Part 39 (1/2)

Bishop Beveridge, writing in the first years of the last century, lamented that 'daily prayers are shamefully neglected all the kingdom over; there being very few places where they have public prayers upon the week days, except perhaps on Wednesdays and Fridays.'[978] But in towns this order of the Church was far more carefully observed in Queen Anne's reign, and for some little time afterwards, than it has been since, at all events until a very recent date. Archbishop Sancroft, in his circular letter of 1688 to the bishops of his province, had specially urged the public performance of the daily office 'in all market and other great towns,' and as far as possible in less populous places also.[979] In London there was little to complain of. Although Puritan opinion had been unfavourable to daily services--Baxter having gone so far as to say, that 'it must needs be a sinful impediment against other duties to say common prayer twice a day'[980]--the old feeling as to the propriety of daily wors.h.i.+p was by no means so thoroughly impaired as it soon came to be. Conscientious Church people in towns would generally have acknowledged that it was a duty, wherever there was no real impediment. Paterson's account of the London churches shows that, in 1714, a large proportion of them were open morning and evening for common prayer. He notes, however, with an expression of great regret, that the number of wors.h.i.+ppers was visibly falling off, and that in some cases evening service was being wholly discontinued in consequence of the paucity of attendance.[981] In the popular writings of Queen Anne's time constant allusion may be found to the early six-o'clock matins. It must be acknowledged, however, that the daily services were sometimes attended for other purposes than those of devotion. Steele, in a paper in the 'Guardian,'[982] in which he highly commends the practice of daily morning prayers, says that 'going to six-o'clock service, upon admonition of the morning bell, he found when he got there many poor souls who had really come to pray. But presently, after the confession, in came pretty young ladies in mobs, popping in here and there about the church, clattering the pew doors behind them, and squatting into whispers behind their fans.' Before long 'there was a great deal of good company come in.' A few did, indeed, seem to take pleasure in the wors.h.i.+p; but many seemed to make it a task rather than a voluntary act, and some employed themselves only in gossip or flirtation. He remarks, towards the close of the paper, that later hours were becoming more in vogue than the early service.

The duty of daily public wors.h.i.+p was, as might be expected, chiefly insisted upon by the High Churchmen of the period. Thus we find Robert Nelson urging it. There were very few men of business, he said, who might not 'certainly so contrive their affairs as frequently to dedicate half an hour in four-and-twenty to the public service of G.o.d.'[983]

Dodwell's biographer speaks of the great attention he paid to the daily prayers of the Church.[984] Bull introduced at Brecknock daily prayers, instead of their only being on Wednesdays and Fridays; and at Carmarthen morning and evening daily prayers, whereas there had been only morning prayers before. In 1712 these were kept up and well frequented.[985]

Archbishop Sharp admonished his town clergy to maintain them regularly.[986] Whiston, while he was yet inc.u.mbent of Lowestoft, used at daily matins and vespers an abridgment of the prayers approved by Bishop Lloyd.[987] The custom was, however, by no means confined to High Churchmen. Th.o.r.esby, while he was yet more than half a Dissenter, feeling, for instance, much scruple as to the use of the cross in baptism, remarks in his 'Diary,' 'I shall never, I hope, so long as I am able to walk, forbear a constant attendance upon the public common prayer twice every day, in which course I have found much comfort and advantage.'[988] Some time before the century had run through half its course, daily services were fast becoming exceptional, even in the towns. The later hours broke the whole tradition, and made it more inconvenient for busy people to attend them. Year after year they were more thinly frequented, and one church after another, in quick succession, discontinued holding them. It was one sign among many others of an increasing apathy in religious matters. At places like Bath or Tunbridge Wells the churches were still open, and tolerably full morning and evening.[989] Elsewhere, if here and there a daily service was kept up, the congregation was sure to consist only of a few women; and the Bridget or Cecilia who was regularly there, was sure of being accounted by not a few of her neighbours, 'prude, devotee, or Methodist.'[990] At the end of the century, and on till the end of the Georgian period, daily public prayers became rarer still. In the country they were kept up only 'in a few old-fas.h.i.+oned town churches.'[991] How much they had dwindled away in London becomes evident from a comparison between the list of services enumerated in the 'Pietas Londinensis,' published in 1714, and a book ent.i.tled 'London Parishes: an Account of the Churches, Vicars, Vestries,' &c., published in 1824.

Throughout the earliest part of the period, the Wednesday and Friday services, particularly enjoined by the canon, were held in the London parish churches almost without exception, and very generally in country parishes.[992] But as the idea of daily public wors.h.i.+p became in the popular mind more and more obsolete, these also were gradually neglected and laid aside. In the middle of the century we find many more allusions to them than at its close. Secker, in his Charge of 1761, said there should always be prayers on these days.[993] John Wesley wrote, in 1744, to advocate the careful observance of the Wednesday and Friday 'Stations or Half-fasts;'[994] the poet Young held them in his church at Woolen;[995] they formed part of the duty at a church to which Gilbert Wakefield, in 1778, was invited to be curate.[996] James Hervey, at a time when his health was fast failing, said that he still managed to preach on Wednesday evenings, except in haytime and harvest,[997] &c. In 1824 there were Wednesday and Friday services in only a small minority of the London churches.[998]

Very similar remarks may be made in regard of the observance of Saints'

days. In Queen Anne's time they were still generally kept as holy days, and business was even in some measure suspended.[999] There were services on these festivals in all the London churches.[1000] We find, it is true, a High Church writer of this date, regretting that of late years the observance of these days had not been so strict as heretofore.

He attributed this backwardness mainly to superst.i.tious scruples derived from Puritan times, and to the immoderate pursuit of business.[1001] The wonder rather was, that having been, for a considerable portion of the previous century, 'neglected almost everywhere throughout the kingdom,'[1002] Church festivals should have recovered as much respect as they did. The extensive circulation of Robert Nelson's 'Festivals,'

and the number of editions through which it pa.s.sed, is in itself a sufficient proof that a great number of English Churchmen cordially approved a devout observance of the appointed holy days. But by the middle of the century the neglect of them was becoming general.

Burnet wished that Lent were not observed with 'so visible a slightness.'[1003] It was observed, certainly, and very generally, but also very superficially. In London there were a considerable number of special sermons on Wednesdays and Fridays in Lent, the place and preachers being notified beforehand in a printed list issued by the Bishop.[1004] Colston's Bristol benefaction, of 1708, provided, amongst his other charities, for an annual series of fourteen Lent sermons. The Low Churchmen of William's and Queen Anne's time instilled a devout observance of the season no less than the clergy of the High Church party. Burnet has been mentioned. Fleetwood's words, in his sermon before the King, on the 1st Sunday in Lent, 1717, are worth quoting.

'Our Church,' he said, 'hath erected this temporary house of mourning, wherein she would oblige us annually to enter.... And that we might attend more freely to these matters, she advises abstinence, and a prudent retrenchment of all those superfluities that minister to luxury more than necessity: by which the busy spirits are composed and quieted; the loose and scattered thoughts are recollected and brought home, and such a serious, sober frame of mind put on that we can think with less distraction, remember more exactly, pray with more fervency, repent more earnestly, and resolve with more deliberation on amendment. These are the beneficial fruits and effects of a reasonable, well governed abstinence, as every one may find by their experience.'[1005] John Wesley, as might naturally be expected from one who in many of his sympathies was so decidedly a High Churchman, was always in favour of a religious observance of Lent, especially of Holy Week. Steele, in a paper of the 'Guardian,' specially addressed, in Lent 1713, to careless men of pleasure, begs them not to ridicule a season set apart for humiliation. And pa.s.sing mention may be made of indications, more or less trivial in themselves, of a tolerably general feeling throughout society that Lent was not quite what other seasons are, and ought not to be wholly disregarded. There were few marriages in Lent,[1006]

comparatively few entertainments, public or private;[1007] in some cathedral towns the music of the choir was silent.[1008] And just as Sunday is sometimes honoured only by the putting on of a better dress, so the fas.h.i.+onable world would often pay that easiest show of homage to the sacredness of the Lenten season, not by curtailing in any way their ordinary pleasures, but by going to the theatre in mourning.[1009]

Masquerades, too, were considered out of place, at all events unless they were disguised under another name--

In Lent, if masquerades displease the town, Call them ridottos, and they still go down.[1010]

In the Isle of Man, and there only, under the system of Church discipline set afoot and maintained in so remarkable a manner by the influence of the venerable Bishop Wilson, Lent was celebrated with much of the solemnity and austerity of primitive times. Immediately before its commencement, courts of discipline were held, in which Church censures were duly pa.s.sed and notified. During the forty days penances were performed, and Easter was the time for re-admission into the full communion of the Church.[1011]

Throughout the country Lent was very commonly selected as a time specially appropriate for public catechizing.[1012] 'A Presbyter of the Church of England,' writing in the first year of this century, said that, except among the Evangelical clergy, it was almost confined to that season.[1013] Secker also, in the middle of the century, expressed a similar regret.[1014]

'It was Pa.s.sion Week,' writes Boswell, in 1772, 'that solemn season, which the Christian Church has appropriated to the commemoration of the mysteries of our Redemption, and during which, whatever embers of religion are in our b.r.e.a.s.t.s, will be kindled into pious warmth.'[1015]

He could hardly have written thus if Holy Week, and especially Good Friday, had not received at that time a fairly general observance. The rough treatment with which Bishop Porteus was requited[1016] for his attempt to bring about a better regard for Good Friday might seem to show the contrary. But there was no period in the last century when throughout the country at large shops were not generally closed on that day, and the churches fairly attended.

In the Olney Hymns, published 1779, Christmas Day only is referred to among all the Christian seasons.[1017] This was somewhat characteristic of the English Church in general during the greater part of the Georgian period. Other Christian seasons were often all but unheeded; Christmas was always kept much as it is now. It may be inferred, from a pa.s.sage in one of Horsley's Charges, that in some country churches, towards the end of the century, there was no religious observance of the day.[1018] But such neglect was altogether exceptional. The custom of carol-singing was continued only in a few places, more generally in Yorks.h.i.+re than elsewhere.[1019] There is some mention of it in the 'Vicar of Wakefield;' and one well-known carol, 'Christians, awake! salute the happy morn!' was produced about the middle of the century by John Byrom.

In George Herbert's time it had been a frequent custom on all great festivals to deck the church with boughs. This usage became almost, if not quite, obsolete except at Christmastide. We most of us remember with what sort of decorative skill the clerk was wont, at this season, to 'stick' the pews and pulpit with sprays of holly. In the time of the 'Spectator'[1020] and of Gay,[1021] and later still,[1022] rosemary was also used, doubtless by old tradition, as referring in its name to the Mother of the Lord. Nor was mistletoe excluded.[1023] In connection with this plant, Stanley says a curious custom was kept up at York, which in 1754 had not long been discontinued. 'On the eve of Christmas Day they carried mistletoe to the high altar of the cathedral and proclaimed a public and universal liberty, pardon, and freedom to all sorts of inferior and even wicked people, at the gates of the city, toward the four quarters of heaven.'[1024] A number of other local customs, many of great antiquity, now at last disused, lingered on at Yule into the time of our grandfathers. On Christmas Day, Easter Day, and Whitsun Day there were very commonly two celebrations of the Holy Communion in the London churches.[1025] In a few cases, especially during the earlier years of the century, there was a daily celebration during the octaves of these great festivals.[1026] John Wesley, writing in 1777, makes mention that in London he was accustomed to observe the octave in this manner 'after the example of the Primitive Church.'[1027] Throughout the latter part of the Georgian period little special notice seems to have been taken, in most churches, of Easter and Whitsuntide, and Ascension Day was very commonly not observed at all, except in towns.

As one among many other indications that at the beginning of the last century a shorter period than now had elapsed since the days that preceded the Reformation, it may be mentioned that 'Candlemas' was not only a well-known date, especially for changing the hours of service, but retained some traces of being still a festival under that name. For instance, it was specially observed at the Temple Church;[1028] and 'at Ripon, so late as 1790, on the Sunday before Candlemas Day, the Collegiate Church was one continued blaze of light all the afternoon, by an immense number of candles.'[1029] Such traditions lingered in the north of England long after they had expired elsewhere.

It may be added that in Queen Anne's time we may still find the name of the Lord's Mother mentioned in a tone of affectionate respect not at all akin either to the timidity, in this respect, of later days, or to the somewhat defiant and overstrained veneration professed by some modern High Churchmen. Thus when Paterson begins to enumerate the London churches called after her name, he speaks of her in a perfectly natural tone as 'the Virgin Mary, the Mother of our ever-blessed Redeemer, Heaven's greatest darling among women.'[1030]

In some of the London churches, as at St. Alban's, St. Alphege's, &c., special commemoration services were, in 1714, still kept in memory of the patron saints from whom they had been named.[1031] In the country, at different intervals since the Reformation, there had been frequent and often angry discussions as to the propriety of continuing or suppressing the wakes which had been held from time immemorial on the dedication day of the parish church or on the eve of it.[1032] The feeling of High Churchmen was now by no means so unanimous in their favour as it had been in Charles the First's reign. Bishop Bull, for instance, when he was yet rector of Avening, was quite alive to the evils of these often unruly festivals, and succeeded in getting them discontinued there.[1033] Sometimes, where they had been held on the Sunday, a sort of compromise was effected, and, as at Claybrook, 'the church was filled on Sunday, and the Monday kept as a feast.'[1034]

The parish perambulations customary in Rogation Week were generally less of a solemnity in the eighteenth than they had been in the seventeenth and preceding centuries.

That every man might keep his own possessions, Our fathers used, in reverent processions, With zealous prayer, and with praiseful cheere, To walk their parish limits once a year.[1035]

George Herbert, and Hooker, and many old worthies, had taken great pleasure in maintaining this old custom, thinking it serviceable not only for the preservation of parish rights and liberties, but for pious thanksgiving, for keeping up cordial feeling between rich and poor, and for mutual kindnesses and making up of differences.[1036] Sometimes, however, the religious part of the ceremony was altogether omitted; and sometimes these 'gang-days' provided an occasion for tumultuous contests or for intemperance,[1037] or served mainly as a pretext for a churchwardens' feast.[1038] We find Secker in 1750 recommending his clergy to keep up the old practice, but to guard it from abuse, and to use the thanksgivings, prayers, and sentences enjoined by Queen Elizabeth.[1039] At Wolverhampton, until about 1765, 'the sacrist, resident prebendaries, and members of the choir, a.s.sembled at morning prayers on Monday and Tuesday in Rogation Week, with the charity children bearing long poles clothed with all kinds of flowers then in season, and which were afterwards carried through the streets of the town with much solemnity, the clergy, singing men and boys, dressed in their sacred vestments, closing the procession, and chanting in a grave and appropriate melody the ”Benedicite.” The boundaries of the parish were marked in many points by Gospel trees, where the Gospel was read.'[1040]

Days appointed by authority of the State for services of humiliation or of thanksgiving were far more frequent in the earlier part of the last century than they are now. In King William's time there were monthly fasts throughout the war, every first Wednesday in the month being thus set apart.[1041] Thus also, during the period when success after success attended the arms of Marlborough, there were never many months pa.s.sed by without a day of thanksgiving. During the civil wars of the preceding century fast days had been very frequent. To a certain extent no doubt they had been used on either side as political weapons of party; but they were also genuinely congenial to the excited religious feeling of the nation, solemn appeals to the overruling power which guides the destinies of men. At the beginning of the eighteenth century, although religious energies were so far more languid than they had been in the preceding age, the great war that was raging on the Continent was still regarded somewhat in the light of a crusade. Not that it inspired enthusiasm, or awoke any spirit of romance. There was no such high-strung emotion in those who anxiously watched its progress. Still it was generally felt to be a struggle in which great religious principles were involved. The Protestant interest and the religious future of the Church and State of England were felt to be deeply concerned in its ultimate issues. And thus a good deal of half-religious, half-political feeling was centred on these appointed days of solemn fast or thanksgiving. The prayer for unity, calling upon the people to take to heart the dangers they were in by their unhappy divisions, seems to have been very generally read upon these occasions.[1042] A political element in them was always clearly recognised by the Nonjurors. The more moderate among them, who attended other services of the National Church, would not, except in rare instances, attend these. 'They held that to be present on such special occasions, which were significant of a direct purpose, was to profess allegiance to the new reigning family, and therefore an act of dissimulation; but not so their attendance on the ordinary services.'[1043]

The prayers appointed for these set days of humiliation appear to have often had the reputation of being neither impressive nor edifying.

Winston spoke, indeed, in the highest terms of a prayer drawn up by Tenison on occasion of the great hurricane of 1703. He thought it a model composition, unequalled in modern and unsurpa.s.sed in ancient times.[1044] But its excellences, he added, were especially marked by the strong contrast with the jejune and courtly formulas which usually characterized such prayers, and most of all those which had been written for the days of fasting during the war.[1045] They were, too commonly, examples of the bad custom, scarcely to be extenuated by long established precedent, of clothing in the outward form of adulation of powers that be, what was ordinarily meant for nothing worse than expressions of patriotic loyalty. Another frequent fault of these special prayers was uncharitableness. Gilbert Wakefield speaks in particular of an 'execrable prayer against the Americans,' and of the storms which threatened him when he 'read it, but with the omission of all those unchristian words and clauses which const.i.tuted the very life and soul of the composition to the generality of hearers.'[1046]

The two anniversaries of January 30 and November 5 gave rise--especially the former--to a whole literature of special sermons, the great majority of which should never have been preached, or at least never published.

Extreme men on either side delighted in the favourable opportunity presented by the one or the other of these two days of airing their respective opinions on subjects which could not yet be discussed without excitement. Protestant ardour, scarcely satisfied with commemorating Gunpowder Treason in Church services which matched in language the bonfires of the evening, found scope also for Antipapal demonstrations in other and more distant reminiscences. November 27, the anniversary of Elizabeth's accession, had been celebrated in London in 1679 with the most elaborate processions.[1047] In the earlier part of the eighteenth century it was still a great day in some parishes for riotous meetings,[1048] and was solemnised in some churches with special sermons and religious services.[1049] On the 14th or 20th of August there were also commemorative sermons in several London churches in remembrance of the defeat of the Armada.[1050] At St. Mary-le-Bow, Cheapside, this custom still survives.

Throughout the eighteenth century the old laws which required due attendance on public wors.h.i.+p were still in force. They were, in fact, formally confirmed in the thirty-first year of George the Third;[1051]

and however much they had fallen into neglect, they were not removed from the statute-book till the ninth and tenth years of the present reign.[1052] We are told, however, that when the Toleration Act was pa.s.sed in 1689, by one of the chief provisions of which persons who frequented a legal dissenting congregation were excused from all penalties for not coming to church, there was a general and observable falling off in the attendance at divine wors.h.i.+p.[1053] Hitherto congregations had been swelled by numbers who went for no better reason than because it was the established rule of the realm that they must go.