IV.
COWSLIP GREEN.
About the time of Dr. Johnson's death, in 1784, Hannah More became the possessor of a rural spot, called Cowslip Green, some ten miles from Bristol. Here she built herself a cottage, intending to make it her place of retirement for a large portion of each year. In the cultivation of her garden she found leisure for reflection as well as an opportunity to pursue a favourite occupation.
The inroads which death had made in her circle of intimate friends, a growing dissatisfaction with the enjoyments of London life, and especially a keener sense of her responsibility, as a professed Christian, than she had hitherto experienced, led to a close self-examination, and to a scrutiny of the real motives of her life.
The result of this testing process showed itself in various ways. During occasional visits to London and attendance at parties she lost no opportunity of enforcing the truths of religion. Her silent witnessing was now exchanged for active exertion. The manners and practices of people who were amongst her most effusive admirers sometimes met with her indignant rebuke. Ladies of title, society beauties, and leaders of fashion, who were unapproachable by other religious influences, she urged in private to consider their spiritual interests. The method she adopted was not, usually, to start religious topics, but "to extract from common subjects some useful and awful truth, and to counteract the mischief of a popular sentiment by one drawn from religion." Perhaps a message which John Wesley once sent to her through a sister may have weighed considerably in deterring her from an entire severance from the fashionable world. "Tell her to live in the world; there is the sphere of her usefulness; they will not let us come nigh them."
Not content with personal and private reproof, advice, and entreaty, she now devoted her pen to the denunciation of folly and vice in high places. In her work, Thoughts on the Importance of the Manners of the Great to General Society, whilst protesting against prevalent irreligious practices and habits of dissipation, which even good people sanctioned, she sought to arouse a sensitive regard for mutual responsibility as set forth in the New Testament.
In 1788 the slave trade formed a burning question in Parliament. Miss More, intensely aroused by the descriptions presented of the horrible traffic, found vent for her feelings in a poem on the subject. About the same time a close friendship began with Wilberforce, which lasted to the end of life.
A yet more important friendship commenced at this period—one that was destined to work a powerful influence on Miss More's life. The Rev. John Newton, one of the leaders amongst the evangelical clergy, held the incumbency of St. Mary Woolnoth. Attendance on his ministry led to a correspondence and a deep friendship. John Newton was precisely the kind of man whom Hannah More needed to assist her in spiritual progress, and to direct her steps into paths of settled peace. Her letters to Mr. Newton, stating her difficulties and seeking counsel, breathe the spirit of the humble and sincere scholar of Christ. Her willingness to obey the Master whom she professed to serve, and her earnest desire to be brought into closer relations with God, although checked, had never been stifled by the claims of intellect or by the attractions of the world. From this time the work of the Holy Spirit in deepening her love for the Saviour became more and more prominent. Turning for a time from Christian work amongst the rich, Miss More now devoted her efforts to the improvement of the moral and religious condition of the poor.
About ten miles from Cowslip Green was the picturesque village of Cheddar, the population of which was sunk in ignorance and depravity. The incumbent lived at Oxford, and the curate at Wells, twelve miles off. There was but one service a week, and no pastoral visitation whatever. There were thirteen parishes in the neighbourhood without even a resident curate. Drunkenness and utter inefficiency prevailed to a terrible extent amongst the clergy in this district; whilst education was a question that never troubled either the clergy or the people.
At Cheddar Hannah and her sister Patty opened a school; and in a short time nearly 300 children attended regularly. The sisters had to combat strong prejudices amongst the farmers. By dint of much persuasion and flattery the opposing forces were at length won over, even to hearty concurrence.
Masters and mistresses were procured for teaching reading, seeing, knitting, and spinning, and giving religious instruction on Sundays. A second school was shortly opened in an adjoining parish, the vicarage-house, which had remained uninhabited for a hundred years, having been put into repair for the purpose.
During 1790 Miss More published a volume entitled, An Estimate of the Religion of the Fashionable World. The book was quickly bought up, and within two years reached a fifth edition. The prevailing indifference to vital religion, the corruptions of society, the decline of domestic piety, and the absence of religion from the education of the upper classes were the themes treated by the writer with unsparing candour and convincing force.
Encouraged by her success at Cheddar, Miss More, with her sister Patty, went further afield, and selected two mining villages on the top of the Mendip Hills as the next scene of her labours. The difficulties here were even greater than those at Cheddar. The neighbourhood was so bad, we are told, that no constable would venture to execute his office there. Friends warned the Misses More that their lives would be in danger if they persisted in their project. The people imagined that the sisters had come to make money by kidnapping their children for slaves.
Undaunted by obstacles and perils, the workers persevered, until in no less than ten parishes schools were commenced, which, before long, were attended by 1200 children. In every parish the acquiescence of the incumbent was first obtained before proceeding to open a school. At the evening meetings, to which adults were invited, a simple sermon was read by one of the sisters, and also a printed prayer and a psalm. Few mistresses could be found who had not owed their religious impressions to Wesleyan influence; and thus Hannah More was subsequently, though mistakenly, thought to be a Methodist. Although influenced by the Methodist revival, she always considered and professed herself to be a member of the Episcopal Church.
Whilst immersed in her village work, she was earnestly solicited to write a popular tract that might help to counteract the baneful influence of Jacobin and infidel publications, and infamous ballads, which were now scattered broadcast over England. She declined the task, doubtful of her efficiency to produce a pamphlet equal to the occasion. On second thoughts, however, she tried her powers in secret, and issued anonymously a lively dialogue called Village Politics, by "Will Chip." The success was phenomenal. Friends ignorant of the authorship sent her copies by every post within three or four days of publication, begging her to distribute the pamphlet as widely as possible. In a short time copies were to be found in all parts of the kingdom. Hundreds of thousands were circulated in London. Such was the enthusiasm that private persons printed large editions at their own expense, whilst the Government sent off quantities to Scotland and Ireland. At last the secret came out; and the author was deluged with congratulations and thanks. Some persons of sound judgment declared that Village Politic had essentially contributed, under Providence, to prevent a revolution, whilst others went so far as to allege that Miss More had "wielded at will the fierce democratie of England, and stemmed the tide of misguided opinion."
A little later Miss More wrote another pamphlet, by way of reply to the atheistical speech of Dupont to the National Convention, and devoted the profits, amounting to £240, towards the relief of the French emigrant clergy.
In 1794, or early in 1795, she commenced the issue of tracts. This was a form of literary work not much used in those days. The founders of the Religious Tract Society, realising the value of this kind of work, but considering that Miss More's tracts needed supplementing with some which should in every case contain the simple communication of the Gospel, began in 1799 to undertake the dissemination of religious knowledge. Sunday schools, through the energy of Mr. Raikes, were rising in various parts of the country; the poorer classes were learning to read; and nothing in the shape of cheap literature was provided to meet their new craving, except mischievous broadsheets and worthless doggerel. Hannah More set to work to supply something healthy to amuse, instruct, and edify the new order of readers. She produced regularly every month for three years, three tracts—simple, pithy, vivacious, consisting of stories, ballads, homilies, and prayers. She was sometimes assisted by one of her sisters and two or three friends; but the burden of the work, including heavy correspondence with local committees in almost every district of England, fell upon her shoulders. In order to issue the brochures at a cheap rate and to undersell pernicious publications, she found it necessary to raise a subscription. Her appeal met with a liberal response; and very shortly the lively tracts, with a rough woodcut on the title-page, came by thousands from the printer's hands. In the first year no less than two millions were sold. Amongst the tracts were The Shepherd of Salisbury Plain, Black Giles the Poacher, History of Mr. Fantom, The Two Shoemakers, History of Tom White the Postilion, The Strait Gate and the Broad Way; and amongst the ballads Turning the Carpet, King Dionysius and Squire Damocles, The Honest Miller of Gloucestershire, The Gin-Shop, or A Peep into a Prison.
It would be difficult to over-estimate both the direct and secondary value of the Cheap Repository Tracts. Their beneficial influence must have been incalculable; and for this reason they should be placed amongst the greatest and best work of Hannah More's useful life.
By 1798 Miss More had withdrawn almost entirely from London society, contenting herself with a yearly visit of two months, which she divided between Mrs. Garrick, Bishop Porteus, Lord Teignmouth, and one or two others. Her schools occupied the best part of her time; but frequent attacks of illness often interfered with her duties.
In 1799 her active pen was at work again. Her third ethical publication, Strictures on Female Education, came out, forming yet another counterblast to the corrupt systems in vogue amongst the wealthy classes.
It would have been marvellous had Miss More escaped persecution in her work amongst rural populations. Combating prejudices, introducing unheard-of innovations, adopting plans which rumour stated were deeply tainted with Methodism (and therefore bad, according to clerical and general opinion in those days), she had to encounter at last a pitiless storm of hostility. This violent and prolonged attack, whilst it showed to what infamous lengths the tongues of slander, envy, and bigotry could go in attempting to destroy a noble woman's reputation, tested to the utmost Hannah More's fine qualities of Christian forbearance and courage.