Theology Today - Vol 20, No. 4 - January 1964 - BOOK REVIEW - An Errand Of Mercy: The Evangelical United Front, 1790-1837 & Their Brothers' Keepers: Moral Stewardship In the United Sstates, 1800-1865

563 - An Errand Of Mercy: The Evangelical United Front, 1790-1837 & Their Brothers' Keepers: Moral Stewardship In the United Sstates, 1800-1865

An Errand Of Mercy:
The Evangelical United Front, 1790-1837
By Charles I. Foster
320 pp. Chapel Hill, The University of North Carolina Press, 1960. $6.50.

Their Brothers' Keepers:
Moral Stewardship In the United Sstates, 1800-1865
By Clifford S. Griffin
332 pp. New Brunswick, Rutgers University Press, 1960. $6.00.

Following the internal and international upheaval produced by two world wars, it is now becoming possible to view the early nineteenth century with greater detachment as a truly formative period in American

564 - An Errand Of Mercy: The Evangelical United Front, 1790-1837 & Their Brothers' Keepers: Moral Stewardship In the United Sstates, 1800-1865

Christianity. But historians as yet are far from having achieved any commonly accepted synthesis-if indeed such is possible--of this material, which is so baffling in its heterogeneity and vitality. Something of the difficulty of synthesis is reflected in the fact that a number of recent studies of these decades differ from each other so much in selection and interpretation of material as scarcely to be recognizable as treatments of the same era.

One plausible organizing center for the interpretation of the religious history of this period is the complex of voluntary societies whose activities touched most of the religious and social interests of the time and whose constituents-in greatly varying proportions, to be sure-were drawn from most of the Evangelical bodies of the land. The societies' exuberant religious zeal, structural experimentation, and groping for social order were widely representative of their day.

There still remain, however, many differences even in interpreting these voluntary societies, which Gilbert H. Barnes called the "Benevolent Empire," which another has called the "Evangelical Empire," which Foster here names the "Evangelical United Front," and whose leaders have been variously designated "theocrats" by John R. Bodo, "northern evangelists" by Charles C. Cole, Jr., and here by Griffin "stewards." Foster and Griffin, for example, in their respective volumes on the voluntary societies which are here being reviewed, differ widely concerning chronological span. Foster, who emphasizes denominational co-operation and oneness of purpose, sees 1837 as the end of the "united front" era; whereas Griffin, who is more concerned with external activity and social reform, sees the 1840's and 1850's as a time of unprecedented prosperity for the societies, and carries their story to the end of the Civil War. Both agree -erroneously in this reader's opinion-in excluding the American Board of Commissioners for Foreign Missions as too denominational, though Foster does emphasize the great significance of the foreign missionary activities of other societies.

The central theme of both books is that the voluntary societies were led by prosperous merchants and lawyers who combined with religious zeal a desire to restrain contemporary forces of social disintegration and revolt. The societies were predominantly Whig in political orientation, and Griffin sees them, through their antislavery wing, eventually contributing to the rise of the Republican party. Geographically the voluntary society movement was Eastern and Northern and scarcely disguised the paternalism with which it tried to mold after its own image the West and the South-especially the latter, during Reconstruction days. Foster deals graphically with the active work of the societies among the potential radicals of the mushrooming cities. Both writers emphasize the influence

565 - An Errand Of Mercy: The Evangelical United Front, 1790-1837 & Their Brothers' Keepers: Moral Stewardship In the United Sstates, 1800-1865

of the voluntary societies on temperance and, less directly, on the development of the public schools. The movement to colonize free Negroes in Africa was an almost complete failure so far as accomplishing its avowed object, but its significance as a pseudo-idealistic symbol around which both proslavery and antislavery men could unite was greater than has commonly been realized. Both of these authors include the colonization program in the Evangelical empire complex. Griffin rightly sees the voluntary societies as arising partly to maintain the social influence exerted by the former theocracies.

Griffin notes the shift of method from suasion to legal coercion. In the early 1830's another shift occurred, not emphasized by either of these authors, from moderation to extremism-to total abstinence, non-resistance, immediate emancipation. What is the key? To explain this shift merely by "ultraism," as many have done, is to define one unknown in terms of another. Foster writes with considerable creative imagination, which sometimes betrays him into unearned generalizations, but often proves suggestive. He finds the voluntary societies, with their vast circulation of literature and promotional skill, pioneering in the country's mass production, mass conventions, " national brands," craze for merger and monopoly, and application of geopolitical thought on a global scale. As the latter portion of Griffin's book merges into the general history of slavery and the Civil War, questions arise concerning definition of the scope of the study.

Both books, by treating the voluntary society movement in a broader perspective of general history than has previously been done, set forth more fully its true significance. Foster, almost after the analogy of the twentieth-century "cold war," sees the English prototypes of the American societies primarily as ideological weapons against the French Revolution and Napoleon. The chief criticism of both books is the distortion which inevitably results from treating a religious movement phenomenologically without adequate consideration of its theological roots. The result is that the social motives appear to be the really dominant ones and the central religious aspect of the motivation seems implausible and even pretexted, though neither author asserts or intends such a charge. Surely the time is ripe for exploring in theological depth nineteenth century evangelicalism. and the ethical patterns which were related to it. Meanwhile, with the necessary caveats, these two studies indicate suggestively the deep impact that the voluntary societies made upon American life as a whole.

Lefferts A. Loetscher
Princeton Theological Seminary
Princeton, New Jersey