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

Nonfiction | Book | Adult | Published in 1994

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Summary

Chapter Summaries & Analyses

Prologue

Part 1, Introduction

Part 1, Sections 1-3

Part 1, Sections 4-7

Part 2, Introduction

Part 2, Sections, 1-4

Part 2, Sections 5-7

Part 3, Sections 1-3

Part 3, Sections 4-6

Part 4, Sections 1-4

Part 4, Sections 5-8

Epilogue

Key Figures

Themes

Symbols & Motifs

Important Quotes

Essay Topics

Tools

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Discussion Questions

Part 2, Sections, 1-4Chapter Summaries & Analyses

Part 2: “Robert Matthews”

Part 2, Section 1 Summary

Robert Matthews was born in 1788 to a Scottish immigrant family in Cambridge, New York. They lived in an isolated community known as Coila and practiced a rigid brand of Scots Calvinism in a traditional Anti-Burgher Secession Church. They were strict fundamentalists, and they preferred simple, plain worship as opposed to the more elaborate Catholic rituals and prayer ceremonies. The town's spiritual leader was a tireless evangelical known as Reverend Beveridge, who took a special interest in the young Robert Matthews. Patriarchy was at the core of church and community life, and men controlled their households and the church as well as all community activities.

Part 2, Section 2 Summary

Matthews’s parents died in 1795, when he was seven years old, and he and his seven siblings were taken in by family and neighbors. A farmer in the church community agreed to board Matthews in exchange for labor. Matthews was frequently ill and suffered from chronic nervousness attributed to the trauma of losing his parents at a young age. Though Matthews was unable to work, he stayed with the farmer until 1806; at this time, at the age of seventeen, Matthews moved in with a local carpenter and learned his trade. A couple of years later, Matthews moved to Manhattan and found work as an apprentice-journeyman carpenter.

Matthews had a difficult personality which explains his lack of business success. His self-righteous attitude and his tendency to scold his coworkers for their sinful habits developed into regular attempts to convert the other men. These coworkers drank alcohol, gambled and fornicated regularly; in irritation, they called Matthews "Jumping Jesus." Matthews was eventually fired. Records show that in 1811, he was convicted of assaulting a woman. In 1812, Matthews moved back to Coila and started a successful business as a storekeeper. On his frequent visits back to Manhattan, he courted a young woman named Margaret, and in 1813, they married. Within a year, they had a son, the first of their six children.

Part 2, Section 3 Summary

Matthews started to have financial problems in 1816 when he tried to expand his business in Coila. The entire venture was a disaster, and he declared bankruptcy. The authors explain that Matthews’s rejection of the new market system and his failure to adjust to change were the causes of his failure. The authors make the point that Matthews and others like him were "poor men...rooted socially and emotionally in the yeoman republic of the eighteenth century [and] had been diminished by the revolution" (7).

The Matthews family returned to Manhattan, where Matthews tried to restart his career as a journey-man carpenter. Within two years, two of his sons died, and Matthews became seriously ill for months, unable to work and to earn money to support his family. Margaret Matthews reported that Matthews began to exhibit uncontrollable bouts of rage. He found new religious inspiration at the African Methodist Church, comprised of a predominately black congregation. Here, Matthews experienced real evangelical excitement and pledged to help end slavery and racial injustice. He was also influenced by a Jew named Mordecai Manuel Noah, who was a local politician who dreamt of creating a Jewish homeland called Ararat in upstate New York. Inspired by Noah’s dreams, Matthews decided to convert to Judaism, taking the name Matthias and identifying himself as the Prophet of the God of the Jews.

According to the authors, all accounts indicate that at this point, Margaret decided that her husband had lost his mind. Mordecai’s vision of Ararat never materialized, and Matthews’s dream of establishing a Jewish homeland evaporated.

Part 2, Section 4 Summary

The Matthews family moved again in 1828, and this time, they settled in Albany. At this time in history, Albany was thriving due to a commercial boom brought on by the newly-opened Erie Canal. For a time, Matthews was a member of the mainstream North Dutch Church; as well, he performed missionary work for the Temperance Society. When another one of Matthews’s sons died, this time from smallpox, Matthews flew into a rage; while ranting and raving, he repeatedly whipped his wife Margaret with raw hide. Soon after his beating of his wife, he attended a service by Edward Norris Kirk, a Finneyite who reignited Matthews’s evangelical fires.

Despite his strict Calvinist upbringing, Matthews became inspired by preachers who claimed that salvation comes to "all who received Jesus in their hearts" (64). He found solace in the words of John Ludlow, a Finneyite preacher who claimed that God represents a "higher Christian love" (70); this benevolent God contrasted to the angry God Matthews worshipped growing up. Matthews vowed that he "too would be a loving man; in his temperance work, he would lead others to righteousness" (70). Matthews’s resolution did not last, however; Matthews became known as a wife-beater, and this reputation put him at odds with church leadership.

Part 2, Sections 1-4 Analysis

Part 2 explores several important themes that run throughout The Kingdom of Matthias as a whole: misogyny and patriarchy, the impact of tragedy on mental health, and the effects of market capitalism.

The authors specify several important facets to Matthews’s upbringing that likely instilled in Matthews a sense of male chauvinism that devolved into full-fledged misogyny by the time Matthews has matured into a man. Although the historical record is not specific, the authors believe that Matthews had claimed to have had visions of God and that he had spoken directly to God; these special interactions with God, according to his strict Calvinist upbringing, were the domain of men. Women had no such access to God, and their lower status in the eyes of the church ensured that men held all the power. In Matthews’s family, he took these patriarchal dynamics to an extreme when he beat his wife Margaret. Matthews’s brief flirtation and involvement with several evangelical reformist churches, including Finneyism, may have exposed him to the notion of women’s empowerment, but his misogyny precluded his acceptance into reformist church groups. Even in an age of patriarchy, Matthews’s violence towards his wife proved excessive.

An examination of the theme of the impact of personal tragedy on mental health in Sections 1 to 4 of Part 2 reveals similarities between Pierson and Matthews. Like Pierson, Matthews experienced great loss in his life. As a child, he lost his parents and his siblings when they were separated, and as an adult, he lost three sons. These personal tragedies had a negative effect on Matthews as evidenced by the timing of his violent behavior toward his wife Margaret and his erratic decisions inspired by religious ambition and his burgeoning identity as a prophet.

Instead of adapting to changing social and religious realities due to emergent market capitalism, another important theme of the book, Matthews remained stuck in the past. He held fast to his early Calvinist upbringing and blamed the new revivalist sects for the introduction of new religious perspectives. Worse, Matthews blamed the new economic system for his inability to thrive in an unfamiliar environment to which he refused to adapt. Because Matthews remained rooted in the past, he perceived external forces as responsible for his failure. Matthews failed to recognize that the community in which he was raised was an isolated community; his failure to find success in the new market system and his rejection of the new Christian revivalist sects ushered in by the Second Great Awakening demonstrate that his inability to succeed was the direct result of his own failure to change with the times.