodness. When an individual, according to Trine, realized his oneness with this "Infinite Power" then he "becomes a magnet to attract to himself a continual supply of whatsoever things he desires." Although a de- parture from creedal traditions, In Tune With the Infinite was a new version of the old alliance between pietism and the success ethic. At the turn of the century, there appeared a best seller which dealt with the conflict between Science and Theology in a quite controversial fashion. James Lane 24Donald Meyer, The Epsitive Thinkers (Garden City, N.Y.: Anchor, 1965), pp. 1975. 25Hackett, op. cit., p. 85; Meyer, op. cit., p. 25. 125 Allen's The Reign of Law (1900) chronicles the "conversion" of a Bible College student to a belief in science as the sole source of truth. Following the pattern of his earlier well known stories, A Kentucky Cardinal and The Choir Invisible, Allen used the Kentucky hemp country as his setting. But in this novel he departed from the "genteel tradition to attack the sectarian roots of his own college experience. The Bible student, David, is the son of a pious pioneer family. His grandfather built the local church, and in an ecumenical spirit, opened its pulpit to preachers of every denomination. In order to live up to this religious heritage, young David decides to enter the ministry by way of the Bible College in Lexington. The young ministerial student is at first captivated with the scholarship of his professors and the "non— sectarian," "Bible simply" theology which they teach. But soon his thirst for knowledge carries him beyond the real sectarian limits of this theology, and he soon finds him- self reading the forbidden works on evolution. Astonished at the intolerance toward other "erroring" Christians ex- hibited by the college pastor and his fellow students, David begins to absent himself from church in order to study the "errors" of Darwin. Following a journey of spiritual doubt, David is an unsophisticated American version of Robert Elsmere. His agonizing search leads him through an agnostic rejection of Christian orthodoxy to faith in the New Science. 126 David's "apostasy from dogmatism" made him a friend of that peculiar professor "whose worship of God was the worship of Him through the laws of His universe and not through the dogmas of men." His love of Gabriella is also made possible by her rejection of church and dogma in favor of an intuitive belief in Divine Goodness. To- gether they can leave the anti-intellectual climate of the Bible-Belt and go north where David will study science in order to teach the new knowledge of the physical uni- verse. As they prepare to leave the hemp country, David cries for joy in his new found faith: Science! Science! There is the fresh path for the faith of the race! For the race henceforth must get its idea of God, and build its religion to Him, from its knowledge of the laws of His universe. A million years from now! Where will our dark theo- logical dogmas be in that radiant time? The Creator of all life, in all life He must be studied! And in the study of science there is least wrangling, least tyranny, least bigotry, no persecution. It teaches charity, it teaches a well-ordered life, it teaches the world to be more kind. It is the great new path of knowledge into the future. All things must follow whither it leads. Our religion will more and more be what our science is, and some day they will be the same. The Reign of Law never reached the sales of Robert Elsmere or John Ward, Preacher, appearing only on Bookman's best seller list of 1900.26 That accomplishment, however, was evidence of a reading public ready for an evolutionary hypothesis that had been earlier considered subversive of 26Hackett, op. cit., p. 96. 127 piety and sound theology. The temper of the times was suited to this logical extension of a long history of best selling criticism of church and dogma. Individualistic piety, with its faith in the accessibility of each con- science to the Divine, may have prepared the ground for such turn-of-the-century openness to progressive theologies and scientific Modernism. CHAPTER V SOCIAL CHRISTIANITY: IN HIS STEPS During the 1890's, an increasing number of American Protestants were moved by a sense of social crisis and led to believe in the necessity and possibility of a Christian solution to that crisis. The rural provinciality of con- ventional Protestantism had begun to feel the erosion of the confidence in the established social order that had been so characteristic of the seventies and eighties. Precipitated by conservative, progressive, and radical analyses of the urban-industrial development, a social gospel movement in American Protestantism came of age by the end of the century.1 The large, conservative wing of social Christianity remained primarily concerned with preventing socialism and other radical changes in the social structure. Reacting with fear and horror to the social crisis, their conser- vative analysis and prescriptions were representative of 1Charles H. Hopkins, The Rise of the Social Gospel in Americgn Protestantism, 1865-1915 (New Haven, 1940), pp. 121-122; Henry F. May, Protgstant Churches and In- dustrial America (New York, 1949), p. 163. 128 129 most clerical social theory prior to the mid-nineties. Yet in spite of their opposition to labor unions and income taxes, these conservative social Christians did pave the way for a progressive social gospel by their abandonment of complacency and their advocacy of evangelical missions in urban slums. Their opposition to collective social reform did not prevent them from advocating a degree of voluntary, individual reform, including higher wages. Instead of repeating the old cliches about "iron laws" of wages, these Protestants departed sharply from the older, complacent conservatism and went beyond Carnegie's Gospel of Wealth to urge the employers to avoid a "selfish" political economy in favor of some mild reform.2 By the last decade of the century a growing group of Protestant theorists began to agitate for a progressive effort to reform society. Primarily concerned with finding a Christian solution to the social crisis, these middle-of- the-road progressives abandoned conservative defenses of the status quo and challenged the sufficiency of the tra- ditional doctrine of stewardship to control the growth of injustice or to further the Christian concept of Brotherhood. This moderately progressive school, usually known as the Social Gospel, achieved a remarkably influential position 2May, op. cit., pp. 163-169; Aaron I. Abel, The Egban Impact on American Protestantism, 1865-1900 (Cambridge, Mass., 1943), pp. 88-136. 130 in American Protestantism and in American social thought.3 Reflecting the middle-class nature of their insti- tutions and leadership, the Social GOSpel advocates preached a middle-class creed that sacrificed only a minimum of individualism to meet the urgent demand for social action. Its middle-class moderation and typical American optimism probably explains its rapid growth, in the nineties, as an increasingly effective critique of conservative social and economic thought. Led by men like Washington Gladden, R. Heber Newton, and Dean George Hodges, this maturing Social Gospel sympathized with the weak labor movement; it proclaimed a faith in the fatherhood of God and brotherhood of man that promised an evolutionary pro- gress toward a Christian society, the Kingdom of God on earth.4 This critique of existing society was carried much further by a small but energetic group of Christian radi- cals. Rejecting much of the optimism of the moderate Social Gospel, these Christian radicals proposed sweeping remedies in the place of limited reform. They stressed the prophetic tradition in Christianity and denounced the basic existing social and economic organization as un-Christian. Most 3HOpkins, op. cit., pp. 121-170; May, op. cit., Pp. 170-181. 4Ibid. 131 radicals found the cooperative ideals of Christian Social- ism, and its effective leader, the Reverend W. D. P. Bliss, the effective expression of social Christianity. Declaring socialism as the necessary result of Christianity, the Society of Christian Socialists, organized by Bliss in 1889, grew rapidly in the nineties, prompting widespread criticism and discussion in the churches. Far too radical to draw any large following from the middle-class church public, the Christian Socialists remain a small but defiant force on the left-wing of social Christianity. Attracting public attention out of proportion to their numbers, Christian radicals played a significant role in the grow- ing critique of capitalism and the attempt to apply Christianity to the social crisis.5 The Social Gospel movement in the nineties was clearly reaching a large number of Americans through the spoken and written word. Although the influence of the church and of clergyman probably had declined, particularly among the wage-earners and the best-educated, yet the pulpit still influenced large sections of the population. Minis- ters were included on symposiums on industrial and social problems. The Chautauqua public, with its religious inter- ests, heard Gladden, Hodges, Strong and other leading exponents of progressive Christianity. Leading secular 5May, op. cit., pp. 235-262. 132 magazines, as well as the widely-read religious press, were offering Social Gospel articles and discussions of the merits of reform proposals. Henry George's Progress and Poverty (1879) and Josiah Strong's Our Country (1885), with their assault on vested interests and challenge to Chris- tianize the social order, prepared the way for books with a prophetic Social Gospel message.6 In the tradition of Social Christianity's call for urban reform.was W. T. Stead's If Christ Came to Chicago (1894). Stead, a British journalist with Christian social reformist convictions, wrote a book length tract which described Chicago's miserable conditions. This vivid description of police brutality, vice, corrupt politicians, tax injustice, and inadequate relief, was climaxed by a visionary reform of the city that made it a model world capital. This reform, according to Stead, would come through an ecumenical church arising out of the working- class-reformer alliance. By-passing the existing Protestant churches and their wealthy members, this new, truly uni- versal church would ally itself with labor and administer civic affairs according to the principles of human brother- hood.7 The Social Gospel was most widely presented through the Christian social novel. Written by clerical and lay 6Ibid., pp. 2044207. 7Ibid., pp. 118-119. 133 authors alike, the Social Gospel novel elaborated the If- Christ-Came pppip and other social interpretations of discipleship in fictional form. Reflecting the history of the social Christianity movement in its conservative, progressive, and radical branches, the Social Gospel novel may have served as the most effective bridge between the pietistic individualism of the evangelical tradition and the social activism of twentieth-century Protestantism.8 To the extent that they criticized the materialism and ethical unconcern of the American Protestant churches, the religious novels since the 1870's had paved the way for a distinctive Social Gospel literature. One study of sixty novelists writing in this period found strong dis- approval of institutional Protestantism reflected either in the absence of any reference to the church or in the minor role played by the church in the characters' religious life.9 By celebrating an ethical, individualistic piety in contrast to an affluent, unconcerned creedal orthodoxy, novelists like E. P. Roe had developed a best-selling pppif that remained available to Charles Sheldon and other authors of Christian social novels. 8Grier Nicholl, "The Christian Social Novel In America, 1865-1918" (unpublished dissertation, U. of Minn., 1964), pp. 308-326. 9Elmer F. Suderman, "Criticisms of the Protestant Church in the American Novel: 1870-1900," Midcontinent American Studies Journal, Vol. 5, No. l (1964), pp. 17-23. 134 The early ancestors of the Christian social novel included Elizabeth Stuart Phelps' The Silent Partner (1871) and E. J. Haynes' Dollars and Duty (1887). Both books present pictures of horrible working and living conditions in New England mill towns. Class warfare is mitigated only by the Christian influence of the concerned hero or heroine. Welfare work, sympathy, and improved factory working con- ditions are capable of preventing the growth of unionism and social conflict. This conservative version of social Christianity predominated in the novels of the seventies and eighties, but the decade of the nineties saw the grow- ing influence of the progressive version of Christian social responsibility. Washington Gladden wrote a "prophetic dream-story" for the Century Magazine, which was published in book form in 1883 as The Christian League of Connecticut. The story concerned an interdenominational league and its social effects upon an ordinary factory town. Edward Everett Hale, the author of A Man Without a Country, attempted to apply Christianity to industrialism in How They Lived in Hampton (1888). This narrative made a strong plea for the building of a cooperative industrial commonwealth. Albion W. Tourgee's Murvale Eastman, Christian Socialist (1889) was one of the best known Christian social novels which sympathized with boycotts of unfair industries. Not really a tract for Christian Socialism, Tourgee's book 135 combined an excellent literary style, the usual love story, and the timely concern with Labor-Capital strife to pOpu- larize the moderate version of the Social Gospel.10 The most successful work of evangelistic fiction dealing with the If-Christ-Came motif was Charles M. Sheldon's In His Steps: What Would Jesus Do? (1897). Reflecting the impact of W. T. Stead's work, the growing avalanche of social gospel tracts, and above all, his own ministerial experience, Sheldon's social interpretation of discipleship not only became one of America's all-time best sellers but it illustrated the continuity and change in pOpular nineteenth century religious thought. Evangeli- cal pietism had merged, in Sheldon, with the growing social concern of progressive Christianity. The traditional best- selling themes--personal piety, creedless ethics, con- version, stewardship--were all there; but in addition, Sheldon's millions of readers were to be exposed to a social gospel they might never have known of at all. Charles M. Sheldon was converted and "confessed Christ" when, as an adolescent, he attended a series of protracted meetings held by his "Uncle Joe" in Yankton, South Dakota. From the beginning of his Christian disciple- ship through the years at Phillips Academy, Brown University, loDana F. White, "A Summons for the Kingdom of God on Earth: The Early Social-Gospel Novel," The South Atlantic Quarterly, Vol. 67, No. 3 (Summer, 1968), p . 136 and Andover Theological Seminary, Sheldon followed a "common everyday" Jesus. Upon accepting a call from the central Congregational Church of Topeka, Kansas, in 1889, he began a ministry dedicated to a practical, socially relevant Christianity. Doctrinal questions never attracted the ethically-oriented mind of Reverend Sheldon.ll In order to appeal to the Sunday evening congre- gation of young people, the pastor of Central Congregational experimented with writing and reading serialized sermon stories. Richard Bruce, Or The Life That Now Is, was the first of these installment sermon stories. Several others followed, including The Crucifixion of Philip Strong, a treatise on Christian discipleship which involved sacrifice, suffering, and an almost literal crucifixion of the hero- disciple. The sharp criticism of an affluent, unconcerned, un-Christlike Christianity, pointed to his future work, 22 His Step_. Written and read to his congregation in 1896, In His Stgps was sold to the Chicago Advance, a Congre- gational periodical. By June, 1897, the sale of the book form had reached 100,000 copies. The book's subsequent history, according to the author, was one in which " . . . it seems as if the Divine Power took a very weak bit of human composition and molded it into his own gracious purpose." 11C. M. Sheldon, His Life Story (George H. Doran Co., 1925): pp. 37-82. 12Ibid., p. 140. 137 One of the top best sellers of all time, Sheldon's serialized "sermon story" can still be found in most Protestant church and home libraries. The claim has been made that In His Steps has sold a total of thirty million c0pies, and Sheldon reports, in a foreword to a late edition, that the book "has had more circulation than any other book except the Bible." The exact publication figures, due to a defective copyright, will probably never be known. However, Frank L. Mott has estimated the total sales at not greatly in excess of two million.13 The traditional Christian themes of conversion, stewardship, and sacrifice were blended, in this best seller, with a renewed and much stronger emphasis on a creedless, undogmatic religion of conduct. The return to apostolic Christianity resulted in a fellowship "not of creed but of conduct" for the disciples who followed "in His steps."14 For Sheldon, this emphasis on conduct was nothing short of a new definition of Christian discipleship, 13Frank L. Mott, Golden Multitudes (New York: R. R. Bowker Co., 1947), pp. 195-197. Commenting on an interview with the Rev. Dr. Sheldon in 1942, Mott attributes the "myth of thirty million" to the fact that the author of In His Steps "simply had no mind for exact statistics, whiIe at the same time he had a strong feeling for the romance of fine round numbers," p. 196. 14Charles M. Sheldon, In His Steps: "WhattWould Jesus Do?" (Garden City, N.Y.: Nelson Doubleday, Inc., 1952), p. 158. 138 upon which the regeneration of Christendom and the solution to the "social problem" depended.15 The text for Sheldon's "sermon story" was I Peter 2:21: "For hereunto were ye called; because Christ also suffered for you, leaving you an example that ye should follow his steps." The setting for the exposition of this text was the First Church of Raymond, which bears a close resemblance to the author's own Central Congregational Church in Topeka, Kansas. The Reverend Henry Maxwell's Sunday morning sermon to the "best dressed, most com- fortable looking people of Raymond" has just come to a close when the service is interrupted by an unemployed "dusty, worn, shabby-looking young man" who explains his own life of suffering as part of "an awful lot of trouble in the world" that would not exist if people lived the songs they sang and followed His steps. This man's pre- mature death imprints the condition of lost, suffering humanity on the Reverend Maxwell's mind and heart, result- ing in.a search for the meaning of Christian discipleship. The following Sunday, Pastor Maxwell challenges Jhis congregation to pledge themselves for an entire year xuyt to do anything without first asking the question, "What would Jesus do?" The pledging volunteers would then be expected to act "just as He would if He was in our places" 15Ibid., pp. 151, 196, 240-241, 245. 139 regardless of the consequences. As Henry Maxwell phrased it, "we propose to follow Jesus' steps as closely and as literally as we believe He taught His disciples to do."16 The volunteers included some of the most prominent citizens of Raymond. There was Edward Norman, editor of the Raymond Daily Npgp. Alexander Powers was superintendent of the great railroad shops in Raymond. Donald Marsh was president of suburban Lincoln College. Milton Wright was one of the large merchants employing at least one hundred men, and Dr. West was a young but well known surgeon. Jasper Chase, the novelist, Miss Virginia Page, the heiress, and Rachel Winslow, the talented soloist, repre- sented wealthy and respectable elements of the city. Their pledge "to do what Jesus would do" leads them down the path of "joyful suffering" to a new definition of Christian discipleship. Although the decision as to what it means to follow “in His steps" remains an entirely personal one for the volunteer, Maxwell's faith in the Holy Spirit's guidance is vindicated as each disciple finds little con- fusion in his own mind or in the judgment of others. The revolutionary nature of their actions transforms their (”n1 lives and particularly the lives of those around them. The editor, Edward Norman, runs the paper strictly on Christian principles. This means the absence of any news about yesterday's prize fight, the refusal to advertise 16Ibid., pp. 1-15. 140 tobacco and whiskey, and finally the termination of the Sunday paper. The resulting loss of financial support eventually leads Norman to the brink of bankruptcy only to be saved by the contributions of other wealthy members of First Church. The railroad superintendent, Alexander Powers, upon learning that the company has violated the Interstate Com- merce Law, resigns his position in order to testify before the Commission. The resulting hardship for his family emphasizes the self-denial and suffering entailed in doing "what Jesus would do." President Marsh of Lincoln College bears his cross by entering politics on a Reform ticket to fight against "rum and corruption" in municipal govern- ment. Milton Wright resists the profit motive and Operates his business on the principles of unselfishness and stewardship. The principle of stewardship also involves self-denial for Rachel Winslow as she gives up an oppor- tunity to sing professionally in order to sing for tent revivals in the slums of Raymond. The other volunteers make sindlar, if less dramatic, sacrifices in their adherence to the pledge. Self-denial and suffering become the complement of stewardship for the disciples in Raymond's First Church. Henry Maxwell's ministry is characterized by a growing emphasis on practical love and an Opposition to the hypocrisy of the wealthy and socially important. Jesus' 141 words "If any man would come after me, let him deny him- self and take up his cross daily and follow me," lead Maxwell to practice a greater personal austerity and a more fearless pulpit ministry. In attempting to follow in His steps he listed a number of things Jesus would probably do in his parish: 1. Live in a simple, plain manner, without needless luxury on the one hand or undue asceticism on the other. 2. Preach fearlessly to the hypocrites in the church, no matter what their social importance or wealth. 3. Show in some practical form His sympathy and love for the common people as well as for the well-to- do, educated, refined people who make up the majority of the parish. 4. Identify Himself with the great causes of humanity in some personal way that would call for self- denial and suffering. . Preach against the saloon in Raymond. 6. Become known as a friend and companion of the sinful people in the Rectangle slum of Raymond. 7. Give up the summer trip to Europe this year. (I have been abroad twice and cannot claim any special need of rest. I am well, and could fore- go this pleasure using the money for some one who needs a vacation more than I do. There are probably plenty of such people in the city.)17 This set of resolutions is almost identical to the "working creed in the ministry" found in Sheldon's autobiography. He identified his creed as "The creed of Jesus,--Love to God and Man." His ministerial program, as found in His Life Story (1925), reflects a stronger commit- ment to the political, social, and.economic redemption of 171bid., pp. 6-61. 142 man than his early social-gospel novel. The emphasis on conduct, not creed, however, remains central to his thought.18 Social Christianity emphasized goals or ends as well as the suffering and self-denial implicit in the con- cept of stewardship. In His Steps, while often more con- cerned with sacrifice than healing or reward, does hold suffering humanity as the beneficiary of Christian disciple- ship. It was, after all, the unemployed man's testimony and the conditions of the Rectangle in Raymond that prompted First Church's search for the meaning of following Jesus. .Maxwell's recognition that the working men, in general, were uninfluenced by the church led to attempts to bridge the gap between church and labor. The slum, with its damning effects on character, was an object of concern also. Institutional church work and traditional tent revivals were both employed to fight the evil of the slum. The "curse of the saloon," was the root of all evil, however. It was the saloon that was responsible for the Rectangle, with its crime and death. It was the saloon that.corrupted the political and social life of the nation. It was the great object and enemy of President Marsh's political reform efforts as well as that of the tent re- ‘vival. Since the saloon inevitably meant corrupt municipal government, the first step in purifying civic life must 18Sheldon, His Life Stogy, pp. 262-274. 143 be the end of licensing for the saloon. Reverend Maxwell and his pledged church members found it necessary to change their earlier positions and fight "rum and corruption."19 The anti-saloon emphasis with its complementary accent on a campaign of "organized righteousness," places Sheldon in the right-wing of the social gospel.20 Municipal corruption, with its roots in the saloon furnished a worthy opponent for the follower of Jesus. President Marsh felt it was "My plain duty . . . to take a personal part in this coming election, go to the pri- maries, throw the weight of my influence, whatever it is, toward the nomination and election of good men, and plunge into the very depths of the entire horrible whirlpool of deceit, bribery, political trickery and saloonism as it 21 exists in Raymond today." Edward Norman, the editor, also joined the fight against political corruption. In his new "Christian" paper, the Evening News, he editorial- ized on the "moral side of political questions." He takes a non-partisan stand and discusses all political issues from "the standpoint of right and wrong." Following in His steps means, then, that every political question must be submitted to the first question: "Is this measure in accordance with the spirit and teachings of Jesus as the ¥ lgln His Steps, pp. 60, 90-93. oHopkins, op. cit., pp. 104-105. 21In His Steps, p. 90. 144 author of the greatest standard of life known to men?"22 The moralistic approach to political reform, which so characterized the middle-class Progressive movement and its social-gospel origins, was never better illustrated than in Sheldon's best seller.23 The ethical questions dominating this novel also reflect a blend of the old and new. Sheldon's version of Social Christianity certainly rejects the Sumnerian or Spencerian concept of the social jungle. There is no room for self-interest, "enlightened or otherwise." The trouble with the world, according to Maxwell, is that it is suffer- ing from selfishness. This attempt to apply Christian ethics to business practices is exemplified by Milton Wright's summary of "what Jesus would do" in his place as a business man: 1. He would engage in the business first of all for the purpose of glorifying God, and not for the primary purpose of making money. 2. All money that might be made he would never regard as his own, but as trust funds to be used for the good of humanity. 3. His relations with all the persons in his employ would be the most loving and helpful. He could not help thinking of all of them in the light of souls to be saved. This thought would always be greater than his thought of making money in the business. 22Ibid., p. 67. 23Sheldon's relationship to Progressivism is sug- geSt?d by the evidence of his friendship with William Jennings Bryan and the presence of In His Step§ in Bryan's Personal library. W. H. Smith, "William Jennings Bryan End the Social Gospel," Journal of American Histogy, Vol. III: No. 1 (June, 1966), pp. 45, 49; Sheldon, His Life 8&1: pp. 177-178. 145 4. He would never do a single dishonest or question- able thing Or try in any remotest way to get the advantage of any one else in the same business. 5. The principle of unselfishness and helpfulness in the business world direct all its details. 6. Upon this principle he would shape the entire plan of his relations to his employees, to the people who were his customers and to the general business world with which he was connected. 4 This brand of stewardship preached and practiced by the disciples of In His Stepg, and which battled against the saloon, tobacco, prize fights, gambling, and Sabbath vio— lations represented old battlegrounds for American Protes- tantism. For Social Christianity the Kingdom of God was both ideal and actual. Whether it served as the ultimate standard by which all men's efforts were judged or whether it was a goal to be progressively realized in history, the Kingdom of God played a central role in social gospel thinking. Sheldon's In His Steps has little if any eschatology. The search for an ethical and practical definition of discipleship places the emphasis upon the present and immediate future. However, there are a few references to the Kingdom. Norman, in his formulation of what Jesus would do as editor of a daily newspaper, cites the main principle guiding the paper as "the establishment of the Kingdom of God in the world." Political questions are also to be treated from the "standpoint of the advance- :ment of the Kingdom of God on earth." Maxwell's final 24In His Stgps, p. 76. 146 vision of a regeneration of Christendom leads him to hope for the "dawn of the millennium of Christian history."25 The Kingdom of God is both the standard of judgment and the goal of faith. For all its social gospel themes, In His Steps reflects Sheldon's orthodox roots. Traditional values permeate the renewal of First Church in Raymond. Personal religious experience, characterized by the presence of the Holy Spirit and fed by a life of prayer, is the prerequisite for Christian Discipleship. As Henry Maxwell tells his fellow pledge-takers, "We must know Jesus before we can imitate Him." Alone with the Divine Presence the followers of Jesus pray for guidance by the Holy Spirit in order to have wisdom to follow in His steps.26 Sheldon was not as theologically minded as Walter Rauschenbusch but he shared "the lonely prophet's" origins in the evangelical orthodoxy of the nineteenth century.27 The Institutional church and settlement house approach to the problem of the slum is only half the answer for Sheldon. The traditional tent meeting is employed to evangelize the slum dwellers of the Rectangle. At the conclusion of the evangelist's sermon the traditional 25;p;g., pp. 133—135, 245. 26Ibid., p. 137. 27His Life Story, pp. 141-143; Winthrop Hudson, TEE Great Tradition of the American Churches (New York: Harper 'Torchbooks, 1963), pp. 226-242; H. Richard Niebuhr, Tpp lKin dom of God in America (New York: Harper Torchbooks, 1959), p. 194. 147 invitation hymn, "Just as I am," is sung and "broken, sin- ful" peOple stumble forward to the rude bench in front of the platform. Conversions or "new births" are the result. The traditionalism of In His Stepg is also evi- denced in its romantic, sentimental and idealistic tone. Its easy optimism triumphs over the worst portrayals of urban depravity. Edward Norman expresses the common faith that "Good things are more powerful than bad," and that the great fight is between good and evil. There are few moral ambiguities or ethical complexities. "Christian .America" has been challenged by Henry Maxwell, disciple of Jesus, who "with a hope that walks hand in hand with faith and love . . . laid him down to sleep and dreamed of the regeneration of Christendom, and saw in his dream a church of Jesus without spot or wrinkle or any such thing, following him all the way, walking obediently in His steps."28 The shortcomings of Sheldon's literary art are many and Obvious. The serial or installment origin of the novel results in an episodic effect that damages attempts at characterization, setting, or plot. The final third of the story, set in Chicago, may add to the thesis but at the expense of unity. The novel's heavy emphasis on theme serves tractarian but not literary purposes. 28In His Steps, pp. 136, 245. 148 The romantic sentimentalism and utopianism of the popular version of the Social Gospel characterizes this best seller's religious thought. After Sheldon's In His Steps, from 1897 to 1915, Christian social novels tended to move away from the con- servative evangelistic emphasis toward the progressive and sometimes radical social gospel. While Sheldon continued to write religious fiction every year down to 1914, he did not repeat his earlier sales success. His emphasis on an individualistic approach to social reform, contrasted sharply with the major social gospel leadership. Washing- ton Gladden, George Herron, and Josiah Strong had advo- cated major modifications of the environment, and this progressivism was reflected in many novels. That group of novels, following the pattern of Robert Elsmere and A Singular Life, which traced the decline of orthodoxy in a scientific age, also tended to interpret the gospel in social terms. Emmanual Bayard, the hero of Elizabeth Stuart Phelps' A Singglar Life (1895) fulfills his Christian calling in Angel Alley, as a slum worker. His lack of orthodoxy, resulting in his failure to be ordained, is no handicap in his Christ-like work among the degraded humanity around the coastal wharves. John Storm» the hero of English writer Hall Caine's The Christian (1897), was another popular, and muscular, embodiment of slumxreform. His "new social application" of Christianity 149 replaced the old creeds and allowed him to combine the "glorious gospel" of work for the poor with a glamorous love affair with an actress. In contrast to their general pessimism regarding the institutional church and its ministerial "hirelings," the progressive social novels often portrayed ministers, who had been converted to a social concern, fighting heroically against wealth and privilege. In the steps or image of Jesus, these clerical heroes drove the money changers and the Pharisaic hypocrites out of the church and out of civic power. Just as Phillip Strong and Henry Maxwell, in Sheldon's best known works, denounced the wealthy opponents of reform, so the Reverend Mr. Pertow of Austin Miles' About My Father's Business (1905) pro- claims from the pulpit the selfishness of the rich. Bishop watts, of John T. Moore's The Bishop of Cottontown (1906), risks death in accusing the mill owners of eXploiting chil- dren in the cotton mills. Reverend Emerson Courtright, after expulsion from his church, preaches Henry George's "economics of Jesus" to rich and poor alike. Industrial— ists, saloon keepers, and corrupt politicians are all militantly confronted by these ministerial bearers of a Social Gospel.29 29Grier Nicholl, "The Image of the Protestant .Minister in the Christian Social Novel," Church History, Vol. XXXVII, NO. 3 (September, 1968), pp. 319-34. 150 Radical or Utopian prescriptions were also available to the reader of popular Christian social novels. While the Utopian strain can be found in Sheldon and other con- servative, evangelical social gospelers, yet in William Allen White's In The Heart of a Fool (1918) and Edward Bellamy's Looking Backward! 2000-1888 (1888) and Eguality (1897) the radical vision is truly revolutionary. Grant Adams, White's hero, is an imitator of Jesus who works as a laboringman and preaches a "revolution of love." Bellamy's utopia guarantees economic equality to all people in the brotherly love of the Kingdom of God. William Dean Howells was clearly affected by both progressive and radical strains of social Christianity. Influenced by Henry George, Bellamy, and W. D. P. Bliss, Howells became quite sympathetic to Christian efforts at reform. Annie Kilburn (1889), A Hazard of New Fortunes (1889) and his Utopian novel, A Traveller from Altruria (1894) all reflect his ideal of Christian brotherhood. Although Howells seems to have stopped short of a complete commitment to Christian Socialism, his many readers did find in his "realism" a sympathetic concern for the working- man and a sharp critique of Protestant hypocrisy. His "traveller," with his "Christian republic" of peace and plenty, may not be characteristic of his thought, yet the indictment of monopolistic capitalism and the egalitarian 151 commitment to reform is characteristic of this influential literary figure.30 Opposition to the development of social Christianity certainly existed among elements of the church. Evangeli- cal pietism, particularly in the revivalist version, often has been cited as a conservative and even reactionary force. From D. L. Moody to Billy Sunday, the message of the revival- ist was personal reformation not social action. Benjamin Fay Mills was an outstanding exception, for he transferred the urgency and technique of revivalism to the cause of social reform. But he remained an outstanding exception. Most evangelical Protestants failed to depart from the primacy of individual soul-winning in the face of the new 31 urban-industrial society. This opposition was rooted partly in the social origins of rural and middle-class, 32 It was also a product of "entrepreneurial" churchmen. the long-standing evangelical notion that conversions were the natural and most effective way to Christianize the nation. Fundamental social change would be the product of successful soul-winning.33 302.933.}; maYI OED Cit-0' pp. 10—2130 31William G. McLoughlin, Modern Revivalism (New York, 1959), pp. 283, 336. 32May, op. cit., p. 189. 33C. C. Goen, "The 'Methodist Age' in American Church History," Religion In Life, Vol. XXXIV, NO. 4 (Autumn, 1965), p. 566. 152 This evangelical opposition to the Social Gospel may have been overcome somewhat by the Christian social novel. The religious novel, as has already been pointed out, tended to reflect many of the characteristics of evangelical pietism. The evangelical emphasis upon the imminent judgment of God upon human affairs, the need for personal regeneration, the necessity of a social expression Of brotherly love, and the belief in a coming Kingdom of God, were all recurring strains in religious best sellers, including the works of Sheldon and other Social GOSpel novelists. The evangelistic and revivalistic overtones of even the most radical novels, such as Bellamy's, was evidence of both the legacy of evangelicalism and the possible influence of this Social Gospel propaganda on evangelical readers.34 Certainly Sheldon's best seller and most of the other popular religious novels of the nineties continued to reflect the tendency toward theological reductionism in Anemican Protestantism. The pietistic unconcern with creed and denomination, while accompanied by a radical personal commitment in the religious best sellers, was often a reflection of a progressive acculturation in the churches. Successful churches in post-Civil War America were unable to maintain high standards of Christian 34Grier Nicholl, "The Christian Social Novel and Social Gospel Evangelism," Rpligion In Life, Vol. XXXIV, No. 4 (Autumn, 1965), pp. 548-561. 153 commitment, theological understanding, or disciplined 35 The complacent "unregenerate" churchman membership. is one expression of that compromising reductionism; the other is a body of popular literature committed to a Christianity which is free from the stifling and adverse effects of orthodox creeds and fashionable churches. 35WinthrOp Hudson, AmeriCan Protestantism (Chicago, 1961), p. 47. CHAPTER VI MUSCULAR CHRISTIANITY : CONNOR, WRIGHT , CHURCHILL Best selling religion in the Progressive Era was characterized by a strenuous or muscular Christianity which was part of the response to accelerated social and intel- lectual change. The growth of the factory and the city had led to the stratification of American society. The social and economic differences between large and small manu- facturers, between capital and labor, between new immi- grants and old natives, and between the city and the farm, conflicted with equalitarian ideals. An intellectual revolt against formalism and determinism coincided with the material changes to produce the reform impulse of progressivism. American thought at the beginning of the twentieth century was increasingly characterized by the paradoxical themes of belief in evolutionary historical progress and a return to pre-industrial ideals of natural social democracy. The new intellectual trends in science, philOSOphy, the 1George E. Mowry, The Era of Theodore Roosevelt and the Birth of Modern America, 1900-1912 (New York, 1958)! PP- 14'ISI 37- 154 155 social sciences, juriSprudence, religion, and the arts stressed pragmatic openness to change and reform. Yet in the face of scientific and cultural change, among pro- gressives there persisted a faith in the certainty and universality of traditional moral values. Central to the period's culture was the continuation of nineteenth century middle-class faith in the reality, certainty, and eternity of moral values.2 The persistent moralism of the progressives, epitomized by the social gospel, was everywhere evident in the crusades against unrighteousness, whether in the form of monopolistic trusts, urban vice and crime, liquor interests, or class politicos. Words like truth, justice, patriotism, unselfishness, and decency were constantly used in the process of making moral judgments concerning individual and corporate behavior. Confidence in the possibility of progressive reform on traditional moral terms characterized middle class society's response to the cultural challenge of industrialism.3 The reformers, however, were faced with the stigma «of effeminacey and ineffectuality which was the legacy of lrtneteenth century upper-class reform. The association of reform with Eastern society's ineffectual civil service 2Henry F. May, The End of Amgpican Innocence (Chicago: Quadrangle, 1964), pp. 6, 9. 31bido I pp. 9' 100 156 efforts and with upper-middle-class feminists resulted in masculine suspicion of proposals to remake the world. The challenge of this handicap was increasingly accepted by reformers who stressed the virile, muscular nature of progressivism.4 The union of moralistic and muscular reform was best exemplified in Theodore Roosevelt. In a speech delivered in Chicago in April, 1899, Theodore Roosevelt called upon his countrymen to lead "the life of strenuous endeavor."5 High among his list of life's virtues was "manliness."6 A noted competitor and combatant, Roosevelt once remarked that man's mission in life could be summed up with the words "work, fight, and breed."7 His experiences as a cowboy, big game hunter, and Rough Rider helped make Roosevelt's presidency a symbol of the era's fight against the "flabbiness" and "slothful ease" of the overcivilized man, "who has lost the great fighting, 4Richard Hofstadter, Anti-intellectualism in American Life (New York, 1964) , pp. 185-191. 5Quoted in Fred Lewis Pattee, The New American :Literature, 1890-1930 (New York, 1930), p.4104. 6William Henry Harbaugh, Power and Responsibility; The Life and Times of Theodore Roosevelt (New York, 1961) , pp. 91, 99. 7Mowry, op. cit., p. 110. 157 masterful virtues."8 For Mark Sullivan, T. R. was "the outstanding incomparable symbol of virility in his time."9 Roosevelt's preaching the manly virtues of the strenuous life appealed to a generation that celebrated the Klondike Gold Rush and the clean romance of Richard Harding Davis' tales of outdoor adventure. Prize-fighting and Kipling's poems were equally popular evidences of the muscular tastes of Roosevelt's constituency.lo Progressives, in order to dramatize the compatibility of reform with virility and strenuosity, followed Roosevelt's lead in an exaggerated concern with manliness as prerequisite for efforts to alter America and the world.11 Roosevelt's insistence upon the strong, virile virtues of primitive frontier America also symbolized the continuity with nineteenth century romanticism. While in reality, American frontiersmen feared and hated a wilder- ness environment in which they had to fight for survival and success, the romantic perception of primitive life as 8Theodore Roosevelt, quoted in Roderick Nash, ‘Wilderness and the American Mind (New Haven, 1967), p. 150. 9Mark Sullivan, Our Times, 1900-1925, Vol. II (New York, 1927), p. 235. lo;§i§., Vol. I, pp. 204, 264-265, 276. 11James R. McGovern, "David Graham Phillips and the Virility Impulse of Progressives," The New England Quarterly, Vol. 39, No. 3 (September, 1966), pp. 335-336. 158 virtuous persisted. By the eighteen nineties, a growing realization that the frontier was gone led to a romantic notion of the role of primitive conditions in develOping sound bodies, firm minds, and the manly self-reliance without which, Roosevelt argued, "'no race can do its life work well."'12 The impact of Frederick Jackson Turner's 1893 address on "the significance of the Frontier in American History" dramatized the American sense of in- debtedness to a strenuous life of conquering and settling a wilderness. In reviewing Captain Alfred Mahan's Life of Nelson in the June 1897 The Bookman, Theodore Roosevelt praised “those stern and virile virtues which move the men of stout heart and strong hand who uphold the honor of their 13 In extolling the warlike virtues, flag in battle." Roosevelt shared his aggressiveness and belligerence with many other men of his generation, including Henry Cabot Lodge, John Hay, Henry Adams, and Oliver Wendell Hohmes. The cult of military valor was, of course, world-wide. (The generation that thrilled to Tennyson's "Charge of the :Light Brigade" was followed by a generation that took Kipling's Barrack-Room Ballads to its heart.14 12Theodore Roosevelt, quoted in Nash, op. cit., pp. 152-153. 13Quoted in Harbaugh, Op. cit., p. 91. 14Harbaugh, op. cit., pp. 91-98. 159 The development of the soldierly virtues and the will to use them became part of the intellectual resources of an imperialistic generation. Reading the development of human history from a social-Darwinian frame of refer- ence, they concluded that a country, as well as an indi- vidual, must expand its influence or lose place, powerand prestige. The failure to fulfill its potential was the consequence of a nation's unwillingness to practice strength, determination, and sacrifice. Preserving the virile, manly qualities would prevent national decay and extinction.15 Imperialism, while rooted in the drive for economic gain, owed much to intellectual and psychological forces as well. Social Darwinist emphases on stern and virile virtues were combined with the moralistic drives found in American life. This moralism, expressed strongly in con— nection with struggles for domestic reform, characterized much.of American foreign policy. Although American Protes- tant missionaries were not simply agents of business enter- prise or the Department of State, they were the instruments of a strong tradition of religious imperialism. A sharp line could not be drawn between the secular movement of . I o o a I a I 16 imperialism and the religious movement of foreign miSSions. 151bid., p. 99. 16Paul A. Varg, Missionaries, Chinese, and Diplomats (Princeton, 1958): pp. 81-85. 160 Roosevelt's friendship with Kipling is not surprising given that generation's enthusiasm for the strenuous effort to carry out "white man's burden."17 William James may have been speaking for many in his and Roosevelt's generation when he defined the moral 18 Even an anti-imperialist life as one of "strenuous mood." and anti-militarist like James argued for the necessity of hardy, masculine virtues. In his essay, "The Moral Equiva- lent of War," James concluded that militarism was "the great preserver of our ideals of hardihood, and human life 19 Since with no use for hardihood would be contemptible." war disciplines communities and inculcates the martial virtues of "intrepidity, contempt of softness, surrender of private interest, obedience to command," anti—militarists must find a moral equivalent of war if these strenuous and honorable virtues are not to be lost. Since men are un- willing "to see the supreme theatre of human strenuousness closed" and the "splendid military aptitudes" lost, a way l7Henry Pringle, Theodore Roosevelt (New York, 1931), p. 128. 18Quoted in Edwin H. Cady, "'The Strenuous Life' as a Theme in American Cultural History," New Voices In .American Studies, ed. by Ray B. Browne, DonaId M. Winkel- Inan and Allen Hayman (Purdue, 1966), p. 60. 19William James, "The Moral Equivalent of War," The Writings of William James, Vol. I, ed. by John J. McD‘érmott (New York, 1967), p. 664. 161 must be found to preserve these muscular virtues if peace is to be beneficial.20 The strenuous themes of primitivism, masculinity, war and combat, and even sportive competition are evidenced in the literature of the progressive period. Stephen Crane, Frank Norris, Theodore Dreiser, Jack London and a host of lesser literary figures wrote in a variety of ways and moods about the struggles, triumphs, and disasters of strenuous men. The fascination with "vitality" and "red-blooded" adventure can be discovered in Norris' McTeague, The Octopus, and Vandover and the Brute. The thrill of vio- lence and brute force is celebrated in London's The Call of the Wild and Houston Steward Chamberlain's glorification of 21 Whether it was the strenuous the "great blond beast." mood of William James' free and moral man or the Nietzschean superman of Jack London, the accent was on the force and vitality of individual will. Popular literature, written chiefly for women, was characterized in this period by the rise of a distinctively masculine novel. With rugged stories and settings, combined with the Older sentimentalism and didacticism, the masculine 22 novels were read by both men and women. The frozen North 2°1bid., pp. 661-671. 21Alfred Kazin, On Native Grounds (Garden City, N.Y.: Doubleday Anchor, 1956), pp. 70-87. 22James D. Hart, The Popular Book (New York, 1950), p. 214. 162 figured in a number of masculine adventures in addition to those of Jack London. Rex Beach's The Barrier (1908), The Silver Horde (1909) and The Net (1912) treated the theme of virility in the Klondike gold rush. The "Sourdough Poet," Robert W. Service, immortalized the rough life of the Yukon with his crude but comic "The Shooting of Dan McGrew" and "The Cremation of Sam McGee" which were memorized by stage entertainers and college sophomores alike. Service's ballads were repeated far beyond the reaches of readers of published works.23 The "great open spaces," as a setting for muscular exploits, were not confined to the Alaska of London, Beach and Service. Owen Wister's The Virginian, first published in 1902, reflected the influence of Kipling in its cele- bration of man's competitive relationship with an un- civilized environment. Providing the archetype cowboy for future Western tales, Wister depicted a man of nature vflna is a totally free man because of his boundless strength derived from nature. The Virginian engages in the classic Zbattle with evil, as it is personified in evil men and their wicked deeds. Wister's dedication of The Virginian to his friend.and Harvard classmate, Theodore Roosevelt, indicated the obvious influence of the president in the growing cult of the muscular western hero--the cowboy.24 23Frank L. Mott, Golden Multitudes (New York, 1947), pp. 235-236. 24Ibid., pp. 236-237. 163 Among the hosts of cowboy tales that followed on the heels of The Virginian, none surpassed the popularity of Zane Grey's westerns. Beppy Zane, The Spirit of the Border, and Riders of the Purple Sage were among the most popular of his more than fifty novels. Featuring heroic Indian fighters and faster-than-the-eye gunslingers, Grey's books sold approximately fifteen and a half million. The success of Zane Grey over-shadowed the popular westerns of Emerson Hough and Steward Edward White, but not the Tarzan books of Edward Rice Burroughs. Tarzan of the gpes was a pulp-magazine serial before this story of wild, brute strength was published in book form in 1914.25 One of the strongest expressions of virility and strenuousness was found in the muscular Christianity of popular religion. A strenuous or muscular Christianity had been in vogue in Victorian England, as evidenced by the popularity of Thomas Hughes' Tom Brown's School Dgys, a classic text in the fighting virtues. His The Manliness Of Christ supported the famous clergyman, Charles Kingsley, in his preaching of a "healthy and manly Christianity, one vflmich does not exalt the feminine virtues to the exclusion 26 (of the masculine." Americans, like Roosevelt, were fandliar with this muscular Christianity, having read 251bid.. pp. 237-239. 26Walter E. Houghton, The Victorian Frame of Mind, 1830-1870 (New Haven, 1957), pp. 202-204. 164 adaptations of Hughes in McGuffey's Readers.27 In his autobiography, Roosevelt mentions "Tom Brown" among the good books which will enable a person to "furnish himself with much ammunition which he will find of use in the battle of life."28 Muscular Christianity was celebrated within the revivalist tradition, which still played a large part in American Protestantism. One of the foremost of America's revivalists had been Dwight L. Moody, who represented a rather genteel Victorian variety of evangelism. However, one of his prominent successors, Sam Jones, a Georgian evangelist frequently referred to as "The Moody of the South," followed a more masculine gospel. Reaching the peak of his career in the eighteen nineties, Jones and Benjamin Foy Mills preached a "new evangelism" which be- came known for an activistic concern for the social aspects of Christianity. While Jones' social gospel remained as provincial as the Georgian moral code and was largely expressed in preaching prohibition, its muscular theme had a wide appeal to lower-middle-class audiences.29 27Sullivan, op. cit., Vol. II, p. 39. 28Theodore Roosevelt, An Autobiography (New York, 1913), p. 335. 29William G. McLoughlin, Jr., Modern Revivalism: Charles Grandison Finney to Billy Graham (New York, 1959), ,pp. 283-329. 165 Jones' Muscular Christianity was his interpre- tation of following or imitating Christ. He said he liked "a broad, useful, aggressive Christianity--a Christianity with a musket and a cartridge belt." Since "Satan won this country by fighting," then "we must win it back from him in the same way."30 Muscular Christianity meant being aggressive and determined in the fight against the evils of the liquor traffic. Preachers were not only to preach Christ but to "raise the devil." In some southern cities, revivalist Jones even urged local Law and Order Leagues to take the law into their own hands against illegal saloons.31 The most successful opponent of what Sam Jones called "the effeminate Christianity" was revivalist Billy Sunday. Calling for "fighting men of God" and not "hog- jowled, weasel-eyed, sponge-columned, musky-fisted, jelly- spined, pussy-footing, four-flushing, charlotte-russe Christians," Sunday stood squarely for a muscular Christian- ity. Bernard Weisberger describes Sunday as a "fighter without quarter against the foes of womanhood, cleanliness, God, Imotherhood, hard work and America."32 Sunday's mili- tant masculinity was seen by one writer as more insistent than even that of Teddy Roosevelt. He told his audiences 3°Quoted in Ibid., p. 294. 311bid., pp. 299, 329. 32Bernard A. Weisberger, They Gathered at the River (Chicago: Quadrangle, 1966), PP. 248-249. 166 during the Progressive Era that he admired "the man who has real, rich, red blood in his veins instead of pink tea and ice water." He described Jesus as "the greatest scrapper that ever lived." His conclusion was obvious: "Let me tell you, the manliest man is the man who will acknowledge Jesus Christ."33 Sunday's crude preaching was criticized by many, but his popularity surpassed that of any evangelist in America and was at least a part of the cult of the muscular and the virile.34 Muscular Christianity, then, drew upon and rein- forced a popular culture enamored with the virility of the strenuous life and the manliness of the social gOSpel. A strenuous, moral fight against unrighteousness became a persistent best selling theme during the two decades before the First World War. The ground for such reformism had been prepared by Josiah Strong's Our Country (1885), Charles Sheldon's In His Steps (1897), and Hall Caine's rugged social gospel novel, The Christian (1897). Although the virtues of physical strength were not celebrated by these and most social gospel writers, moral strenuousness is central to the battle against unrighteousness. In 1898, the year after Sheldon's best seller appeared, the novel Black Rock was published. Written by 33McLough1in, op. cit., p. 427. “mm. . pp. 415-416. 167 a Canadian minister, Reverend C. W. Gordon, under the pseudonym of Ralph Connor, Black Rock is a rugged tale of Western life, where men fought out "that eternal fight for manhood, strong, clean, God-conquered." Connor's best selling novel and those of Harold Bell Wright which followed exemplified the "muscular Christianity" phase of popular religious thought in America. Presented as a true story, the book relates the progress of Christianity in the mining—lumber town of Black Rock, British Columbia. "Ralph Connor" finds him- self interrupting his medical studies to visit an old friend who runs a lumber camp in the Selkirks. The ex- tended visit becomes the basis for Connor's description Of the wild Black Rock and its transformation under the influence of a Presbyterian minister, Reverend Craig. Craig is a strong, rugged man who easily gains the respect of the motley lumber crew who speak with Scotch, Irish and French accents. The lumbermen, for the most part, are a hard working, hard drinking, and hard fighting group, two of which qualities are virtues, and one, a vice. The "curse of drink" prevents them from saving enough after payday to return to family and native country. Wives and children are, in effect, deserted, mothers land in the workhouse, and strong manhood is sacrificed on Friday night at Slavin's Saloon. 168 The Reverend Craig's battle is with the liquor forces in Black Rock, who plot to entice the men away from their newest resolutions and make them free-spending cus- tomers every payday. The men, in turn, battle for their manhood and, in some cases, for their lives. The strategy takes the form of a temperance league, in which the men pledge themselves to be teetotalers and spend payday cele— brating with coffee and doughnuts. The league's failure is secured by the saloonkeeper, Slavin, when he spikes the "lemonade" at a social ball and encourages his henchmen forcibly to induce leaguers to break their pledge. A beautiful frontier brawl between league and whiskey men ensues at the hotel when the league men seek revenge by destroying all the stores of whiskey. The invigorating fight is accompanied, however, by the ruin of the league. The alcoholic death of one of the fallen league men, the fatal illness of the saloon-keeper's baby (as a result of the drunken doctor's overdose prescription) and the Christian forgiveness of a new league led to a success- ful victory over the whiskey interests. In fact, Slavin, the saloonkeeper, becomes the manager of the new league's hall with its coffee room, reading room, and theatrical programs. The newly formed Presbyterian Church had suc- ceeded in leading rough men into Christian discipleship and fighting the good fight for "God-conquered" manhood. 169 Black Rock's theme, "that eternal fight for man- hood, strong, clean, God-conquered," emphasizes both the simplicity and the rugged grandeur of the "muscular" ver- sion of the Christian faith. The "eternal fight" became the essence of discipleship. Craig challenged the men at Black Rock's first communion service with the words: "It is a hard fight, a long fight, a glorious fight . . . but every man who squarely trusts Him and takes Him as Lord and Master comes out victor!"35 For the rough men of Black Rock, fighting tactics can be justified in dealing with the "whiskey business." In fact, at the end of the brawl with Slavin's gang, Craig took down his Bible and read to the league "that psalm for all fighters--'God is our refuge and strength.”36 The battle might be the Lord's, but He certainly had to have the forces. The "eternal fight" had a goal-—manhood. This man- hood was also described as "strong, clean, and God- conquered." It was the "base loves," particularly love of whiskey, which robbed the men of their strong, clean :manhooda It was only "in loving Him" that they could be "God-conquered" and therefore saved from the loss of man- hood. The total abstinence league, then, combines all the elements of this masculine fight. "The only safe man is the man who quits it dead and fights it straight," and yet 35Ralph Connor, Black Rock (New York, 1898), p. 131. 36Ibid., p. 163. 170 this fight is only successful when trusting Him and taking Him as Lord and Master. The "good, clean, brave heart" only comes from "our Father." Conquering one's self involved being God-conquered. This muscular Christianity, with its fight for man- hood, utilized a number of familiar themes. Discipleship meant stewardship. Connor's reluctance to join in Black Rock's first communion was a result of his Bohemianism and laziness. As he put it: "It calls for a life where a fellow must go in for straight, steady work, self-denial, and that sort of thing."38 Mrs. Mavor, the widow of a miner killed by an accident due to another man's drinking, makes several sacrifices. Her love for Craig, conflicting with "Honor, faith, and duty," means self-denial and sacri- fice as she leaves Black Rock without him. Self-denial is often only a temporary obligation for the disciple, for Mrs. Mavor eventually returns to become Mrs. Craig. The ethic of work is expressed not only in Black Rock's muscular frontier life but also as a requirement of Christian living. WOrking kept one from becoming selfish and weak. Every man had his own work which, in turn, be- came "ChristJS own work in your hands."39 Connor's friend, Graeme, expressed his conversion by rejecting a life of 371bid., p. 218. 38Ibid., p. 125. 39Ibid., p. 263. 171 ease in the East to return to finish "Old man Nelson's" work in the mountains. Work and self-denial were victims of and antidote to the "curse of drink." Best selling religion's pre- occupation with the total abstinence movement is at the heart of Black Rock's fight. This ethical absolutism is not a constant, puritanical emphasis with Connor. The league members smoke and occasionally swear. Although an almost entirely male community might be faced with the problem of sexual immorality, no mention of sex is made in Black Rock. The subject was either being ignored, according to Victorian standards, or rated very low on the scale of "base loves." Conversion, while not always expressed in tra- ditional terms, did find its place in Connor's message. Very early in the story, "old man" Nelson kneels in the snow, under a starlit sky, to "try Him." The parable of the prodigal son especially appeals to the lost men who wander back to a place of trust in Him. The conversion experience is often less emotional than the signing of a temperance pledge. In fact, for the Presbyterianism of Connor's story, conversion is seen largely as an initiation or renewal of a covenant. The religious thought of this best selling work has all the variety of Black Rock. A creedless, eclectic, ecumenical community, Black Rock "possessed in a marked 172 degree that eminent Christian virtue of tolerance." No orthodoxy was required and it was generally conceded that . . . . 40 one religious opinion was as good as another. Craig's Presbyterianism did demand commitment for the fight against evil and for manhood. But theological differences were certainly unimportant. The ecumenical spirit of the novel, while not completely transcending the anti-Catholic bias, did allow for Craig's cooperation with the local priest in the baptism and funeral of Slavin's baby. A religion that works is the reasonable one, accord- ing to Graeme. A liberal mythological faith, having failed to produce new lives, is inferior to the religion that pro- duces strong, clean men who will fight for righteousness. A religion that is theoretical and not practical has no appeal for the men of Black Rock. An anti-intellectualism common to much popular religious thought leads Graeme to complain: "It does seem a sinful waste of God's good human stuff to see these fellows potter away their lives among theories living and dead and end up by producing a book!"41 For Graeme, the only creed tenable or necessary is knowing that "good is good and bad is bad, and good and bad are not the same." All that is left, then, is the belief that "God is at the back of a man who wants to get done with bad."42 4O 41 Ibid., p. 104. Ibid., p. 254. 42Ibid., p. 254. 173 A religion that expresses itself in comfortable, unconcerned ways is not for the disciples at Black Rock. The "husks" of the churches, in the form of "elaborate ser- vices and eloquent discourses," are rejected for a faith that is simple and rugged. Just as with old man Nelson's story, "the stern fight, and the victory of the life, and the self-sacrifice, and the pathos of the death" appealed to men "who loved fight and could understand sacrifice."43 Reverend Gordon's success with Black Rock prompted a second Ralph Connor novel, The Sky Pilot, published in 1899. A popular work, but with sales amounting to only about one-half of those of Black Rock, Sky Pilot continued the theme of Christian influence at work among rugged western men.44 In this novel and the more than a dozen Connor novels to follow, muscular Christianity fights against the evil forces of drink and lost manhood. For Connor, the gospel must be lived and preached by men who escaped being shut up in theological seminaries out of con- tact with life where they cannot "recognize a social prob- lem if it walks up to him on the street-t."45 Combining the social gospel theme of Sheldon and the muscular attitude of Jack London, Connor's muscular Christianity continued best-selling religion's antipathy to creedal, comfortable faith. 432219-: p. 252. 44Mott, Op. cit., pp. 197-198. 45Grant Overton, American Nights Entertainment 174 Muscular Christianity continued to find a best selling market in the first years of the twentieth century as rugged outdoor adventure permeated popular literature. Owen Wister's The Virginian (1902), John Fox's tales of Kentucky mountaineers in Little Shepherd of Kingdom Come (1903) and The Trail of the Lonesome Pine (1908), and the novels of London, Beach, and Burroughs established the masculine appeal in mass culture. Religious themes and the church continued to be the subject of much pOpular writing also. A publishing firm, Street & Smith, began a new ten cent series in paper covers in 1910 called the Alliance Library, which included In His Steps, Reverend Cortland Myers' Would Christ Belong to a Labor Union?, D. L. Moody's What Is Christ?, Reverend C. H. Spurgeon's John Ploughman's Talk, Connor's Black Rock, and others.46 This union of social Christianity and masculinity reached its best-selling peak in the novels of Harold Bell Wright. His first novel, That Printer of Udell's was pub- lished in 1903, and was followed by a series of novels that "eventually made one of the most amazing records in the history of American best sellers."47 The moderate success of Wright's first novel was dramatically surpassed by his second and most popular novel, The Shepherd of the Hills 46Mott, op. cit., p. 226. 47lbid. 175 (1907), which has sold at least 1,200,000 copies.48 The Calling of Dan Matthews (1909), The Winning of Barbara Worth (1911), The Eyes of the World (1914), and When a Man's a Man (1916) were all top-bracket best sellers. Their Yesterdays (1912) and The Re-Creation of Brian Kent (1919) were both Bookman annual best sellers and helped push the grand total of all nineteen of Wright's books over the ten million figure.49 In the tradition of E. P. Roe, Charles Sheldon and C. W. Gordon, Harold Bell Wright lifted the sermon-in-fiction to best selling heights. Harold Bell Wright was born in Rome, New York, on May 4, 1872. Left motherless at ten he was put out to work on a farm. He was exposed to the educational fare of country schools and the trades of house painting and decor- ating. His preparatory education at Hiram College, in Ohio, was interrupted after two years by a severe bout with pneumonia and eyes weakened by overwork. With his dream of a college education ended, Wright went to Missouri where he began a career preaching to the mountain folk of the Ozarks. Pastoring Disciples of Christ churches in Pierce City, Missouri; Pittsburg, Kansas; Kansas City, Kansas; Lebanon, Missouri; and Redlands, California, 48Alice Payne Hackett, 70 Years of Best Sellers, 1895-l9§§_(New York, 1967), p. 26. Mott estimates the sales of'TMe Winning of Barbara Worth at 1,635,000 but this is disputed by Hackett who estimates 900,000. 49Mott, op. cit., p. 232. 176 Reverend Wright retired from a twelve-year ministry in 1908 in order to pursue his literary ministry on a full- time basis.50 It was while serving as pastor of the Pittsburg, Kansas church that he wrote his first novel, That Printer of Udell's, a social gospel challenge to the social uncon- cern of a wealthy, hypocritical, creedal religion. Pub- lished and marketed by a Chicago mail-order bookseller, Elsbery W. Reynolds, whose Book Supply Company eventually made publishing history with the success of its advertising and marketing of Wright's novels, That Printer of Udell's sold nearly 450,000 copies. Reminiscent of In His Steps, the plot involved a hero who rises from the status of an unemployed tramp to a respected printer. His criticism of the church hypocrites is finally overcome by the force of the minister and the challenge to fight the social problems from within the church. The establishment of a settlement house, in the face of wealthy church opposition, follows a well known social gospel theme. Melodramatic incidents and the ever-present love story add the necessary popular ingredients to start Harold Bell Wright on his long career.51 50Twentieth Centugy Authors, ed. by Stanley J. Kunitz and Howard Haycraft (New York, 1942), pp. 1552-1553. SlMott, op. cit., p. 229. 177 Ill health forced Wright to take an extended vacation in the Ozarks, where he began to work on The Shepherd of the Hills which was published in 1907. The local color of his Ozark retreat and the influence of the mountain folk provided Wright with the resources for his most pOpular book. The story of a mysterious old man who comes into the hills and becomes known as a shepherd and teacher, is the backdrop for a broadside attack on the dis- honest sophisticated life of city churches. The simple Christian virtues of the hill folk, such as beautiful young Sammy Lane, are contrasted with the sterility of the shepherd's former life as a famous city preacher. The muscular exploits of young Matthews on behalf of the right established the author's developing pattern of masculine themes. The Shppherd of the Hills benefited from an excel- lent press and began to realize an encouraging sales. While it did not make the Bookman lists its steady sales assured Wright that he had a successful writing career before him. He, therefore, resigned from his pastorate in Redlands, California in 1908 to devote himself full-time to writing. In 1909, The Calling of Dan Matthews sold two hundred thou- sand copies in eight months. Together with the two previous books, Wright had reached a market of over half-million by the end of the year. Responding to Reynolds' $48,000 advertising campaign, book distributors met the rising 178 demand for Wright's best selling religion by stocking the small town bookstores across the country.52 The Calling of Dan Matthews, with its direct and almost bitter critique of the church, was Wright's most complete and, yet, last expression of the muscular Christian- ity. This may have been the author's own farewell to the life of the church which he had left, for the book's hero, young Dan, concludes his long fight with the corrupt elders of the church he pastors by returning to the virtuous life of the Ozarks. The Winning of Barbara Worth departed from the church and religion as a theme but made the annual best seller list in 1911 and 1912 with capitalism, the Colorado River Valley, cowboys, and a beautiful heroine as part of the ingredients for his fictional recipe. Rugged, muscular settings and characters continued to prevail in Their Yester- days, The Eyes of the World, When A Man's a Man, and $22 Re-Creation of Brian Kent. The strength and healing derived from hills, mountains, or desert provide his heroes with the resources for fighting and conquering the immoral forces of the effete urban civilization of the East. Wright's personal fight against ill health provided the experience upon which his fictional efforts were based. When a Man's a Man was written, much like The Shepherd, 'While the author was convalescing in the wilds of primitive SZIbid. 179 nature. In 1916, having suffered for some time with respiratory difficulties, Wright was diagnosed as a victim of tuberculosis. He traveled to the Arizona desert to battle for his life, at least until he finished the book. He not only completed the book, but won the battle with tuberculosis and lived to write ten more books before his death in 1944. He described this desert experience as one of "very real joy in fighting," once he knew howgto get at his enemy. He saw this fight with death as "a game," played out in the thrill of a life lived outdoors.53 Muscular Christianity, in the form of Wright's novels, was reaching millions of readers. Nearly one million copies each of The Shepherd and Dan Matthews had been sold by 1914, together with a million and a half copies of Barbara Worth.54 These buyers and readers of Wright were part of a new larger book public which had been developing during the first decade of the century. In fact, by 1910 there was a larger book reading audience than would exist for many years after the First World War. Wright's three big sellers were among nineteen books that sold more than a million copies each in the years between 1901 and 1915, whereas there were only eight books with a sale of more than a million COpies between 1916 and 53Harold Bell Wright, "Why I Did Not Die," The American Magazine, XCVII, No. 6 (June, 1924), pp. 15, 82. 54Mott, op. cit., p. 231. 180 1930.55 Yet Wright's audience was more than just part of a general phenomenon. In addition to attracting readers who also read John Fox, Jack London, Kate Douglas Wiggin, and Eleanor H. Porter, Wright's moralistic fiction-sermons created an exclusive audience all of their own. According to one critic, he had become the favorite novelist of people who probably never read any other novels, and therefore he had the Opportunity to train people to read books.56 Wright's readers, whether part of the primitive virility cult or of the pollyanna persuasion of a new and exclusively Wright book-buying public, were treated to a heavily didactic and religious fare. Themes ranged from a muscular social gospel, largely confined to his first three novels, to a variety of popular themes, in his later novels, which continued to be part of an overall portrayal of the great moral fight. The battles between the forces of righteousness and evil were associated with the defense of Nature's rugged virtues against the encroachment of corrupt urban values. In his later career, even Wright seemed to succumb to the force of social change. His former Ozarkian friends viewed his divorce and remarriage 55Robert E. Spiller, et al., Literary History of the Invited States, Vol. II (New York, 1949), p. 1121. 56Hildegarde Hawthorne, "The Wright American," in The Bookman Anthology of Essays, 1923, ed. by John Farrar (New York, 1923), PP. 104-112. 181 in 1920 and his broadened religious views with shock and 57 sorrow. However, it was those first three Wright novels-- That Printer of Udell's, The Shepherd of the Hills, and The Calling of Dan Matthews--that illustrate the muscular version of that old best-selling religion. The young printer of Udell's is an articulate critic of denomi- national religion and all its creedal perversions of Christ's simple teachings. The teachings and doctrines of men were to blame for the church's false service to Christ. The hope of the world lay with men like Dick, who had experienced life outside the church and "whose heart is filled with love for men; who is absolutely free from ecclesiastical chains, and who is a follower of no creed but Christ, a believer in no particular denomination.58 Dick's conversion to a creedless, denominationless believer in Christ's truth made him an agent for social ministry in Boyd City. His personal application of Christ's teaching to daily life resulted in "High purpose, noble activity, virtue, honesty and cleanliness." God's law for the indi- vidual, according to the author, was also the source of transformation for the life of the city. The book's text, 57Literary Digest, August 21, 1920, p. 57. 58Harold Bell Wright, That Printer of Udell's (New York: A. In Burt, 1911), p. 118. 182 "Inasmuch as ye have done it unto one of the least of these, my brethren, ye have done it unto me," established Wright squarely on the side of a gospel of "practical Christian- 59 ity." Dan Howitt, the old shepherd who travels to the Ozark hills to find the peace and strength of God, becomes the central figure of Harold Bell Wright's most popular novel. Drawing on the mountain setting, the author sees all of life as a choice between two trails--one higher and the other lower. The choice of the higher trail, taken by Sammy Lane and young Matt, leads to true womanhood and true manhood. This choice inevitably leads to a battle, however; a battle against the temptation to strive for earthly honors or material wealth found along the lower trail. The old shepherd's secret is dramatically revealed as his long lost, and assumedly deceased, son is discovered hiding in a hill cave. The son has been hiding from the Matthews, the mountain couple whose daughter died giving birth to his son. While in hiding, the young Howitt has been able to be near his son, who wanders about the mountains as a half—witl The old shepherd, in revealing his true identity as the father of the young artist who wronged the Matthews and their daughter, also reveals that he was a famous preacher in the city. But he pleads for forgiveness for 591bid., pp. 344, 346. 183 himself and his son on the basis of his death as a sophis- ticated, intellectual churchman and his rebirth in the hills as a true man of God who was able to minister to the mountain people. The Shepherd of the Hills is largely an Ozark Mountain love story, but the sermon is still central. God cannot be found in the unnatural surroundings of cities, seminaries, and other institutional expressions of a busi- ness civilization. God is found in the hills "from whence cometh my help." The natural environment breeds men and women who lack the education, culture, and refinement of the city and therefore are spared the dishonesty and false- hood of a surface culture that denies true manhood and true religion. Peace, strength, and justice can be found in Wright's hills. Men and women who practice self-denial, self-control and guilessness, may still have to fight evil forces and evil men, as young Matt did literally. But they will be virile Christians unlike any found in the urban, cultural centers of religion. The most complete statement of Harold Bell Wright's religious thought can be found in The Calling of Dan Matthews. As a sequel to The Shepherd of the Hills, the book's hero is the son of young Matt and Sammy. Dan Matthews, as a result of the influence of the old shepherd upon his mother and father, has "that inborn passion to serve, that fixed principle in his character that his life 184 must be of the greatest possible worth to the world." He chooses, therefore, the calling of the pastoral ministry which takes him out of the Ozarks to school and then to a church in the city of Corinth. An evil spirit, the Ally, inhabits the city, and Dan's "calling" is tested in the battle between his unspoiled Christian desire to serve and the church elders who exemplify the spirit of the Ally rather than that of Christ. In chronicling Dan's struggle with the town's social problems and his growing disillusionment with the pastorate, Wright fires his heaviest salvos at the church. Almost every chapter illustrates the theme that "to the churches Christianity has become a question of fidelity to a church and creed and not to the spirit of Christ." Since only "the Spirit of God in a thing . . . can make it holy or sacred," the churches whose "faithfulness to the dead past and to the obsolete doctrines" of their respective denominations cannot inspire loyalty or devotion. As a hired servant of Memorial Church, Dan finds himself unable freely to serve the needy and undesirable in Corinth or to challenge the church to a sense of social mission. Judge Strong is an undisguised enemy of real Christian commitment and Elder Jordan had "that inhuman something in his religion that has always made religion a thing of schools and churches, rather than a thing of farms and shOps; a thing of set days, of forms, rites, ceremonies, 185 beliefs--rather than a thing of everyday living and the commonplace, individual duties, pleasures and drudgeries of life."60 Dan is daily challenged by Hope Farwell and Dr. Harry, both sterling characters alienated from the church, to see the "selfish, wasteful, cruel, heartless" nature of the church's creeds and traditions. As Hope saw it, the true church "that is so inseparable from the religion of Christ is so far forgotten that it never enters into any 61 thought of the church at all." The Doctor endorsed Dan's decision to resign from the pastorate with words comparing the church to the town monument: How can an institution, or a system of theological beliefs--with cast-iron prejudices, cast-iron fidelity to issues long past and forgotten, cast—iron unconcern of vital issues of the life of today and cast-iron want of sympathy with the living who toil and fight and die on every side--how can such speak the great loving, sympathetic, helpful spirit of Him whose name only it bears, as that bears only the name of my friend?6 Dan had believed so strongly in the ministry of the church that he failed. By doubting the church and its professions .he began to see religion in clearer light. The final words of his farewell sermon, before the congregation and its "bosses," was a summation of the author's message: 6°Haro1d Bell Wright, The Calling of Dan‘Matthews (New York: A. L. Burt Company, 1909), pp. 105, 277-278. 611bid., p. 102. 62Ibid., p. 342. 186 It is not the spirit of wealth, of learning, or of culture that can make the church of value, or a power for good in the world, but the spirit of Christ only. It is not in fidelity to the past but in fidelity to the present that the church can be Christian. It is not the opinion of man, but the eternal truths of God that can make it a sacred, holy thing. It is holy to the degree that God is in it. God is as truly in the fields of grain, in the forests, in the mines, and in those laws of Nature by which men convert the pro- duct of field and forest and mine into the necessities of life. Therefore, these are as truly holy as this institution. Therefore, again, the ministry of farm, and mine, and factory, and shOp; of mill, and railroad, and store, and office, and wherever men toil with strength of body or strength of mind for that which makes for the best life of their kind-~that ministry is sacred and holy.63 With this broadened concept of the ministry, Dan Matthews leaves Corinth to return to the old homestead in the Ozarks to practice Christian stewardship with the mining resources on Dewey Bald and to marry Hope Farwell. Nature, primitivism, muscular virtues are all a part of Dan Matthews' existence. His almost pantheistic reverence of Nature were revealed in the farewell sermon. As with his parents in the other Ozark tale, Dan is a natural man taught by his natural environment "those things that alone have the power to truly refine and glorify life." Finding that he can worship God best in His own temple of INatureq the young minister is soothed and calmed by hill, field, fbrest and stream. As a primitive, strong man he felt a passion for Hope Farwell unequaled by most of "the 63Ibid., pp. 345-346. 187 race today." His strong passionate manhood was never guilty of forgetting the high purpose and spirit of Christian character in his relations with Hope, but his virility was less checked in dealing with his enemy Judge Strong. In muscular fashion, the "young giant" thoroughly thrashed the man who tricked, robbed, and slandered the defenseless victims of his business and churchly power. The strong must Often be instruments of God's justice in Wright's muscular Christianity. Dan Matthews' strength and devotion to a muscular social gospel was matched by his primitive anti-intellectual- ism. Deriving his heroic virtues from Christian breeding in the mountains, Dan "felt: he did not reason." Not given to self-analysis, as "few really strong men are," he entered his many battles with an intuitive and single- minded devotion to a religion of deeds not creeds. Harold Bell Wright had succeeded in creating a story and a hero who continued the sharp critique of creedal denominational religion and capitalized on the popularity of muscular thenes. The persistent desire for a simple faith, rooted in Nature and freed from the stifling influence of intellect and urbanity, received its widest support from the sermons