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Missionary Work and Charlotte Brontë
Last updated 17 June 2007
Although missionaries were not officially permitted to enter India until 1813 (Alexander and Smith 122), William Carey (sometimes called “the father of modern missions”) worked in the country from 1793.
The situation changed following a campaign headed by Wilberforce and other members of the Clapham Sect who successfully petitioned Parliamnet to allow “the natives of India, our fellow subjects” access to “the blessings of Chrisianity” (Alexander and Smith, 122).
Today we tend to regard Victorian missionaries as arrogant colonialists who travelled the world imposing their beliefs upon others. However, there can be no doubt that Charlotte Brontë, in common with many other Victorians, regarded missionary endeavour as something which was noble.
In her 1846 poem “The Missionary” Brontë adopts the persona of a man who, like St John Rivers, is about to set off for India. He is motivated by a desire to save his fellow human beings from “Hell’s empire, vast and grim” (line 62) and in order to perform this task, the missionary must make tremendous sacrifices:
Wedded to home – I home forsake;
Fearful of change – I changes make;
Too fond of ease – I plunge in toil;
Lover of calm – I seek turmoil (22 – 25).
The missionary’s decision to go to India is such a sacrifice that, in Brontë’s opinion, it merits being likened to that of Christ. He declares that he will go through with his divine mission “though such blood-drops should fall from me / As fell in old Gethsemane” (126 - 127).
Similarly, St John Rivers’s decision to go to India is portrayed as a heroic action:
A more resolute, indefatigable pioneer never wrought amidst rocks and dangers. Firm, faithful, and devoted; full of energy, and zeal, and truth, he labours for his race: he clears their painful pathway to improvement; he hews down like a giant the prejudices of creed and caste that encumber it. He may be stern; he may be exacting; he may be ambitious yet; but his is the sternness of the warrior Greatheart, who guards his pilgrim convoy from the onslaught of Apollyon (Brontë 501).
However, Brontë leaves us in no doubt that Rivers is in the wrong when he “offers [Jane], direct from God, a place in the ranks of his chosen” (Brontë 447) and informs the heroine that “God and nature” have intended her “for a missionary’s wife” (Brontë 448). Jane rejects this offer of marriage because she and St John Rivers do “not love each other as man and wife should” (Brontë 451) but it would be a mistake to say that the heroine rejects the idea of accompanying the missionary on this noble undertaking. While making it clear that she will not enter into a loveless marriage with her cousin, Jane does offer to accompany Rivers to India as his “sister”. “I am ready to go to India”, she tells him, “if I may go free” (Brontë 451). Rivers instantly rejects this idea because it flies in the face of Victorian notions of respectability. An unmarried couple travelling to the other side of the world together would undoubtedly have prompted comment even if they claimed to be doing so in obedience to Christ’s command to “go and teach all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost” (Matthew 28:19). However, Jane does not care about idle gossip. She wishes to remain true to herself and her God and so, as she cannot go on her own terms, rejects the offer.
It was not unknown for female missionaries to travel to India on their own. In 1895 the Co. Down born Amy Carmichael went to India. She spent her time working with poor Indian children and continued to direct the work from her sick bed after a fall left her with a twisted spine and bedridden.
Bibliography
Christine Alexander and Margaret Smith. The Oxford Companion to the Brontës. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2003.
Bront Although missionaries were not officially permitted to enter India until 1813 (Alexander and Smith 122), William Carey (sometimes called “the father of modern missions”) worked in the country from 1793.
The situation changed following a campaign headed by Wilberforce and other members of the Clapham Sect who successfully petitioned Parliamnet to allow “the natives of India, our fellow subjects” access to “the blessings of Chrisianity” (Alexander and Smith, 122).
Today we tend to regard Victorian missionaries as arrogant colonialists who travelled the world imposing their beliefs upon others. However, there can be no doubt that Charlotte Brontë, in common with many other Victorians, regarded missionary endeavour as something which was noble.
In her 1846 poem “The Missionary” Brontë adopts the persona of a man who, like St John Rivers, is about to set off for India. He is motivated by a desire to save his fellow human beings from “Hell’s empire, vast and grim” (line 62) and in order to perform this task, the missionary must make tremendous sacrifices:
Wedded to home – I home forsake;
Fearful of change – I changes make;
Too fond of ease – I plunge in toil;
Lover of calm – I seek turmoil (22 – 25).
The missionary’s decision to go to India is such a sacrifice that, in Brontë’s opinion, it merits being likened to that of Christ. He declares that he will go through with his divine mission “though such blood-drops should fall from me / As fell in old Gethsemane” (126 - 127).
Similarly, St John Rivers’s decision to go to India is portrayed as a heroic action:
A more resolute, indefatigable pioneer never wrought amidst rocks and dangers. Firm, faithful, and devoted; full of energy, and zeal, and truth, he labours for his race: he clears their painful pathway to improvement; he hews down like a giant the prejudices of creed and caste that encumber it. He may be stern; he may be exacting; he may be ambitious yet; but his is the sternness of the warrior Greatheart, who guards his pilgrim convoy from the onslaught of Apollyon (Brontë 501).
However, Brontë leaves us in no doubt that Rivers is in the wrong when he “offers [Jane], direct from God, a place in the ranks of his chosen” (Brontë 447) and informs the heroine that “God and nature” have intended her “for a missionary’s wife” (Brontë 448). Jane rejects this offer of marriage because she and St John Rivers do “not love each other as man and wife should” (Brontë 451) but it would be a mistake to say that the heroine rejects the idea of accompanying the missionary on this noble undertaking. While making it clear that she will not enter into a loveless marriage with her cousin, Jane does offer to accompany Rivers to India as his “sister”. “I am ready to go to India”, she tells him, “if I may go free” (Brontë 451). Rivers instantly rejects this idea because it flies in the face of Victorian notions of respectability. An unmarried couple travelling to the other side of the world together would undoubtedly have prompted comment even if they claimed to be doing so in obedience to Christ’s command to “go and teach all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost” (Matthew 28:19). However, Jane does not care about idle gossip. She wishes to remain true to herself and her God and so, as she cannot go on her own terms, rejects the offer.
It was not unknown for female missionaries to travel to India on their own. In 1895 the Co. Down born Amy Carmichael went to India. She spent her time working with poor Indian children and continued to direct the work from her sick bed after a fall left her with a twisted spine and bedridden.
Works Cited
Christine Alexander and Margaret Smith. The Oxford Companion to the Brontës. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2003.
Brontë, Charlotte. The Poems of Charlotte Brontë. Oxford: Blackwell, 1984.
Brontë, Charlotte. Jane Eyre. Penguin: London, Penguin, 2003.
Brontë, Charlotte. The Poems of Charlotte Brontë. Oxford: Blackwell, 1984.
Brontë, Charlotte. Jane Eyre. Penguin: London, Penguin, 2003.
This page was written by Samuel Morrison
This project was completed under the direction of Dr Leon Litvack as a requirement for the MA degree in Modern Literary Studies in the School of English at the Queen's University of Belfast. The site is evolving and will include contributions from future generations of MA students on other writers and themes.
Email Dr Litvack with your comments: L.Litvack at qub.ac.uk
David Livingstone is by far the
most famous missionary of the Victorian
era but there were many others.
