Still happily reading E.P. Thomson's The Making of the English Working Class at a very slow pace. Am now at the central chapters dealing with The Transforming Power of the Cross, a brilliant account of the interplay between various religious enthusiasms, especially Wesleyan Methodism, and the lower classes from 1790 - 1840 (or thereabouts.) When I first read the tome decades back I found this the most striking and engaging chapter and the same is true today, except that, if anything, I find it more powerfully engaging and oddly moving in its evocation of the deep need for meaning and purpose in the lives of the oppressed and, to some degree, the betrayal of that need.
The section on the greatest Prophetess of all, Joanna Southcott, is particularly fascinating. How did people fall for this nonsense? As always, easily.
But who can reasonably resist her deranged poetry?: Who is he that cometh from Edom, with dyed garments from Bozrah; that speaketh in righteousness, mighty to save all that trust in him; but of my enemies I will tread them in my anger, and trample them in my fury; for the day of vengeance is in my heart, and the year of my redeemed is come.
No comments:
Post a Comment