William Holman Hunt. Henry Wentworth Monk. 1858. Oil on canvas. National Gallery of Canada, Ottawa.
In 1864 Hunt wrote John Ruskin enclosing a letter from Henry Wentworth Monk (1827-96), the Canadian pacifist, Zionist and advocate of world government whom he had first met ten years before in Jerusalem while at work on The Scapegoat. Monk, who firmly believed that he had come to fulfill divine prophecy, proposed to turn Palestine into a Garden of Eden and thus bring on the millennium promised by the scriptures. The Canadian seems to have followed him back to London, where Hunt took care of him and painted the portrait which is now in Ottawa. I have not located the letters Monk sent to Hunt and Ruskin in 1864, but the Huntington Library contains one he sent to the artist on 28 March 1871 from Montgomery, in Orange County, New York. Monk, who mentions that he had earlier written to Ruskin, tells Hunt:
"I want you to be prepared for the great Scientific Revolutions I am about to astonish the world with — I intend to visit London, England, early this summer; — I shall then see what prospect there is of getting my contemplated monthly Paper ("Our Future") under weigh immediately . . . . I think "the Holy Land" of Christendom, and the World. is a much more suitable place from which to issue a monthly of such ... interest as "Our Future" will be.... Besides, the prophecy in ' the Scriptures of Truth ' declares that . . . the word of the Lord [shall go forth] from Jerusalem' and if I don't utter ' the word of the Lord ' in truth and righteousness, let some one tell us where the man breathes who does — I consider that it was designed by Providence that I should serve God faithfully without any reservation whatever, an alone, for eighteen years, — that my years of service might correspond with the Centuries of Christendom's trials."
Monk wished to have everyone to contribute 1 per cent of his net income to his project, which he was certain would produce universal peace "and at the same time place Theology upon a Scientific basis."
Last modified 14 January 2022