Part 8 (1/2)

Under the pulpit near the steps that led up to it, was a desk, from which the clergyman read the liturgy, the responses were all regularly made by the clerk; the whole congregation joining occasionally, though but in a low voice; as for instance, the minister said, ”Lord, have mercy upon us!” the clerk and the congregation immediately subjoin, ”and forgive us all our sins.” In general, when the clergyman offers up a prayer, the clerk and the whole congregation answer only, Amen!

The English service must needs be exceedingly fatiguing to the officiating minister, inasmuch as besides a sermon, the greatest part of the liturgy falls to his share to read, besides the psalms and two lessons.

The joining of the whole congregation in prayer has something exceedingly solemn and affecting in it.

Two soldiers, who sat near me in the church, and who had probably been in London, seemed to wish to pa.s.s for philosophers, and wits; for they did not join in the prayers of the church.

The service was now pretty well advanced, when I observed some little stir in the desk, the clerk was busy, and they seemed to be preparing for something new and solemn, and I also perceived several musical instruments. The clergyman now stopped, and the clerk then said in a loud voice, ”Let us sing to the praise and glory of G.o.d, the forty-seventh psalm.”

I cannot well express how affecting and edifying it seemed to me, to hear this whole orderly and decent congregation, in this small country church, joining together with vocal and instrumental music, in the praise of their Maker. It was the more grateful, as having been performed, not by mercenary musicians, but by the peaceful and pious inhabitants of this sweet village. I can hardly figure to myself any offering more likely to be grateful to G.o.d.

The congregation sang and prayed alternately several times, and the tunes of the psalms were particularly lively and cheerful, though at the same time sufficiently grave, and uncommonly interesting. I am a warm admirer of all sacred music, and I cannot but add that that of the Church of England is particularly calculated to raise the heart to devotion; I own it often affected me even to tears.

The clergyman now stood up and made a short but very proper discourse on this text: ”Not all they who say, Lord, Lord! shall enter the kingdom of heaven.” His language was particularly plain, though forcible; his arguments were no less plain, convincing, and earnest, but contained nothing that was particularly striking. I do not think the sermon lasted more than half an hour.

This clergyman had not perhaps a very prepossessing appearance; I thought him also a little distant and reserved, and I did not quite like his returning the bows of the farmers with a very formal nod.

I stayed till the service was quite over, and then went out of the church with the congregation, and amused myself with reading the inscriptions on the tombstones in the churchyard, which in general, are simpler, more pathetic, and better written than ours.

There were some of them which, to be sure, were ludicrous and laughable enough.

Among these is one on the tomb of a smith, which on account of its singularity, I here copy and send you.

”My sledge and anvil he declined, My bellows too have lost their wind; My fire's extinct, my forge decayed, My coals are spent, my iron's gone, My nails are drove: my work is done.”

Many of these epitaphs closed with the following quaint rhymes:

”Physicians were in vain; G.o.d knew the best; So here I rest.”

In the body of the church I saw a marble monument of a son of the celebrated Dr. Wallis, with the following simple and affecting inscription:

”The same good sense which qualified him for every public employment Taught him to spend his life here in retirement.”

All the farmers whom I saw there were dressed, not as ours are, in coa.r.s.e frocks, but with some taste, in fine good cloth; and were to be distinguished from the people of the town, not so much by their dress, as by the greater simplicity and modesty of their behaviour.

Some soldiers, who probably were ambitious of being thought to know the world, and to be wits, joined me, as I was looking at the church, and seemed to be quite ashamed of it, as they said it was only a very miserable church. On which I took the liberty to inform them, that no church could be miserable which contained orderly and good people.

I stayed here to dinner. In the afternoon there was no service; the young people however, went to church, and there sang some few psalms; others of the congregation were also present. This was conducted with so much decorum, that I could hardly help considering it as actually a kind of church-service. I stayed with great pleasure till this meeting also was over.

I seemed indeed to be enchanted, and as if I could not leave this village. Three times did I get off, in order to go on farther, and as often returned, more than half resolved to spend a week, or more, in my favourite Nettlebed.

But the recollection that I had but a few weeks to stay in England, and that I must see Derbys.h.i.+re, at length drove me away. I cast many a longing, lingering look on the little church-steeple, and those hospitable friendly roofs, where, all that morning, I had found myself so perfectly at home.

It was now nearly three o'clock in the afternoon when I left this place, and I was still eighteen miles from Oxford. However, I seemed resolved to make more than one stage of it to Oxford, that seat of the muses, and so, by pa.s.sing the night about five miles from it, to reach it in good time next morning.

The road from Nettlebed seemed to me but as one long fine gravel walk in a neat garden. And my pace in it was varied, like that of one walking in a garden: I sometimes walked quick, then slow, and then sat down and read Milton.