The Kingdom of Matthias by Paul E. Johnson and Sean
Wilentz
Younghun Brian Wi
History 20 section 010
In The Kingdom of Matthias, the historians Paul Johnson and Sean Wilentz recaptured
this forgotten event. The story contains stories of Elijah Pierson’s and Robert Matthews. Then it
leads to a story of a religious imposter in 1830s New York, Matthews established a "Kingdom"
of fanatical followers, causing a nationwide scandal. In the book it said, ““The story of Matthias
and his Kingdom fascinated contemporaries. In the newspaper accounts, each of the Kingdom’s
major characters appeared to be emblematic of a more general social type; and almost every
twist in the plot seemed indicative of some larger cultural trend. The story was shocking but it
was also significant-‘a bitter satire upon the age and country,’ one writers observed, an eccentric
but dead-serious commentary on the contests over family life, sexuality, and social class that
accompanies the rise of market society, with continuing resonance for Americans today.” (Page
11) The story of this book tells a very bizarre religious cult, but it was very important event to
the society in many ways and affected the American culture, showing the connections among
rapid economic change, sex and race relations, politics, popular culture, and the rich varieties of
American religious experience. The strange tale of Matthias the Prophet provides a fascinating
window into the movements of the religious revival known as the Second Great Awakening. The
book begins with Elijah Pierson’s story.
Matthews' most fervent follower was Elijah Pierson, who was born into a strict Calvinist
church and swept into the "perfectionist" movement upon his move to New York as a merchant.
Elijah married a missionary woman named Sarah, and together they established a "Retrenchment
Society" and other organizations designed to spread the word of God. Elijah Pierson’s story
mentions the poverty of the poor people and the flamboyant lives of the wealthy. “The richest
men in New York drank wine and courted women who wore jewelry and silks; the worst of them
even kept mistresses. When asked about God, they seemed to think He was a warm-hearted
gentleman like themselves. The poor were different, too. There were untold thousands of them,
and they occupied their own neighborhoods and lived beyond the reach of Christian influence
and paternal benevolence. Elijah had seen nothing like them: brutal men with whiskey bottles,
children who ran loose and seemed to have no homes, gaudily dressed girls who strolled the
sidewalks and smiled at gentlemen who passed them....” (Page 19) This shows how the real lives
of 1800s were like. The people who were poor became poorer and rich getting richer. Even in the
church, where the God said the people are equal, people who are wealthy were able to buy the
seats in the church, and the people who are poor had to stand in the back and listen. “Elijah saw
richer families that rented the more expensive pews near the pulpit. Behind Elijah sat families
that paid less than his. In the back of the church and up in the gallery sat poor people, who paid
nothing at all.” (16) From the story of Elijah, clearly there was a need to join a cult in order to
blend in the society. Many felt the need to join because of the need for the cult because of the
culture of New York City and its members having too much individual ambition. Elijah’s wife,
Sarah, literally worked and fasted herself to the edge of death, died in 1830; the diagnosis was
exhaustion and malnutrition also. Because they became too faithful and followed the old way,
they god rid of fashionable clothing, ornaments, and jewelry and dressed strictly for modesty and
warmth. They sold off their expensive furnishings. They also simplified their diets: no cakes,
pastries, sweetmeats, or butter, no coffee or tea. Often they subsisted on bread and water, and
sometimes they fasted for the days on end. When Sarah died, Elijah and his followers believed
Sarah could be raised from the dead with the help of God. When a dark blood was dropped at
Sarah’s nostril, people were shocked and thought she could come back. The doctor wanted it to
stop because there is no way that she could be alive. Then, the doctor could take no more of it. In
her fervor, the event spurred Elijah toward madness as he attempted to raise Sarah from the dead
during funeral. Elijah started to hear God speak. Then, he met Robert Mattews.
The early 19th century saw a time of booming economic and technological advancement
that in turn, impacted cultural aspects of life in America. The market revolution was invoked by
the construction of the Erie Canal, which allowed for easy access to imported goods and greatly
expanded trade and commerce. Also, the advent of the Market revolution saw the emergence of a
newly defined middle class bound to factory labor and wage earnings. But with all the
socioeconomic changes and the religious revival of the Second Great Awakening, there were still
individuals who fought to preserve the patriarchal society that existed prior to the turmoil of
reformation and revolution. Also, women in the 19th century did not have much right. They had
to be obedient what their fathers or husbands say. “In keeping with his moderate evangelicalism,
he publicly condemned luxury and applauded the new domestic influence of women (though he
insisted that women’s “natural and amiable timidity” should keep them out of the sphere of “the
stronger sex”). He insisted, however, that church-going ladies could find clothes that were both
fashionable and modest. Mrs. Folgers’ extreme demands for plain dress were to his mind
“preposterous or anti-Christian.” (Page 28)
Robert Matthews, an emigrant who grew up in upstate New York. He had been a member of the
orthodox Scots Presbyterian Church where the main belief was that humans were innately
corrupt. This belief became a main focus of Matthews' cult. Robert Matthew was successful but
he was bankrupted and became really poor. Then his child died from a disease, which made him
to rely on the God more and be extremely faithful, or should say into madness. He then decided
to begin to invent a religion of his own. Becoming unstable, he led his wife to become alarmed
by Matthews’ actions. “Matthew bellowed that she didn’t understand him, that she was faithless.
All she wanted was a new stove, or some new clothes, or a better apartment, or some other
worldly comfort. She stood in the way of all he was destined to accomplish, especially in his
religious work. A bad spirit had entered the woman, he said, a spirit that traveled out from her to
others and opposed him at every turn. The whippings, supposedly, drove the sprit out” (71) Then,
he took his children away with him. After she found her family, Margaret did not want to be with
him. “Margaret did so, but, concerned for the children, she stopped by the mayor’s office to find
out what she could do and learned that, in the eyes of the law, she could do very little. Divorce
was out of the question.” (Page 81) This shows another example that women didn’t have right
against men. Even though her husband becomes mad and beat her up, she still could not get
divorced to avoid Robert.
Then, taking advantage of the spiritual swirl of the times, he got several New York
businessmen, Elijah Pierson, to join his "Kingdom", which he established on one of their estates
in Sing Sing. In kingdom of Matthias there would be “no market no money, no buying or selling,
no wage system with its insidious domination of one father over another, no economic
oppression of any kind” (Page 96) He hated Christian devils and their disobedient women that he
follows “The Spirit of Truth, Matthias explained, was the spirit of male government.” Also,
"everything that has the smell of women will be destroyed and only real men will be saved; all
mock men will be damned." Members of the patriarchal kingdom followed his word absolutely
until sexual scandal and charges of murder and fraud tore the place apart. The subsequent trial of
Matthias became one of the first big stories for the emergent penny press, but he was eventually
cleared of all of the serious charges. By the time the tensions within the kingdom exploded into a
clash with the law, Matthias had become a national scandal. Most of the newspapers expressed
astonishment at the outcome of Matthis’s trials. Vale, a free thinker, detested all blasphemy laws
on principle. He said that Robert Matthews was targeted by arrogant Christians and throws
another man in jail for their own convenience. This event caused the society to know the
importance of the freedom of speech and the freedom of press. It became one of the nation's first
penny-press sensations, casting a peculiar but revealing light on the sexual and spiritual tensions
of the day. Most importantly, this created the beginning to form new ideas. Even though the
“Kingdom” fell, another one will rise again like the history repeats. “Yet the larger anti-Finneyite
revival of which the Kingdom was a party did not disappear so suddenly. Sometimes, the cults’
leaders, like Matthias burst into public notice; immediately, they win notoriety, which in turn
leads Americans to wonder about themselves and about what has become of their country to
foster such lunacy. Just as suddenly, however, the prophets fail and then fade from public
memory, until the next strange prophet comes along, and the questioning begins all over again.”
(Page 173) In order to understand the ramifications of Matthias's formation of his kingdom, the
social, financial, ethnic, and sexual conditions of the times must be realized as the catalysts that
cause the cults to form. As a United States American culture there are many possibilities for a
cult like Matthias to occur again, this is contributed by not only a market-oriented American
culture but also by tendencies that are present in every society. People have rights and freedoms
given to us by our United States Constitution, including the freedom of speech and the freedom
of religion. These freedoms mean that anyone has the right to speak publicly about their religious
beliefs, and citizens also have the right to believe what is being said and even follow it if they
choose to do so. This is how many different branches of religions come about; some of these
religions include Mormons and Episcopalians. And when one person decides to take their
individual religion just one step to far, cults begin to form.