Bedford's Victorian Pilgrim: William Hale White in Context

• Published in: Bunyan studies no. 17; p. 156
• Main Author: Bebbington, D W
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: Newcastle Upon Tyne Northumbria University, Department of Humanities, Faculty of Arts, Design and Social Sciences 01.01.2013
• Subjects: British & Irish literature; Bunyan, John (1628-1688); English literature; MacDonald, George (1824-1905); Wordsworth, William (1770-1850)
• ISSN: 0954-0970

White has been assimilated to the character of Mark Rutherford, the subject of another novel, which has been taken as an accurate transcription of White's experience; and he has been treated as an instance of the shift of many Victorian authors from Christian orthodoxy into honest doubt. New College was a fresh foundation, the result of a merger between smaller colleges in 1850, and so it was crucial, if its image was not to become tarnished in the eyes of heresy-hunters, for its adherence to the Bible to be resolute. Like most members of Bunyan Meeting, a joint Congregational/Baptist Church loyal to Bunyan's insistence that water baptism is no bar to communion, he would have been baptised as an infant.