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The Minister’s Charge

The Minister’s Charge is an American Realism novel by William Dean Howells published by Ticknor and Co. in 1886. An alternate title is The Apprenticeship of Lemuel Barker. It chronicles two years in the life of Lemuel Barker, a young man from rural Massachusetts who moves to Boston with the hope of making a life for himself there. Lemuel faces the complexities of the urban environment and struggles to maintain his identity in the face of corruption by the Boston upper class. The novel is considered to be the end of what has become known as Howells’ “Boston under the scalpel” series of works which all show the aristocratic moral degradation made common by the urban environment. The most famous of these works is The Rise of Silas Lapham, which shares characters (Reverend Sewell and Bromfield Corey) with The Minister’s Charge.

Plot

The novel opens to the Minister David Sewell and his wife returning to Boston from Willoughby Pastures, a small rural village in Western Massachusetts. An argument ensues about the minister’s treatment of a young man, Lemuel Barker, who came to him looking for literary advice and criticism about his poetry. The attempts at poetry were quite feeble and the result banal, but Minister Sewell cannot find it in himself to tell the boy. Lemuel is known around the village to have a literary spirit and Sewell does not wish to break it. Mrs. Sewell makes her husband see the error of his ways and the couple continues home thinking they have seen the last of Lemuel Barker.

Several month later, Sewell receives a letter from Lemuel asking if the minister would be so kind as to help him find a publisher for his work in Boston. Sewell knows he must disabuse Lemuel of this notion immediately, but he puts off writing a response and eventually it slips his mind. In the mean time he delivers a powerful sermon about the danger of “tender mercies” and insincere flattery, believing himself to be finally reconciled from his mistake.

Lemuel Barker, never receiving an answer from Minister Sewell, travels to Boston to seek his help in finding a publisher. The minister explains to Lemuel that his poems will never be published but promises to help him home. Lemuel is gracious but leaves with his pride and trust in Minister Sewell greatly diminished. He sets out about the city, deciding that the shame will be too great if he returns home the same day.

On Boston Common he meets a young man who warns him about the dangers of con men around the city. Lemuel, being a trusting country boy, does not see that he is being conned all the while. He offers to make change for a ten-dollar bill for payment of a half dollar. Lemuel later finds the bill to be counterfeit. He wanders around the city in a state of rage and disbelief. His pride will not allow him to ask Minister Sewell for help. He sees the young man who conned him and pursues him, only to be arrested himself. He is accused of being an accomplice in snatching the purse of a young woman named Statira Dudley. Lemuel is forced to spend the night in jail and appear in court the next morning. Statira cannot say whether Lemuel was involved and the case is dismissed. Statira and her friend Amanda Grier apologize profusely for the misunderstanding. It comes out that Statira and Lemuel are from the same area of rural Massachusetts.

Having nowhere to stay, Lemuel is instructed by the police to follow a tramp to a workhouse where he can find a bed and food until he can return home. There he meets another young man who shows him how to get by at the “Wayfarer’s Hotel”. Lemuel saws wood and washes dishes for his keep and a little extra money. Meanwhile, Minister Sewell sees the account of Lemuel’s arrest in the newspaper and feels compelled to send him back to Willoughby Pastures before anything else happens; Lemuel refuses. He has no plans in Boston but he cannot face returning home. Sewell finds him work with a friend of his, Mrs. Vane. Lemuel works as a servant and handyman for the household; running the furnace, shoveling snow, and generally keeping everything in order. He establishes himself as a perfect fit and greatly pleases Mrs. Vane and her children Sibyl and Jane.

On an errand, Lemuel runs into Statira and Amanda. They extend an invitation for him to visit them sometime at the boarding house where they reside. Lemuel accepts and has an awkward, but pleasant, evening with the girls. He begins to develop feelings for Statira and decides he shall come around on a regular basis. As he is leaving, in a moment of passion, Lemuel kisses Statira. He apologizes and is quite stunned. As Statira begins to cry Lemuel runs out of the house, muttering a hasty good bye. Upon returning the Vane house, he is very short with Sibyl and her hysteria leads Mrs. Vane to fire Lemuel.

Lemuel then finds employment at a hotel and boarding house called St. Albans. Mrs. Harmon runs the house and she offers Lemuel a job as a clerk and elevator boy. Mrs. Harmon insists that she only allows high class guests and implores Lemuel to act and dress in this fashion. Working at the desk allows Lemuel to become immersed n culture by giving him time to read and to observe the guests. He begins to feel the need to behave and speak in the manner of a cultured individual. However, the narrator provides the reader with the information that many of the guests at St. Albans were a sham of high culture, writing than many, “spoke bad grammar through their noses; but the ladies dressed stylishly, and the men were good arithmeticians” . During this time, Lemuel begins to form conjectures about the urban class structure. This pursuit is expanded by his introduction and friendship with the newspaper editor, Mr. Evans and the students, Mr. Berry, Miss Carver, and Miss Swan. Mr. Evans offers him a dollar as “tribute money”, but Lemuel refuses stating that he does not want money he has not earned. He does not want to be treated as a beggar. This piques Mr. Evans curiosity about Lemuel, as this is not the common attitude.

Lemuel then discovers Statira has fallen ill for several weeks and still wishes to see him, even after the catastrophe of his parting. He visits and the two fall back into the rhythm they enjoyed during their last meeting. Statira and Lemuel become a couple.

Mr. Evans meets with Minister Sewell, proposing an idea for a sermon saying, “I want you to tell your people and my people that the one who buys sin or shame, or corruption of any sort, is as guilty as the one who sells it”. He also cites Lemuel’s rejection of Mr. Evans charitable offereing. However, Mr. Evans then suggests his true motivation to sell papers via an editorial response to such a sermon, establishing himself as a person of questionable moral standing. The Minister rejects the proposition but his thoughts turn back to Lemuel Barker.

Mr. Evans then engages Lemuel in a discussion of whether he enjoys the city or the country better. Lemuel answers that there is much more opportunity and help for people in the city but qualifies this statement by complaining that city folk are too aristocratic. To him, Miss Carver is the manifestation of the aristocratic city attitude. Mr. Evans contends that Lemuel only hates the aristocracy because he is not a part of it, and if he were, his views would be quite different. However, at the same time, Lemuel refuses to let Statira work in housekeeping because he “doesn’t want people to take her for one of these servant-girls”.

As Lemuel continues to work at St. Albans, he develops friendships with Mr. Berry, Miss Carver, and Miss Swan. Mr. Berry discusses his ambitions of marrying Miss Swan with Lemuel, and urges him not to think of Miss Carver as out of his league. With no knowledge of Statira, Mr. Berry advises Lemuel to strive for the best he can attain. Lemuel invites Statira and Amanda to admire paintings of Miss Swan and Miss Carver at St. Albans and is embarrassed by their manners and actions.

Lemuel returns home to Willoughby Pastures for the first time. He finds it much as he left it. He is proud that he has been able to support his family with the small savings her has sent home from Boston. His mother does not ask much about his life in Boston but cautions him much as Mr. Berry did. She tells him not to fall in love with the first girl he meets, and not to hurry with any of that. Lemuel feels much less sure of his relationship with Statira than he did only a few weeks prior.

Upon his return to Boston, Lemuel visits Statira and comes away unhappy and bewildered by her mannerisms and lack of intelligent commentary. In short, she is boring in comparison to the cultured students Lemuel has grown accustomed to. When, Statira reutrns home for the summer, he spends more time with Miss Carver and grows to enjoy her company quite a bit. Lemuel visits with Minister Sewell and receives similar advice as he did from Mr. Berry and his mother. He also voices his concern that his duties at St. Albans are too much like servitude. He decides that he will only be employed as a clerk; working the elevator and waiting tables are beneath him.

One day a youth enters the hotel and strikes up a conversation with Lemuel, who recognizes him as the boy who befriended him at the Wayfarer’s Lodge. The boy craftily talks his way into the position of elevator boy by assuring Mrs. Harmon of his longstanding friendship with Lemuel. The boy, who gives his name as Williams, confides to Lemuel that he has just returned from prison. Lemuel seeks the advice of Minister Sewell as to how to whether he should alert Mrs. Harmon to the history of Williams, and how to do so without alerting her to the fact that he, Lemuel, was once arrested. Shortly after Lemuel’s return to St. Albans, a fire breaks out. Lemuel works with Mr. Berry to move all the guests swiftly out of the house. Lemuel disobeys the orders of the firemen and rushes in to evacuate Mr. and Mrs. Evans. He is hailed as a hero even though he does not feel as though he did much. The newspapers describe it as a dramatic rescue, which Lemuel resents.

Lemuel next finds employment reading for Mr. Bromfield Corey, an aging aristocrat who is a friend of Minister Sewell. At the Corey house, Lemuel is exposed to a new level of luxury. He finds his clothes from St. Albans make him feel out of place. He changes his speech and manners to fit his new surroundings. He attempts to become the essence of the wealthy, cultured, young Bostonian. Amanda Grier confronts Lemuel about this change and accuses him of looking down upon Statira and being in love with another. Lemuel vehemently denies it and storms away. However, he is affected by Amanda’s question, how can he look down on Statira for desiring work as a servant when she accepted him when he was but a lowly servant?

Lemuel then goes to see Statira and Amanda and admits to frequently seeing Miss Carver and refuses to submit himself to the abuses of Amanda for his dishonest actions. Statira still loves him and will not let Lemuel leave. She then has a vicious fit of coughing, collapses and begins to bleed out. Lemuel rushes and brings the doctor who stabilizes Statira. Lemuel decides he cannot leave her. Lemuel quits his position with Mr. Corey and watches over Statira full time. After several weeks he comes to Minister Sewell asking to borrow 75 dollars to begin work as a horse car conductor. He intends to marry Statira and needs a job that will allow him to take care of her. Sewell gladly gives him the money.

Shortly after starting to work, Lemuel is kicked by a horse on the job and breaks his leg. It is mended by surgery and Minister Sewell, Mrs. Vane, and Mr. Corey support Lemuel throughout his recovery. Lemuel and Statira return to the Massachusetts countryside. Lemuel works as a teacher at a small rural school. Amanda Grier convinces Statira to move with her to Philadelphia. It is implied that she does so, and the two are never married, leaving Lemuel to experience his rebirth in his rural roots.

Major Characters

Reverend David Sewell is the minister of the title, A Boston preacher who takes his profession quite seriously. He is notable for his large heart and his involvement in the lives of his parishioners. Reverend Sewell appears in other works by Howells, especially The Rise of Silas Lapham.

Mrs. Lucy Sewell is the wife of Minister Sewell, she contends that he should have been straight with Lemuel Barker all along. She also generally argues that the Minister leave Barker to his own devices, whenever possible.

Lemuel Barker is the protagonist of the novel. He is a young man from rural Willoughby Pastures, Massachusetts. He travels to Boston to gain publication for his writings. When that fails, he is taken in by the allure of money and status of the urban culture.

Mrs. Barker is the mother of Lemuel Barker. She is the but of many jokes throughout the novel for wearing bloomers and other unfashionable articles of clothing.

Mrs. Vane is a friend of the Sewells. She thinks quite highly of herself but does not actually rise into the upper eschelons of society. She hires Lemuel as a servant but comes to respect him as much more.

Sibyl Vane is the daughter of Mrs. Vane. She wants to work as a social reformer and takes Lemuel as her charge. She attempts to reform him from his non-existent criminal ways but proves to be immature and ineffective.

Statira Dudley accuses Lemuel of stealing her purse on his first day in Boston. She becomes his lady throughout the novel. She is originally from a town near Willoughby Pastures. She is entirely dependent on her roommate Amanda Grier for medical care, advice, and a job.

Amanda Grier is the best friend of Statira Dudley. She controls her life in everyway. She is quite brash and seems uneducated. Lemuel will come to see her as a representation of the lower class.

Mr. Evans is a newspaper editor who boards at St. Albans. He befriends Lemuel and forces him to think about the class structure of the urban society and whether the aristocracy is inherently bad.

Ms. Carver is an art student who boards at St. Albans. She is very good friends with Mr. Berry and Ms. Swan. Lemuel initially despises her as, to him, she signifies the aristocracy. Eventually, as he becomes more aristocratic, he finds her company quite pleasant and begins to think he may love her.

Alonzo W. Berry Jr. is a law student and friend of Ms. Swan and Ms. Carver. He compels Lemuel to pursue Ms. Carver romantically. He tells Lemuel not to settle, but to push the boundaries of social class and achieve the best he can.

Mr. Bromfield Corey is a member of the old Bostonian Aristocracy. He employs Lemuel to read to him, as old age has not left him able to do it himself. Through this work and living in the Corey household, Lemuel is exposed to a level of luxury and culture he did not know existed. Bromfield Corey is featured in other works by William Dean Howells, most prominently The Rise of Silas Lapham.

Major Themes

Urban Moral Decay

A prominent feature of The Minister’s Charge is the moral decay that occurs in the urban environment and ultimate salvation through a return to pastoral scenery and values. This transition occurs in both Lemuel Barker and Statira Dudley. The novel ends with Lemuel Barker finding a resolution to all his problems by returning to rural Massachusetts and leaving urban cares behind, escaping all concerns about wealth and social class.

Throughout the novel, Lemuel is exposed to increasing degrees of the urban aristocracy. Howells uses the stepwise progression of Lemuel from one job to another to show the corruption caused by the urban class structure. When Lemuel first comes to Boston he is not above following a tramp to workhouse and, for a short time, plans to work at the Wayfarer’s Lodge as way to earn money to return home. He is happy to associate with Statira and Amanda Grier, people who he at first considers to dress fashionably. By the time Lemuel rises to his position at St. Albans, he cringes at Statira’s common speech and refuses to let her work waiting tables saying, “I don’t want people should take you for one of these servant-girls.” It doesn’t matter that Lemuel knows she is not a servant. He is more concerned with her as a reflection of his status.

By matching Lemuel’s progression of employment with his increases in pride, Howells seems to hint that Lemuel will never be satisfied with his status as long as he stays in the city. Due to the influences of men like Mr. Evans, Mr. Berry, and Mr. Corey, Lemuel will always feel he needs to improve his standing. This will pull him further away from his past, identity, and ultimately his home. This is exemplified by his worsening relationship with Statira. Being from near Willoughby Pastures, she is a symbol for Lemuel Barker’s home while he is in the city.

Complicity and Morality

Howells presents the “tender mercies” common in society as misleading and cruel. He contends that while implicit misdirection is as egregious a sin as an explicit lie, the consequences can be just as damaging, if not more so. The Reverend Sewell commits this offense by allowing Lemuel to continue to believe his writing to be of some value. Lemuel continues to court Statira and encourage her advances, even when he has found someone else. Both are cases of implicit deception, both were motivated by good intentions and both result in long periods of suffering. Howells contends that the most dangerous forces in this world are not those that are explicitly evil, but those that allow evil to persist. He writes, “If a community was corrupt, if an age was immoral, it was not because of the vicious, but the virtuous who fancied themselves indifferent spectators. It was not the tyrant who oppressed, it was the wickedness that made him possible”.

Literary critics believe the focus on the sin of complicity came from Howells’ own guilt that he surrounded himself in a pocket of the literary elite and did not focus enough on the plight of the common man. He was, by all accounts, a self made man and a central member of the Boston elite. He sought to create a literary elite that superseded the romantic popular novels of the day, works he considered to be mindless drivel. However, Howells did strive to promote the works of artists whom he felt deserving of praise in the public sphere. He was involved in the promotion and guidance of young writers regardless of social or racial standards. He supported the work of Charles Chesnutt, a black writer, long before it was socially acceptable. However, Howells still held this guilt. Therefore, some critics see the sermon of Reverend Sewell as Howells’ confession and reconciliation to the common man.

Realism: Education of High Society to the Plight of the Poor

William Dean Howells was a champion of literary realism, attempting to steer literature away from romanticism towards a true depiction of life. Henry James commented that the novel was motivated by Howells’ interest in, “the common, the immediate, the familiar and vulgar elements of life.” In The Minister’s Charge, Howells uses the tools of realism in an attempt to enact social change. He suggests that the upper class has a moral responsibility to aid those beneath them and that the infrastructure to do so is severely lacking.

Howells’ audience was the upper class urban elite. His readers most likely did not know what the common man must contend with to survive in the urban landscape. His portrayal of society through literary realism shows the dirty side of Boston life; the tramps, drunks, criminals, jails and workhouses. Howells presented these vulgar scenes with the hopes that people would realize the conditions of the urban poor. He also depicts the preformed judgments of the upper class as a trammel to the common man. This is exemplified by the trouble many characters have in connecting with Lemuel. The Reverend Sewell laments that he cannot discern how Lemuel feels at several points in the novel. However, the Minister does not allow Lemuel’s experience to change his views on the poor. He places Lemuel in subservient positions of increasing prestige, all the while focusing on his own complicity in the matter. Howells advocates for a reinterpretation of the traditional prejudices with regards to the urban poor.

Howells also demonstrates the lack of social programs to channel the charity of the upper class into effective aid to the poor. Howells references workhouses like the Wayfarer’s Lodge as beneficial social programs but laments that there is not more that is done to aid the poor. After visiting Lemuel at the Lodge, Reverend Sewell remarks, “There’s nothing I can do for him, except to order some firewood from his benefactors [the Lodge]. I did that. But I don’t see how it’s to help Barker exactly.” Howells also mocks the ideas of upper class social reformers like Sibyl Vane. He creates her character as a self-titled social reformer who brings flowers to hospital patients before abandoning the pursuit referring to the patients as, “disgusting old men who hadn’t been shaved”. He insinuates that the reformers generally shallow and that the sector of social reform is a sham. Though Howells does not seems to provide any solutions to the problems of the urban poor, The Minister’s Charge can be seen as a public service announcement, alerting the upper class to a world largely hidden from view.

Critical Response

The Minister’s Charge did not receive many favorable reviews and is not one of Howells’ best known novels. Many readers at the time felt the novel was vulgar and scandalous. One summary of the public response reads, “Based upon readers’ protests when the novel appeared in The Century in 1885-1886, it would appear that Howells introduced into The Minister’s Charge precisely what readers were least prepared to embrace about the world’s ‘paltry’ experience as they objected to the novel’s ‘mania for the commonplace’ and its ‘consummate dullness’. Like other works of what was referred to as ‘grim’ realism, it was dismissed as characterized by ‘despair, baseness, and visciousness’”. Kenneth Lynn writes, “When the The Minister’s Charge was serialized in The Century in 1886 the outcry from scandalized readers was loud and long.” Howells was quite disturbed by the negative reception writing, “its reception here by most of the reviewers is extremely discouraging. Of all grounds in the world they take the genteel ground, and every ‘Half-bred rogue that groomed his mother’s cow’ reproaches me for introducing him to low company”. Howells felt that disgust at the novel due to vulgar details was completely misdirected and represents a high level of hypocrisy. He organized his thoughts more distinctly when writing to James, “they entirely miss the very simple purpose of this book”. While popular opinion of the novel was negative, Howells did find support in his friend Henry James who wrote a glowing review of Howells’ brand of literary realism in Harper’s Weekly in the summer of 1886, quite soon after the publication of the novel. Also, E.O. Wilson is quoted as writing, “I don’t object to all of Howells’ New England novels. I like one that you don’t like: The Minister’s Charge”.