public fasting, humiliation, and prayer.' It is probable that Porteus has somewhat over-coloured his picture, and that the real truth is somewhere intermediate between his statement and that of Dr. Johnson's. At all events, the effect of this pamphlet, written as it was by a man who was exceedingly respected in London, is said to have been very marked. In a note appended to the tract in the collected edition of Porteus' Works, it is stated that the devout observance of the day recommended in it was to a great extent actually produced. On the very next return of the day, the shops were all shut up, the churches were crowded, and the utmost seriousness and decorum took place throughout the cities of London and Westminster and their environs.' Terrick, Bishop of London, had a share in contributing to this result, by a letter which he addressed to the public papers, 3 in the March of 1777, a few months before his death. A touching incident may here be quoted from Dean Stanley's Memorials of Westminster Abbey,' in relation to Handel's death. 'He had most seriously and devoutly wished, for some days before his death, that he might breathe his last on Good Friday, in hopes, he said, of meeting his sweet Lord and Saviour on the day of His resurrection.' The great musician died, not indeed on Good Friday, but on Easter Eve, 1759. In the Olney Hymns, published 1779, Christmas Day only is referred to among all the Christian seasons. 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 passage 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. But such neglect was altogether exceptional. The custom of carol singing was continued only in a few places, more generally in Yorkshire than elsewhere.7 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' and of Gay, and later still,3 rosemary was also used, doubtless by old tradition, as referring in its name to the mother of the Lord. Nor was mistletoe excluded. 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.* 5. 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. In a few cases, especially during the earlier years of the century, there was a daily celebration during the octaves of these great festivals. 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.' 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 1 Spectator, No. 282. 3 Walcot's Cathedrals, &c., 137. Gay's Trivia, ii. 436. 4 Gay's Trivia, ii. 442. 5 Stukeley's Hist. of Carausius, ii. 164. Quoted by Walcot, 137. Paterson's Pietas Lond. As at St. Dunstan's-in-the-West, &c. Id. 80. s See p. 68. 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;' 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.' 2 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.' 3 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. 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. 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 it discontinued there. Sometimes, where it 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.'" 1 Piet. Lond. 272. Paterson's Pietas Londinensis, 157. 2 Walcot's Cathedrals, &c. 137. 4 Id. Macaulay's Hist. of Claybrook, 1791, 93, quoted by Brand, ii. 12. 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, 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.2 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,3 or served mainly as a pretext for a churchwardens' feast. 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. At Wolverhamptom, until about 1765, 'the sacrist, resident prebendaries, and members of the choir, assembled 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.' 6 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. Wither's Emblems, 1635, quoted by Brand. 2 J. Walton's Life of Hooker.-Hooker's Works, 1850, i. 63. Secker's Charges, 143. 4 Wilson's Hist. of St. Lawrence Pountney, 114. Secker's Charges, 143. In King J. Brand's Popular Antiquities, i. 199. William's time there were monthly fasts throughout the war, every first Wednesday in the month being thus set apart.' Thus also, during the period when success after success attended the arms of Marlborough, there were never many months passed 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 over-ruling 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.2 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.' 3 The prayers appointed for these set days of humiliation appear to have often had the reputation of being neither impressive nor edifying. Whiston spoke, indeed, in the highest De Foe's Works, Chalmers, vol. xx. 8, note. 2 A Collection of Parl. Protests, 1737, 164. Life of Ken, by a Layman, ii. 653. |