Abstract
Chapter 5 offers evidence of the significance and influence of biblical authority as a recurrent theme in Evangelical children’s literature. The Evangelical Movement was underpinned by the belief in the Bible as the absolute authoritative ‘Word of God’. Selected relevant material and its authors are discussed who compellingly advised children about the importance of believing and obeying literal interpretations of biblical maxims as a paradigm for living. This chapter highlights the authors’ use of intertextuality, allegory, redaction, and theories of gender and the socio-cultural understanding of Sabbatarianism.
For religious instruction, we read portions of the Old Testament, and the Gospels, and Acts of the Apostles in class every day, using Mrs Trimmer’s Selections, and on Sundays, we repeated the Collect and learned Watts’s hymns, besides going through the Church Catechism … . At home, we were only expected to repeat the Catechism as we learned it, by very slow degrees; and with a Noah’s Ark to amuse us, and the pleasure of dining in the parlour, and looking at the pictures in a large Bible, Sunday was a happy, bright day though the church services were very dreary (See Sewell, Elizabeth Missing. & Sewell, Eleanor L. (ed.), The Autobiography of Elizabeth Missing Sewell, (London: Longmans, Green, 1908), p. 10. And also, Sanders, Valerie. Records of Girlhood: An Anthology of Nineteenth-Century Women’s Childhoods (Aldershot: Ashgate, 2000). p. 174.).
—Elizabeth Missing Sewell
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Notes
- 1.
Bebbington, David W. Evangelicalism in Modern Britain: A History from the 1730s to the 1980s (London: Unwin Hyam, 1989). p. 12.
- 2.
Larsen, Timothy. A People of One Book: The Bible and the Victorians (Oxford; New York: OUP Oxford, 2011). p. 1.
- 3.
Bebbington (1989, p. 13).
- 4.
Ibid.
- 5.
Larsen (2011, p. 1).
- 6.
Prochaska, F. K. Women and Philanthropy in Nineteenth-Century England (Oxford University Press, 1980). p. 16.
- 7.
Storr. Vernon F. The Development of English Theology in the Nineteenth Century, 1800–1860 (London: Longmans, Green, 1913). p. 70.
- 8.
The Book of Proverbs 13 v 24.
- 9.
Historians Claudia Nelson, John Tosh, and Julie Marie-Strange observe the way in which this mandate doubtless led to tragic cases of child abuse. See Nelson, Claudia. Invisible Men: Fatherhood in Victorian Periodicals, 1850–1910 (University of Georgia Press, 2010). p. 62. Strange, Julie-Marie. Fatherhood and the British Working Class, 1865–1914 (Cambridge University Press, 2015). p. 184. Tosh, John. A Man’s Place: Masculinity and the Middle-Class Home in Victorian England (New Haven; London: Yale University Press, 1999). p. 92.
- 10.
Gillian Avery, Childhood’s Pattern: A Study of the Heroes and Heroines of Children’s Fiction, 1770–1950 (London: Hodder and Stoughton, 1975). p. 56. See also Harris, H. J. Robert Raikes The Man and His Work, Biographical Notes Collected By Josiah Harris (London: J. W. Arrowsmith, 1899).
- 11.
Quinlan, Maurice. Victorian Prelude, a History of English Manners, 1700–1830 (Hamden CT.: Archon Books, 1965). p. 160.
- 12.
Spurgeon, Charles. Come Ye Children: A Book for Parents and Teachers on the Christian Training of Children (London: Passmore and Alabaster, 1897, 1989). p. 104. ‘We love to see persons of some standing in society take an interest in Sabbath-schools. … [V]ery often, the wealthier members of the church stand aside as if the teaching of the poor were not (as indeed it is) the special business of the rich. In the United States, we have heard of Presidents, of Judges, Members of Congress, and persons in the highest positions, not condescending, for I scorn to use such a term, but honouring themselves by teaching little children in Sabbath-schools.’
- 13.
Cliff, Philip. The Rise and Development of the Sunday School Movement in England, 1780–1980 (Redhill Surrey: National Christian Education Council, 1986). p. 129.
- 14.
For all of these statistics see ibid., p. 132.
- 15.
Styler, Rebecca. Literary Theology by Women Writers of The Nineteenth Century, (Farnham: Ashgate Publishing Ltd, 2010). p. 8. See also Kavanagh, Julia. Women of Christianity, Exemplary for Acts of Piety and Charity (London: Smith, Elder & Sons, 1852), p. 2.
- 16.
Rendall, Jane. The Origins of Modern Feminism: Women in Britain, France and the United States 1780–1860 (London: Macmillan, 1985), p. 73.
- 17.
Patmore, C. The Angel in the House (London: Macmillan & Co., 1863).
- 18.
See article by Buzwell, Greg. https://www.bl.uk/womens-rights/articles/women-authors-and-anonymity accessed 21/07/21
- 19.
See ibid., Charlotte wrote: ‘Averse to personal publicity, we veiled our own names under those of Currer, Ellis and Acton Bell; the ambiguous choice being dictated by a sort of conscientious scruple at assuming Christian names positively masculine, while we did not like to declare ourselves women, because—without at that time suspecting that our mode of writing and thinking was not what is called ‘feminine’—we had a vague impression that authoresses are liable to be looked on with prejudice.’
- 20.
For gendered attacks on female teachers, see Hilton, Mary. Women and the Shaping of the Nations Young: Education and Public Doctrine in Britain 1750–1850 (Aldershot: Ashgate, 2007). p. 9
- 21.
Myers, Mitzi. ‘Impeccable Governesses, Rational Dames, and Moral Mothers: Mary Wollstonecraft and the Female Tradition in Georgian Children’s Books’, Children’s Literature Vol. 14 (New Haven, 1986). 35.
- 22.
Buchan, William. Advice to Mothers on the Subject of Their Own Health (London: T. Cadell and W. Davies, 1811). p. 3.
- 23.
Myers, ibid., p. 33.
- 24.
Myers, ibid., p. 54.
- 25.
See Frederick Rankin MacFadden Jr., on ‘Favell Lee Mortimer’ in Khorana, Meena. Ed., Dictionary of Literary Biography (Detroit: Gale, 1996). p. 217.
- 26.
Mortimer, Favell Lee. The Peep of Day: Or A Series of the Earliest Religious Instruction the Infant Mind Is Capable of Receiving (London: J. Hatchard and Son, 1835).
- 27.
See Frederick Rankin MacFadden Jr., on ‘Favell Lee Mortimer’ in Khorana, Meena. Ed., Dictionary of Literary Biography (Detroit: Gale, 1996). p. 218.
- 28.
Ibid., p. 219.
- 29.
Mortimer, Favell Lee. Here a Little and There a Little, Or Scripture Facts (New York: Charles Scribner, 1853). p. 16.
- 30.
Ibid., p. 195. ‘The Son of God was in such great sorrow and trouble that the blood came through his skin while he prayed and fell on the ground in great drops.’
- 31.
Ibid., p. 206. ‘If he [Judas] had gone and sincerely prayed for forgiveness, God would have forgiven him; for He pardons all who are really sorry for their sins. But Judas did not pray. He felt very unhappy so he thought he would kill himself. It is very wicked for a man to kill himself. Judas went into a field and hanged himself up in some high place; and while he was hanging, he fell down, and his body burst open, and all his bowels came out upon the ground. It must have been a dreadful sight. And what became of the soul of Judas? He went to his father the devil, to be tormented in hell forever and ever. It would have been good for Judas if he had never been born. Had his parents known when he was a child what a wicked man he would have grown up, oh how sorry they would have been! I hope your parents will never be sorry that you were born.’
- 32.
See Muir, Percy, pp. 123–124.
- 33.
Shaw, Catharine. Out in the Storm; Or Little Messengers (New York: Carter, 1883).
- 34.
Sherwood, Mary Martha, The Flowers of the Forest (London: The Religious Tract Society, 1830). p. 80.
- 35.
The Gospel of Matthew Chapter 18 v 4. See also Avery, Gillian, 1975, p. 100.
- 36.
Born into a Quaker family, Galton eventually joined the Moravian Church in 1818. Her pseudonym was Mary Anne Schimmelpenninck and she wrote for anti-slavery campaigns and included in her circle of associated was a network of eminent names such as James Watt, Richard Lovell Edgeworth, Thomas day, Joseph Priestly, Erasmus Darwin, Anna Barbauld and Mary Martha Butt (later Sherwood).
- 37.
Cameron, Lucy. The Two Lambs. An Allegorical History (London: Houlston and Sons, 1830).
- 38.
See Wood, Naomi J. ‘Lucy Lyttleton Cameron’ in Dictionary of Literary Biography, p. 50.
- 39.
Cameron calculated in her diary ‘A plan has occurred to me, for enabling me to write half-an-hour a day:—300 half hours make 150 hours. In that time, I may write 1800 pages, equal at least to about 40 tracts.’ Ibid., p. 54.
- 40.
Ibid., p. 54.
- 41.
See Charlotte Elizabeth, The Simple Flower and Other Tales (New York: Published by John S. Taylor & Co., 1842).
- 42.
Avery (1975, p. 112).
- 43.
Wilberforce, Samuel. Agathos, The Rocky Island, and Other Sunday Stories (London: Seeley and Co., 1905).
- 44.
See Tolley, Christopher. Domestic Biography: The Legacy of Evangelicalism in Four Nineteenth-Century Families. Oxford University Press, 1997.
- 45.
Ibid., p. ix.
- 46.
Ibid., p. 13.
- 47.
Ibid., p. 14.
- 48.
Tolley, Christopher. Domestic Biography: The Legacy of Evangelicalism in Four Nineteenth-Century Families (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1997. pp. 24–25).
- 49.
Bratton, J. The Impact of Victorian Children’s Fiction (London; Totowa NJ: Croom Helm; Barnes & Noble, 1981). p. 82.
- 50.
Midgley, Clare. Women against Slavery: The British Campaigns, 1780–1870 (London; New York: Routledge, 1992).
- 51.
Davidoff, Leonore. and Hall, Catherine. Family Fortunes: Men and Women of the English Middle Class, 1780–1850 (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1987).
- 52.
Copley, Esther. Scripture History for Youth (London: H. Fisher, Son & P. Jackson, 1829). pp. 16–20.
- 53.
Ibid., p. 19.
- 54.
Wigley, John. The Rise and Fall of the Victorian Sunday (Manchester: Manchester University Press, 1980).
- 55.
See The Book of Exodus Chapter 20 v 8–11.
- 56.
Avery (1975, p. 110).
- 57.
Sherwood, Mary Martha. The History of the Fairchild Family, Or the Child’s Manual: Being a Collection of Stories Calculated to Shew the Importance and Effects of a Religious Education (London: Printed for J. Hatchard … and sold by F. Houlston and Son, Wellington, 1818). p. 113.
- 58.
Hill, Rowland. Instructions for Children; Or A Token of Love for the Rising Generation (1831). p. 13.
- 59.
Avery, Gillian. Nineteenth Century Children: Heroes and Heroines in English Children’s Stories 1780–1900 (London: Hodder & Stoughton, 1965). p. 101.
- 60.
ALOE, The Children’s Tabernacle, Or Hand Work and Heart-Work (New York: Carter, 1875).
- 61.
Avery (1965. p. 102).
- 62.
ALOE (1875). See Preface.
- 63.
Jay, Elizabeth. The Religion of the Heart: Anglican Evangelicalism and the Nineteenth Century Novel (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1979). p. 69.
- 64.
ALOE (1875, p. 83).
- 65.
ALOE, p. 267. Scripture reference is taken from 2 Corinthians verse 1.
- 66.
Cutt, Margaret Nancy.1979, p. 83.
- 67.
Kent, Eliza F. Converting Women: Gender and Protestant Christianity in Colonial South India: Gender and Protestant Christianity in Colonial South India (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2004). p. 144. Zenana missions were female missionaries who trained as doctors, nurses, and teachers allowed to visit the zenanas where they provided women with health care and also to evangelise them in their own homes.
- 68.
Sewell, Elizabeth Missing. Laneton Parsonage (London Longmans, Brown, Green, 1846). p. 223.
- 69.
Buckley, Jerome Hamilton. The Worlds of Victorian Fiction (Cambridge; Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1975). p. 303.
- 70.
Demers, Patricia. 1993, p. 115.
- 71.
Barton, Lucy. Bible Letters for Children (London: John Souter, 1831). p. x.
- 72.
Ibid., p. 151.
- 73.
Mavor, William Fordyce. The Juvenile Olio or Youth’s Miscellany (London: E. Newberry, 1798).
- 74.
Mavor. p. 25.
- 75.
Mavor. p. 28.
- 76.
Hack, Maria. Harry Beaufoy, Or, The Pupil of Nature (London: Harvey and Darton, 1821).
- 77.
Alexander, Edward. Matthew Arnold, John Ruskin, and the Modern Temper (Ohio State University Press, 1973). p. 72.
- 78.
See the account by J. R. Lucas, ‘Wilberforce and Huxley: A Legendary Encounter’ http://users.ox.ac.uk/~jrlucas/legend.html See also Sheridan, Gilley. ‘The Huxley-Wilberforce Debate: A Reconsideration’, Studies in Church History, 17, pp. 325–340. Lucas argues that Wilberforce’s supposed demand to Huxley as to whether he thought it was through his grandmother or grandfather’s line that he claimed his descent from an ape, to which Huxley replied that he was not as ashamed of having a monkey for an ancestor as he would ‘rather be descended from an ape than from a cultivated man who used his gifts of eloquence in the service of prejudice and falsehood’ did not in fact occur in any of the contemporary accounts.
- 79.
Lucas, J. R. Wilberforce, and Huxley: A Legendary Encounter (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1979).
- 80.
Maxwell, Christabel. Mrs. Gatty and Mrs. Ewing (London: Constable, 1949). p. 15.
- 81.
Maxwell., p. 125.
- 82.
Maxwell., p. 88.
- 83.
Maxwell., p. 89.
- 84.
Maxwell., p. 90.
- 85.
Browne, Sir Thomas, Digby, Sir Kenelm, and Chapman, Thomas. Religio Medici (Oxford: J. Vincent, 1831). p. 31.
- 86.
Gatty, Margaret. Parables from Nature (London: T. Nelson, 1855). See Preface.
- 87.
Cosslett, Tess. ‘“Animals under Man”? Margaret Gatty’s Parables from Nature’, Women’s Writing 10, no. 1 (2003). pp. 137–52.
- 88.
Ibid.
- 89.
Gatty (1855, p. 268).
- 90.
See Ricks, Christopher. ‘Tennyson, Alfred, first Baron Tennyson (1809–1892)’, Oxford Dictionary of National Biography (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2004).
- 91.
Sheffield, Suzanne Le-May. Revealing New Worlds: Three Victorian Women Naturalists (Routledge, 2013). p. 73.
- 92.
Wolff, Robert (1977, p. 244).
- 93.
Charles, Elizabeth Rundle. Winifred Bertram, and the World She Lived In (London; New York: T. Nelson and Sons, 1866).
- 94.
Jay, Elisabeth. ‘Charles, Elizabeth Rundle (1828–1896)’, Oxford Dictionary of National Biography (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2004).
- 95.
Ibid.
- 96.
Wolff (1977, p. 248).
- 97.
See Jowett, Benjamin. The Interpretation of Scripture and Other Essays (London: G. Routledge & Sons, Ltd. New York: E. P. Dutton & Co., 1907). And also, Hinchliff, Peter. & Prest, John. ‘Jowett, Benjamin (1817–1893)’, Oxford Dictionary of National Biography (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2004). ‘In 1860 Jowett contributed an article, “On the interpretation of scripture”, to Essays and Reviews, a broad-church volume, in which each contributor chose his own theme without knowledge of the work of the others. Jowett’s essay was an attempt to expound a rational explanation of the authority and inspiration of the Bible. He insisted that biblical writings should be treated as other books as one would treat classical texts. They should be read as far as possible in the sense in which they had been intended, without the overlay of traditional and sometimes forced meanings which they had often acquired.’
- 98.
Wolff., p. 247.
- 99.
Wolff., p. 139.
- 100.
Wolff., p. 129.
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Smale, I.E. (2023). Biblical Authority in Evangelical Children’s Literature 1780–1900. In: Women, Theology and Evangelical Children’s Literature, 1780-1900. Palgrave Macmillan, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-19028-5_5
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