Abstract
This chapter investigates and explores the enduring Christian-inspired narrative of the motivated pilgrim and seeker. This particular narrative is also viewed alongside the quasi-related phenomenon of the Samaritan and the story that has sustained this latter ideal. Both originated in biblical idioms but both became substantially effective and important narratives that shaped the course of both modern religion and the developmental history of moral altruistic feelings.3 Both of these narratives draw obviously from biblical precedent but the former owes its power within British culture to John Bunyan and the repeated popularised versions of the pilgrim narrative.
Christianity was integral to the ideal and the work of countless reformers, from Florence Nightingale or Sister Dora or Josephine Butler or Dora Greenwell to Quintin Hogg and Samuel Barnett and W. E. Gladstone. We cannot of course tell how far they were Christians because they were good men and how far they were good men because they were Christians. But certainly it was in part the second of these.1
Understanding our time in Christian terms is partly to discern these new paths, opened by pioneers who have discovered a way through the particular labyrinthine landscape we live in, its thickets and trackless wastes, to God.2
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Notes
Owen Chadwick (1970) ‘The Established Church under Attack’, in The Victorian Crisis of Faith (London: SPCK), pp. 91–105, p. 91.
Charles Taylor (2007) A Secular Age ( New York: Belknap ), p. 755.
Jane Garnet et al. (2006), eds, Redefining Christian Britain: Post 1945 Perspectives ( London: SCM Press ), pp. 28–9, has an account of the upsurge in religious pilgrimage reported in the new millennium, which itself generated a considerable literature further publicising its therapeutic and spiritual effects upon individuals. This has also spawned a growing scholarly interest in the wider issue of pilgrim and pilgrimage studies.
See Ian Green (2000) Print and Protestantism in Early Modern England ( Oxford: OUP). Green sees works by Bunyan, such as Pilgrim’s Progress, as designed to popularise a message which enabled the consumption of works that contained an inbuilt narrative of fall and salvation. All this served to make such narratives a central part of popular Christianity.
Jonathan Rose (2001) The Intellectual Life of the British Working Classes ( London: Yale Nota Bene ), p. 18. Rose notes that female autodicts in the early part of the nineteenth century, and afterwards, internalised their struggle to gain access to knowledge as a test of fortitude.
See C. John Sommerville (1992) The Secularization of Early Modern England: From Religious Culture to Religious Faith ( Oxford: OUP ), pp. 129–30, Henry VIII’s assault upon saints removed them from religious purview as Sommerville puts it ‘Protestants could only allegorize pilgrimage, as an individual and interior passage, a sectarian exile from ‘the world’. Pilgrimage became a metaphor for the life of faith, meaning ‘the abandonment of one’s culture and society’.
For a tabular publishing history of Pilgrim’s Progress, see Frank Mott Harrison (1941) A Handlist of Editions of the First Part of The Pilgrim’s Progress (John Bunyan) (Privately published and limited to 25 editions. Bodleian Reference Z8131.H33). This indicates the book was published and republished in popular editions throughout the nineteenth century in editions from both Christian publishers and more popular names such as Longman, Blackie, Routledge, Griffin, Cambridge University Press, Cassell, Chatto and Windus, Hodder and Stoughton, Hutchinson, Methuen, Pearson, Clarendon Press, Dent and Arnold.
A. Richard Dutton (1978) ‘“Interesting, but Tough”: Reading The Pilgrim’s Progress’. Studies in English Literature, 1500–1900 18, 3, Restoration and Eighteenth Century (Summer): 439–56, p. 439.
W. R. Forrester called the book ‘a text-book in moral pathology’. See W. R. Forrester (1956) Conversion ( Edinburgh: St Andrews Press ), p. 21.
John Gurr-Read (1922) Seeking the City: Studies in the Pilgrim’s Progress ( London: James Clarke and Company ), pp. 9, and 15.
Occasionally a supposedly updated version of the text intended for a modern audience would tinker with Bunyan’s text only superficially. This would retain some of the archaism of the language and idioms (with matching illustrations) recalling for its audience the fables and fairy tales of childhood. See, for example, James H. Thomas ( 1964, 1972 edition) The Pilgrim’s Progress in Today’s English ( Eastbourne: Victory Press).
James Reeves (1976) Quest and Conquest: Pilgrim’s Progress Retold ( Glasgow: Blackie and Son).
See, for example, William Proctor (1921) The Great Adventure: Studies in the ‘Pilgrim’s Progress’ ( London: Arthur Stockwell).
Geoffrey T. Bull (1969) A New Pilgrim’s Progress: John Bunyan’s Classic Imagined in a Contemporary Setting ( London: Hodder and Stoughton )
H. F. B. Mackay (1930) Pilgrim’s Progress in the World Today ( London: Philip Allan ), pp. 152, and 154.
Lynne Howles (1993) The King’s Highway: A Modern Adaptation of Bunyan’s ‘Pilgrim’s Progress’ ( Ilkeston: Derbys Moorley’s ), p. 4.
See also John Bunyan’s, Pilgrim’s Progress. Retold by Tim Dowley, Illustrated by Steve Smallman (2008) ( Oxford: Lion Hudson). This book accompanied a board game, both of which followed the narrative in a fairly conventional way, albeit with the characters portrayed in modern dress and contexts.
Barry E. Horner (2003) Pilgrim’s Progress, Themes and Issues ( Darlington: Evangelical Press ), p. 15.
Bruce Winter (1997) Pilgrim’s Progress and Contemporary Evangelical Piety ( London: St Antholin’s Lectureship Charity Lecture ), p. 8.
Such work is especially evident in the thoughts and writings of ethical socialists such as Stanton Coit and F. J. Gould. For Coit see Bernard Lightman (2002) ‘Ideology, Evolution, and Late-Victorian Agnostic Popularizers’. In James Richard Moore, ed., History, Humanity and Evolution: Essays for John C. Greene ( Cambridge: Cambridge University Press ), pp. 285–309; for the latter see
F. J. Gould (1923) The Life Story of a Humanist ( London: Watts and Co.).
See, for example, A. L. Morton (1978) ‘Pilgrim’s Progress’. History Workshop Journal 5, 1: 3–8, p. 4.
Christopher Hilliard (2005) ‘Modernism and the Common Writer’. Historical Journal 48, 3: 769–87, p. 787.
See R. H. Tawney (1953) The WEA and Adult Education ( University of London, Athlone Press )
Stephen Roberts (2003) A Ministry of Enthusiasm: Centenary Essays on the Workers Educational Association ( London: Pluto Press). See also Rose, The Intellectual life of the British Working Class, pp. 256–7.
Edward Thompson (1963) The Making of the English Working Class ( Harmondsworth: Penguin )
Edward Thompson (1993) Witness against the Beast: William Blake and the Moral Law ( Cambridge: Cambridge University Press).
See Garfield G. Duncan (1956) A Modern Pilgrim’s Progress for Diabetics ( Philadelphia: Saunders).
Jennifer Craig ( 2002, 2010 edition) Yes Sister, No Sister: My Life as a Trainee Nurse in 1950s Yorkshire ( London: Ebury Random House ), pp. 295, 315. Interestingly in the latter stages of the book Jennifer Craig notes in an extremely matter-of-fact manner that her first day as a ward sister commenced with her routinely saying prayers with the nurses in her charge. There are also references to visits from the Salvation Army and the singing of carols. This instance is a potent reminder of the function of some parts of diffusive Christianity pressed into service to perform a secular service.
Isa Craig-Knox (1872) The Good Samaritan ( London: Cassell, Peter and Galpin ), pp. 182–3.
Sir Irving Benson (1965) The Man with the Donkey: John Simpson Kirkpatrick, The Good Samaritan of Gallipoli ( London: Hodder and Stoughton ), pp. 46, and 54.
Harcourt Williams (1926) The Good Samaritan ( London: Mowbray and Co.), pp. iii–v.
Ethel F. Greene (1927) The Good Samaritan ( London: Pilgrim’s Press ), pp. 22–4.
Diane Walker (2001) Who Cares? The Good Samaritan ( Oxford: The Bible Reading Fellowship ), p. 4.
Nick Page and Claire Page (2006) The Good Samaritan. Ready to Read Series ( Berkhampstead: Make Believe Ideas).
Max Huber (1945) The Good Samaritan ( London: Camelot Press ), p. 39.
Chad Varah (1992) Before I Die Again ( London: Constable and Company ), pp. 80–1.
See tables of figures and graphs from David G. Kibble (1983) The Samaritans. Charities Series (Oxford: Pergamon Press), pp. 11 and 12.
For example, see the various discussions in Chad Varah (1977), ed., The Samaritans in the 70s ( London: Constable and Company). But on this issue see especially pp. 96–100.
It is interesting that there were also works produced by the organisation for children, which promoted the ‘story’ of the Samaritans–seemingly to offer an updated episode in the perennial quest to teach the young and impressionable the fundamentals of the Good Samaritan story in new guises and updated contexts. See Audrey Constant (1981) Someone to Talk To: The Story of Chad Varah and the Samaritans. Faith in action series ( Norwich: The Moral Education Press).
Susan Quilliam (1998) The Samaritans Book of What to Do When you really Want to Help But Don’t Know How ( Trowbridge: Transformation Press ), pp. 42–3.
See, for example, Clifford Makins (1960), ed., Women of Glory ( London: Longacre Press). There are innumerable novels that investigate and narrativise missionary work within the widest possible definition of that term. However, to pick one example, which spans several decades of influence from published fiction to television screen, it is worth considering the resonance of the work of A. J. Cronin, with its blend of fiction, the impact of social conscience and autobiographical experience which appeared in The Citadel (1937), The Keys of the Kingdom (1941) (also a cinematic production) and the television series Doctor Finlay’s Casebook. His The Stars Look Down (1935) continued to inspire beyond this, since it was drawn upon for the film Billy Elliot (2000). Cronin’s works are known to have persuaded many to consider pursuing careers in the caring professions. Raphael Samuel also suggested that Cronin’s works had an inspiration in creating the wider sense of social conscience and (we might argue) belief in the Samaritan and pilgrimage that resulted in the Labour landslide of 1945. For this see
Raphael Samuel (1995) ‘North and South: A Year in a Mining Village’. London Review of Books 17, 12 (22 June): 3–6.
For Gladys Aylward see Catherine M. Swift (1984) Gladys Aylward. Heroes of the Cross Series ( Basingstoke: Marshall Morgan and Scott).
Others commemorated in this series include David Livingstone, John Wesley, Mary Glenor and Martin Luther King. For Mother Teresa see Gary Smailes (2009) Mother Teresa. Modern Heroes Series ( New Lanark: Geddes and Grosset).
Others in this series include Ghandi, Martin Luther King, Pope John Paul II, Nelson Mandela and the Dalai Lama. See also Haydn Middleton (2006) Mother Teresa ( Oxford: Heinemann Educational Publishers).
See Bear Grylls (2011) Mud, Sweat and Tears ( London: Transworld Publishers).
For an example of this see Simon Weston (1989) Walking Tall: An Autobiography ( London: Bloomsbury).
Kathleen Harland (1990) A History of Queen Alexandra’s Royal Naval Nursing Service (Journal of the Royal Naval Medical Service), pp. 1–2.
Natalie Boymel Kampen (1988) ‘Before Florence Nightingale: A Prehistory of Nursing in Painting and Sculpture’. In Anne Hudson Jones, ed., Images of Nurses: Perspectives from History, Art and Literature (Philadelphia: University of Philadelphia Press), pp. 6–39, p. 35.
Mary Mackie (2001) Sky Wards: A History of the Princess Mary’s Royal Air Force Nursing Service ( London: Robert Hale ), p. 22.
Occasionally this gap is bridged by some transitional narratives that are capable of reflecting both elements. Ida Cliffe’s First World War memoir ‘considered it a great honour to nurse the wounded and sick’. She also records in matter-of-fact detail the numerous privations of nursing in the Mesopotamian heat, which was endured through ‘good fellowship’, which meant work was discharged ‘to the utmost for the common good’. She also records being on deck ‘singing a hymn’ when the threat of a U-Boat attack was imminent. Ida E. Cliffe (1975) S.R.N. at War: A Nurse’s Memoirs of 1914–1918 (privately published), pp. 1, 16 and 21.
Janice Hudson a CALSTAR emergency flight nurse notes this reaction when a young boy is airlifted to hospital with a life-threatening condition. This occurs at the end of her book and his amazing survival is portrayed as a form of secular miracle. Janice Hudson (2001) Trauma Junkie, Memoirs of and Emergency Flight Nurse ( Buffalo: Firefly Books ), pp. 240–3.
Leslie Fiedler (1988) ‘Images of the Nurse in Fiction and Popular Culture’. In Anne Hudson Jones, ed., Images of Nurses: Perspectives from History, Art and Literature ( Philadephia: University of Philadelphia Press ), pp. 100–12, pp. 102–4.
Margaret B. Ritchie (2007) A History of Nursing through Philately (Limekilns, Fife: Teragram )
Janet Muff (1988) ‘Of Images and Ideals: A Look at Socialisation and Sexism in Nursing’. In Anne Hudson Jones, ed., Images of Nurses: Perspectives from History, Art and Literature (Philadelphia: University of Philadelphia Press), pp. 197–220, pp. 204–9.
See, for example, Barbara Smith (2011) Nursing and Health: Compassion, Caring and Communication ( Harlow: Pearson Education). Almost a third of this work is devoted to explaining the different religious traditions nurses are likely to encounter and how their profession should respond and provide for these.
Lesley Mackay (1998) ‘Nursing: Will the Idea of Vocation Survive?’ In Pamela Abbott and Liz Meerabeau, eds, The Sociology of the Caring Professions ( London: UCL Press ), pp. 54–72, p. 69 my emphasis in italics. Mackay also noted the link between vocation and the previous echoes of religious devotion–especially prevalent in the adoption of the term ‘sisters’ common to both (p. 62).
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Nash, D. (2013). Pilgrims, Seekers, Samaritans and Saviours. In: Christian Ideals in British Culture. Palgrave Macmillan, London. https://doi.org/10.1057/9781137349057_2
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