Original Sin and the True Reason

Abstract

The spiritual crisis which resulted in Coleridge’s turning back resolutely to Anglicanism after his alienation from Wordsworth has already been mentioned more than once. His new attitude was recorded with pleasure by Hannah More, who wrote to Wilberforce in April 1814 about a visit she had just received from him, displaying ‘great reverence for Evangelical religion and considerable acquaintance with it’. He had also shown her a letter from Dr Estlin, forbidding him his house on account of his remarks concerning Socinianism during his Bristol lecture; she had further learned from him of the reform of Alfred Elwyn, who had lent him the work of Archbishop Leighton, his favourite author.¹