This piece represents the complete paper, No. 112 of _The
Spectator_, July 9th, 1711.
I am always very well pleased with a country Sunday, and think, if
keeping holy the seventh day were only a human institution, it would be
the best method that could have been thought of for the polishing and
civilizing of mankind. It is certain the country people would soon
degenerate into a kind of savages and barbarians, were there not such
frequent returns of a stated time in which the whole village meet
together with their best faces and in their cleanliest habits to
converse with one another upon indifferent subjects, hear their duties
explained to them, and join together in adoration of the supreme Being.
Sunday clears away the rust of the whole week, not only as it refreshes
in their minds the notions of religion, but as it puts both the sexes
upon appearing in their most agreeable forms and exerting all such
qualities as are apt to give them a figure in the eye of the village. A
country fellow distinguishes himself as much in the churchyard as a
citizen does upon the Change, the whole parish politics being generally
discussed in that place either after sermon or before the bell rings.
My friend Sir Roger, being a good churchman, has beautified the inside
of his church with several texts of his own choosing; he has likewise
given a handsome pulpit-cloth, and railed in the communion table at his
own expense. He has often told me that at his coming to his estate he
found his parishioners very irregular; and that in order to make them
kneel and join in the responses he gave every one of them a hassock and
a common-prayer book: and at the same time employed an itinerant
singing-master, who goes about the country for that purpose, to
instruct them rightly in the tunes of the psalms, upon which they now
very much value themselves, and indeed out-do most of the country
churches that I have ever heard.
As Sir Roger is landlord to the whole congregation, he keeps them in
very good order, and will suffer nobody to sleep in it besides himself;
for if by chance he has been surprised into a short nap at sermon, upon
recovering out of it he stands up and looks about him, and if he sees
anybody else nodding either wakes them himself or sends his servants to
them. Several other of the old knight's particularities break out upon
these occasions: sometimes he will be lengthening out a verse in the
singing-psalms half a minute after the rest of the congregation have
done with it: sometimes, when he is pleased with the matter of his
devotion, he pronounces Amen three or four times to the same prayer;
and sometimes stands up when everybody else is upon their knees, to
count the congregation or see if any of his tenants are missing.
I was yesterday very much surprised to hear my old friend, in the midst
of the service, calling out to one John Matthews to mind what he was
about and not disturb the congregation. This John Matthews it seems is
remarkable for being an idle fellow, and at that time was kicking his
heels for his diversion. This authority of the knight, though exerted
in that odd manner which accompanies him in all circumstances of life,
has a very good effect upon the parish, who are not polite enough to
see anything ridiculous in his behaviour; besides that the general good
sense and worthiness of his character makes his friends observe these
little singularities as foils that rather set off than blemish his good
qualities.
As soon as the sermon is finished nobody presumes to stir till Sir
Roger is gone out of the church. The knight walks down from his seat in
the chancel between a double row of his tenants, that stand bowing to
him on each side; and every now and then inquires how such an one's
wife, or mother, or son, or father do, whom he does not see at church,
which is understood as a secret reprimand to the person that is absent.
The chaplain has often told me that upon a catechizing day, when Sir
Roger has been pleased with a boy that answers well, he has ordered a
Bible to be given him next day for his encouragement; and sometimes
accompanies it with a flitch of bacon to his mother. Sir Roger has
likewise added five pounds a year to the clerk's place; and that he may
encourage the young fellows to make themselves perfect in the church
service, has promised upon the death of the present incumbent, who is
very old, to bestow it according to merit.
The fair understanding between Sir Roger and his chaplain, and their
mutual concurrence in doing good, is the more remarkable because the
very next village is famous for the differences and contentions that
rise between the parson and the squire, who live in a perpetual state
of war. The parson is always preaching at the squire, and the squire to
be revenged on the parson never comes to church. The squire has made
all his tenants atheists and tithe-stealers; while the parson instructs
them every Sunday in the dignity of his order, and insinuates to them
in almost every sermon that he is a better man than his patron. In
short, matters are come to such an extremity that the squire has not
said his prayers either in public or private this half year; and that
the parson threatens him, if he does not mend his manners, to pray for
him in the face of the whole congregation.
Feuds of this nature, though too frequent in the country, are very
fatal to the ordinary people, who are so used to be dazzled with riches
that they pay as much deference to the understanding of a man of an
estate as of a man of learning, and are very hardly brought to regard
any truth, how important soever it may be, that is preached to them
when they know there are several men of five hundred a year who do not
believe it.