Rev. Sir,
Should you judge the following to be a just representation of the views and feelings of an awakened sinner, before he has got proper notions of the all sufficiency of Christ; by giving it a place in your useful little work, you may benefit some, and will much oblige your obedient servant,
P.B.16
The first part of Patrick’s story described the sufferings of the sinner who knows his own guilt:
’Tis true, I have not robbed, I have not murdered, I have not actually committed any enormous crime, but in thought, and inclination (and these speak aloud in the ears of God,) I have been guilty of robbery, and murder, a hundred times over. How often have I coveted that which was not my own! How often have I been angry at my brother, without a cause! What was it but fear that kept me from the most guilty deeds!17
In the second part, the sinner has now spent two months pondering his sins and, through the Scriptures and the Liturgy, has begun to find consolation; ‘The conflict may be long and severe; but I hope through Christ Jesus to obtain the victory and the prize.’ Finally, the sinner has achieved conversion, not in a sudden and dramatic flash like St Paul, but gradually, with many stumblings along the way; he knows that he must still ‘watch and pray’ but, through Christ, he has now the certainty of salvation and death no longer has any terror for him.18
Though the story is in the typical Evangelical mould, with the terrors of damnation and the flames of hell threatening the sinner, it is full of humanity too; the author, one feels, sympathizes with and understands the feelings of the sinner and tries to convert him through love rather than fear. Interestingly, too, the division of the story into three self-contained but interdependent chapters reflects a certain literary sophistication in Patrick, particularly at the end of the first episode where the reader is left with the sinner, trembling on the brink of damnation, with only a ‘glimmering ray of hope’ breaking in on his ‘benighted soul’.19
At about the same time as he was writing his article ‘On Conversion’, Patrick was also preparing for the press another story which, because it was longer and had four poems annexed to it, was to be published as a little book or pamphlet in its own right. The Cottage in the Wood, subtitled ‘Or the art of becoming rich and happy’, was very much in the same vein as Cottage Poems and was intended for the same class of readers. Possibly as a result of criticism of Cottage Poems, Patrick included a short disclaimer at the beginning of the book, pointing out that the blessings enjoyed by his cottagers were not the result of either their poverty or the rural beauties of their situation:
The truth is, that happiness and misery have their origin within, depending comparatively little on outward circumstances. The mind is its own place. Put a good man any where and he will not be miserable – put a bad man any where and he cannot be happy. The reason is obvious; the good man carries his mind with him, and thence he draws his remedies, his antidotes, his comforts: the bad man also carries his mind with him, but it is a source of unruly desires, vain expectation, heavy disappointment, and keen remorse.20
The Cottage in the Wood told the story of Mary, the pious young daughter of an impoverished cottager, who attracted the attentions of a wealthy, drunken rake. Mary refused either to be his mistress, in return for financial assistance for her parents, or to marry him, because she could not bind herself to a man who was both immoral and, more importantly, an atheist. It was not Mary’s piety, however, that persuaded her suitor to reform but his providential escape from almost certain death on two occasions. From that moment on he was a converted man and took up good works with alacrity. One day, while teaching poor children free of charge in the Sunday school, he again encountered Mary and renewed his suit; his conversion and reformation of character made him acceptable and the two were married, lived a long and happy life together, were blessed with good children and died, in an exemplary manner, within six months of each other.
The Cottage in the Wood contains most of Patrick’s favourite themes: the story was a peg on which to hang expositions on the Bible, Sunday schools and the evils of drink. The importance of the education offered by Sunday schools is stressed throughout; the cottagers had themselves been unconverted until their daughter went to Sunday school and, in consequence, began to read the Scriptures to them each day; Mary herself was so apt a pupil that she was appointed a teacher and therefore earned a small but valuable salary which enabled her to pay for lessons in writing and grammar at a day school; and the genuine nature of Bower’s conversion is publicly displayed in his offering a free education to those too poor to be able to afFord one. Education is the key to moral and social improvement in the story and, as we shall see, in life as well as in fiction, Patrick, his wife and his children were passionately committed to this belief.
The Cottage in the Wood was the first of all the Brontë books to bear the name ‘Bronte’, spelt with the diaeresis, on the title page – though this appears to have been the result of a printing error rather than a deliberate change on Patrick’s part.21 It enjoyed quite a little local success. Priced fairly cheaply, at 1s. 6d., and having an illustrated frontispiece, it was regarded highly enough to be reprinted, without the poetry section, in The Cottage Magazine in June 1817, and as a whole in a second edition in 1818.22 Its success was no doubt attributable to its being used in Sunday schools, though it must have been helped by William Morgan’s review of it in The Pastoral Visitor in August 1816:
This is a very amusing and instructive tale, written in a pure and plain style. Parents will learn in this little Book the Advantages of Sunday Schools, while their Children will have an example well worthy of their closest imitation. Young women may here especially obtain a knowledge that the path of virtue leads to happiness. We would therefore most cordially recommend this Book to all sorts of Readers.23
While Patrick was enjoying local literary celebrity, his wife had not been idle. Perhaps inspired by the example of her cousin, Jane Morgan, who had already had her work published in her husband’s The Pastoral Visitor24 Maria had taken up her own pen in support of Patrick’s twin passions for conversion and education. Apart from her letters to Patrick before they were married, ‘The Advantages of Poverty, in Religious Concerns’ is the only extant manuscript by Maria. As such, it was carefully preserved by Patrick who wrote upon it, ‘The above was written by my dear Wife, and sent for insertion in one of the periodical publications – Keep it, as a memorial of her –’.25
In the manuscript, which does not appear to have been published, Maria considered the question of poverty. She argued that it was not an absolute evil but, when combined with religion, was an actual benefit: salvation is easier for the poor man to attain as he does not have the opportunity or temptation to sin like the rich man. Though callous in its simplicity, the message was expressed with sympathy for the temporal sufferings of the poor.
Perhaps, some, who are daily, & hourly sinking under the distresses & privations, which attend extreme poverty … may indignantly exclaim, ‘Is it not an evil to be deprived of the necessaries of life? Can there be any anguish equal to that occasioned by the sight of objects, dear as your own soul, famishing with cold & hunger? Is it no evil, to hear the heart-rending cries of your children, craving for that, which you have it not in your power to give them? And, as an aggravation of this distress to know, that some are surfeited by abundance, at the same time, that you, & yours are perishing for want?’ Yes, these are evils indeed of peculiar bitterness; & he must be less than man, that can behold them without sympathy, & an active desire to relieve them.26
In such straits, Maria argued, Christian charity is always there to relieve the worldly needs of the poor and religion will bring solace and contentment. She ended with a pious exhortation:
It surely is the duty of all christians, to exert themselves, in every possible way, to promote the instruction, & conversion of the Poor; &, above all, to pray with all the ardor of christian faith, & love, that every poor man, may be a religious man.27
&n
bsp; It is easy to mock the naivety of Maria’s sentiments and to dismiss her arguments as ‘the usual Methodist palliative’, but there is no question of her sincerity or her genuine piety. What is more, Maria was setting an example of female literary activity to her daughters which, together with Patrick’s publications, was to be an inspiration to the future novelists. The article was probably intended for The Pastoral Visitor, or possibly for John Buckworth’s The Cottage Magazine; it would have been equally appropriate for either publication.28
Literary activity aside, there was plenty to occupy the Brontës. On 6 September 1815, there was excitement in the township when Elizabeth Firth’s father married Ann Greame of Exley, near Halifax, and brought her back to Kipping House to be introduced to the neighbours.29 A few weeks later, there were three evenings of concerts in Bradford, featuring Handel’s oratorio Messiah, to celebrate the consecration on 12 October of a brand new church, Christ Church, at the top of Darley Street. It is more than likely that Patrick would have attended the consecration, not only as a mark of respect to the Archbishop of York, who performed the ceremony, but also to support William Morgan who, immediately afterwards, was nominated minister of the new church by John Crosse. It was to be an important post, making Morgan a dominant influence (not always to the good) in church affairs in Bradford. Unusually, instead of renting out its pews to the congregation, who had to pay for the privilege of taking their place in them, Christ Church had 500 free places. This made it an ideal base from which to carry the Evangelical message to the poor though such altruism had its price: a year after its consecration, the church was still over £1000 in debt on its building costs.30
The day after the consecration, there was the satisfaction of attending the annual meeting of the Bradford Auxiliary of the Bible Society and hearing that it had gone from strength to strength in the town.31 In Bradford, too, Patrick joined the Library and Literary Society, though the annual subscription of a pound a year soon proved to be an expense he could ill afford and he only kept up his membership for a year.32
The year 1816 opened more hopefully than its predecessor. On Thursday, 18 January, there were national celebrations for the restoration of peace in Europe and Patrick, like ministers in churches and chapels throughout the land, held special services of public thanksgiving in the Old Bell Chapel.33 On the domestic front, too, there were significant changes in the Brontë household during the year. On 21 April, Maria gave birth to her third daughter who, as had now become established practice, was named after another Branwell, Maria’s younger sister, Charlotte. Elizabeth Firth presented the new baby with a little cap which she had hand-worked herself, but this time it was her cousin, Frances Walker, who was asked to be a godmother. Charlotte Brontë was baptized by William Morgan in Thornton on Saturday, 29 June; her godfather was the former incumbent, Frances Walker’s fiancé, Thomas Atkinson, and it seems likely that Charlotte Branwell, though absent in Penzance, was her other godmother.34 A little celebration dinner was held at Kipping House some two weeks later, to which all the Brontë family were invited and the new baby was shown off to the Misses Haigh and Glover and Mrs Outhwaite.35
Elizabeth Branwell, Maria’s sister, had been living with the family for well over a year and now, having seen Maria safely through her latest confinement, she was anxious to return home to Penzance. On 25 July, the two sisters drank tea together at Kipping House for the last time and the following Sunday, after Patrick had preached on the text, ‘Jesus Christ is the same yesterday and today and for ever’, the two Elizabeths bade each other farewell. For once, Elizabeth Firth’s diary was, for her, positively effusive: ‘I took leave of Miss Branwell. She kissed me and was much affected. She left Thornton that evening.’36
Maria must have felt the loss of her sister particularly badly though Elizabeth Firth kindly called the next day, and two days later, and then invited the family to tea with the Misses Marshall and Ibbotson and John Outhwaite, the Bradford surgeon.37 Her assistance in running the household was especially missed now that Maria had three children, all under the age of three. The solution was to get either a housekeeper or a nursemaid – and preferably someone who could fill both roles. Perhaps on the advice of his church friends in Bradford, Patrick applied to the Bradford School of Industry for a girl to take the position of nursemaid at the parsonage. The School of Industry was a charity school, set up in rooms in Kirkgate in 1806, to ‘train … girls of poor parents in habits of industry’. Some sixty girls, attending either in the morning or the afternoon only, were taught to sew, knit and read (in that order); their clothes were provided for them out of the proceeds of their own work and if they attended the parish church regularly, learnt their collects and psalms, and always had their scissors and sheath, thimble and handkerchief to hand, they were rewarded with I’½id. a quarter. The obsessions of the school with cropping hair short, forbidding any sort of personal adornment and meting out (by today’s standards) barbaric punishments for relatively minor offences, are strongly reminiscent of Lowood School in Jane Eyre.38
The girl who was selected for the Brontës was Nancy Garrs, one of the twelve children of Richard Garrs of Westgate in Bradford, who was thirteen years old.39 The first of remarkably few servants employed by the Brontës, she, like her successors, was devoted to them and remained a loyal friend long after she had left their service. Into her capable hands the young Brontës could be safely entrusted while their parents were occupied in parish affairs.
Domestic upheaval was more than matched by events in the parish. On 17 June 1816, the Reverend John Crosse, vicar of Bradford, died. An immense loss to the parish which he had served for thirty-two years, his death was also a blow to Patrick and his family. Despite his blindness, he had been an exemplary parish priest and he represented all the beliefs that Patrick held most dear. An Evangelical, friend of the Fletchers of Madeley, he had actively promoted missionary activity at home and abroad: he had supported the Sunday school movement and initiated the building of Christ Church in Bradford; he had been involved in the formation of Bradford Auxiliaries of the Bible Society and the Society for Promoting Christianity among the Jews.40 In each and every one of his causes he was backed to the hilt by the men he had taken care to appoint to the ministry in the Bradford area – men who, like himself, had come from the charmed circles of Cambridge and Madeley – men who included his curate, John Fennell, and his ministers, William Morgan and Patrick Brontë. Indeed, only two weeks before his death, Patrick had preached an excellent sermon on the appropriate text ‘for the earth shall be full of the knowledge of the Lord as the waters cover the sea’ at the parish church to the Bradford Female Auxiliary Society for Promoting Christianity among the Jews.41 Perhaps Patrick, like Morgan and Fennell, visited Crosse on his deathbed and was encouraged and inspired by the serenity with which he went to meet his Maker.
after having lived an useful life, he died, as might be expected, a comfortable death: his sun set with splendour, without the least appearance of a cloud to darken his mind, or to obscure his prospect of heaven. All was tranquil and serene as the summer’s evening: and so complete was the conquest that he gained over the fears of death, that he said more than once, to his friends and attendants, ‘Dying is no more to me than the passing from one chamber to another. I have no fears of death. I had rather die than live. I long to depart and to be with Christ.’42
One of the few churchmen to be genuinely regretted by all classes of society, including the Dissenters with whom he had been on good terms, Crosse was held up as an example to all by both Fennell, in the funeral sermon which he preached on 23 June, and by Morgan who, after a stormy relationship with a later vicar of Bradford, looked back with nostalgia to the days of the blind vicar and wrote a eulogistic biography of him, significantly titled The Parish Priest.43
It was a matter of some moment who would be appointed to replace John Crosse and it must necessarily have been some disappointment when the Reverend Henry Heap, from Todmorden in the Calder Valley, was appoin
ted. A mild and affable man, his main claims to fame were that he had been noticed as a youth by John Crosse, when the latter was vicar of Todmorden and Cross Stone, and that he had trained for the ministry at his suggestion.44 Heap could not fill his predecessor’s illustrious shoes. His equally long tenure of the vicarage of Bradford was to be marked by a sharp decline in the good relations previously enjoyed between churchmen and Dissenters and, indeed, between the parish and its daughter churches. It was perhaps appropriate that the year should come to a close with the greatest eclipse of the sun for over fifty years: in Yorkshire, five-sixths of the sun was obscured for just over two hours between 8 a.m. and 10.15 a.m. on 19 November. Elizabeth Firth noted in her diary, ‘We observed a beautiful eclipse of the sun; the sky was very clear till it arrived at its greatest obscurity; it was thereafter enveloped in clouds [:] a great gloom.’45
There was indeed a great gloom over Thornton and the rest of the country throughout the winter of 1816 to 1817. The ending of the war had not brought economic revival, and the combination of a downturn in trade and a hard winter brought great distress amongst the poor. The pages of the Leeds Mercury for these months make grim reading: had it not been for the provision of soup kitchens and public subscriptions, all raised through the work of volunteers, there is no doubt that the mortality rates would have risen even higher than they did. Patrick, too, must have been active in trying to alleviate local distress; in his first year at Thornton he had initiated an annual collection for the poor in Ireland, so it is hardly likely that he would ignore the suffering on his own doorstep.46
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