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Benevolent Designs: The Countess and the General: George Washington, Selina Countess of Huntingdon, their correspondence, & the evangelizing of America
Lady Selina Shirley was the daughter of Washington Shirley, second earl Ferrers; she married Theophilus Hastings, ninth earl of Huntingdon. As Selina, countess of Huntingdon, she became the patroness of the evangelicals in – and out – of the Church of England, including the early Methodists in England, Wales, and America alike.
And she had a distant cousin in America: George Washington, to whom she decided to write about her plans for a mission to the Native Americans and the settling of her congregants on the frontier.
In the midst of revolution, war, peace treaties, reprisals, and the birth of a new nation, the Countess and the General shared first a correspondent, in Phillis Wheatley, America’s first Black author and poet; then, a correspondence; and eventually, a friendship and something of a vision. The Countess entrusted to her distant cousin the General her hopes of maintaining charities in the former colonies, settling the back-country with pious families, and evangelizing the Native Americans. The General came to endow what became Washington College – now Washington & Lee University – where one of America’s first Black clergymen was educated, and to move towards abolitionism. Their lives and correspondence, and their actions, touched at various points those of John Wesley and George Whitefield; Phillis Wheatley; Olaudah Equiano the Black British writer whose voice powerfully indicted slavery; the Reverend Samson Occom, the Mohegan evangelist; and Granville Sharp, the pro-American British civil servant who midwifed abolitionism and helped create Sierra Leone. In the end, they helped to create the forces that evangelized the American frontier, put down slavery, gave the United States its standing sense of a special moral mission in the world, and made the Nonconformist Conscience a permanent factor in British politics.
And she had a distant cousin in America: George Washington, to whom she decided to write about her plans for a mission to the Native Americans and the settling of her congregants on the frontier.
In the midst of revolution, war, peace treaties, reprisals, and the birth of a new nation, the Countess and the General shared first a correspondent, in Phillis Wheatley, America’s first Black author and poet; then, a correspondence; and eventually, a friendship and something of a vision. The Countess entrusted to her distant cousin the General her hopes of maintaining charities in the former colonies, settling the back-country with pious families, and evangelizing the Native Americans. The General came to endow what became Washington College – now Washington & Lee University – where one of America’s first Black clergymen was educated, and to move towards abolitionism. Their lives and correspondence, and their actions, touched at various points those of John Wesley and George Whitefield; Phillis Wheatley; Olaudah Equiano the Black British writer whose voice powerfully indicted slavery; the Reverend Samson Occom, the Mohegan evangelist; and Granville Sharp, the pro-American British civil servant who midwifed abolitionism and helped create Sierra Leone. In the end, they helped to create the forces that evangelized the American frontier, put down slavery, gave the United States its standing sense of a special moral mission in the world, and made the Nonconformist Conscience a permanent factor in British politics.
232 pages, Paperback
First published July 1, 2013
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About the author
Markham Shaw Pyle
12 books8 followersMarkham Shaw Pyle was born in Houston, Texas, in 1962. A sixth-generation Texan and twelfth-generation Southerner, he holds his undergraduate and law degrees from Washington & Lee. A longtime leading reviewer, during its glory days, at epinions.com, he is primarily a military historian, although cultural, political, and diplomatic history has been known to creep in. Mr. Pyle is a partner in the Bapton Books imprint, and a past or current member of, inter alia, the Organization of American Historians; the Society for Military History; the Southern Historical Association; the Southwestern Social Science Association; the Southwestern Historical Association; the Southwestern Political Science Association; the Virginia Historical Society; and the Texas State Historical Association.
Mr. Pyle believes in the 1928 Prayer Book, brisket, cornbread, National League baseball, and Smithfield ham. He is unalterably opposed to unnatural fibers, beans in chili, and the Designated Hitter.
Mr. Pyle believes in the 1928 Prayer Book, brisket, cornbread, National League baseball, and Smithfield ham. He is unalterably opposed to unnatural fibers, beans in chili, and the Designated Hitter.
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September 12, 2013
I think it is almost always a mistake, in reviewing books, to talk about yourself first. The reviewer, after all, didn't write the book, and the author did not write the book so that some reviewer could spend time talking about himself. I feel as though I need to do it here, though, to give you an idea of why I had a hard time getting a handle on this particular book.
I am a Southern Baptist. On my mother's side, there are at least three generations of Southern Baptist preachers. My grandfather taught theology and Greek at what was then Dallas Baptist College, and Decatur Baptist College before that. My mother, up until her death, played piano at First Baptist Church, Grand Prairie, Texas. My father was a boy preacher in a long string of small churches in what are now the rural suburbs of Fort Worth. I was born a foundling in a Baptist hospital and adopted through Buckner Baptist Children's Home. I was baptized by total immersion. I have been to more Sunday night services and Wednesday church dinners and Vacation Bible School sessions than I can count. I graduated from Baylor University in Waco, the largest Baptist university in the world.
I say all this, not because it proves anything, but because often it's the people in the next town over that are the most alien. The most important thing I knew about Methodism growing up is that their pastor got them out of Sunday morning services five minutes before ours did, and that is why they were in line ahead of us at Wyatt's Cafeteria. I learned about Mormons in school, and Huguenots, and Sikhs, but not anything about Methodists. I remember vacationing with my wife in Savannah and being utterly surprised to learn that John Wesley had lived there and preached there, as I had no real idea of where he fit in on the timeline of history.
BENEVOLENT DESIGNS examines three areas that are (generally speaking) woefully neglected. First, author Markham Shaw Pyle is concerned with the time frame between the defeat of the British at Yorktown in 1781 and the signing of the Constitution in 1789, when the United States of America was both a start-up and an upstart. Second, Pyle is (as George Washington himself was) interested in the settlement of what was then the western frontier, a phase in westward expansion that gets filed under the rubric of "Daniel Boone" and "Johnny Appleseed" and is then forgotten.
Third, and most prominently, Pyle examines the life and works of Selina Hastings, Countess of Huntingdon, who was a supporter of Wesley's and an underwriter for the early phase of Methodism, and who is (by my own quick mental survey) one of three women who have founded a Christian denomination. (I am thinking of Aimee Semple McPherson and Mary Baker Eddy here, but there may be more.) I will confess that I had not heard of the Countess, or of her denomination (known, charmingly, as "Countess of Huntingdon's Connexion") until reading this book, and it gave me the greatest pleasure to, as it were, fill in this particular blank in my historical knowledge.
BENEVOLENT DESIGNS covers a great deal of Protestant theology, particularly with regard to the dispute between Calvinism (which of course includes predestination) and Arminianism (which, as Wikipedia helpfully reminds us, is not to be confused with Armenians). The Countess of Huntingdon's Connexion was a largely unsuccessful attempt to steer the course of Methodism towards Calvinism. (As a Southern Baptist, I should point out here that my denomination combines the two doctrines.) But Pyle here is less involved with the theology and more with the practical effect of the Countess's faith in action.
The Countess's grand plan, as explicated in the book, was to plant settlements of her co-religionists in the American frontier, where they would be well-placed to instruct the local Indian tribes and civilize and Christianize them. In aid of this, she contacted her kinsman in America, a prominent man, a leader of his generation, and the Father of our Country. The correspondence between the Countess and General Washington is the anchor of the book, as well as its primary ornament.
Washington was, quite rightly, concerned that the American backwoods be settled by yeoman farmers and not exploited by land speculators. He was concerned with keeping good relations with the Indian tribes--as a participant in the French and Indian Wars, Washington was intimately familiar with what the tribes could do militarily if they were aroused. Washington's interests did not exactly coincide with the Countess's, but Pyle makes the case that they dovetailed nicely.
BENEVOLENT DESIGNS is a well thought-out, illuminating piece of history covering topics that are often sadly neglected. Pyle writes with integrity, authority, and an appealing energy (despite the occasional detour). But perhaps the most revealing aspect of the book is the long passages quoted from the letters of George Washington--both to the Countess and to other correspondents. Washington is not the best prose stylist among the Presidents; Lincoln was far more eloquent and TR was far more prolific. But Washington here exhibits both his own ingrained nobility and an admirable blunt directness. Pyle wisely steps back and lets the General speak, and the book is better for it.
I am a Southern Baptist. On my mother's side, there are at least three generations of Southern Baptist preachers. My grandfather taught theology and Greek at what was then Dallas Baptist College, and Decatur Baptist College before that. My mother, up until her death, played piano at First Baptist Church, Grand Prairie, Texas. My father was a boy preacher in a long string of small churches in what are now the rural suburbs of Fort Worth. I was born a foundling in a Baptist hospital and adopted through Buckner Baptist Children's Home. I was baptized by total immersion. I have been to more Sunday night services and Wednesday church dinners and Vacation Bible School sessions than I can count. I graduated from Baylor University in Waco, the largest Baptist university in the world.
I say all this, not because it proves anything, but because often it's the people in the next town over that are the most alien. The most important thing I knew about Methodism growing up is that their pastor got them out of Sunday morning services five minutes before ours did, and that is why they were in line ahead of us at Wyatt's Cafeteria. I learned about Mormons in school, and Huguenots, and Sikhs, but not anything about Methodists. I remember vacationing with my wife in Savannah and being utterly surprised to learn that John Wesley had lived there and preached there, as I had no real idea of where he fit in on the timeline of history.
BENEVOLENT DESIGNS examines three areas that are (generally speaking) woefully neglected. First, author Markham Shaw Pyle is concerned with the time frame between the defeat of the British at Yorktown in 1781 and the signing of the Constitution in 1789, when the United States of America was both a start-up and an upstart. Second, Pyle is (as George Washington himself was) interested in the settlement of what was then the western frontier, a phase in westward expansion that gets filed under the rubric of "Daniel Boone" and "Johnny Appleseed" and is then forgotten.
Third, and most prominently, Pyle examines the life and works of Selina Hastings, Countess of Huntingdon, who was a supporter of Wesley's and an underwriter for the early phase of Methodism, and who is (by my own quick mental survey) one of three women who have founded a Christian denomination. (I am thinking of Aimee Semple McPherson and Mary Baker Eddy here, but there may be more.) I will confess that I had not heard of the Countess, or of her denomination (known, charmingly, as "Countess of Huntingdon's Connexion") until reading this book, and it gave me the greatest pleasure to, as it were, fill in this particular blank in my historical knowledge.
BENEVOLENT DESIGNS covers a great deal of Protestant theology, particularly with regard to the dispute between Calvinism (which of course includes predestination) and Arminianism (which, as Wikipedia helpfully reminds us, is not to be confused with Armenians). The Countess of Huntingdon's Connexion was a largely unsuccessful attempt to steer the course of Methodism towards Calvinism. (As a Southern Baptist, I should point out here that my denomination combines the two doctrines.) But Pyle here is less involved with the theology and more with the practical effect of the Countess's faith in action.
The Countess's grand plan, as explicated in the book, was to plant settlements of her co-religionists in the American frontier, where they would be well-placed to instruct the local Indian tribes and civilize and Christianize them. In aid of this, she contacted her kinsman in America, a prominent man, a leader of his generation, and the Father of our Country. The correspondence between the Countess and General Washington is the anchor of the book, as well as its primary ornament.
Washington was, quite rightly, concerned that the American backwoods be settled by yeoman farmers and not exploited by land speculators. He was concerned with keeping good relations with the Indian tribes--as a participant in the French and Indian Wars, Washington was intimately familiar with what the tribes could do militarily if they were aroused. Washington's interests did not exactly coincide with the Countess's, but Pyle makes the case that they dovetailed nicely.
BENEVOLENT DESIGNS is a well thought-out, illuminating piece of history covering topics that are often sadly neglected. Pyle writes with integrity, authority, and an appealing energy (despite the occasional detour). But perhaps the most revealing aspect of the book is the long passages quoted from the letters of George Washington--both to the Countess and to other correspondents. Washington is not the best prose stylist among the Presidents; Lincoln was far more eloquent and TR was far more prolific. But Washington here exhibits both his own ingrained nobility and an admirable blunt directness. Pyle wisely steps back and lets the General speak, and the book is better for it.
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