Religion and Rationality in the First American Gothic Novel: Charles Brockden Brown's Confrontation with Calvinism on the Fictional Plain

Post-Puritan America was a completely different world, in many respects, to that of America prior to the Revolution. Now America was free from English rule. Now colonies had been settled and cities were founded. Now the focus was not to be a “city on a hill,” but to be a free republic. The Revolution brought about the creation and fruition of many new ideas, and along with that result the end of other ones.

John Murrin, professor of history at Princeton University, writes, “By the late eighteenth century, the churches were no longer the only official spokesmen for public values. They had rivals” (Noll ed., Religion and American Politics, 26). One of these rivals was classical liberalism; a philosophy that said, “society will be much better off if individuals are left free to pursue their self-interests with minimal governmental restraint” (27). This was certainly a philosophy at odds with the church, which believed that man was totally depraved and corrupt and needed discipline and God’s grace. The spokesmen for this new philosophy were John Locke in America, and David Hume and John Stuart Mill in Europe, the latter both being atheists. Humanism and the principles of the Enlightenment were now waging war against religion.

In the early days of settlement that old world religion, Calvinism, was the dominate force. America, at its founding, was full of Calvinist Protestants. Loraine Boettner writes, “It is estimated that of the 3,000,000 Americans at the time of the American Revolution … 600,000 were Puritan English, and 400,000 were German or Dutch Reformed” (382). American Historian Bancroft records, in his multi-volume History of the U.S., that the Pilgrim Fathers were “Calvinists in their faith according to the straightest system” (qtd. in Boettner, 463). By the death of Jonathan Edwards in 1758, however, Calvinism was on a rapid decline. Mark Noll comments, “By the second half of the eighteenth century, some theologians and popular preachers turned away from what seemed a rigid exclusivism to a more merciful and encompassing universalism” (A Documentary History of Religion in America to 1877, 252). Universalism, Unitarianism, and deism broke forth onto the scene to challenge the orthodox views of historic Calvinism. Men like Jefferson, Adams, Franklin, Madison, and Thomas Paine, began to teach rationalism over religion. Adams writing to Jefferson in 1813 said, “Miracles or prophecies might frighten us out of our witts; might scare us to death; might induce us to lie; to say that we believe that 2 and 2 make 5. But we should not believe it. We should know the contrary” (qtd. in A Documentary History, 269). Where men like Jonathan Edwards saw religion and reason as friends, others were now professing a dichotomy.

This is the culture background in which the first American Gothic novelist, Charles Brockden Brown, lived and wrote. He was born in 1777 to Quaker parents just outside of Philadelphia. Though his family had a religious background, being connected to the George Fox heresy that started Quakerism in North America, he would grow away from this past. By 1798 both Brown and America had come to stand at odds with their Puritan past, and it is during this year that we find the novel Wieland, a work that expresses the growing battle between the rational and the religious.

That Brown’s theme in this novel is religion can be identified from the very outset of the work. In the very opening of the work we are brought face to face with the religious zeal of the Senior Wieland. He is a convert to the Huguenot sect known as the Camissards, a group possessing some Calvinistic tendencies. The manner in which he becomes a convert as well reveals some of the criticisms that Brown has against religion.

Upon finding a book that detailed the beliefs and history of the Camissards the older Wieland begins to study and become enraptured by it. We read:

“He now supplied himself with candles, and employed his nocturnal and Sunday hours in studying this book. It, of course, abounded with allusions to the Bible. All its conclusions were deduced from the sacred text. This was the fountain, beyond which it was unnecessary to trace the stream of religious truth; but it was his duty to trace it thus far” (Brown, 8).

Brown continues with the narrative, “Ideas foreign to this were sedulously excluded. To suffer their intrusion was a crime against the Divine Majesty inexpiable but by days and weeks of the keenest agonies” (9).

From the very beginning religion stands as crucial to the plot of the work. Not only that, however, we see also this underlining theme that Brown is writing about: the irrationalism of religion. Senior Wieland saw no need for examining more closely the truths of the Bible; he took them at face value without doubt or questioning. Furthermore he avoided all contrary thoughts and considered them a dangerous sin that could only be forgiven through weeks of self-inflicted pain. Brown’s point is made clear: religious fanaticism leads to illogic.

As the plot progresses we are confronted with more evidence for this contrast between the rational and religious. After the death of their parents both the Wieland children are taken in by an aunt and are raised upon the foundations and principles of the Enlightenment. Clara informs her readers, “Our education had been modeled by no religious standard. We were left to the guidance of our own understanding, and the casual impressions which society might make upon us” (Brown, 21). Theodore, the younger Wieland, resembled his father in many ways, “but the mind of the son was enriched by science, and embellished with literature” (22). The temple too bears the marks of this change. It was “no longer assigned to its ancient use” (22). It is, instead, now a place for discussion and revelry among the circle of friends at Mettigen, “a place of resort in the evenings of summer” (22). It is filled with a harpsichord, a pedestal, and a bust of Cicero, as one author notes, “Enlightenment trappings that symbolize a rejection of the austere Protestantism” (Gilmore, 107). Religion has been displaced in the Wieland family just as it was being displaced in the public square in the time of the author.

Throughout the whole development and acceptance of the Constitution in the early republic, religion was being displaced. Murrin again notes, “The Revolution…liberated an important group of men from the constraints of orthodoxy long enough for them to draft the constitutions and bills of rights at both the state and federal levels” (35). The New England minister Timothy Dwight knew this as well, when he said in 1812, “We formed our Constitution without any acknowledgement of God” (qtd. in Religion and American Politics, 34). Jefferson’s godlessness further pulled people in different directions when he became president. His words of “wisdom” to his nephew clearly represent this, “one should read the Bible as one would any other book, accepting what is edifying and rejecting what is fantastic” (qtd. in Religion and American Politics, 32). Entering into a friendship with the Wieland children are Catherine, who becomes Theodore’s wife, and her brother Pleyel, who represents the voice of reason in the work. Clara’s comparison of the two boys further exemplifies the battle that Brown is pointing to:

My brother and [Pleyel] were endowed with the same attachment to the Latin writers; and Pleyel was not behind his friend in his knowledge of the history and metaphysics of religion. Their creeds, however, were in many respects opposite. Where one discovered only confirmations of his faith, the other could find nothing but reasons for doubt. Moral necessity, and Calvinistic inspiration, were the props on which my brother thought proper to repose. Pleyel was the champion of intellectual liberty, and rejected all guidance but that of his reason (Brown, 23).

The quote clearly contrasts faith with “intellectual liberty” and “Calvinistic inspiration” with “reason”.

Even at these early stages in his life we find the younger Wieland, like the senior, becoming focused with the specifics of religion. His father’s conversion made him a private devout and even compelled him for some time to be a missionary to the Native Americans (an element that Brown probably developed from having read of The Diary of David Brainerd, an actual Calvinist missionary to the Indians). The senior Wieland, however, does not fulfill this mission and for it, he believes, God will punish him. Clara reports the details just prior to his bizarre death; she writes:

When he deigned to be communicative, he hinted that his peace of mind was flown, in consequence of deviation from his duty. A command had been laid upon him, which he had delayed to perform. He felt as if a certain period of hesitation and reluctance had been allowed him, but that this period was passed (12).

This death would bear heavily upon the children. Clara says, speaking of herself, “The impressions that were then made upon me, can never be effaced” (17-18). For Theodore the event was even more traumatic. “His father’s death was always regarded by him as flowing from a direct and supernatural decree. It visited his meditations oftener than it did mine. The traces which it left were more gloomy and permanent” (33). That he saw his father’s death as a divine judgment has great significance to the plot, for Theodore’s fear of a similar fate begins to altar the state of his mind.

Clara also has a role in revealing the dichotomy of religion and reason. She is no mere objective observer, not simply the storyteller. Within Clara’s own mind readers find an internal battle between these two elements. She is struggling with the acceptance of the supernatural. From the very moment of her father’s death she wrestles with the possibility of God’s intervening in human affairs. She writes:

Was this the penalty of disobedience? This the stroke of a vindictive and invisible hand? Is it a fresh proof that the Divine Ruler interferes in human affairs, mediates an end, selects and commissions his agents, and enforces, by unequivocal sanctions, submission to his will? Or, was it merely the irregular expansion of the fluid that imparts warmth to our heart and blood, caused by the fatigue of the preceding day, or flowing by established laws, from the condition of his thoughts (18)?

This struggle continues. When she finds out that Pleyel, the voice of reason, has now heard voices, which she herself has heard, she writes:

I am at a loss to describe the sensations that affected me. I am not fearful of shadows. The tales of apparitions and enchantments did not possess that power over my belief which could even render them interesting. I saw nothing in them but ignorance and folly, and was a stranger even to that terror which is pleasing. But this incident was different from any that I had ever before known. Here were proofs of a sensible and intelligent existence, which could not be denied. Here was information obtained and imparted by means unquestionably super-human (42-43).

She had always been skeptical of the miraculous, but she is now wrestling with the plausibility of what is being presented to her. Her mind longs to accept the logical but for moments the religious seems to be logical. The development of this character is a key representative of the state of America during Brown’s life. America was caught between the Christianity and “intellectual liberty”. Murrin testifies to this state, “Jefferson and Madison along with George Washington, John Adams, Benjamin Franklin, and nearly all of the Founding Fathers claimed to be Christians; but, by virtually any standard of doctrinal orthodoxy, hardly any of them was” (29). Their confession did not match the Confession of the church, nor did it match that one of the Bible. The displacement was happening but there were some nagging feelings to deal with; thus Deism was a way to compromise religion to fit more comfortably with the complete autonomy of man. God could exist, but He was not a being to intervene in the affairs of man.
It is not entirely clear that these were the convictions of Charles Brockden Brown, but his personal letters reveal a hint at what he thought of religion, and Christianity in particular.

Sidney J. Krause, in her article “Charles Brockden Brown and the Philadelphia Germans,” quotes from one of Brown’s personal letters, in it he says, “I really think Christianity, that is, the belief of the divinity of Christ and future retribution, have been pernicious to mankind” (88). Despite his religious affiliation as a child growing up in Quaker Pennsylvania, Brown had developed a bias against Christianity. Just two years before this publication he found proof for that “pernicious” nature of Christianity.

James Yates, an Irishman from New York, was reported, in 1796, to have slaughtered his wife, four children, and attempted twice to murder his sister all on religious grounds. The Yates account is the “authentic case” which Brown refers to in his advertisement. It was the basis for the character of Theodore Wieland, who does exactly as his real life counterpart did. The parallel is undeniably obvious. Both men kill wives and children (even the same number of children), and make two unsuccessful attempts to kill their sisters; and both confessed to be serving their deity by doing so. It is debated as to whether or not the Yates murders were an actual historical event, but there were real enough for Brown. They confirmed his fears about religion, “[Christianity has] created war and engendered hatred, [and entailed] inexpressible calamities on mankind” (qtd. in Krause, 88).

Brown was not alone in his fears. Though perhaps not as many were directly targeting Christianity, many were targeting Calvinism and others were targeting the various Protestants sects thriving in areas like Philadelphia (Brown’s place of residence). During and after the war Quakerism was under great suspicion. Because of their religious convictions the Quakers did not condone the war and refused to support it. This put them under hard criticism and some even accused them of being spies for the British or the French. Germantown in Pennsylvania welcomed a British victory at the early stages of the war and for that they had been labeled “subversive”. Fear of religious sects in particular was growing. Brown expresses that fear clearly when he makes the plot revolve around a German family living in Philadelphia, and converts of a Protestant sect. His intention is to expose the dangers of religious fanaticism, and this he does most vividly in that climatic action of the younger Wieland.

Clara records her brother’s own personal testimony concerning the murders. Wieland prays to his God aloud, saying, “Have I not sufficiently attested my faith and my obedience? She that is gone [Catherine, his wife], they that have perished [his children], were linked with my soul by ties which only thy command would have broken…” (143). These actions are a long way from “love thy neighbor as thyself,” but Brown cares very little that this is an extremist and un-Orthodox belief. The point is not the brand of religion but the distortion of his thoughts that belief in it has caused.

In drawing conclusions about Wieland’s mental state, however, it is necessary to deal with the character Carwin. Carwin plays the role, rather indirectly, of the instigator in these affairs. His ventriloquism has sparked the confidence in supernatural voices in Theodore. Thus to deal with Theodore’s insanity one must begin with Carwin’s trickery.

Brown composes what he believes is a conceivable cause to Theodore’s hearing the voice of God. Through means of Carwin’s ventriloquism Wieland begins to believe that he is hearing voice and eventually one of those voices is the very voice of God. Carwin, of course, did not intend to drive the young man mad, or to cause him to kill his family. He says, “Great heaven! What have I done? I think I know the extent of my offences. I have acted, but my actions have possibly effected more than I designed,” and, “I intended no ill” (Brown, 181). Despite his intentions, however, Wieland has been driven mad by the mysterious occurrences at Mettigen. Yet while these deeds may have been sparked by Carwin’s trickery, they have their roots in Wieland’s own fanaticism and religious zeal. Were he not so compelled to stand upon the foundations of “Calvinistic inspiration” he might have properly deduced the cause of these voices. If not he would at least have considered more properly the slaughtering of innocent individuals.
It was the constant remembrance of his father’s death, and the fear that should he not be an obedient servant to the deity he would meet with the same fate, that led him to do that heinous act. He murdered his wife and children as a sacrifice, like Abraham would have murdered Isaac. His mind, however, in all of this was not well.

For a moment he is restored to sanity, Clara says, “Did my ears truly report these sounds? If I did not err, my brother was restored to just perceptions. He knew himself to have been betrayed to the murder of his wife and children, to have been the victim of infernal artifice…” (208). Wieland himself confesses, “I was indeed deceived” (209). This moment, however, does not last and soon he has a re-lapse to insanity. “Clara, thy death must come. This minister is evil, but he from whom his commission was received is God. Submit then with all thy wonted resignation to a decree that cannot be reversed or resisted” (209). If the author of this work wished to show the capability of religion to distort the faculties of reason and judgment he has done so in this one scene. Even upon hearing a confession from Carwin’s own lips, “it is too true…The contrivance was mine” (203), he still returns to the notion of divine mandate. In such a scene Brown argues relentlessly that religion has serious and damaging effects on the capacity for the brain to function rationally. Even after explanations, revelations of trickery, and personal confessions Theodore still is not fully convinced. God has ordained the murdering of his sister, regardless of Carwin’s involvement, and so Wieland aims to fulfill his duty to that greater being and to slay the one he loves. It is illogic at the highest and most dangerous degree.

Krause argues in her analysis that Brown’s reference to German religious wars further exemplifies his fear of the immigrants now on the verge of dominating the population in Philadelphia. These references, however, also offer support to the interpretation that Brown was writing to caution America about religious fanaticism. After discovering that there is land in Lusatia, Germany, which has now fallen to Theodore through primogeniture, Pleyel begins attempting to convince the younger Wieland to take hold of this land. Clara explains: “The Prussian Wars had destroyed those persons whose right to these estates precluded my brother’s” (36). According to Krause the war in question here is the Seven Years War. A battle which pitted mostly Germans and English Protestants against French Catholics; a religious war. This religious war took the lives of several members of Wieland’s extended family just as his own religious convictions would take the lives of the members of his immediate family. For Brown religion’s ability to “engender hatred” and to “create war” was supported from a historical standpoint.

The evidence could continue, but the weightiness of this argument seems sufficiently represented. For Charles Brockden Brown religion was the illogic that led to destruction. History proved it, events in the surrounding Philadelphia and New York demonstrated it, and his novel warned against it. Calvinism specifically and religion in general was the real horror of this gothic novel, and Brown wrote to strike a fear in his readers. If Jonathan Edwards was attempting to “preach hell into his” audience, Brown was trying to reason it out of them.