FREE ESSAY ON RECONCILING SUFFERING AND RELIGIOUS CONVICTION

RECONCILING SUFFERING AND RELIGIOUS CONVICTION

One of the most salient social problems of the Victorian period was the struggle of the
working class. In Chartism by Thomas Carlyle, the problem is outlined; in William Dodd's
narrative, it is recounted from personal experience. Elizabeth Gaskell's North and South
is a fictional account of the very real condition of England. Clearly, questions of
social and economic injustice were on the front burner even as the social oppression
transpired. Another very prominent feature of Victorian England was religion, more
specifically Christianity. William Dodd and Bessy Higgins are individuals who have
endured enormous suffering, who have lost any sort of quality of life to the factories,
and yet adhere perhaps even more strongly to their faith. Thomas Carlyle, "with purse
oftenest in the flaccid state," bears closely in mind the fact that "[he has] the
miraculous breath of Life in [him], breathed into [his] nostrils by Almighty God"
(Carlyle, p. 37). Margaret Hale, who is of modest but comfortable means, witnesses a
multitude of sufferings during her time in Milton, but she maintains her lofty notions of
God and Christianity, even as her father, a man of the church, questions the godliness of
the church's economic practices. How does it come to pass that humans can endure and/or
witness such suffering as was endured by the working classes of 19th century England and
maintain their religious convictions all the same? 
It seems that the coexistence of the two phenomena would, or should cause some cognitive
dissidence for a pious person, but here are four examples of people, two fictional (Bessy
and Margaret), two real (Carlyle and Dodd), who can apparently reconcile religion and
suffering. Perhaps Christianity was so ingrained in the culture and in these individuals
that faith was more of a reflex than a conscious decision. Dodd raises the question, but
dispels it without ever actually examining it. Near the very end of his narrative he
asks, "Is it consistent with the character of this enlightened, Christian country...that
we, worn-out, cast-off cripples of the manufacturers, should be left to die of want at
home? -Forbid it, Heaven." (Dodd, pp. 318-319). His assertion of inconsistency is
correct, but Heaven, despite his appeal, had clearly not forbidden a thing. The God in
whom he has placed his faith has allowed for his suffering, and the church that he
respects and to which he submits himself has not acted on his behalf. Either England was
a Christian country in name only, or the Christian church cared little about the welfare
of individuals who hadn't the means to make a donation; either way, the issue of moral
impropriety in the church itself is another issue. The fact remains that any society that
is content to send children to labor in factories at an exceedingly young age, as Dodd
was, lacks the moral grain that one would suppose is integral to upholding religious
fervor.
Carlyle takes a fairly businesslike and not religious approach to his condition of
England manifesto, but the overwhelming Christian sentiment of the era naturally finds
its way into his writings. He seems to be of the mind that God has given him enough
simply by giving him life, but as a non-Christian, non-religious reader of Chartism, the
very mention of Christianity and the overwhelming injustice of England's social structure
at the time is an inherent paradox. There is something of a synapse in reasoning where he
contends that "...society 'exists for the preservation of property'" (Carlyle, p. 36),
but maintains that the English social structure is a Christian one. The fault lies not in
Christianity per se; Jewish people, for example, have struggled since the Holocaust to
reconcile their own faith with such an abhorrent occurrence that viciously seized the
lives of six million Jews and six million others. Still, the problem of intellectual and
emotional dissidence remains the same.
Perhaps the most perplexing of all of these characters is Bessy Higgins. She not only
maintains her ardently religious beliefs in the face of utter physical ruin caused by
factory working at too young an age and the loss of her mother, but actually seems to
draw upon her suffering to amplify her faith. Bessy is resigned to death, even
anticipates and welcomes death, which is not unheard of considering how ill she is-save
for the fact that she is only nineteen years old. It is her faith, her utter devotion to
the Bible and to her notions of God and Heaven that make death seem a welcome reprieve
from the suffering that she has endured, albeit suffering at the hands of the same God.
In some respects, her faith is an asset in that it helps her to withstand the pain that
has come to characterize her very existence; however miserable Bessy may be, her
unhappiness is quelled somewhat by her expectation of a glorious Heaven. At the same
time, the desperation for something good to cling to cheapens her faith somewhat. 
Without knowing how pious Bessy was before she became ill (which is, in a way,
irrelevant, because she would have been very young), the fact that she has found religion
and it is a comfort to her is very nice, but indicates that she is religious out of
necessity; that is, religion is the only thing that keeps her going. Perhaps this is as
good a reason as any to be religious. Still, religion is her escape, her way of coping.
On that level, it does follow that Bessy is so very strong in her Christianity; as a
coping mechanism, it works very well. However, upon examination by a more critical mind,
it is hard to understand how an individual who has been so wronged by society and has
been dealt such a difficult hand in life can contend that there is indeed a benevolent
God, one who is just saving up all the good that is Bessy's due for the afterlife.
Margaret Hale is steadfast in her Christianity. The daughter of a parish priest and a
young woman with the benefit of education, this makes a great deal of sense. Margaret is
also a character who questions many things, and questions probingly and critically,
especially for a woman her age in that era. The condition of the working class in Milton,
the moral rightness of Mr. Thornton's actions, the validity and the intelligence of the
labor strike, and many other things come under Margaret's quite critical lens. It is
almost out of character, then, for her not to raise more questions about the congruence
of the suffering and the injustice that she witnesses, and a supposedly Christian
society. Even Mr. Hale is able to distance himself enough to raise questions about the
church's practices, and perhaps it is his maturity and totally pure faith that allows him
to do this. Margaret is young, very idealistic, and for all her quickness, all the books
she has read, she adheres to religion not ignorantly, but blindly. When Bessy enumerates
her sufferings on pages 101-102, and becomes nearly violent I her anguish (so much as she
can muster from her sick-bed, anyway), Margaret's response is to calmly inform her,
"Bessy-we have a father in Heaven," to which Bessy replies, "I know it! I know it."
(Gaskell, p.102) It seems as though somehow both of them missed Bessy's entirely valid
tirade. The existence of God may be a comforting and reassuring thing in which to have
faith, but if he doesn't care about the working class while they are in the world, why do
the people of the working class invest that faith?
There are examples of individuals who rejected Christianity in light of the horrendous
quality of life to which the working classes were condemned. Nicholas Higgins is of that
school; he not only rejects religion for himself, but discourages the ailing Bessy from
finding comfort in scripture. Although he comes off as somewhat hard-nosed, particularly
in the way he speaks to Bessy about her greatest source of comfort. Still, assertions
like "...when I see the world going all wrong...leaving undone all the things that lie in
disorder close at its hand-why, I say, leave a' this talk about religion alone, and set
to work on what yo' see and know," (Gaskell, p.92) make Mr. Higgins more credible than
his socioeconomic position and consequent lack of formal education would suggest. He
cannot, in his mind, reconcile piety with the hardships to which he and his fellow men of
the working class are condemned. He has been educated in the "school of hard knocks," as
they say, and there is no course requirement in blind faith at that school.
The condition of England was a preoccupation in Victorian literature. Although the very
same questions of how a benevolent God can condone suffering exist even in our
contemporary society, wherein social injustice continues to be a fact of life, we live in
a considerably more secular culture. The dichotomy of a Christian society that suffered
such high levels of poverty, suffering, and inequity is hard to digest. William Dodd and
Bessy Higgins clung to their faith perhaps out of need, as a survival mechanism. Thomas
Carlyle and Margaret Hale were maybe conditioned to be so pious, had it so deeply
ingrained in them from their culture that they knew no other way to take in the world. It
is easier to be critical of faith and religious belief in the face of widespread
suffering from the vantage point of a vastly different culture. Still, such accounts of
the Victorian period make it apparent that it was necessary to reconcile Christianity and
the reality of the social condition of England in order to make sense of that society, or
at least a semblance of sense.