The Kingdom of Matthias: A Story of Sex and Salvation in 19th Century America

Pierson's move to New York was not unusual for this time in American history. Young men of this era often left their rural towns and villages to head to big cities to find fame and fortune. Ambitious, responsible and hardworking, Pierson quickly obtained a position as a clerk. In 1820, at the age of thirty-four, he and a partner, John Steinbrenner, opened a mercantile company on Pearl Street, a symbol of business and prosperity. Their business represented a new generation of entrepreneurs who were less dependent on transatlantic trade; they relied more on growing domestic markets that focused on northeastern agriculture. Additionally, they bought imported goods at auction and sold them in small lots to country storekeepers.

In many ways, Pierson and his partner epitomized the success of a growing American middle class. Pierson’s strict sense of morality set him apart from most of his peers, who were well-known for unrestrained carousing, drinking, and fornication. Unlike the residents of Morristown, most New Yorkers at this time were not interested in religion: “The few who went to church attended elegant Episcopalian and Dutch Reform establishments that, to Elijah’s way of thinking, were mere social clubs for the rich” (19). Pierson perceived that poor communities were equally distant from God and for the same reasons as their social betters. Additionally, the poor lacked religious support mechanisms to improve their lives. He was appalled at the number of dysfunctional families he observed living in the slums of New York; he also witnessed family patriarchs abandon many of their own families. Pierson grew up in a patriarchal community; though he eventually rejected the ideals of patriarchal living, he recognized that at least the fathers in Morristown supported their families. He could not say the same about many male family leaders in New York: “Many of the girls claimed to have sold themselves in confusion and desperation after being abandoned by bad husbands or fathers.” (35). Despite all the temptation around him, Pierson remained pious and moral; at thirty-five, he was still unmarried and a virgin.

Businessmen like Pierson represented a new generation of merchants who embraced the profits of market capitalism and the new, progressive Christian sects of the Second Great Awakening. As Pierson transitioned from wealthy farm boy to merchant, “[his] passage from youth to manhood [was] deferred and confused” (20). Much of this confusion was resolved when he joined Reverend Gardiner Spring’s Brick Presbyterian Church and its network of evangelical lay missionary societies. Pierson finally understood that “poverty and disorder resulted neither from original sin nor God’s design but from failed families and bad moral choices” (21).

Pierson became involved in the Free Church movement and volunteered at the Female Missionary Society in a poor, mostly-black community. As he gradually became evangelized, he realized that structured and active support systems that bring the word of God are needed for poor people to develop a relationship with God. The Female Missionary Society was at the forefront of this work and, unlike traditional churches, the women, not the men, spearheaded religious outreach efforts.

This movement and other similar revival movements blamed many of the problems in society and the church on traditional, oppressive patriarchal structures that excluded women. Pierson’s work at the Female Missionary Society focused on empowering women; eventually, Pierson became a leader in the growing “perfectionist” movement, which championed temperance, equal rights, and prison reform. By the 1820s, Pierson was both a well-known merchant and an evangelist. He established the Sabbatarian Campaign, a major evangelical political movement, and gained attention for his tireless work in the Finneyite movement and with the Female Missionary Society.