The Death of Christian Britain

— The Death of Christian Britain —
And an endless shroud!
She has chosen the world
And its mis-named pleasures;
She has chosen the world
Before heaven’s own treasures. 19
The ‘world’ meant the public sphere. It was a plea to domestic ideology
for girls and young women. ‘We women,’ wrote Margot Arundell, the
columnist of the British Messenger for nearly thirty years, ‘are called to be
saints here and now, during our earthly pilgrimage, amidst all the petty
annoyances and disappointments of home or business life. Do you ask how?
By our holy lives. And “holy” is simply another word for separation from
the world.’ 20 If out of ‘the world’, women’s nature made them easy converts
to a suitable ‘religious condition’.
Once separated from the world, women were the moral heart of a family
constantly endangered by unpious men. The Edinburgh Christian Magazine
said of one woman in 1851: ‘The all-engrossing occupations of a wife and
a mother seemed soon to absorb her whole being; – only one theme occupied
her, – the training of her children; . . . the midnight hours, which she
past in watching and labouring for him and his children, were spent by her
husband in scenes of folly and of vice.’ 21 Articles on ‘Good Wives’ and
‘Good Mothers’ abounded, using examples from ‘real life’, from Scripture,
or idealised models. ‘The best qualities to look for in a wife,’ advised
The Day-Star in 1855, ‘are industry, humility, neatness, gentleness, benevolence,
and piety.’ It went on: ‘When you hear a lady say, “I shall attend
church, and wear my old bonnet and every-day gown, for I fear we shall
have a rain-storm,” depend upon it she will make a good wife.’ 22 Woman
was the moral linchpin of society:
The character of the young men of a community depends much on
that of the young women. If the latter are cultivated, intelligent,
accomplished, the young men will feel the requirement that they
themselves should be upright, and gentlemanly, and refined; but if
their female friends are frivolous and silly, the young men will be
found dissipated and worthless. But remember, always, that a sister
is but the guardian of a brother’s integrity. She is the surest inculcator
of faith in female purity and worth. 23
From the 1840s, mothers were ascribed a special role in discourse in
combating the evils of drink:
If then, O mothers of Britain, you will only sweep your own hearthstones,
and each one cleanse their own from this insidious foe, and
firmly resolve it shall never cross your threshold more, the homes of
Britain will blossom as the rose. The mother and child will sing songs
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