DECORUM IN CHURCH.
We wish it were less customary to go to church in gay and costly
habiliments, converting its sacred precincts into a place for the
display of finery, and of rivalry to your equally bedizened neighbours.
In many Catholic countries,[17] a peculiar costume is universally
adopted for visiting a place of worship--a very plain gown of entire
black, with a long, black cloak, and a black hood finished with a veil
that shades the face. This dress is kept for the purpose of wearing at
church. We highly approve the custom, and wish that something similar
could be introduced into the United States--particularly on the solemn
occasions of taking the communion, or being confirmed as a Christian
member. We have known young ladies to have elegant dresses made on
purpose, and to get their hair dressed by a barber when preparing for
confirmation.
In a Sacred Melody of Moore's, St. Jerome tells us--
"Yet worldly is that heart at best,
Which beats beneath a broider'd veil;
And she who comes in glittering vest
To mourn her frailty--still is frail."
Endeavour always to be in your pew before the service commences, and do
not hurry out of it, hastily, the moment the benediction is finished; or
begin visibly to prepare for departure as soon as it commences. Stay
quietly till the mass of the crowd has gone.
If you go into a strange church, or rather into a church where you are a
stranger, wait in the vestibule till you see the sexton; and then
request him to show you to a vacant seat, or rather to one which he
believes will be that day unoccupied--for instance, if the family owning
it is out of town. This is far better than to wander about the aisles
alone, or to intrude yourself into a pew where you may cause
inconvenience to its owners. If you see that a pew is full, you know, of
course, that you cannot obtain a seat in it without dislodging somebody.
Yet we have seen many a lady, on entering a church in which she was a
stranger, walk boldly up the middle aisle to one of the best pews near
the pulpit, and pertinaciously stand there, looking steadfastly at its
rightful occupants, till one of them quitted his own seat, and gave it
up to her, seeking for himself another place wherever he could find one.
Those who go to strange churches should be contented with seats near the
door; or at the lower end of the side-aisles; or up in the gallery.
If a family invites you to go to church with them, or to come thither,
and have a seat in their pew, do not take the liberty of asking a friend
of your own to accompany you; and above all, do not bring a child with
you.
Should you (having a pew of your own) ask another lady to go with you,
call for her in due time; and she ought to be quite ready. Place her in
a corner-seat, (it being the most comfortable,) and see that she is
accommodated with a foot-stool; and be assiduous in finding the places
for her in the prayer-book, or hymn-book.
In American churches there is much civility to strangers. We have often
seen, when a person of respectable appearance was in quest of a seat,
the doors of half a dozen pews kindly opened to admit him, and, as soon
as he entered, a prayer-book offered to him open at the proper place.
No good can result from taking children to church when they are too
young to read, or to understand. They are always eager to go, because
they like to go everywhere; but when once seated in the pew, they soon
become tired and restless; and frequently there is no way to keep them
quiet, but to let them go to sleep in the lap of the mother or elder
sister. And then they are apt to cry whenever they waken. If there are
two little boys, they are prone to get to playing, or what is far worse,
quarrelling. And then if they make a noise, some elder member of the
family is subjected to the mortification of conveying them out of
church--perhaps by desire of the minister audibly expressed from the
pulpit. We know clergymen who do not permit their children to be taken
to church till they can read--convinced that if their first
recollections of a place of worship are rather painful than pleasant,
they are the less likely to grow up with a due regard for
religion--that is, for religion of the heart--the spirit, and not merely
the letter.
We are sorry to see young ladies, on their way to church, laughing and
talking loudly, and flirting with the beaux that are gallanting them
thither. It is too probable that these beaux will occupy a large share
of their thoughts during the hours of worship. Nay, there are some so
irreverent, and so regardless of the sanctity of the place, as to
indulge in frequent whispers to those near them, or to their friends in
the adjoining pews.
A lady of high fashion and fortune, formerly a resident of Philadelphia,
was noted for the scandalous lightness and levity of her behaviour in
church--laughing and talking, in more than whispers, nearly all the
time, to the idle young men whom she always brought with her, and who,
to do them justice, sometimes seemed rather ashamed of her conduct. Her
pew was directly in front of the pulpit. One Sunday morning, Bishop
White gave her a severe and merited rebuke, by stopping in his sermon,
fixing his eyes sadly upon her, and bowing to her, as an intimation that
till she had ceased he could not go on. We are sorry to add that the
reproof had no other effect than to excite her anger, and caused her
immediately to go out of church, highly exasperated. That lady went to
live in Europe, and has not yet become a good woman, but greatly the
contrary.
"The Lord is in his holy temple; let all the earth keep silence before
him," was the solemn and impressive inscription over the altar of St.
Augustine's church in Philadelphia.
In visiting a church of a different denomination from your own, comply,
as far as you can, with all the ceremonies observed by the congregation,
particularly if you are in a foreign country. Even if some of these
observances are not the least in conformity with your own opinions and
feelings, remember that you are there as a guest, and have no right to
offend or give displeasure to your hosts by evincing a marked
disapprobation of their mode of worship. If you find it very irksome to
refrain, (which it should not be,) you need not go a second time. Every
religious sect believes its own faith to be the best; but God only knows
which really is. Christ has said, "By their fruits ye shall know them."
FOOTNOTE:
[17] The author is a Protestant.