Review in the CHURCH TIMES, 24th December 2004: J. R. Watson enjoys a study of what long-ago women felt about religion.

In her introduction to this study of early nineteenth-century religion, Sibyl Phillips quotes the great Evangelical figure of the age, William Wilberforce, who thought that women were more favourably disposed than men to 'the feelings and offices of religion'. But what, in Wilberforce's time, did they really think about it? How did it affect their conduct of life? What did they read? Answers can be found, not in the works of the great and good, but in the intimate communications of those who rest in unvisited tombs. Sibyl Phillips has found some of them, and her study is a fascinating contribution to the study of Evangelical religion and to English local history.

There are three main examples. The first is Anna Maria Lukyn, of Canterbury, daughter of a clergyman, writing to Margaret Strong, wife of an Archdeacon. She writes of Cowper, Byron, and Hannah More; of the Bishop of Norwich who would ordain 'any who offered'; of damp churches; and of 'the terrific views' of the local Methodists. The second is from the village of Creaton, Northamptonshire, where the letters speak of love denied, of people becoming 'decidedly serious', of serving the Lord, of everlasting felicity. Grotesque characters appear, such as George Bugg, a real-life Mr Slope, and David Owen, whose letter proposing marriage might have been written by Mr Collins. The third example is Eliza Westbury, whose Hymns by a Northamptonshire Village Female was published shortly after her death in 1828. She died young, after conversion and baptism: her hymns (ignored until now) speak of the importance of the Bible, the sufferings of Christ, of repentance, death and the future life.

The recovery of Westbury's hymns is a significant achievement. But the whole book is a fine example of what can be done with local resources. For historians of Evangelical religion this is an account of daily lives, of hopes and fears, of irritations and exaltations, which should be required reading.

J. R. Watson is Emeritus Professor of English at the University of Durham.

For further information, please visit the page on Glorious Hope.