Failing to secure a permanent position, Mill Sr. Upon obtaining a license to preach, however, his sermons were dull, cerebral, and largely incomprehensible to his parishioners. Eventually, he was able to secure the support of patrons Jane and John Stuart, who supported a charity whose purpose was the educating of poor but promising boys for the ministry. As the son of a shoemaker, the senior Mill became painfully aware of his limited social status. Larsen begins with Mill’s father, James Mill (1773-1836), who, while hostile to religion in later life, had been an ordained minister. While Mill’s religious identity is complicated, his life, as Larsen writes, “was impinged upon by religion at every turn” (viii).
In John Stuart Mill: A Secular Life, a new biography of John Stuart Mill (1806-1873), Timothy Larsen reveals the surprisingly “religious” life of the “saint of rationalism.” Larsen demonstrates that throughout his life, Mill believed it was rational and legitimate to have hope in God’s existence, and even once observed that his reverence for Jesus gave him the right to call himself a Christian (181).
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