BRITISH HUMANITARIANISM: ESSAYS HONORING FRANK J. KLINGBERG BY THIS FORMER DOCTORAL STUDENTS AT THE UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA, LOS ANGELES Edited by Samuel Clyde McCulloch. Philadelphia: The Church Historial Society, 1950. $4.00.

Abstract

Edited by SAMUEL CLYDE MCCULLOCH. Philadelphia: The Church Historical Society, 1950. $4.00. The XVIIIth Century is usually characterized as the Age of Reason, by which is meant the rise of deism and rationalism; yet two great religious movements were also products of that century. The rise of Methodism has been well publicized; the rise of two great Church of England societies has been less widely known. The Society for the Promotion of Christian Knowledge and the Society for the Propagation of the Gospel in Foreign Parts were instrumental in extending Anglicanism beyond the shores of the British Isles. More than three thousand missionaries have been listed as having been sent to continental America between 1700 and 1789, to say nothing of the many missionaries sent to the Caribbeans and to other distant British possessions. The semi-annual reports of these missionaries, the letters of the bishops of London to the Society, the letters of the several governors and others to the Society, form a treasure trove of source material for the religious history of XVIIIth Century America and England. In recent years a number of scholars have been exploiting this material, among whom none has been more indefatigable than Dr. Frank J. Klingberg. This volume of essays, based on S.P.G. sources in large measure, is a well merited tribute to an eminent scholar by his former students who have worked with him through the same sources. The volume is varied in scope, depending upon the interests of the writers, and covers such topics as slavery, work with convicts, factory legislation, individual biographical sketches of missionaries, and work with children through hymn writing and hymn writers. On the nonreligious side it is a well-rounded representation of the work of this great religious Society. No one volume can, of course, present the work of the Venerable Society in its entirety, but if there be a fault in the book it is the apparent assumption that the endeavors of the Society and its employees were primarily humanitarian and only incidentally religious; the truth lies in exactly the opposite direction. The directions of the Society to its missionaries emphasize the fact that the making of practicing Christians (and by that they meant practicing Anglicans) was of primary importance. If schools were to be founded, they were to be governed and taught by Anglicans; if reading was included, the ability to read the Scriptures and the Book of Common Prayer was the touch-stone of success. The propagation of the Gospel, not humanitarian!sm as such, was the basis of the work. Perhaps it is just as well that this non-religious side of the S.P.G. has been presented, for the clerics who have dealt with the sources tend to overemphasize the other side of the picture. British Humanitarianism will balance the other works which have been and are being published from these sources.