‘A Man after Parnell’s Own Heart’?

This chapter considers Isaac Nelson’s relationship with Irish nationalism and the Home Rule movement. It looks at the personal, historical, and ideological factors that led to Nelson embracing Irish nationalism. Accordingly, it analyses the influence of Lockeanism, Classical Republicanism, and even Romanticism on Nelson’s thinking. The chapter also considers his support for the Land League and Peasant Proprietorship, his unsuccessful campaign to gain election for County Leitrim at the 1880 General Election, and his victory at Mayo for the seat vacated by Charles Stewart Parnell. It then considers his brief career as a Member of Parliament, and the relationship between Nelson’s Presbyterianism and Home Rule. While Nelson was clearly in a minority among his Presbyterian colleagues, this chapter argues that his views were not as idiosyncratic as they may first appear.

The Year of Delusion

The title of the third chapter is the same as that of Isaac Nelson’s critique of the 1859 Revival in Ulster, The Year of Delusion. It analyses Nelson’s approach to the revival in relation to the actual history of the movement, the broader context in which the revival took place, and from the point of view of Nelson’s theological and philosophical commitments. It demonstrates that Nelson opposed the revival as an evangelical Presbyterian who was committed to the Reformed theology of the Westminster Confession in opposition to Roman Catholicism, Unitarianism, and Methodism. Furthermore, he also wrote as one who adhered to the assumptions of Common Sense Philosophy in opposition to irrationality and Romantic enthusiasm. Nelson criticised the 1859 Revival owing to its links with American proslavery revivalism, the physical manifestations that accompanied the awakening, and its impact on Reformed doctrine, church order, and morality. Nelson also wrote a historical critique of William Gibson’s official account of the revival, The Year of Grace.

The Making of an Evangelical

The book’s first chapter considers Isaac Nelson’s family background and early religious influences – including his membership of Henry Cooke’s May Street Presbyterian Church. It considers Nelson’s time as a student and teacher at the Belfast Academical Institution. The chapter also analyses the role that Nelson played in the Inquiry into the teaching of Moral Philosophy with respect to the alleged scepticism of Professor John Ferrie, which reveals Nelson’s adherence to Scottish Common Sense Philosophy. The chapter then considers Nelson’s first pastorate at First Comber Presbyterian Church, and his return to Belfast as the minister of Donegall Street Presbyterian Church. This opening chapter is essential to establishing Nelson’s credentials as an emerging talent within the Presbyterian Church in Ireland, whose cause he defended in opposition to Unitarians and Episcopalians. This chapter, moreover, demonstrates his early commitment to evangelical activism through support for missions and philanthropy. His disputes with leading Presbyterians over the teaching of Greek and the Magee bequest reveals his independence of thought. Nelson’s opposition, while he was moderator of the Belfast Presbytery, to Hugh Hanna’s role in provoking sectarian violence in Belfast during the riots of 1857 reveals his opposition to crude forms of no-popery

Conclusion

Upon hearing of the death of his old friend, Samuel Davidson exclaimed, ‘Hallowed be the memory of Isaac Nelson, who with all his faults (and where is the man without them?) did good service in his day. The loss of a trusty friend is heavy, especially in an evil-judging generation; but severed ties will be reunited in a happier state’....

‘The Eloquent and Fearless Friend of the Slave’

This chapter has highlights the central importance of Nelson to Belfast anti-slavery in the 1840s and early 1850s. Nelson’s emergence as a leading anti-slavery campaigner took place against the backdrop of the Free Church of Scotland receiving money from and engaging in fellowship with the proslavery American churches. In the subsequent ‘Send Back the Money’ controversy, the Belfast Anti-Slavery Society joined the chorus of abolitionist voices calling on the Free Church to break its ties with their proslavery American brethren. Nelson joined with leading American abolitionists such as Henry C. Wright, Frederick Douglass, and William Lloyd Garrison as part of the ‘Send Back the Money’ campaign in Belfast. This bore some positive fruit as the American Old School Presbyterian, Thomas Smyth was excluded from sitting with the Irish General Assembly in 1846. Nelson also defended the radical abolitionist principle of no fellowship with slaveholders at the inaugural meeting of the Evangelical Alliance in London, 1846. This chapter also explains the causes for the eventual demise of the Belfast Anti-Slavery Society, notwithstanding its late revival with the visits of Henry Highland Garnet to Ulster in 1851.

Introduction

At 7.30 a.m. on Monday, 12 March 1888, the mortal remains of the Revd Isaac Nelson were taken from his residence at Sugarfield House in Belfast to the nearby Shankill Graveyard and deposited in the family burying-ground. He had died either the previous Wednesday night (7 March) or in the early hours of Thursday morning (8 March). Nelson had suffered from heart disease for some years, a condition that was worsened by a severe fall several weeks before his death. Even though he had been a larger-than-life figure in Victorian Belfast, Nelson’s funeral was a strictly private affair. His brother William, his sister Elizabeth, a few intimate friends from his former Presbyterian congregation at Donegall Street, and the Revds James Martin, George Shaw, George Magill, and William Johnston attended the funeral. Upon the burial of Nelson’s body, the ...