Evermore: Edgar Allan Poe and the Mystery of the Universe

7. Ex Poe's Facto

165 EX POE’S FACTO 7 For many people, the great mystery of Poe’s life surrounds the cause of his death. Dozens of theories have been proposed to explain the circumstances under which he was discovered at a polling place in a state of delirium after several days during which his whereabouts remain unknown. For me, however, the great mystery of Poe’s life surrounds the circumstances under which he went forward at a Sons of Temperance meeting in the late summer of 1849 in Richmond during his courtship of Elmira Royster Shelton. While Poe’s death resembles “The Mystery of Marie Rogêt,” his experience with the Sons of Temperance resembles more “The Gold-Bug” because an observer from the twenty-first century must first realize that a mystery exists, and few do. Like the piece of paper from the story that seemed completely ordinary, but was in fact the key to a treasure, Poe’s act of “signing the pledge” at a Sons of Temperance meeting seems common enough, but it is full of meaning that is lost to the eyes of the twenty-first-century observer. The Sons of Temperance was one of many evangelical Christian parachurch ministries of the nineteenth century devoted to social reform. In every age evangelical Christians have had a two-prong concern in the expression of their faith: to Evermore 166 make Jesus Christ known as savior and to address the social ills of the world. In the English-speaking world, the social concerns they addressed changed as society changed. In the seventeenth century they sought to abolish blood sports like bear baiting, dog fighting, and cock fighting. In the eighteenth century they opposed slavery, established orphanages, promoted education for the masses, and promoted political reform. In the early nineteenth century they opposed slavery, established schools and colleges, and fought the use of alcohol as a beverage. Their assault on demon rum was tireless . Today, various twelve-step programs, but notably Alcoholics Anonymous, recognize the importance of acknowledging a higher power and a person’s dependence upon that power as a critical aspect in gaining mastery over an addiction. The Sons of Temperance were not so vaguely religious. They were an evangelical Christian parachurch ministry like the Young Men’s Christian Association or the Christian Women’s Temperance League. The nineteenth-century context in which Edgar Allan Poe went to the Sons of Temperance meeting and went forward to “take the pledge” was a religious meeting. These were the kinds of meetings that evangelical ministries conducted in the slums of the great cities of America in what were called for many years “Rescue Missions,” the kinds of meetings conducted by the Salvation Army, the kinds of meetings conducted by Charles Finney across New York and Ohio that came to be called “revival meetings.” Finney championed the use of the public invitation as a means to challenge those in the audience to make a public decision. The international evangelistic ministry of Billy Graham in the second half of the twentieth century stands in this religious tradition. The public invitation at one of these evangelical meetings always involved giving up self-destructive behavior, but the invitation was to accept the help of Jesus Christ in doing it. Instead of the one-dimensional, legalistic view of sin with which Poe seems to have been acquainted since his childhood with the dour, Calvinistic Scotsman, John Allan, the evangelicals also stressed that sin operated like a chain from which one needs to be set free. They presented Jesus Christ, not as a condemning judge, but as one who 167 Ex Poe’s Facto came to free people from whatever bound them. As far as we know, Poe had not been acquainted with this stream of Christianity earlier. From all accounts we have of Poe, he was shy in public. He did not seek center stage in a crowd and required encouragement to recite his work at social gatherings outside the intimacy of his own home. Going forward at a Sons of Temperance meeting was not the thing that Edgar Allan Poe would be expected to do. It did not fit with his social background or temperament. To a great extent, such a public display would have constituted public humiliation for Poe. Indeed, the event was reported in newspapers all over the country. Tongues would have wagged. Men would have laughed. Ladies would have shot...