Exeter-Hall Science and Evangelical Rhetoric in Mid-Victorian Britain

In the early and mid-Victorian period public pronouncements by evangelicals were often described as the antithesis of rational speech. The voice of science, by contrast, was routinely equated with the voice of reason. This disparity was particularly clear in satirical and critical commentary about the platform rhetoric associated with London's Exeter Hall, a key meeting place for evangelicals and a metonym for evangelical expressions of Christian belief. It was against this backdrop that the fledgling Young Men's Christian Association (YMCA) inaugurated a popular series of lectures in 1845. Held in Exeter Hall from 1848, the series ran until 1865 and proved to be immensely popular. By investigating the ways in which the promotion of science was combined with religious exhortation in the YMCA lectures, this paper examines how evangelicals positioned themselves with respect to the growing cultural authority of science. The paper also argues that these efforts were indelibly marked by the Hall and the communicative medium in which they were made. As such, the paper sheds light on the significance of platform culture within and beyond evangelicalism and on the importance of venue and audience in understanding science and religion relations in an age of lecturing.     

Electioneering 1974 and labor in government

Laurie Oakes and David Solomon, Grab for Power: Election ‘74, Cheshire, Melbourne, 1974, pp. 557, paperbound, $7.95.

Peter Blazey and Andrew Campbell, The Political Dice Men, Outback Press, Melbourne, 1974, pp. 254, paperbound, $3.50.

C. J. Lloyd and G. S. Reid, Out of the Wilderness: The Return of Labor, Cassell Australia, Melbourne, 1974, pp. 447, paperbound, $6.95.     

Robert d'Arbrissel: Aristocratic patronage and the question of heresy

Robert d'Arbrissel, first of the wandering preachers of the late eleventh century in northwestern France, often skirted the edges of heresy. Scholars have wondered what separated Robert from similar figures, such as Henry of Lausanne, who were in fact condemmed as heretics. Since Robert came from a modest family in a region of Brittany dominated by the Angevin counts, his career was always oriented towards Anjou. One possibility, then, is to examine Robert's career within the context of the Angevin nobility. His first patron, Bishop Silvester of Rennes, was a member of the count of Anjou's entourage, as were many other powerful figures who later supported him. Chief of these was Rainald, Lord of Craon. Under Reinald's patronage, Robert was able to establish the church of La Roë with the personal approval of Pope Urban. When Robert left to preach to crowds of followers, powerful Angevin churchmen recalled him to his duty. Once again it was the Angevin nobility, many related to the house of Craon, who provided Robert with the means to establish a monastery at Fontevraud. This establishment, backed by the Angevin nobility, kept Robert within the good graces of the Church.     

Aristocratic families and social stability in eleventh-century Provence

For many aristocratic families in southern France and Catalonia, the eleventh century was a period marked by a series of challenges to their estates, and therefore to their economic and social well-being. Studies on this subject have shown that these families responded by turning inward, relying upon the strengths and sacrifices of each of its members, and by adopting an aggressively defensive posture towards the rest of society. While this tightening of links among family members often resulted in conflicts with other groups and individuals in society, it had other less obvious results — it gave individual relatives the authority to speak for, and assume responsibility for, the actions of one another. If this new family unity was often disruptive to society, in other ways it had an important stabilizing influence in society.     

Silas Marner,Catalepsy, and Mid-Victorian Medicine: George Eliot's Ethics of Care

‘Silas Marner, Catalepsy, and Mid-Victorian Medicine’ reads Eliot's novel Silas Marner through the history of medicine, and particularly in the context of Marner's strange cataleptic trances which embody his alienation and suffering. Eliot, I argue, employs catalepsy in order to investigate ideas of illness and care, especially as that relates to professional medicine and to ideas of community. Focusing on cataleptic case histories and on Eliot's personal health concerns I show how issues of care become philosophical questions about ethical responsibility. It is through Silas Marner and his catalepsy, I conclude, that Victorian scholars can come to understand more about what that means within Eliot's canon and, more widely, in the mid-Victorian period. Overall, the article provides a unique reading of Silas Marner, drawing on significant new archival research on catalepsy and in Eliot's writing of illness narratives.