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Pennsylvania Magazine of HISTORY and BIOGRAPHY THE Pennsylvania Magazine OF HISTORY AND BIOGRAPHY VOLUME LXI OCTOBER, 1937 NUMBER FOUR SAMUEL KEIMER A Study in the Transit of English Culture to Colonial Pennsylvania LTHOUGH the career of Samuel Keimer has been scrutinized by several biographers, and was made the subject of an ex- A tended study some years ago,1 the peculiarities of his person- ality and the significance of his achievement have not been examined with disinterested sympathy. In his own days he was a man of few friends; up to our own his reputation has suffered from the adverse criticism of Franklin, while the relative paucity of records dealing with him has discouraged critics from a fresh examination of his char- acter and accomplishment. In addition, the importance of his work as an intermediary, albeit an indirect one, between the culture of Eng- land and that of colonial Pennsylvania, has never been fully recog- nized, and hence there has been less incentive than might else have been the case to appraise impartially the extent and importance of that which he did. The details of Keimer's early life offer few problems, should one wish merely to outline it. Perhaps no man in writing of himself has shown a greater preoccupation with his own sufferings, real and imaginary, than Keimer. Surely no man of the time has told of his own doings with a more unashamed and amazing fidelity. This 1 Stephen Bloore, "Samuel Keimer," PENNSYLVANIA MAGAZINE OF HISTORY AND BIOGRAPHY, LIV. 255-87. This study, however, considered Keimer chiefly as "a footnote to the Life of Franklin." 357 358 C. LENNART CARLSON October very fact must mark him as a person apart, whose aberrancies and foibles should be examined as the evidence of an egocentricity that is peculiar and worthy of study, rather than condemned as the sign of a disordered mind. Of Keimer's literary productions, the most important is a series of three books, written shortly after one another. All are autobio- graphical, all record his search for a usable religious faith, and all were written before he came to Pennsylvania. Since his literary out- put after coming to the colonies was relatively small, it is on those of his writings that were completed in England that his claim to a niche in the history of eighteenth-century literature must rest. His accomplishment after coming to Philadelphia, on the other hand, entitles him to some notice in the history of colonial culture. At some time in 1718 there appeared in the London pamphlet shops a thin book of about thirty pages, entitled *A Search sAfter Religion.2 To this was appended Jin ^Address and Tetition to %ing Jesus, by Samuel Keimer, "a Listed Soldier under Him, and a peaceable Subject of King George." This six-penny pamphlet was Keimer's first known literary production. Bitterly Protestant in tone, it marks the author as a critic of the shams of institutionalized re- ligion and of the pretensions of the sects. Yet it is less of an attack on ecclesiastical organization than on the supposedly pious among the well-known religious leaders of the time. In doggerel verse Keimer tells how he, reared a Presbyterian, sought a religious faith that would satisfy an emotional temperament and give him solace in his yearning for truth. One receives the impression that he had gone to hear the famous preachers of the day, impelled by that nervous uncertainty which frequently characterizes the immature mind in its search for the Absolute. He tells of having heard Nat Vincent, Doolittle, Pomfret, of having read Edmund Calamy. But 2 The title page reads as follows: A Search After Religion, Among the many Modern Pretenders to it. Offered to the Perusal of all those who are dancing to the Pipes of those false Prophets and Teachers, Christians are wanted to take heed of. Like diligent Bee, From every Tree, To the Hungry, my Honey Pll bring; But for Truth's hidden Foesy Pll fluck off their Cloaths, Their Shame Pll disclose, Tho' I smart, or die forH, Pll leave >em my Sting. To which is added An Address and Petition to King Jesus. By Samuel Keimer, a Listed Soldier under Him, and a feaceable Subject of King George. (London: Printed for the Author, and sold at the Cheshire-CofTee-House in King's-Arms- Court on Ludgate Hill.) The verse on the title page is undoubtedly by Keimer. 1937 SAMUEL KEIMER 359 he was not satisfied, and went to hear Williams, Mat Henry, New- man, and Reynolds3— ... the Priests who many Miles would row ye, Who'd skip, and trip, and leap, like Hare or Coney, Not for your soul's sake, but to get your money. The tale is a tedious and sorry one, of his searching for truth among the Independents, the Water-Divers, the French Prophets, of his being "beguiled by Rome," until as he says, With Priests and Prophets I was so confounded, With schemes, chimeras, whims, so much abounded, As my poor seeking soul was sorely wounded. He then tells of having rebelled against the government, and of having been imprisoned for it, but without giving any specific de- tails or explaining the circumstances of his treasonable activity.4 While in prison, he . read Richard Steeles bright Christian Hero, I thought that tract might e'en convince a Nero, It answer'd me, as verum does to vero. Here, too, he became "converted": Now 'twas in Prison I became a Quaker, The Holy Ghost to me became a Shaker, I did resolve by Christ to serve my Maker. It is with such naive contrition, as always characterized his attitude after an unwise course of action had brought him to grief, that he informs us how he will adopt the Quaker simplicity of life, will wear no superfluous adornment, swear no oaths, give no lying com- pliments. Also, he will wear a beard . 'cause God to me he gave it, If I had none, I then should weekly crave it; How dare I then, presume with Edge to shave it? "The Dictionary of National Biografhy contains accounts of all these men, the majority of whom were Presbyterian divines. Keimer must have heard some of them while very young-, since Nathaniel Vincent died in 1697. One, Matthew Henry, he cannot have heard very frequently, since Henry had a charge in Chester until 1712, and spent only two years in Hackney, where he removed then. Contemporary judgment does not agree with Keimer in condemning the preaching of the men whom he had heard, though it appears that Doolittle, at least, showed little depth of thought in his discourses. 4 This, as we shall see, he chose to explain in another book. 36O C. LENNART CARLSON October The Search Jljter Religion constitutes a spiritual autobiography. It reveals little intellectual keenness, certainly no ability to analyze abstruse problems. His search for objective standards predominates -y clearly his attempt to see in truth something absolute, rather than the relative concept it is, was the source of Keimer's unhappy ex- perience with the vagaries of faith. Rarely does his criticism touch on the more fundamental aspects of the social instability of which religious sectarianism is an evidence. Indeed, there is but one hint of his having possibly perceived such a problem in his suggestion that the "reformers" have parted with "what has been of no Concern to lose," but have kept their profitable corruptions. In the Search Keimer had concerned himself with criticizing the current situation in the church, but in the ^Address and Petition to %ing Jesus, which followed it, his emphasis was quite different. The ^Address is a prayer in verse, such as he was fond of using on oc- casions which he felt demanded a particular solemnity. Strongly emotional in tone, uncouth in imagery, almost rhapsodic in its self- abasement, it is quite typical of Keimer's other work in the same genre: Hail mighty Monarch, Glorious King of Kings! Whose holy presence great salvation brings, To thee, Great Prince, my humble soul she sings. To thee all earthly Kings are crawling vermin, And Queens compared with thee like Princess Germ'n; Princes, Dukes, Earls, like beggars dress'd in vermin. For thee, that man of sin, the Pope, must tremble; Kings, his supporters, for thee become humble. O how the Card'nals, Monks and Fryars will grumble! In some of the verses that follow, he prays for Jesus' blessing on the King, obviously to atone for his previous attacks against the House of Hanover, and begs to be again considered with favor: Pour forth thy spirit on George, by Man appointed As King to rule: Let him by thee be anointed, And all his actions at thy glory pointed.... Today, on reading the Search and ^Address, one would like to believe that Keimer wrote them out of the fullness of his heart, in a chaotic anger and disillusionment. Their naive lack of finish, occasional vulgarity, and unforgiving forthrightness suggest that the 1937 SAMUEL KEIMER 361 author felt genuinely what he neither had the poise to conceal, nor the talent to express adeptly. But though there is little ground for questioning the sincerity of Keimer's feelings, he has given us reason to suspect that he was not unwilling to capitalize on his ex- periences. The Search raises a number of problems, in particular that of the relationship between Keimer's background and his rebellious at- titude toward the church of the day. The author must have realized that once his readers had perused the Search, they would wish to know more about himself, and more about the practices of the re- ligious enthusiasts whose meetings he had frequented.
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