In 1809, two years after leaving his native Edinburghshire and having been ordained pastor of the Presbyterian congregation at the Cliff Lane chapel in Whitby, George Young published a sermon he had preached for the British captives in France.108 The text was re-arranged for publication and included as a preface, an address to his readers to subscribe to the Patriotic Fund. All proceeds of his publication were to be donated to the fund.109 Following the official line of the fund, the vicar insisted on the loss of three inherently national characteristics in captivity: liberty, property, and Protestant faith.110 These served as a prelude to a broader argument in four acts, in which he developed a particular language of international charity based on divine and kin connections. Deconstructing his rhetoric and outlook on captivity highlights a fascinating local and devotional vision of international charity as an act of ‘remembrance’.
Entitled Compassion for Prisoners Recommended, the sermon was given to the text Hebrews XIII.3: ‘remember them that are in bonds, as bound with them’.111 ‘Remembrance’, a fundamental concept shaping the Protestant mind, formed the core of a poignant interpretation of the verse, which the following passage encapsulates.112
The Remembrance here mentioned is not merely an act of memory. When we are enjoined to remember our Creator, and to remember the Sabbath-day, the injunctions imply much more than the bare recollection that we have a Creator, and that there is a Sabbath: And when we are exhorted to remember them that are in bonds, we are not called merely to recollect that they exist, or to think of their hardships, but to cherish a compassion and active remembrance of them … We must remember them as if we
108
William Joseph Sheils, ‘Young, George (1777-1848)’, Oxford Dictionary of National Biography (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2004): [http://0-www.oxforddnb.com.pugwash.lib.warwick.ac.uk/view/article/30262, accessed 17 October 2013].
109
‘The Collection made by the Associate Presbyterian Congregation of Cliff-Lane, and their friends in Whitby and the neighbourhood, at the time when this Discourse was delivered, was intended as a small addition to this Fund for relieving the Prisoners. This Discourse is presented to the public, agreeably to the wishes of some who heard it, in the hope that it may contribute to cherish those sentiments of benevolence which are congenial to the spirit of the Gospel. Whatever profits may arise from the sale of the publication shall be devoted to benevolent uses…It is possible that some into whose hands these pages may come, may be disposed to assist their captive countrymen. Such benevolent individuals are respectfully informed, that any Donation may be safely transmitted by sending a bill for the amount, in a letter, addressed “to the Committee for the Relief of the British Prisoners in France”, under cover “To FRANCIS FREELING, Esq; General Post-Office, London.’ Young, Compassion for Prisoners, p. iii. 110
The vicar was clearly unaware of the creation of Protestant churches by captives. 111
Young, Compassion for Prisoners, p. 5. 112
‘Benevolence’ was also used in abundance, and defined as an expression of Christian love reminiscent of the Ancient ἀγάπη or caritas. Firmly opposed to Unitarianism, he identified it as a manifestation of the Holy Spirit in human creatures, a power ‘constrain[ing] us to exercise philanthropy’. This benevolent nature was inherent to mankind yet proportional to the familiarity with the Scriptures, which manifested itself as a feeling of ‘pity’, ‘sympathy’ an ‘compassion’, and actions of ‘liberality’ and ‘philanthropy’. Significantly, the array of the ‘benevolence’ lexical field he used was placed within a broader language of mutual ‘remembrance’, which permeated the whole sermon.
were bound with them … We ought to remember them, as we should do if we were their fellow-prisoners … We should be willing to become their fellow-prisoners in a certain sense, by consenting to bear a portion of their hardships, in traitening [sic.] ourselves, in order to send them relief … We ought to remember them as we ourselves would wish to be remembered if we were in their situation.113
By making the connection between the everyday of the flock (remembering God, remembering His Son through the Eucharist conceived as a mental recollection of the Last Supper rather than a transubstantiationalist ritual, and thus remembering themselves as spiritual beings) and the task in hand (remembering captives abroad), the minister presented the charitable act as a communal experience where the boundaries of the selves dissolved.114 To be ‘as one with’ those in need by giving money, provisions or simply time and prayers was a common theme in charity persuasion at the time. Yet, Young’s address appears extraordinarily powerful, and not at all fitting with the common view of a Presbyterian ‘old-fashioned way of haranguing’.115 The speech reached into the life of its audience, realigning them with the theological through the affective power of a familiar notion.116 His variations on ‘remembrance’ must have strongly resonated in the minds of his flock educated to think that ‘without remembrance, there is no salvation’.117 The sermon was published in three editions within the year of its preaching, which clearly indicates that the congregation responded with fervour to this divine ‘command’.118
‘We are commanded … to have pity on those who are in prison, not through any criminal conduct, but merely through the misfortunes attendant on war: especially if they are our own countrymen and friends’, claimed Young.119 The last allusion suggests that, despite requesting aid to British prisoners of war regardless of their origin, the minister also solicited compassion through
113
Young, Compassion for Prisoners, pp. 16-7. 114
Catholicism and Protestantism diferred on this question of the objective ontological presence of the Christ during the Eucharist. Alister E. McGrath, Reformation Thought (Oxford, 2003), p.189.
115
Joris van Eijnatten, ‘Getting the Message: Towards a Cultural History of the Sermon’, in Joris van Eijnatten (ed.), Preaching, Sermon and Cultural Change in the Long Eighteenth Century (Leidenl, 2009), pp. 350-51.
116
Sabine Holtz mused much on the topic of the eighteenth-century ‘sentimentalisation’ of sermon delivery. Her study of James Fordyce (1720-1796), a famous Scottish Presbyterian orator, who moved to London, offers an interesting parallel with the case of George Young, and further shows the ‘affective’ turn in Presbyterian oratory during the period. Sabine Holtz, ‘From Embodying the Rules to Embodying Belief’, in Van Eijnatten (ed), Preaching, Sermon and Cultural Change, p.325.
117
Miriam Elisabeth Burnstein, ‘Anti-Catholic Sermons in Victorian Britain’, in Robert H. Ellison (ed.) A New History of the Sermon: the Nineteenth Century (Leiden, 2010), p.162.
118
On the importance of sermons in shaping public responses to national and international events see Ellison (ed.) A New History of the Sermon, p. 4.
119
local kinship.120 The military captive was presented as a threefold kin figure: a family member, a friend and a parishioner. ‘To part of them’, he claimed, ‘some of you are bound by the ties of blood, and others by the ties of friendship. Some of them have often gone with you to the Sanctuary of God: Some of them have worshipped with us in this house. In contributing for their relief you are providing for your own’.121 This threefold kinship with the captives abroad was representative of the concentric circles of relations Will Coster has identified, in which cognatic, agnatic and fictive connections merged to form the notion of ‘kin’ in the late eighteenth century.122 This extended kinship shaped Young’s romantic depiction of the misery of the captive lost in a connection limbo: ‘no dear bosom friend, no fond mother, no loving sister … perhaps they are now in the land of silence’.123 The reference to ‘the land of silence’ was very powerful reminder of Psalm XCIV.17. This musical lamentation thanking God for His deliverance from personal distress aimed to further engrain the vision of a communion branching out overseas in the minds and hearts of his flock.124
Spiritual kinship was also the basis for organising local collections and sermons for prisoners of war. It is indeed significant that two years later, in 1811, another Presbyterian minister in Hull, the Reverend Morley, also decided to give a sermon to the text Hebrews XIII.3 as a ‘recommendation’, a ‘cause … pleaded’ for the British prisoners in France.125 It is likely that the two preachers met, for Young was an honorary member of the Hull Literary and Philosophical Society. They shared similar scientific interests since they both wrote on maritime history, geology and medicine. 126 On the whole, despite their involvement in national fund-raising, these activities in maritime communities in Yorkshire suggest the potency of spiritual and local kinship in providing relief to captives abroad.
In addition to the three national financial reserves (Patriotic Fund, Lloyd’s Society, Louis Charity) to which the collections mentioned above were donated, a significant number of funds also emanated
120
The Reports from the Committee show that a cluster of merchant masters from Whitby were recipients of this charity in Verdun in 1812. Report from the Committee for the Relief of British Prisoners in France (London, 1812), pp. 206-9.
121
Young, Compassion for Prisoners, p. 3. 122
See Will Coster, Family and Kinship in England, 1450-1800 (London, 2001); Marco van Leeuwen, ‘Logic of Charity: Poor Relief in Pre-Industrial Europe’, Continuity and Change 24:4 (1994), p. 606.
123
Young, Compassion for Prisoners, p. 9. 124
‘If you had not helped me, Lord, I would soon have gone to the land of silence’ Psalm XCIV.17. 125
John Morley, The Cause of British Prisoners of War in France Pleaded: a Sermon [on Heb. Xiii. 3] (Hull: 1811). 126
Morley also published works on religion and lunacy. John Morley, The privilege of Believers an Antidote Against Fatal Lunacy; Being the Substance of a Sermon [on 1 Pet. i. 5] (Hull, 1808).