NEVIN AND COLERIDGE

Was Nevin Influenced by S. T. Coleridge?

DAVID LAYMAN

According to the groundbreaking work of James Hastings Nichols, there was a radical shift from the Nevin of 1930 to the Nevin of 1845. Given this premise, it was only natural that Nichols should look for the external influences that might have driven this shift. He believed one was Coleridge.

The title of Nevin’s [1833] paper, The Friend, is itself Coleridgian, selections from Coleridge were frequently reprinted in early issues, and the availability of Coleridge for Christian theology was discussed. Nevin was not at this period, particularly interested in speculative thought. It was probably in the sphere of biblical interpretation that he found Coleridge helpful in the first instance.

Later Uses of Nichols Hypothesis

Based on these sparse facts, it has become a truism of Nevin scholarship that Nevin was significantly influenced by Coleridge. A doctoral dissertation by Verlyn Barker simply stated that as a bald assertion although he did quote a later comment by Nichols with attribution, his initial comments were simply paraphrases of the above quote, made without attribution. Nichols’s statement that Coleridge “probably” influenced Nevin, or the matter of biblical interpretation became Barker’s claim that Nevin “noted particularly the way” Coleridge had influenced him on that issue. Bruce Kuklick again without any documentation, extrapolated (presumably from Nichols) that Nevin “discovered German thought by reading Marsh’s edition of [Coleridge’s] Aids to Reflection. ” It is possible Nevin read that work, but there was no indication of that in The Friend, and Nichols never said that.

The reading that made the most of Nichols’s suggestion was Nathan Mitchell, who undertook a lengthy investigation of Coleridge’s philosophy and theology.He proceeded to criticize Nevin and Philip Schaff for certain “[d]eficiences of the catholic hermeneutic,” shortcomings that, he claimed, could have been rectified had they paid closer attention to Coleridge. His evidence for the alleged Coleridge influence (which was the basis for his critique that they were not influenced enough)was—again—Nichols. Mitchell did add a citation of a footnote in one of Schaff’s historical works, that read in its entirety: “Coleridge somewhere remarks, ‘Christianity without a church exercising spiritual authority, is vanity and delusion.’” In other words, the sum total of evidence of for a Coleridge influence on Nevin and the eventual formulation of Mercersburg theology was (1) the selection of Coleridge in The Friend, (2) the purported “discuss[ions]” of”the availability of Coleridge for Christian theology,” (3) a single throwaway note in Schaff. Did Nichols, in fact, accurately characterize The Friend?

The Use of Coleridge’s Words in The Friend

All the entries in The Friend were quotations, either from Coleridge or from other religious and literary periodicals. Some of the entries were third hand, such as an extract from The Churchman quoting Coleridge, or an extract of the Boston Recorder, which translated and quoted a German source. Contrary to the impression that one might get from Nichols, there was no editorial comment or analysis by Nevin. Furthermore, three entries that concern Coleridge were in issues for which Nevin did not have editorial responsibility (out of four issues). This suggests that the use of Coleridge was not a special hobbyhorse of Nevin, but in part represented a general cultural and literary interest, for a clientele of cultivated young Christian leaders of western Pennsylvania.

The other entries can be categorized into three groups. One group consists of quotations of Coleridge. Most of the quotations spoke to the sort of moral and intellectual issues that any literate and educated person would have been interested in discussing. Only one, “Evidences of Christianity,” dealt specifically with theological issues. This selection was reprinted from The Churchman: the first three levels of evidence were “its consistency with right reason,” miracles “through which the religion was first revealed and attested,” and the manner in which the gospel met the emotional needs of the believer. But the strongest and best evidence was “the experience derived from a practical conformity to the conditions of the Gospel . . . the actual trial of faith in CHRIST . . . .” This “existential” evidence certainly would have resonated with Nevin’s belief that true religion was an existential power unfolding itself in the lives of believers. But he had already learned it at Princeton, and simply developed it on his own from that point.

There were two extracts from Coleridge in the very first issue. The first concerned the unity of truth and moral. It followed “extracts from Archb. Whately, on the writings of St. Paul” on the same theme. The second Coleridge selection was on “feelings,” which “[b]y a wise ordinance of nature . . . have no abiding place in our memory.” It was not the immediate passions which remained a part of human experience, but deliberate reflection on the human struggle, “calm and meditative pathos.” The only other items that might have been placed in The Friend by Nevin are (1) an “Allegoric Vision,” which equated empiricism with superstition: (2) a face on the human need for power and wealth in the face of God’s goodness to all living things (3) an extract on the difference between “notions” (“linked arguments. reference to particular facts and calculations of prudence”) and “principles” (“sublime IDEAS which “ac[t] upon the moral being” of people “with a force that might well be called supernatural).

A notable structural characteristic of these “extracts was that they came in blocks: two were in the first issue, and two more were in January, 1834. Another two came in or soon after a series of issues that reproduced an exchange in The Churchman between its editor and a correspondent known only as ”M” on the subject of “The Philosophy of Coleridge.” This suggests that Nevin (or his interim replacement editor) was responding to discussions in the culture of the day. Coleridge was a figure of major interest to the aspiring elite of western Pennsylvania. His contributions to contemporaneous culture included poetry, criticism, religious thought and philosophy. Moreover, he wrote in English and was therefore immediately accessible to any cultured American—unlike the relatively unknown German theologians, philosophers, and men of letters.

The ”M” Correspondence in The Churchman

Reference has already been made to the second major block of extracts that referred to Coleridge: correspondence between “M” and the editor of The Churchman, reprinted from the later journal. “M” criticized Coleridge for “transplant[ing]” the “wild ravings” of German “infidelity.”

The infidel theology of Germany is acknowledged to be older than the time of Kant; it began with Leibnitz and Wolf . . . The one system [of Wolff] made cold sceptics: the other [of Kant] has made wild mystics, but neither the one nor the other made the humble-minded Christian . . . .

Here was clear expression of the dichotomous critique of both speculation and mysticism in common contrast to the “humble” yet “rational faith of the gospel.” At this point Nevin would have certainly been disposed to favor at least some of “M”’s concerns. The Churchman responded that Kantianism was related to, not infidelity, but the more recent resurgence of German orthodoxy. The spokesmen for this resurgence included not (against “M”) Schleiermacher and DeWette, but Neander, Tholuck, and Hengstenberg. The Churchman denied that these latter men were “Kantians,” but they shared a “philosophic system.” Insofar as Coleridge had “assimilate[d]” this system, “M” had some “pretext for the charge that he Kantizes.” Rather than assuming that Coleridge shared Kant’s positions, the editor of The Churchman challenged “M” to “bring his proofs of dangerous tendencies in the writings of Coleridge [himself ], not from some summary of German Kant’s opinions. “‘M” responded with four major criticisms: (1) “he Platonizes in his Christianity, that is elevates metaphysical distinctions into primary spiritual truths . . .” (2) he tended toward abstract metaphysical speculation without corresponding practical moral activity; (3) he allegorized Scripture; (4) “his philosophy . . .  is unintelligible . . .  from the metaphysical terms in which it is involved. “

Coleridge as a Path Out of Baconianism

On the second point, given Nevin’s well-documented concerns with such social issues as slavery and temperance, as well as his criticism of the use of tobacco and his preoccupation with ”fairs,” he would certainly have been predisposed to be critical of Coleridge, rather than being influenced by him. With regard to points three and four, Nevin, like “M,” was still within the hermeneutical framework variously known as Baconianism or Scottish common- sense realism. Yet as elsewhere, there were small signs that pointed in the other direction. They suggest that Nevin was open to Coleridge because he was influenced by some of the same movements that shaped Coleridge. In his defense of Coleridge, the editor of The Churchman connected him with conservatives like Neander and Tholuck rather than Schleiermacher or DeWette. Neander was precisely the one German writer whom Nevin identified as reshaping his theological perspectives. Friedrich August Gottreu Tholuck was extracted or reflected a number of times in The Friend.

One of these extracts was reprinted from the Boston Recorder and entitled “German Philosophy in America.” Tholuck described Coleridge as a “sort of mediator, a man whose mode of thinking and feeling has in it something German. Among the merits of this transplantation of German thought was the development of a “Christian Platonism,—out of the flat valleys of the common sense of Reid and Beattie . . . The philosophical roots of Nevin in precisely this Christian Platonism, and its ties to Nevin’s mentors Archibald Alexander and Charles Hodge, have already been explored by William DiPuccio.

Conclusion

The purpose of this exploration was to consider the evidence put forward by Nichols and others in support of alleged Coleridge Influence. The argument of this writer is that they seriously overstated the significance of the evidence. In the case of Mitchell, Barker, and Kukluck, they relied almost completely on the preliminary statement of Nichols, without making an independent investigation. When taken at face value, this writer contends that the evidence in The Friend indicates that Nevin was attracted to Coleridge as a major cultural and intellectual figure. Nevin’s interest in him was a general literary one. It was not sustained over any period of time or with any intensity. It was provoked when other writers in the literary and theological press linked Coleridge with issues, movements, and thinkers to which Nevin was already attracted. If indeed Coleridge influenced Nevin, it was because Nevin perceived his thought as being compatible with the impulses that already predominated in his own spiritual and theological life and because it affirmed the direction in which he was already moving.