Sarah Osborn's World

by Brekus, Catherine A.

  As Fiske’s example suggests, women’s writings were rarely published without a minister’s or husband’s support and approval, and they often appeared posthumously. For example, both Sarah Goodhue’s Copy of a Valedictory and Monitory Writing and Mary Mollineux’s Fruits of Retirement; or, Miscellaneous Poems, Moral and Divine were published after their authors’ deaths, and neither woman seems to have anticipated that her words would ever become public.25 Rather than simply reprinting women’s writings in their entirety, men often edited them to suit their own agendas. When Walter Wilmot published extracts from his deceased wife’s writings, he arranged them under his own headings: for example, “Of the universal Depravity and Corruption of human Nature.” His voice, not hers, dominates the text.26

  Since ministers were concerned about passing on their faith to the next generation, they were particularly interested in publishing women’s personal writings about the duty of Christian motherhood. When Nathaniel Appleton published his funeral sermon for Martha Gerrish, he included lengthy extracts from her religious letters to her children. Writing to a daughter who had not yet become a full church member, Gerrish warned, “Let me tell you,—that while you live in the Omission of any Duty, you have no Room to expect a Blessing: God will turn a deaf Ear to all your Cries; you are Exposed to His Wrath.”27 Appleton could not have said it better, which may have been part of the reason he decided to publish Gerrish’s words.

  There was a small increase in the number of women’s writings published during the revivals in New England, with ten books by women printed between 1740 and 1750. (One of these was a housekeeping manual and another involved a legal proceeding; the rest focused on religious themes.) Since three of the ten were published posthumously and six were reprinted from England, this number does not reflect an upsurge in the number of women seeking publication, but rather a new interest among publishers in providing female models of piety during the revivals. The public was so hungry for individual religious narratives that publishers saw an opportunity to make a profit, and besides reprinting large numbers of Puritan texts they seem to have deliberately sought out women’s devotional writings. Elizabeth White’s narrative, first published in London in the seventeenth century, was reprinted in Boston in 1741, and Elizabeth Bury’s diary, first published in London in 1720, was reprinted in Boston in 1743. Two of Elizabeth Singer Rowe’s books, The History of Joseph and Devout Exercises of the Heart, both popular in evangelical circles in England, were published in 1739 and 1742. (Rowe had died in 1737.)28

  All these books were widely read during the revivals, and although we do not know exactly why readers found them so compelling, their portraits of female piety may have been part of the reason. These works sounded reassuringly “feminine” at a time when women’s religious zeal had become controversial. Angered by the female radicalism he had witnessed at a revival meeting, Charles Chauncy complained, “Many of the young Women would go about the House praying and exhorting” as well as “laughing and singing, jumping up and down, and clapping their Hands together.” Although Jonathan Edwards rarely agreed with Chauncy, he, too, believed that women should keep silence in the churches, and in 1741 he presided over a church council that admonished Bathsheba Kingsley of Westfield, Massachusetts, for claiming to be “a proper person to be improved for some great thing in the church of God; and that in the exercise of some parts of the work of ministry.” Describing her as a “brawling woman,” Edwards complained that she had spent two years traveling from town to town exhorting sinners to repent; when ministers had tried to discourage her, she had threatened them with divine retribution. Although the church council decided not to excommunicate her, the members insisted that in the future she should “keep chiefly at home.” Other ministers grumbled about disorderly women who fell into fits, interrupted sermons, and “spoke much Publicly.” According to Nathan Bowen, a Massachusetts lawyer, he had seen women stride into the pulpit to harangue their “betters” in front of “large assemblies”; another man reported being disgusted by the sight of a “big-bellied Woman” who “straddled into the pulpit.”29

  Although some of these stories of female radicalism may have been exaggerated, the Separates openly defended women’s right to speak publicly in meetings. Pointing to the examples of biblical heroines like the woman of Samaria, who had testified that Jesus was the Christ, and Mary Magdalene, the first witness of Christ’s resurrection, the Reverend Ebenezer Frothingham argued that in his own day “God has chosen some Women, and despised Brethren, to be the first Witnesses of the Reviving of a glorious and wonderful work of God.” Although they never argued that women should be ordained, the Separates allowed women to “exhort,” or testify in public. In contrast to preachers, exhorters did not have the authority to interpret a biblical text, but they could share their personal stories of conversion publicly. When Joseph Fish arrived at a revival meeting in New London in 1742, he found “two or three” women exhorting the congregation, and when he began to pray aloud one of the women tried to drown out his voice with her own, “praying and Exhorting at the Same time for Several minutes.”30

  From the few books by women that were published during the 1740s and 1750s, readers would never imagine that Christian women could be contentious or arrogant—and this may have been at least part of the reason that these particular titles found their way into print. It is unlikely that Thomas Prince would have decided to publish Sarah Osborn’s letter if she, like the “brawling” Bathsheba Kingsley, had “cast off that modesty, shamefacedness, and sobriety and meekness, diligence and submission, that becomes a Christian woman in her place.” Osborn’s descriptions of herself as “a poor nothing Creature,” “utterly unworthy,” and “vile” made it possible for her to be elevated as a model for other evangelical women. In a typical passage, she exclaimed, “Oh, may the Crown be set on JESUS his HEAD; while I lay my Mouth in the dust, and acknowledge I am an unprofitable servant, and utterly unworthy of all the Mercy he has showed to me.” Although Osborn expressed assurance about her rebirth in Christ, she took pains to explain that her letter was not motivated by “Self-confidence, Pride, Ostentation, or vain Glory,” but only her desire to glorify God. Often she wrote in the passive voice. “God caused my Heart to go out after Him,” she explained.31

  Since Sarah was a voracious reader who seems to have deliberately sought out books that were either by or about women, her “feminine” writing style was probably influenced by her immersion in the world of print. By reading books like Bury’s Account of the Life and Death of Mrs. Elizabeth Bury and Hannah Housman’s Power and Pleasure of the Divine Life, she learned how to cultivate an authorial voice that sounded properly humble and deferential. Bury, for example, described herself as “polluted,” a “poor, weak, wandering Child,” and “a poor, weak, unworthy, defiled Child.”32 Although Sarah never mentioned reading any of the sentimental novels that were popular during her day, they may have influenced her as well. She wrote in an emotional, fervent voice that was filled with exclamations, especially the word “O!” Since female devotional writers were also fond of sentimental language (“Oh! Let my Experience stand a Witness to them that hope in his Mercy,” Elizabeth Rowe exclaimed), Sarah may have been imitating religious books, but given how many other evangelical women read sentimental novels it seems likely that she may have occasionally indulged in their pleasures as well. The daughters of two prominent ministers—Esther Edwards Burr, the daughter of Jonathan Edwards, and Sarah Prince Gill, the daughter of Thomas Prince—corresponded about reading Samuel Richardson’s novels Pamela and Clarissa, and even Susanna Anthony ruefully admitted to spending a day with a novel. “I blush, Lord, I am ashamed that such amusement has engrossed almost all my thoughts this day,” she wrote in her diary in 1749. (She, too, may have been reading Clarissa, a tearjerker published in 1748 that was wildly popular on both sides of the Atlantic.)33 Most sentimental novels were written by men, but their focus on women’s lives made them immensely popular with a female audience. It p
robably is not a coincidence that Sarah and Susanna Anthony decided to exchange heartfelt letters, despite living in the same neighborhood, at the same time as epistolary novels like Pamela and Clarissa were selling thousands of copies.

  How did Sarah Osborn, a woman of humble means, manage to read so much? With little money to spend on luxuries, she certainly could not afford to buy the many titles she saw in Newport’s shops. When she died in 1796, the inventory of her possessions listed only seven books, including two copies of the Bible: a small octavo edition and a larger, more imposing quarto one. But this small number of books did not reflect either the breadth or the depth of Sarah’s reading. Despite her poverty, she satisfied her craving for books by begging friends and ministers to lend her interesting titles, dropping by neighbors’ houses to read their books (as she did when she went to Deacon Nathaniel Coggeshall’s house to read Daniel Defoe’s Family Instructor, an advice manual on family relationships), and borrowing them from her church.34 During his pastorate, Nathaniel Clap had bought religious books to share with his congregation, and after his death the church continued his custom. Although Sarah never mentioned going to Trinity Church’s free library, which was open to everyone in Newport regardless of denomination, she may have also borrowed books from its impressive collection.35

  The result of all this reading was that Osborn developed a writing style that reflected the narrative conventions of her world. When we read The Nature, Certainty and Evidence of True Christianity, we can hear the echoes of many different voices—Puritans examining themselves for signs of grace, sentimental novelists plumbing the depths of human emotion, evangelicals proclaiming their rebirth in Christ, female devotional writers confessing their weakness. Even when Sarah heard the news that her letter had appeared in print, she took pains not to aggrandize herself. “My poor performance was printed,” she wrote in her diary on April 22, 1755. “This gave me a sense of my vileness, and earnest longings that God might be glorified thereby. It appears another solemn bond and obligation for me to lead a holy life.”36

  Sarah clearly believed that a “feminine” voice was humble and self-denying, but at a time when few women lived to see their names in print, it would be a mistake to underestimate the importance of her letter’s being published. By explaining that her words could offer comfort to those who were “afflicted” with doubts, Thomas Prince implicitly suggested that a gentlewoman from New England should be regarded as a model of true grace. Anyone who read her book was encouraged to believe that her story was valuable, indeed priceless, because it offered insight into the meaning of a Christian life.

  This God Is Mine

  The publication of Osborn’s letter reflects one of the central paradoxes of the rising evangelical movement. Evangelicals were theological conservatives who believed that women had been created subordinate to men, but they also gave women a new vocabulary of individual experience to justify their authority and leadership. “How do I know this God is mine?” Osborn asked. “By the Evidences of a Work of Grace wrought in my soul.”37 Because of her heartfelt experience of his love, she knew that God was “hers.”

  In addition to the long Christian history that emphasized women’s secondary status in creation, evangelicals were influenced by the gendered language of the Enlightenment. A few radical Enlightenment philosophers insisted that the mind had no sex, but most were more conservative in their attitudes toward women, supporting sexual inequality rather than attacking it. According to Jean-Jacques Rousseau women belonged at home, where they should devote themselves to pleasing their husbands and raising their children. As he explained in Emile, “To oblige us, to do us service, to gain our love and esteem . . . these are the duties of the sex at all times, and what they ought to learn from their infancy.”38 Although evangelicals and Enlightenment philosophers agreed on few things, most were united in their belief that women were not as intelligent or as intellectually curious as men. As the Reverend Ebenezer Pemberton explained when he published some of his mother’s writings, “She read the sacred Pages, and other religious Tracts, not so much to increase her speculative Knowledge, and gratify the Inclinations of an inquisitive Mind; as to learn the self-denying Mysteries of the Cross of CHRIST.” Unlike men, who wrestled with hard theological questions about God’s purpose in the world, women were expected to take a purely devotional interest in religion.39

  Yet as we have seen, one of the many “enlightenments” took place within Protestantism as well as against it, and by absorbing the Enlightenment language of experience as their own, evangelicals made it possible for women to gain public recognition as informal religious leaders. Despite their emphasis on female subordination, no other religious group in pre-Revolutionary America did more to support women’s authorship. (The first African Americans and Native Americans to be published were also evangelicals.) Before 1774, when there was a sudden spike in the number of “daughters of liberty” writing about politics, sixty-eight books by women were published, not including reprints; and forty-three of these (62 percent) focused on Christian themes. It is clear that the roots of women’s authorship in America are religious. (Other writings by women included novels, plays, song collections, a treatise on gardening, and broadsides like Gezelena Rousby’s plea for the release of her husband from debtors’ prison.) Most striking, evangelicals wrote 34 percent of the books by women that were published between 1740 and 1774, seventeen of fifty titles. (For the sake of comparison, it is worth noting that Quakers, the second-largest group of female authors, published seven of these.) Evangelical women’s publications included poetry, letters, and devotional writings, including Anne Dutton’s A Letter from Mrs. Anne Dutton to the Reverend G. Whitefield and Martha Brewster’s Poems on Divers Subjects.40

  In a notable departure from the past, most of these evangelical female authors were alive when their words appeared in print. Sarah Osborn’s Nature, Certainty and Evidence of True Christianity heralded a trend that continued throughout the rest of the century: fourteen of the seventeen titles were published during the authors’ lifetimes. Martha Brewster, for example, was forty-seven when her poetry collection was published, and, challenging older conventions of female modesty, she refused to hide behind a cloak of anonymity. Her title page announced that the book had been written “by Martha Brewster, of Lebanon.”

  To justify their right to appear in print, these evangelical women appealed to their religious experience. In a book of poems honoring George Whitefield, Jane Dunlap used her preface to explain how deeply his sermons had touched her heart, and she included a poem about her joy at being born again. Though she apologized for her “homely stile,” she claimed that even a woman could teach others about the meaning of a Christian life: “No eloquence does in these lines,/I’m very sure appear,/But sacred truths will always shine,/Tho’ in the lowest sphere.”41 She claimed that God revealed himself not only through the Bible but through women’s personal experiences of his grace.

  Perhaps the most remarkable female author in the eighteenth century was Phillis Wheatley, a slave who had been kidnapped from Africa as a child. In order to gain acceptance in the republic of letters, Wheatley emphasized the depth of her Christian faith, and in 1770 she published an elegy lamenting the death of George Whitefield. Because she was young, female, and a slave when she published her first book, Poems on Various Subjects, in 1773, the volume included a testimonial signed by eighteen of Boston’s leading gentlemen, including the governor, swearing that an “uncultivated Barbarian from Africa” had indeed written her own poems. No other female author in early America faced the same degree of skepticism or hostility. Yet as Wheatley made clear in her poems, her authority to write came from her rebirth in Christ—in other words, from God himself.42

  Though Wheatley does not seem to have realized it, she stood in a long tradition of Christian women who justified their religious authority on the grounds of their personal experience of God’s grace. Like Hildegard of Bingen, a medieval visionary, and Anne Hutchinson, th
e “American Jezebel” who claimed to have received divine revelations, Wheatley explained that God had chosen her to proclaim the good news. Excluded from formal avenues of power, women across the centuries had learned to emphasize the authority of their experience rather than their rationality or intelligence. Yet despite these continuities with the past, the eighteenth century marked a watershed in understandings of experience. Because Enlightenment philosophers elevated firsthand experience as the only reliable source of knowledge, even more reliable than the Bible, empirical language sounded particularly potent.

  Besides being influenced by the Enlightenment language of experience, evangelicals also absorbed its individualism—one of the most enduring legacies of the eighteenth century. In earlier periods of history it had seemed almost inevitable that children would grow up to follow in their parents’ footsteps: a farmer’s son would usually become a farmer, a good-wife’s daughter would live in the same neighborhood as her mother. But because of religious toleration, technological innovation, social and geographical mobility, and the expansion of political and economic choices, personal identity no longer seemed as fixed in the eighteenth century, and individuals gained a new sense of self-determination. As anyone who has seen Rembrandt’s self-portraits can attest, the fascination with selfhood was not new, but in response to both changes in everyday life and new Enlightenment ideas, people seem to have gained a greater sense of their agency as individuals. “There is a profoundly radical individualism at the heart of Enlightenment thought,” the historian Isaac Kramnick has argued. “Its rationalism led Enlightenment philosophy to enthrone the individual as the centre and creator of meaning, truth, and even reality.”43 Enlightenment philosophers defended the right of the sovereign individual to choose his own government, to pursue his own economic interests in the marketplace, and to worship according to the dictates of his own conscience. As this language suggests, they almost always imagined the individual as a man, but a few early feminists extended the principle of individual rights to women as well, including Mary Astell, who wrote a defense of women’s education.44