Suggestions for Thought by Florence Nightingale: Selections and Commentaries

Chapter 1. On the Concept of God

i. On the Concept of God What do we mean by "God?" All we can say is, that we recognize a power superior to our own; that we recognize this power as exercised by awise and good will. Nightingale begins by commenting on the state of religion and, more specifically, the Anglican Church in the mid-nineteenth century. She describes an age of spiritual uncertainty when some, fearing that scientific and historical investigations of the Scriptures would destroy their religion, sought refuge in the authority of the Church. Her comments to this effect are well-grounded in historical reality, and allude to the socalled "Oxford Movement/' Championed by John Henry Newman and Edward Bouverie Pusey, the Oxford Movement sought to emphasizethe Catholic essence of the Anglican Church. Embracing the doctrine of apostolic succession, Newman held the authority of the Church even above that of theScriptures: Surely the sacred volume was never intended and is not adapted to teach us our creed From the very first, the rule has been, as a matter of fact, for the Church to teach the truth, and then appeal to Scripture in vindication of its own teaching .1 Promulgating their views in a series entitled Tracts for the Times, Newman, Pusey, and their supporters became known as "Tractarians." Censured by the vice-chancellor, heads of houses, and proctors of Oxford, and denounced by many Anglican bishops on account of the views he expressed in Tract XC ("Remarks on Certain Passages in the Thirty-Nine Articles/' 1841), Newman grew increasingly dissatisfied i. Quoted by David Newsomein The Victorian Crisis of Faith, p. 81. I 6 Suggestionsfor Thought with the Church of England. His confidence in the efficacy of the Church was finally shattered in 1841 when a joint Anglo-Prussian bishopric was established in Jerusalem through the efforts of Baron von Bunsen.2 This action effectively linked the Church of England with German Protestants, whereas Newman was seeking common ground between Anglicans and Roman Catholics.3 Newman's conversion to Roman Catholicism in 1845 prompted the departure of manyAnglicans to the Church of Rome, including the wife of Nightingale's friend Sidney Herbert.4 (Herbert himself had been a "Puseyite"—a follower of Pusey. In Suggestions for Thought Nightingale sardonically refers to Puseyism as the "calm before death/'5 ) From all indications, the Church of England was in turmoil. Parliament hadeffectively curbed Anglican political prestige by extending the civil liberties of Roman Catholics and "dissenters" (non-Anglican Protestants ), Newman was leading Anglicans to Roman Catholicism, and German rationalism was taking root in England where it threatened Church doctrine. That the Church perceived these "new-fangled doctrines " (as Nightingale alluded to them) as a threat is evident from the title of Pusey's first book: An Historical Enquiry into the ProbableCauses of the Rationalist Character lately predominant in the Theology of Germany (1827). A further indication of the crisis was the 1851 census of religion, to which Nightingale refers in her text. The census indicated that of the nearly 18 million people comprising the populations of England and Wales, some 5V4 million who were physically able to attend a house of worship did not. In addition, half the individuals attending services were dissenters.6 Church attendance was lowest in the large manufacturing districts, less than 25 percent of the area population .7 Thus it is to this group in particular, the "artizans," that Nightingale dedicated Suggestions for Thought. Painfully aware of the crisis in the spiritual life of the culture around her, in which people either 2. See discussionin the Introduction above. 3. Accordingto the terms of the agreement, the bishop ofJerusalem wouldbenominated alternately bythe British andPrussian governments. He wouldbeconsecrated accordingto the Anglican rite, and would ordain Lutherans who accepted both the Anglican Thirty-Nine Articles and the Lutheran Augsburg Confession (Marvin O'Connell, The Oxford Conspirators: A History of the Oxford Movement, /&?-/&#, p. 351). For Newman's objections, see his Apologia Pro Vita Sua: being a history of hisreligious views, pp. i33ff. 4. Quinn and Prest,DearMiss Nightingale, pp. 50-51. 5. Suggestionsfor Thought, vol. i, p. 180. 6. Chadwick, The Victorian Church, vol. i, pp. 363-69. 7. K. S. Inglis,"Patternsof ReligiousWorship in 1851." On the Concept of God 7 indiscriminately embraced orthodoxy or adopted rationalism and renounced religion entirely, Nightingale sought to reconcile these two extremes. Look at the state of theology now. Multitudes of conscientious and feeling persons, terrified at...