Mansfield Park Jane Austen

Following the publication of Pride and Prejudice, Austen wrote to her sister, Cassandra, mentioning her proposed Northamptonshire novel. "Now I will try to write of something else; it shall be a complete change of subject: Ordination."[101] Trilling believed Austen was making ordination the subject of Mansfield Park; Byrne argues (as do others) that although this is based on a misreading of the letter, "there is no doubt that Edmund's vocation is at the centre of the novel".[102] Decadence in the Georgian church had been seriously challenged over several decades by the emerging Methodist movement that had only recently seceded from the mother church, and also by the parallel Evangelical movement that stayed within it. Brodrick describes the Georgian church as "strenuously preventing women from direct participation in doctrinal and ecclesiastical affairs". However, disguised within the medium of the novel, Austen has succeeded in freely discussing Christian doctrine and church order, another example of subversive feminism.[103]

Set pieces

In several set pieces, Austen presents debates about significant challenges for the Georgian church.[104] She discusses clerical corruption, the nature of the clerical office and the responsibility of the clergyman to raise both spiritual awareness and doctrinal knowledge.[105] Topics range from issues of personal piety and family prayers to problems of non-residence and decadence amongst the clergy. Dr Grant, who has the living at Mansfield, is portrayed as a self-indulgent clergyman with very little sense of his pastoral duties. Edmund, the young, naive, would-be ordinand, expresses high ideals, but needs Fanny's support both to fully understand and to live up to them.

Locations for these set pieces include the visit to Sotherton and its chapel where Mary learns for the first time (and to her horror) that Edmund is destined for the church; the game of cards where the conversation turns to Edmund's intended profession, including conversations about Thornton Lacey, Edmund's future 'living'.

Decadent religion

Austen often exposed clergy corruption through parody.[22]: 54  Although Mary Crawford's arguments with Edmund Bertram about the church are intended to undermine his vocation, hers is the voice that constantly challenges the morality of the Regency church and clergy. Edmund attempts its defence without justifying its failures. On the basis of close observations of her brother-in-law, Dr Grant, Mary arrives at the jaundiced conclusion that a "clergyman has nothing to do, but be slovenly and selfish, read the newspaper, watch the weather and quarrel with his wife. His curate does all the work and the business of his own life is to dine."[106]

In the conversation at Sotherton, Mary applauds the late Mr Rushworth's decision to abandon the twice daily family prayers, eloquently describing such practice as an imposition for both family and servants. She derides the heads of households for hypocrisy in making excuses to absent themselves from chapel. She pities the young ladies of the house, "starched up into seeming piety, but with heads full of something very different—specially if the poor chaplain were not worth looking at".[107] Edmund acknowledges that long services can be boring but maintains that without self-discipline a private spirituality will be insufficient for moral development. Although Mary's view is presented as a resistance to spiritual discipline, there were other positive streams of spirituality that expressed similar sentiments.

Mary also challenges the widespread practice of patronage; she attacks Edmund's expectation for being based on privilege rather than on merit. Although Sir Thomas has sold the more desirable Mansfield living to pay off Tom's debts, he is still offering Edmund a guaranteed living at Thornton Lacey where he can lead the life of a country gentleman.

In the final chapter, Sir Thomas recognises that he has been remiss in the spiritual upbringing of his children; they have been instructed in religious knowledge but not in its practical application. The reader's attention has already been drawn to the root of Julia's superficiality during the visit to Sotherton when, abandoned by the others, she was left with the slow-paced Mrs Rushworth as her only companion. "The politeness which she had been brought up to practise as a duty made it impossible for her to escape." Julia's lack of self-control, of empathy, of self understanding and of "that principle of right, which had not formed any essential part of her education, made her miserable under it".[108] She was a prisoner of duty, lacking the ability to appreciate either duty's humanity or its spiritual source.

Evangelical influence

To what extent Austen's views were a response to Evangelical influences has been a matter of debate since the 1940s. She would have been aware of the profound influence of Wilberforce's widely read Practical Christianity, published in 1797, and its call to a renewed spirituality.[80] Evangelical campaigning at this time was always linked to a project of national renewal. Austen was deeply religious, her faith and spirituality very personal but, unlike contemporary writers Mary Wollstonecraft and Hannah More, she neither lectured nor preached. Many of her family were influenced by the Evangelical movement and in 1809 Cassandra recommended More's 'sermon novel', Coelebs in Search of a Wife. Austen responded, parodying her own ambivalence, "I do not like the Evangelicals. Of course I shall be delighted when I read it, like other people, but till I do, I dislike it." Five years later, writing to her niece Fanny, Austen's tone was different, "I am by no means convinced that we ought not all to be Evangelicals, and am at least persuaded that they who are so from Reason and Feeling, must be happiest and safest."[109] Jane Hodge (1972) said, "where she herself stood in the matter remains open to question. The one thing that is certain is that, as always, she was deeply aware of the change of feeling around her."[110] Brodrick (2002) concludes after extensive discussion that "Austen's attitude to the clergy, though complicated and full of seeming contradictions, is basically progressive and shows the influence of Evangelical efforts to rejuvenate the clergy, but can hardly be called overtly Evangelical".[111]

Pulpit eloquence

In a scene in chapter 34 in which Henry Crawford reads Shakespeare aloud to Fanny, Edmund and Lady Bertram, Austen slips in a discussion on sermon delivery. Henry shows that he has the taste to recognise that the "redundancies and repetitions" of the liturgy require good reading (in itself a telling criticism, comments Brodrick). He offers the general (and possibly valid) criticism that a "sermon well-delivered is more uncommon even than prayers well read". As Henry continues, his shallowness and self-aggrandisement becomes apparent: "I never listened to a distinguished preacher in my life without a sort of envy. But then, I must have a London audience. I could not preach but to the educated, to those who were capable of estimating my composition." He concludes, expressing the philosophy of many a lazy clergyman, maintaining that he should not like to preach often, but "now and then, perhaps, once or twice in the spring". Although Edmund laughs, it is clear that he does not share Henry's flippant, self-centred attitude. Neither (it is implied) will Edmund succumb to the selfish gourmet tendencies of Dr Grant. "Edmund promises to be the opposite: an assiduous, but genteel clergyman who maintains the estate and air of a gentleman, without Puritanical self-denial and yet without corresponding self-indulgence."[111]

Edmund recognises that there are some competent and influential preachers in the big cities like London but maintains that their message can never be backed up by personal example or ministry. Ironically, the Methodist movement, with its development of lay ministry through the "class meeting", had provided a solution to this very issue.[112] There is only one reference to Methodism in the novel, and there it is linked, as an insult, with the modern missionary society. Mary in her angry response to Edmund as he finally leaves her, declares: "At this rate, you will soon reform every body at Mansfield and Thornton Lacey; and when I hear of you next, it may be as a celebrated preacher in some great society of Methodists, or as a missionary in foreign parts."

An ideal clergyman

When Mary learns at Sotherton that Edmund has chosen to become a clergyman, she calls it "nothing". Edmund responds, saying that he cannot consider as "nothing" an occupation that has the guardianship of religion and morals, and that has implications for time and for eternity. He adds that conduct stems from good principles and from the effect of those doctrines a clergyman should teach. The nation's behaviour will reflect, for good or ill, the behaviour and teaching of the clergy.

Rampant pluralism, where wealthy clerics drew income from several 'livings' without ever setting foot in the parish, was a defining feature of the Georgian church. In chapter 25, Austen presents a conversation during a card evening at Mansfield. Sir Thomas's whist table has broken up and he draws up to watch the game of Speculation. Informal conversation leads into an exposition of the country parson's role and duties. Sir Thomas argues against pluralism, stressing the importance of residency in the parish,

"... and which no proxy can be capable of satisfying to the same extent. Edmund might, in the common phrase, do the duty of Thornton, that is, he might read prayers and preach, without giving up Mansfield Park; he might ride over, every Sunday, to a house nominally inhabited, and go through divine service; he might be the clergyman of Thornton Lacey every seventh day, for three or four hours, if that would content him. But it will not. He knows that human nature needs more lessons than a weekly sermon can convey, and that if he does not live among his parishioners, and prove himself by constant attention their well-wisher and friend, he does very little either for their good or his own."

Sir Thomas conveniently overlooks his earlier plan, before he was forced to sell the Mansfield living to pay off Tom's debts, that Edmund should draw the income from both parishes. This tension is never resolved. Austen's own father had sustained two livings, itself an example of mild pluralism.[113]