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Published online by Cambridge University Press: 10 January 2014
In June, 1829 Ralph Wardlaw, Scotland's leading Congregationalist, wrote to his American friend, Leonard Woods of Andover, explaining the current fascination of America for British Dissenters. “An important experiment is going on there …, “ he noted, “of what Christianity when fairly excited can effect by her own native energies in the support and propagation of her cause, independently of the aids of civil power. I look to it … with high expectation, as I think it of vast consequence that a new practical manifestation of this should be given to the world.” Wardlaw was writing at the beginning of the Jacksonian era in America, a period when Nonconformists inspected American religion with a concentration never again quite equalled. For this scrutiny there were reasons beyond the general fascination with republican novelties. The emergence of a more vital and politically assertive Nonconformity, the eruption of voluntaristic controversy in both England and Scotland, the excitement of the Reform Age, and the perennial anticipation of revivals at home on the scale of the American awakenings all played roles in directing British attention overseas. And as Wardlaw indicated, the element of “American Protestantism” which most intrigued British evangelicals was the apparent vindication of the voluntary system, which with the accompanying phenomenon of revivals raised the prospect of a free spiritual and vital Christianity, indeed a new age in Christian history.
Despite its prominence in the literature of the 1830s, this British examination of the American voluntary church has received only scant attention from scholars.
1 Alexander, William Lindsay, Memoirs of the Life and Writings of Ralph Wardlaw, D.D. (Glasgow, 1856), pp. 273–74Google Scholar. The present essay concentrates on the issue of American religion among “evangelical Nonconformists,” primarily Congregationalists, Baptists, Methodists, and Scottish Dissenters, though the histories of Unitarians and Quakers were also affected by ties with the United States. Focus is also on the controversy in England and Scotland. Nonconformists in Wales and Ireland maintained American connections and contributed to the debate, but their more “provincial” standpoint colored the issue and in neither area were they able to command comparable attention from the national press or general public.
2 Several studies of transatlantic culture have stressed the traffic in political and humanitarian ideas and accordingly made some reference to Anglo-American religious exchanges. Of these the most important are Crook, David Paul, American Democracy in English Politics 1815-1850 (Oxford, 1965)Google Scholar, Lillibridge, George D., Beacon of Freedom: the Impact of American Democracy upon Great Britain 1830-1870 (Philadelphia, 1955)Google Scholar, and Thistlewaite, Frank, America and the Atlantic Community. Anglo-American Aspects, 1790-1850 (New York, 1959), especially pp. 76–102Google Scholar. Far more detailed treatment of the religious connection is provided in Foster, Charles I., An Errand of Mercy: the Evangelical United Front 1790-1837 (Chapel Hill, N.C., 1960)Google Scholar, but the author's interest lies in the transatlantic network of benevolent societies rather than the influence of American Protestantism in Britain.
3 Carwardine, Richard, Transatlantic Revivalism, 1790-1865 (Westport, Conn. 1978)Google Scholar comments on the assumption of many Nonconformists that only disestablishment would assure a new religious vitality which might issue in revivals (pp. 68-69 and passim), but his book does not otherwise address the impact of American voluntaryism on the ideology and politics of Dissent.
4 Crook, , American Democracy, pp. 39-40, 156–59Google Scholar; Lillibridge, , Beacon of Freedom, pp. 23–27Google Scholar.
5 Wilks, Samuel Charles, Correlative Claims and Duties (London, 1821), pp. 78–83Google Scholar. The Works of Thomas Chalmers, D.D., LL.D. (Glasgow, 1836–1842), XVII, 113–14Google Scholar. Hodgson, Adam, Letters from North America Written during a Tour in the United States and Canada (London, 1824)Google Scholar. Bristed, John, Thoughts on the Anglican and Anglo-American Churches (London, 1823)Google Scholar.
6 For the awakening of English Dissent, see Addison, William George, Religious Equality in Modern England 1714-1914 (London, 1944), pp. 38–93Google Scholar; Cowherd, Raymond G., The Politics of English Dissent (New York, 1956)Google Scholar; Jones, Robert Tudur, Congregationalism in England, 1662-1962 (London, 1962), pp. 200 ff.Google Scholar; Chadwick, Owen, The Victorian Church (London, 1966), 1, 60-100, 370–420Google Scholar. Halévy, Élie provided a classic treatment in A History of the English People in the Nineteenth Century (London, 1924–1947), I, 341–423Google Scholar. On the Scottish side see McKerrow, John, History of the Secession Church (Edinburgh, 1848)Google Scholar and Escott, Harry, A History of Scottish Congregationalism (Glasgow, 1960), pp. 45 ff.Google Scholar
7 Numerous recent studies have dealt with development of the religious ingredient in America's sense of mission. Representative of this interest but from different perspectives are Tuveson, Ernest Lee, Redeemer Nation: The Idea of America's Millennial Role (Chicago, 1968)Google Scholar, Albanese, Catherine L., Sons of the Fathers: The Civil Religion of the American Revolution (Philadelphia, 1976)Google Scholar, Hatch, Nathan O., The Sacred Cause of Liberty: Republican Thought and the Millennium in Revolutionary New England (New Haven, 1977)Google Scholar, Berens, John F., Providence and Patriotism in Early America, 1640-1815 (Charlottesville, Va., 1978)Google Scholar. Beecher's, Lyman role in redefining church-state relations is evident in his Works (Boston, 1852–1853)Google Scholar, passim and described in Maclear, J.F., “‘The True American Union’ of Church and State: The Reconstruction of the Theocratic Tradition,” Church History, XXVIII (1959), 3–24Google Scholar. Hobart, John Henry, The United States of America Compared with Some Other Countries, Particularly England (London, 1826), pp. 17, 34–37Google Scholar.
8 Quoted in Fraser's Magazine, IX (1834), 388Google Scholar.
9 Congregational Magazine, N.S., V (1829), 619–21, 56-59Google Scholar; N.S., VI (1830), 471. The Wesleyan Methodist Magazine was an exception to the usual approval of the American experiment by Dissenters since under Jabez Bunting the leadership was unfriendly to disestablishment proposals. The Magazine was attentive to American Methodism, however.
10 Accounts of the formation of the Union appear in Jones, Tudur, Congregationalism, pp. 242 ff.Google Scholar and in greater detail in Peel, Albert, These Hundred Years: A History of the Congregational Union of England and Wales, 1831-1931 (London, 1931), pp. 31–78Google Scholar. Congregational Magazine, N.S., V (1829), 505–10Google Scholar published the official texts of the exchanges with America.
11 Useful sketches of James, Hinton, and Wardlaw appear in The Dictionary of National Biography, Sir Leslie Stephen and Sir Sidney Lee, eds. (London, 1917), s.v. “James, John Angell,” “Hinton, John Howard,” “Wardlaw, Ralph.” Dale, R.W. (ed.), The Life and Letters of John Angell James (London, 1861)Google Scholar is fragmentary and unorganized, but contains parts of James's valuable American correspondence with Patton and Sprague after 1828. Similarly, Alexander's Wardlaw, antiquated and uncritical, preserves information not available elsewhere. In Scotland Wardlaw's advocacy of the American example was matched by the Secession preachers, John Ritchie, Hugh Heugh, and James Peddie.
12 Works of Chalmers, XVII, 113–14Google Scholar. Report of the Speeches Delivered in the North United Secession Church, Perth, at the Formation of the Perthshire Voluntary Church Association (Dundee, 1833), p. 25Google Scholar. Grant, Duncan, Modern Voluntary Churches Incapable of Defence (Elgin, 1833)Google Scholar.
13 Alexander, , Wardlaw, pp. 347–48Google Scholar. Evidence of Chalmers's interrogation of visiting Americans is abundant. Note, for example, Stone, John Seely, A Memoir of the Life of James Milnor (New York, 1848), p. 435Google Scholar; Codman, John, A Narrative of a Visit to England (Boston, 1836), pp. 211–12Google Scholar; Sprague, William Buell, Visits to European Celebrities (Boston, 1855), pp. 251–54Google Scholar; Cox, Samuel Hanson, Interviews; Memorable and Useful (London, 1853), pp. 52–64Google Scholar.
14 David, K. and Guthrie, Charles J. (eds.), Autobiography of Thomas Guthrie, D.D. and Memoir (New York, 1876), I, 166–73Google Scholar. Full narrative in Account of a Meeting Held at Arbroath on the 16th April 1834 in Defense of Church Establishments (Arbroath, 1834), pp. 82–88Google Scholar. Report of the Discussion on Civil Establishments of Religion; Held at Belfast upon the Evenings of 16th and 17th March, 1836 (Belfast, 1836), pp. 6–7Google Scholar. Cox, , Interviews, pp. 46–48Google Scholar.
15 Lorimer, John Gordon, Past and Present Condition (London, 1833)Google Scholar. Part I was a rebuttal to “Religious Statistics of America” in the Voluntary Church Magazine; Part II was devoted to “Showing on the Testimony of Americans Themselves, the Deplorable Destitution of the Means of Grace, the Immense Progress of Error, and the Extensive Prevalence of Other Great Moral and Religious Evils.” The book was answered by “A Dissenter” in Defense of the American Ecclesiastical Statistics Put Forth by the Voluntary Church Magazine in a Letter to the Rev. John G. Lorimer (Glasgow, 1833)Google Scholar.
16 [King, David], Examination of the Equity and Expediency of Ecclesiastical Establishments (Edinburgh, 1832), pp. 34–38Google Scholar. Matheson, James, The Voluntary Exercise of Christian Principle the Only Method by which Great Britain and Ireland Can be Evangelized (Glasgow, 1835), pp. 13–29Google Scholar.
17 New York Evangelist, July 25,1840. Humphrey, Heman, Great Britain, France, and Belgium: A Short Tour in 1835 (New York, 1838), II, 154 ff.Google Scholar
18 Blomfield, Charles James, The Uses of a Standing Ministry and an Established Church (London, 1834)Google Scholar. Colton, 's Church and State was published in London, 1834Google Scholar and in the New York Observer, April 19 and May 3, 1834.
19 Evidence for contemporary surveillance of New England by the Congregational journals is plentiful. Note, for instance, Congregational Magazine, N.S., IX (1833), 495–97Google Scholar and Evangelical Magazine, N.S., XII (1834), 554–55Google Scholar. The American Quarterly Register's detailed and current ecclesiastical statistics were published in the Congregational Magazine, N.S., X (1834), 784–90Google Scholar.
20 Colton, Church and State, passim and especially section 9, a “Comparative View” of the English and American churches. Fraser's Magazine, IX (1834), 388–98Google Scholar.
21 Alexander, , Wardlaw, pp. 347–48Google Scholar. Baptist Magazine, XXVI (1834), 113–14Google Scholar; Eclectic Review, Third Series, XI (1834), 186–91Google Scholar; Evangelical Magazine, N.S., XII (1834), 61, 151Google Scholar; Congregational Magazine, N.S., X (1834), 229-33, 603–10Google Scholar. Accounts of Colton's further activities as a controversialist appeared in Congregational Magazine, N.S., X (1834), 215–16Google Scholar and The [London] Patriot, May 21, 1834. Note also Colton, Calvin, Church and State in America. Part II. Review of the Bishop of London's Reply (London, 1834)Google Scholar.
22 Fraser's Magazine, IX (1834), 388–98Google Scholar. From Scotland Lorimer entered the controversy with Church Establishments Defended; or “Church and State in America” Exposed and Answered (London, 1835Google Scholar.
23 Colton, Calvin, Four Years in Great Britain 1831-1835 (New York, 1835), I, iv-viii, 101–46Google Scholar. In A Voice from America to England (London, 1839)Google Scholar Colton wanted government to pay clergy of all denominations and argued that in the United States the Presbyterian and Congregational churches already enjoyed the status of an Establishment by virture of their sway “over the public mind, to dictate belief, and to give advice to ‘the powers that be’” (pp. 62, 170-200, and passim). See review of Colton's Voice in Eclectic Review, Fourth Series, V (1839), 630–47Google Scholar.
24 Bennett, James, The History of Dissenters during the Last Thirty Years (from 1808 to 1838) (London, 1833), p. 112Google Scholar. In his conclusion the author returned to the theme: “The success of this experiment in America will probably decide the question all over the world. For the spirit with which the persecuted Dissenter founded that mighty empire, promises, or threatens, as some would say, to teach mankind great lessons” (ibid., p. 569).
25 Ward, W.R. (ed.), Early Victorian Methodism. The Correspondence of Jabez Bunting, 1830-1858 (Oxford, 1976), pp. 59–60Google Scholar. The quotations are from a review of Bogue and Bennett in the Wesleyan Methodist Magazine, Third Series, XIII (1834), 287Google Scholar and Bunting to James Kendall, April 24, 1834. Tension within Methodism between the leadership, entertaining a high view of the ministry and predominantly Tory in sympathy, and religious and political protest was intense, generating several secessions. For background, see Edwards, Maldwyn, After Wesley: A Study of the Social and Political Infuence of Methodism in the Middle Period (1791-1849) (London, 1935)Google Scholar; Taylor, E.R., Methodism and Politics, 1791-1851 (Cambridge, 1935)Google Scholar; Wearmouth, Robert F., Methodism and the Working-Class Movements of England, 1800-1850 (London, 1937)Google Scholar; Kent, John, The Age of Disunity (London, 1966)Google Scholar; Currie, Robert, Methodism Divided: A Study in the Sociology of Ecumenicalism (London, 1968)Google Scholar; Ward, W.R., Religion and Society in England, 1790-1850 (London, 1972)Google Scholar. Bunting's correspondence in the 1820s has also been published by Ward, in The Early Correspondence of Jabez Bunting, 1820-1829 (London, 1972)Google Scholar. An older work, Gregory, Benjamin, Side-Lights on the Conflicts of Methodism, 1827-52 (London, 1898)Google Scholar, preserves many details of controversy not otherwise available.
26 “Thousands and tens of thousands” in America, Alder reported, were without Christian instruction or ordinances in contrast to the English Establishment which “secures a place of worship, at least, in every parish, the regular reading of the Scriptures in the hearing of the people, and the decent and due observance of public devotion.” Wesleyan Methodist Magazine, Third Series, XIV (1835), 282Google Scholar.
27 Patriot, April 16,1834, Nov. 17,1836. For the J.R. Stephens case in the context of Methodist politics, see Ward, , Religion and Society, pp. 156–60Google Scholar. For correspondence to and from Bunting on the case, see Ward, (ed.), Early Victorian Methodism, pp. 51, 59–63Google Scholar.
28 The semi-official reports of the British delegations were Reed, Andrew and Matheson, James, A Narrative of the Visit to the American Churches by the Deputation from the Congregational Union of England and Wales (London, 1835)Google Scholar and Cox, F.A. and Hoby, J., The Baptists in America; A Narrative of the Deputation from the Baptist Union in England to the United States and Canada (New York, 1836)Google Scholar. The American mission did not issue reports of comparable scope, but delegates' impressions may be viewed in Humphrey, Great Britain, France, and Belgium and Codman, Narrative of a Visit. The American Methodist delegate was Wilbur Fisk, his British counterpart, William Lord. Fisk found the Wesleyan Methodists “generally freer” of voluntary ist agitation “than most other religionists,” but also noted “how both parties, in this contest, quote the United States, in favour of their particular views.” Fisk, Wilbur, Travels in Europe, viz., in England, Ireland, Scotland, France, Italy, Switzerland, and the Netherlands (New York, 1838), pp. 542–48Google Scholar. Much additional reporting on the visits may be found in the Congregational Magazine, the Baptist Magazine, the Wesleyan Methodist Magazine, and American religious papers.
29 [Reed, Andrew/, The Case of the Dissenters in a Letter Addressed to the Lord Chancellor (London, 1833), pp. 53–54Google Scholar. Matheson's tract (London, 1834) was by “Mathetes.” Biblical Repertory, N.S., VI (1834), 283-320, 523–46Google Scholar. Americans were deeply interested in the British disputes and knowledgeable about the literature they generated. Matheson was questioned in New Hampshire about the Scottish controversy (Matheson, , Voluntary Exercise, pp. 21–22)Google Scholar.
30 Reed, and Matheson, , Narrative, II, 146, 151, 1, 160–62Google Scholar. See also ibid., II, 94-96, 132-52. United Secession Magazine, IV (1836), 34-40, 73–81Google Scholar.
31 Reed, and Matheson, , Narrative, I, viiiGoogle Scholar.
32 Codman, , Narrative of a Visit, pp. 209–10Google Scholar. The Times, Nov. 18, 1835 made the same allegations of conspiracy as Fraser's Magazine, XII (1835), 464–74Google Scholar. The Wesleyan Methodist Magazine also published objections to Reed and Matheson, charging that Reed had made American Methodists appear “vulgar” and “ignorant” (Wesleyan Methodist Magazine, Third Series, XV [1836], 20–23)Google Scholar.
33 Note comment in second edition of Reed, and Matheson, , Narrative (London, 1836), p. xviiiGoogle Scholar. For Patriot's answer to Fraser's Magazine and The Times, see issue of Nov. 25, 1835. Matheson's own defense in a letter to The Sun (which the editor refused to print) was published in the Patriot, Dec. 9, 1835. Blackburn's statement in Congregational Magazine, N.S., XI (1835), 604–14Google Scholar. The same journal's review and historical account of the controversy appeared in ibid., N.S., XII (1836), 41-57, 113-32. For other reports of the continuing dispute, see ibid, N.S., XI (1835), 345, N.S., XII (1836), 31-36, 99-101.
34 Codman, , Narrative of a Visit, pp. 120-21, 179–81Google Scholar. Patriot, May 20, 1835.
35 Codman, , Narrative of a Visit, pp. 225–26Google Scholar. Humphrey, , Great Britain, France, and Belgium, II, 154-58, 161–63, 116 ff.Google ScholarReport of the Discussion … Held at Belfast, pp. 21-22. See also the review of the Belfast debate in Fraser's Magazine XIV (1836), 626–27Google Scholar.
36 Cox, and Hoby, , Baptists in America, p. vGoogle Scholar and throughout the book contains running comment on the success of the American separation of church and state. In interview with Jackson (ibid., pp. 28-29), the delegates found the president indignant with Irish tithe exaction, a view which the Wesleyan Methodist Magazine denounced as hypocritical in the context of American slavery (Wesleyan Methodist Magazine, Third Series, XV [1836], 848Google Scholar.) New England and Her Institutions (London, 1835Google Scholar) was reviewed in the Patriot, Oct. 7 and 21, 1835 and Eclectic Review, Third Series, XIV (1835), 262–68Google Scholar. Other accounts of American religion given considerable notice in the press were Caswall, Henry, America and the American Church (London, 1839)Google Scholar and Lang, John Dunmore, Religion and Education in America (London, 1840)Google Scholar.
37 Congregational Magazine, [Second Series], I (1837), 205-10, 285-89, 365-69, 432-35, 502-06, 564–68Google Scholar.
38 Hinton, John Howard, The Question of National Religious Establishments Considered in The Theological Works of John Howard Hinton (London, 1864), VII, 1–61Google Scholar. Hinton returned to the American example in The Test of Experience: or the Voluntary Principle in the United States in 1851 (ibid., pp. 63-154). Wardlaw, Ralph, National Church Establishments Examined (London, 1839)Google Scholar. Both works were replies to Chalmer's famous London Lectures on the Establishment and Extension of National Churches (Glasgow, 1838)Google Scholar.
39 The Anti-State Church Conference was boycotted by moderates. See unfriendly comment in Congregational Magazine, [Second Series], VIII (1844), 392-94, 472–74Google Scholar. Sympathetic accounts of the Conference appear in the Baptist Magazine, XXXVI (1844), 305–10Google Scholar and the Eclectic Review, N.S., XV (1844), 345-65, 724–41Google Scholar, N.S., XVI (1844), 341-65. A comprehensive review of Religion in America was published in the Eclectic Review, N.S., XVI (1844), 281–95Google Scholar.
40 The shift was evident in Lang, , Religion and Education, pp. iii-vi, 8Google Scholar, and passim. Lang was a partisan of the Scottish Evangelical party who was impressed with the apparent success of separation in the United States. He wished to persuade Churchmen in Scotland that divorce from the state was a “safe course.” However, George Lewis, a member of an official Free Church of Scotland delegation in 1844, was still critical of what he found in America. [Lewis, George], Impressions of America and the American Churches: from Journal of the Rev. G. Lewis, One of the Deputation of the Free Church of Scotland to the United States (Edinburgh, 1845), pp. 39-40, 54-57, 125–26Google Scholar, and passim.
41 To attract low churchmen the Evangelical Voluntary Church Association was founded in December, 1839, committed to educational and strictly non-political activity. See account of its formation in Congregational Magazine, [Second Series], IV (1840), 71–72Google Scholar. Sir Culling Eardley Smith, a Church of England Evangelical, presided over this session as well as over the later Anti-Maynooth Conference and the Evangelical Alliance. Minutes of the Anti-Maynooth Conference have been published in Thelwall, Algernon S. (ed.), Proceedings of the Anti-Maynooth Conference of 1845 (London, 1845)Google Scholar. No adequate modern accounts of the Evangelical Alliance exist, but see Bickersteth, Edward, A Brief Practical View of the Evangelical Alliance (London, 1846)Google Scholar and Massie, James William, The Evangelical Alliance; Its Origin and Development (London, 1847)Google Scholar. Though Reed and James were active in these events, neither man saw the Alliance as simply an anti-Catholic coalition.
42 Notice of the schism in Dissent is provided in Halevy, History of the English People, III, 145–59Google Scholar, Addison, , Religious Equality, pp. 87 ff.Google Scholar, Chadwick, , Victorian Church, I, 142–58Google Scholar, and in greater detail in Salter, F. R., “Political Nonconformity in the Eighteen-Thirties,” Transactions of the Royal Historical Society, Fifth Series, III, 101–24Google Scholar and Machin, G.I.T., “The Maynooth Grant, the Dissenters, and Disestablishment 1845-1847,” English Historical Review, LXXXII (1967), 61–85CrossRefGoogle Scholar. The quotation appeared in the Congregational Magazine, N.S., X (1834), 63Google Scholar. On the Regium Donum, see Chadwick, , Victorian Church, I, 409–12Google Scholar.
43 Asahel Nettleton, Finney's opponent in New England, toured Britain in 1831 and reported, “I find they are losing confidence in our American revivals” (Tyler, Bennet, Memoir of the Life and Character of Rev. Asahel Nettleton, D.D. [Boston, 1850], pp. 190–92Google Scholar). Nettleton attempted to vindicate American revivals but at the same time he warned the British against their perversion. Carwardine, Transatlantic Revivalism, pp. 71-84 discusses early English experiment with American methods and progressive disenchantment.
44 James wrote a somewhat cautious introduction to the London edition of Finney's Lectures; by 1843 he regretted this contribution. Dale, , Life of James, p. 420Google Scholar. For the troubles at Glasgow, see ibid., and Escott, History of Scottish Congregationalism, p. 107. For the Wesleyan controversy over James Caughey, see Carwardine, , Transatlantic Revivalism, pp. 102–33Google Scholar.
45 The American apologetic for the American churches can be seen turning defensive in [Baird, Robert], A Letter to Lord Brougham, on the Subject of American Slavery (London, 1835)Google Scholar. Several studies are important for the transatlantic aspects of religious antislavery. Most useful are Temperley, Howard, British Antislavery 1833-1870 (Columbia, S.C., 1972)Google Scholar for the British background and Fladeland, Betty, Men and Brothers. Anglo-American Antislavery Cooperation (Urbana, 1972Google Scholar) for the integration of the campaign on both sides of the ocean. The transatlantic dimension in religious antislavery is also evident in two older studies, Davis, David B., “The Emergence of Immediatism in British and American Antislavery Thought,” Mississippi Valley Historical Review, XLIX (1962), 209–30CrossRefGoogle Scholar, and Harwood, Thomas F., “British Evangelical Abolitionism and American Churches in the 1830's,” Journal of Southern History, XXVIII (1962), 287–306CrossRefGoogle Scholar. The collapse of the Anglo-American religious entente on the slavery issue in 1846 is recounted in Maclear, J.F., “The Evangelical Alliance and the Antislavery Crusade,” The Huntington Library Quarterly, XLII (1979), 141–64CrossRefGoogle Scholar.
46 Congregational Magazine, [Second Series], IV (1840), 888–89 nGoogle Scholar.
