SOURCE: Connor, George E. “The Awakening of Edward Bellamy: Looking Backward at Religious Influence.” Utopian Studies: Journal for the Society for Utopian Studies 11, no. 1 (2000): 38-50.

[In the following essay, Connor correlates Bellamy's utopist ideas and some millenialist religious movements.]

INTRODUCTION

Traditional scholarship has explored the connection between Edward Bellamy and the religious influence of the early American Puritans and the First and Third Great Awakenings. With respect to the Puritans and the First Great Awakening, this linkage is especially emphasized with reference to Bellamy's millennialism. The traditional biographical literature (Morgan 1944; Bowman 1958, 1986) establishes this linkage. Analyses of Bellamy's millennialism (Howells 1968; Ketterer 1974; Schiffman 1962, 1974; Smith 1965; Tichi 1979, 1986, 1987) also stress the influence of the Puritans and the First Awakening. Similarly, overviews of the relationship between millennialism and utopianism (Olson 1982; Tuveson 1949, 1968) also link Bellamy to these early religious movements. While not wrong per se, scholars have emphasized these early influences to the detriment of the theoretical influence from later periods, especially the Second Great Awakening and the revivalism of Charles Finney. Only Niebuhr (1937) places Bellamy and Finney in the same theoretical context, although he makes no attempt to connect the two. A similar difficulty is presented by scholars who emphasize Bellamy's relationship with the Social Gospel movement of the Third Great Awakening (Blau 1957; Hopkins 1940; White and Hopkins 1976; Murdoch 1992). As is the case with the scholarship of the First Great Awakening, this literature fails to recognize and examine the relationship between Bellamy and the earlier revival. A positive and significant linkage can be made between Bellamy and the Second Great Awakening by a closer examination of this religious movement, a brief look at a biographical sketch of Bellamy, and a critical treatment of the religious themes in Looking Backward (1888) and Equality (1897). In an effort to develop this thesis, the following analysis begins with a reexamination of Bellamy's millennialism and the supposed influence of the Puritans. These sections are followed by a reassessment of the influence of the First and Third Great Awakenings on Bellamy. Finally, this analysis concludes with a discussion of the main components of the ministry of Charles Finney and their applicability to the thought of Edward Bellamy.

MILLENNIALISM

There can be little doubt that Bellamy's novels possessed a millennial vision. This point may be easily demonstrated by a brief examination of three characters from Looking Backward: Dr. Leete, Julian West, and Mr. Barton. Dr. Leete, West's guide in the year 2000, asserts that although “[o]nly a century has passed … many a millennium in the world's history has seen changes less extraordinary” (56). More to the point, Dr. Leete notes that many “hold that we have entered upon the millennium, and the theory from their point of view does not lack plausibility” (153). Citing Isaiah, West himself exclaims that “this is indeed the ‘new heavens and the new earth wherein dwelleth righteousness,’ which the prophet foretold” (153). Mr. Barton, contrasting the Nineteenth and Twentieth centuries with the metaphor of the rosebush, said that “[w]e believe the race for the first time to have entered on the realization of God's ideal of it, and each generation must now be a step upward” (206). Beyond the novel's characters, Bellamy himself noted in a Postscript to Looking Backward, that the novel “was written in the belief that the Golden Age lies before us and not behind us, and is not far away. Our children will surely see it, and we, too, who are already men and women, if we deserve it by our faith and by our works” (1986a, 234).

Smith suggested that “[w]e would profit from a reconsideration of connections between millennium and utopia” (1965, 548). While numerous authors have examined millennial themes in Bellamy's Looking Backward and Equality, their analyses suffer from the use of imprecise language based on an incomplete understanding of both biblical and American religious history. This imprecision is especially evident with respect to the terms millennial and apocalyptic.

THE PURITAN INFLUENCE

In his introduction to Bellamy's The Duke of Stockbridge, Schiffman noted that “[i]n the sanguine age that gave birth to scientific history, [Bellamy] founded his millennial faith on the past” (1962, xxx). The question that drives the present analysis is which past? Unfortunately, the answer to this question is plagued by an incomplete understanding of American religious history.

Tichi offers a brief and accurate synopsis of the development of early American religious traditions:

The first, emigrant generation were concerned with “designing and constructing a grand model” and accordingly emphasized the idea of a national covenant, of a communal ‘City upon a hill’ exemplary of reformed Christianity and, moreover, of the New Jerusalem. … Later on, in the 1640s and 1650s, when the Civil War, the Commonwealth, and then the Protectorate made it appear that the vanguard of the Reformation had moved away to Old England, polemical American voices turned urgently to myth making, justifying the particular New England way with an apocalyptic emphasis … Suffice it to say here that apocalyptic concerns evidently pervaded New England Puritan's lives.

(Tichi 1979, 17)

Although all “American history is best understood as a millenarian movement” (McLoughlin 1978, xiv), rooted in biblical history and then translated into an American religious context is a distinction between premillennialism and postmillennialism. According to Smith, “Premillennialists suppose that Christ's appearance is necessary before the thousand years of peace can begin. Fiery and cataclysmic events will usher in his reign. Postmillennialists, in contrast, conceive of the millennium as a new golden age in history which will prepare the way for Christ's coming and for the descent of the New Jerusalem” (1965, 538-539). It is essential that scholars recognize that the Puritan awakening was characterized by premillennialism (McCloughlin 1978, 76). Equally important, however, is the absence of a fiery and cataclysmic, or premillennial, history in Bellamy.

On purely textual grounds, Bellamy's utopian Boston is achieved in a manner that is inconsistent with the apocalyptic tradition. A non-apocalyptic, postmillennial, vision is one that sees the millennium in terms of “plain history, real politics, and human instrumentality” (Hanson 1975, 11). Rowland notes further that apocalyptical traditions “despair of anything good arising out of the present” (1982, 25). If these are the standards for the apocalypse, then Bellamy's Looking Backward and Equality are hardly apocalyptic. The following exchange from Looking Backward is illustrative.

JULIAN West:
Such a stupendous change as you describe did not, of course, take place without great bloodshed and terrible convulsions
DR. Leete:
On the contrary, there was absolutely no violence … there was no possibility of opposing it by force than by argument.

(66)

Similarly, in Equality Bellamy prefers the word, and connotation of, “evolution” over “revolution” (20, 21). When he does employ the word “revolution,” it is clearly in a non-apocalyptic context: “You must not fail to bear in mind that the great Revolution, as it came in America was not a revolution at all in the political sense in which all former revolutions in the popular interest had been. … [I]n a democratic state like America the Revolution was practically done when the people had made up their minds that it was for their interest” (346). Writing later, Bellamy stressed the evolutionary process as he advocated Nationalism: “We seek the final answer to the social question not in revolution, but in evolution; not in destruction, but in fulfillment” (Bellamy 1889, 48).

Bowman (1962, 43-44) and Tichi (1979, 1986, 1987) are not wrong when they suggest that there is a linkage between Bellamy and the Puritans in general and William Bradford, Edward Johnson, and Cotton Mather specifically. However, by uniting them with Bellamy in “an ideological tradition embedded in American culture from the colonial era” (Tichi 1987, 121), the Puritan influence, especially with respect to millennialism, is overstated. In addition, the emphasis on religious continuity further blurs the distinction between the Puritan era and the First Great Awakening.

THE FIRST GREAT AWAKENING (1730-1760)

Without question, the most significant religious figure during the First Great Awakening was Jonathan Edwards (McLoughlin 1978; Hudson 1981). Jonathan Edwards has been labeled “as both a determiner and epitome of the theological thought of an era.” More importantly, “the ‘Edwardsean’ theology formed much of the climate of Protestant religious opinion in the New England of Bellamy's day and something with which Bellamy was undoubtedly conversant” (Hall 1997, 14). Hall's analysis, by delineating the continuity of personal identity, existential implications, moral implications, moral psychology, and the ethics and individualism of agapism, unequivocally established “the fundamental kinship between [Jonathan] Edwards and Bellamy” (29). This kinship notwithstanding, there is an even greater familial relationship.

Although Smith traces Bellamy's post-millennialism to a variety of sources, he stresses the relevance of Edward's ancestor, the Reverend Joseph Bellamy. In particular, Smith notes that Jonathan Edward's “[post]millennial views were evangelized by … Joseph Bellamy” (539). Hall is correct in that Morgan “does not explicitly claim that Joseph [Bellamy] had any influence on Edward [Bellamy]” [emphasis added] (Hall 1997, 14). However, Morgan did note the significance of Joseph Bellamy's millennial example for Edward Bellamy: “Now it happens that Joseph Bellamy himself, rock-ribbed Calvinist that he tried to be, nevertheless at times broke loose from that rigorous temper and dreamed his own utopias” [as evidenced by his election day sermon of May 13, 1762] (1944, 215). Similarly, Tuveson (1968) noted that although Joseph Bellamy “repeated the essentials of [Jonathan] Edward's theory, he made some changes in emphasis characteristic of later millennialism” (57).

While it is impossible to dismiss the linkage between Bellamy and early American religious traditions, especially Edwards and the First Great Awakening, it is crucial that these linkages be clearly demarcated. The post-millennialists of the First Great Awakening concluded that “God might create millennial order without some cataclysmic holocaust” (McLoughlin 1978, 76). This post-millennial vision, illustrated by the writing of Joseph Bellamy, is certainly more applicable than the Puritan tradition to Bellamy's writings. Nevertheless, taken as a whole, the vision of Edward Bellamy “differed from that which Joseph Bellamy learned from Edwards and Hopkins as any grandchild may differ from the grandshire” (Niebuhr 1937, 190).

THE THIRD GREAT AWAKENING (1890-1920)

While this analysis suggests a reexamination of the influence of the First Great Awakening on Bellamy, it would be wrong to overlook the influence, both negative and positive, of the Third Great Awakening. It is important to note that the Third Great Awakening can be divided into at least two paradoxical phases or movements: The Prayer Meeting Revivals and the Social Gospel movement. According to Bowman, “Bellamy reviewed and wrote about the current church movements.” She notes, in particular, that Bellamy was critical of those who denounced Dwight Moody, whose revivals swept the nation in the late 1870s and early 1880s (1958, 259, 258). However critical of Moody's denunciation, it can be argued nevertheless that Bellamy would have had little sympathy for Moody's religious beliefs. As part of the urban revival movement, Moody rejected Darwinism, “could not find in the Bible those justifications for a postmillennial interpretation of history that had seemed so obvious to Finney,” and was supported by the “captains of industry” (McLoughlin 144, 142).

If it is wrong to overlook the negative influence of Moody and similar prayer revivalists, it would also be a mistake to dismiss outright the positive influence of the Social Gospel movement. It is clear from his relationship with Gronlund, Bliss and others that Bellamy was personally involved in developing the Social Gospel (Blau 1957, 166; Hopkins 1940, 174-176; White and Hopkins 1976, 148; Murdoch 1992, 97). Bellamy himself acknowledged their influence when he reported “that he received enthusiastic support and encouragement from the social gospelers.” Nevertheless, Bellamy admitted that “the movement, though articulate and colorful, was still small and unable to lend much support” (Schiffman 1974, xxxvii). Without dismissing the influence of the Social Gospel, it is fair to say that this wave of reform took shape largely after Bellamy's death in 1898. It might be more appropriate to suggest that Bellamy “catalysed” the movement (Levitas 1990, 173).

THE SECOND GREAT AWAKENING (1800-1840)

While distinct from the First Great Awakening, the Second Great Awakening, retained some elements from the earlier movement. Primarily it is important to note that, like the First Awakening, the Second was post-millennial. The sinner “must make the world a fit place for the imminent return of Christ” (McLoughlin 1978, 129). Johnson stresses that absence of apocalyptic imagery in the Second Awakening: “The immediate and gory millennium predicted in Revelation had no place in evangelical thinking. Utopia would be realized on earth” (1978, 109-110). Apart from post-millennialism, however, there were some significant differences between the two revival movements and these differences are crucial in our reexamination of Bellamy.

Quoting Miller, McLoughlin suggested that “[a]nxiety over the future lies at the heart of the [Second Great Awakening]” (104). While this anxiety is evident in Bellamy, an additional character deserves introduction. Winthrop Hudson asserts two fundamental points about the Second Great Awakening. First, the “[n]ew revivalism was markedly different from the revivalism of the First Awakening under Jonathan Edwards” (1981, 136). Second, and probably more important, Hudson suggested that “the urban phase of the Second Awakening can be seen most clearly in the person and activity of [Charles] Finney” (143). Turning to Finney's teachings, one finds a remarkable correlation between them and the millennial vision of Edward Bellamy as expressed in Looking Backward and Equality. Hall suggested that “the link between Bellamy and Edwards may have been obscured by the fact that their religious thought seems to be light years apart” (1997, 14). This analysis suggests that similar obscuration has limited scholarly attention to the link between Bellamy and Finney and that a “fundamental kinship” can be demonstrated between the two.

Although it would be impossible to distill all of the elements of Finney's teaching here, four are extremely useful. First, Finney told those attending his revivals “that man is not innately corrupt but only corruptible (Johnson 140). Second, Finney envisioned “a world where men worked ceaselessly to make themselves and others perfect” (4). Third, Finney's revivalism was multi- or cross-denominational. Finally, Finney's revivalism “implied new kinds of equality between the sexes … [an equality] subversive of [husbands'] authority over their wives” (108). While perhaps not doing justice to either Finney or the Second Great Awakening writ large, these four characteristics suggest an applicability to Bellamy heretofore absent in the literature. Although Bellamy was born after the Second Great Awakening, and there is no tangible evidence that directly connects him to Finney, a case can be built upon circumstantial evidence. The initial evidence consists of the potential impact of Finney's teachings on the Bellamy household.

While no definitive connection can be made, the geographic proximity of Finney's influence cannot be dismissed. Although Finney's most influential New York revival was held in Rochester, he also preached on a number of occasions in Troy, Albany, and Stephentown, across the Massachusetts border (Hambrick-Stowe, 61, 93; Hardesty 12). After these New York meetings, Finney held revivals in Dalton, Hinsdale, and Peru, Massachusetts (Finney 1989, 214). Finney preached in Boston from September, 1931, to April, 1932 (Hambrick-Stowe, 121) as well as in Providence and Hartford (Finney 427, 520). Perhaps most significant was the 1827 contentious meeting of Western and Eastern ministers in New Lebanon, NY (Hardman, 133-149; Hambrick-Stowe, 66-73; Hardesty, 12-13). At issue were both Finney's message and methods. The Finney-led Westerners more than held their own against the Easterners, led by the formidable Lyman Beecher. The minutes of the convention were fuel for newspaper articles, pamphlets, and sermons throughout the region. It is not unreasonable to conclude that the impact of this meeting, as well as Finney's preaching in the region, garnered attention in the Bellamy household.

It can be demonstrated that both Bellamy's mother and father would have been aware of the controversy surrounding Finney's preaching. Bellamy's mother, by all accounts, was “deeply spiritual” (Morgan 1944, 25). Bowman reported that “[r]eligious observance was a dominating factor in the routine of the Bellamy family” (1958, 23; Hall 1997). Bellamy's father, Rufus, was ordained as a minister in 1838, and he was the minister to the Chicopee Falls Baptist church when Edward was born (Morgan, 16-17). Moreover, Rufus Bellamy attended Hamilton College, where Finney had been educated thirty years earlier (Hardman 30; Weddle 1985, 15). This coincidence takes on added importance when Finney's continual theological influence at Hamilton is noted. Two of Finney's most ardent and influential supporters, Asa Mahan and Theodore Dwight Weld, were Hamilton students in the mid-20s. Besides graduates, Finney engendered the support of Hamilton faculty as well (Finney 184). Charles Cushman Sears noted from Hamilton that “‘the name Finney possesses some peculiar influence’” (Hambrick-Stowe 7). One can suppose that Rufus Bellamy, as both a practicing minister and Hamilton student, would have been cognizant of Finney's influence.

Rather than explicitly tracing Bellamy's thought directly back to Finney, using Hall's treatment of Edwards as a model, this analysis seeks to demonstrate the “striking thematic continuity” between the two (15). Alone, the above linkages between Bellamy, Finney, and the Second Awakening are tenuous. Nevertheless, these connections can be fortified by an examination of Bellamy's texts with the illumination of the four fundamentals of Finney's ministry outlined above.

HUMAN NATURE

As noted above, Finney asserted that “man is not innately corrupt.” Without doubt, this was the most controversial of Finney's tenets (Hambrick-Stowe 1996, 126; Hardman 1987, 232). When Julian West suggests that “[h]uman nature itself must have changed very much,” Dr. Leete's response is “[n]ot at all” (Bellamy 1888, 68). Later he repeats the assertion: “I don't think there has been any change in human nature” (88). In Equality, in an intriguing passage about women's equality, Bellamy suggests that the concept of negative human nature had been completely eradicated. Addressing the past beliefs of “bilious misogynists,” Dr. Leete informs Julian West that they no longer exist (Bellamy 1897, 127). These passages lead Bellamy biographer Sylvia Bowman to the following conclusion: “Bellamy asserted in Looking Backward that human nature would not have to be changed before it could attain perfection; and he argued that when the conditions of human life, and consequently, the motivating forces of human action had been changed, then, and only then, would the innate good [emphasis added] in man be given an opportunity to develop” (1986, 81-82). Although the controversy over Bellamy's vision of human nature will probably, like Finney's, continue ad infinitum (Berneri 1969; Blau 1957; Pfaelzer 1984; Roemer 1976; Scott 1977; and Strawman 1990), the suggested linkage between this aspect of Bellamy's religious influences deserves further attention.

PERFECTION

In addition to, and in conjunction with the innate goodness of human beings, Finney also envisioned “a world where men worked ceaselessly to make themselves and others perfect.” It is readily apparent that Bellamy envisioned a similar world. Dr. Leete explained to Julian West that “[n]o man any more has any care for the morrow, either for himself or his children, for the nation guarantees the nurture, education, and comfortable maintenance of every citizen from the cradle to the grave” (Bellamy 1888, 85). Finney believed that “the reborn became unselfish and altruistic” (McLoughlin 1978, 128) and that they were “duty-bound to Christian benevolence” (Friedman 1975, 284). Similar sentiment can be found throughout Looking Backward. For example, Dr. Leete explains that “[c]oarser motives no longer move us.” The citizens of Boston in the year 2000 are motivated by “service to the nation, patriotism, [and] passion for humanity” (89).

DENOMINATIONALISM

With respect to applying Finney's multi- or cross-denominational revivalism, one must examine the oft-overlooked Equality where Julian West queries Mr. Barton about the “disappearance of religious divisions” (264). According to Mr. Barton, denominational classifications “received a fatal shock at the time of the great Revolution, when sectarian demarcations and doctrinal differences, already fallen into a good deal of disregard, were completely swept away and forgotten, in the passionate impulse of brotherly love which brought men together for the founding of a nobler social order” [emphasis added] (Bellamy 1897, 258). Like Finney, Bellamy's non-denominationalism was reflective of his view of society which was critical of contemporary religion and in particular of the “jarring multiplicity of creeds and philosophics and sentimentalities” (Bowman 1958, 27). Inextricably linking the disappearance of denominations to Finney's view of human nature, Mr. Barton maintained that “the conviction took hold on men that there was no limit to what they might know concerning their nature and destiny and no limit to that destiny” (265).

The linkage to the Second Great Awakening is made even clearer with Dr. Leete's equation of the Revolution with a religious revival: “to cap the climax, as if the popular mind were not already in a sufficiently exalted frame, came ‘The Great Revival,’ touching this enthusiasm with religious emotion.” Julian West replies with a question: “We used to have what were called revivals of religion in my day … sometimes quite extensive ones. Was this of the same nature?”

Scarcely, replied the doctor. The Great Revival was a tide of enthusiasm for the social, not the personal, salvation, and for the establishment in brotherly love of the kingdom of god on earth which Christ bade men hope and work for. It was the general awakening of the people of America in the closing years of the last century to the profoundly ethical and truly religious character and claims of the movement for an industrial system which should guarantee the economic equality of all the people.

(1897, 340)

The traditional emphasis on the relationship between Jonathan Edwards and Bellamy might suggest the association of this “Great Revival” with the First Great Awakening. Given the discussion above, it seems much more appropriate to associate this passage, and Bellamy's message, with Finney and the Second Great Awakening. Moreover, like his critique of denominational rivalries, the revivalism of Equality, was reflective of Bellamy's view of contemporary society. “Because the Nationalists did not condone bloody revolution and the creation of the violent hatred so necessary to incite one, they relied upon a religious revival which would fill the hearts of men with love of one another” (Bowman 1962, 35).

FEMINISM

Whereas human nature was the most controversial aspect of Finney's teaching and is controversial for Bellamy as well, it is Bellamy's depiction of women that has generated the most controversy (Bleich 1964; Levitas 1990, 1995; Shor 1997; Strauss 1988; Hartman 1999). While “feminism” may be too modern a term for Bellamy's writings, it does accurately reflect most of the contemporary literature on this subject. This literature can be divided into at least three distinct categories: Criticism, historical context, and theoretical context.

Critics abound. Nydahl insists that “[i]f there is any area in which Looking Backward looks backward instead of forward—holds to safety and tradition instead of bravely forging new paths—it is in that concerning attitudes toward sexuality” (1977, xiii). Tichi concedes that while Bellamy is “by no means a smug chauvinist,” “[b]eneath the surface of Bellamy's feminist program … lies the sexual segregation of separate and unequal lives” (1986, 25). Although initially critical of Bellamy for failing “to give any serious attention to the question of the position of women,” Levitas, like Shor (1997, 31), recognized that “Equality [was] an attempt both to elaborate some of the themes in Looking Backward and to answer some of his critics” (Levitas 1990, 109; 1995, 68). More importantly, however, is Levitas's comparison of Bellamy to his historical contemporary, Charlotte Perkins Gilman. Levitas notes that Gilman, like Bellamy, believed in “a natural division of labor in which women are equal but different” (Levitas 1995, 71). Similarly, Bleich (1964) attempts to place Bellamy in context. However, unlike the historical framework of Levitas, Bleich utilizes the psychoanalytic theories of Schiller and Marcuse. While Bleich maintains “the ornamental role played by women in Bellamy's day reflect[ed] the popular endorsement of the gap between the respective social roles of the two sexes,” he insists that “Bellamy, by injecting woman-power into the industrial army seeks to develop rather than ‘obliterate’ the differences between the sexes” [emphasis added] (455).

Whether critical, historical, or theoretical, the literature acknowledges Bellamy's division of the sexes. The task of this analysis, however, is not to evaluate the merits of Bellamy's feminism so much as it is to suggest a possible source. It can be demonstrated that Looking Backward and Equality, like Finney, “implied new kinds of equality between the sexes … [an equality] subversive of [husbands'] authority over their wives.” Bellamy, through Dr. Leete, insists that “[m]arriage, when it comes, does not mean incarceration for them, nor does it separate them in any way from the larger interests of society, the bustling life of the world” (187). More directly, Dr. Leete emphatically asserts that “wives are in no way dependent on their husbands for maintenance” (188). Beyond husbands and wives, Bellamy insists in Equality that the evolution of American society corresponded “with a movement for the enlargement and greater freedom of women's lives and their equalization as to rights and duties with men” (369).

Critics may debate the size and merits of the “enlargement of women's lives,” but the new kind of equality suggested by Bellamy can be traced to Finney. Most specifically, Finney attempted to create “psychological and social space for women” (Hudson 1981, 144). Whether Tichi's “sexual segregation,” Levitas's “natural division,” or Bleich's “developing differences,” Bellamy's feminism is strikingly reminiscent of Finney's “space.” Hardesty (1991) traces the history of modern feminism to Finney. Similarly, Levitas evaluates the development of feminism in the 1970s, 80s, and 90s, especially with respect to domestic labor, with reference to Bellamy (1995, 80-82). This analysis suggests that the confluence of these historical streams may be in the influence of Finney on Bellamy.

CONCLUSION

While not suggesting that the Second Great Awakening replace either the First or the Third with respect to Bellamy scholarship, the discussion above indicates that a reexamination of the influence of these two religious movements is warranted. Certainly, the emphasis on the apocalyptic Puritans should be diminished. A clear demarcation between pre- and post-millennialism is essential in the effort to come to grips with the religious antecedents of Bellamy. In addition to these considerations, it has been demonstrated that prominent aspects of Bellamy's world-view bear a close resemblance to the revivalism of Finney and the Second Great Awakening. The question remains as to how to utilize this relationship.

Resemblance aside, one could argue that the relationship between Finney and Bellamy is simply reflective of a common progressive mind-set that affected both men. Besides Finney, there were a number of other influential ministers during the Second Great Awakening such as Asa Mahan. Both Finney and Mahan belong to the so-called “Oberlin group” whose “concern for sanctification penetrated most of the Protestant denominations” prior to the Civil War (Hudson 345). It would, however, take a much more detailed analysis to disentangle their theological differences and then attempt to isolate their respective influence on Bellamy.

Less prominent than Mahan and Finney were other religious activists, like Phoebe Palmer and James Caughey, whose teachings contain antecedents of Bellamy's philosophy. As the most prominent figure of the Methodist Holiness Movement, Palmer's influence might be seen in Bellamy's feminism and concern for reform (Smith 1957). Others might argue that, unlike Finney, it is difficult to trace the influence of Palmer to Bellamy because she “was essentially concerned with personal perfection, not social reform” (McLoughlin 142). Caughey, like Finney, preached ecumenicalism, and it would be exceedingly difficult to isolate their respective influence on Bellamy. However, it is Finney that is cited as the most prominent of ecumenical American evangelists (Rouse and Neill 1967, 330) and it was Caughey who “shared the increased prestige” of Finney (Smith 1957, 73).

The common mind-set argument is equally valid for Bellamy and other writers of his generation. Quite obviously there were other advocates of an improved position for women besides Bellamy, such as Harriett Beecher Stowe and Catherine Booth. As was noted above, scholars are trying to distinguish Bellamy's position regarding women from that of his contemporaries (Levitas 1990, 1995). While this scholarship will enable us to measure this mind-set, at least one author (Hardesty 1991) suggests quite forcibly that the mind-set common to these writers originated with Finney.

In the final analysis, Finney is best utilized as a lens through which scholars can focus on the influence of the Second Great Awakening on Edward Bellamy. Traditional scholarship has focused on the First and Third Great Awakenings to the exclusion of the Second. The present analysis offers a framework for extending our theoretical focal point to include Finney and the Second Great Awakening. Finney is probably the most prominent figure of the Second Great Awakening, and while their views on human nature, perfection, denominationalism, and feminism represent significant linkages and striking thematic continuity between Finney and Bellamy, this analysis hardly exhausts the potential influence of the Second Great Awakening. It does, however, provide an argument for renewed scholarly interest in the relationship between Bellamy, millennialism, utopianism, and the Second Great Awakening.

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