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 savage 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 different 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 notion 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 church-yard, 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 very
much value themselves, and indeed outdo 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 peculiarities 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 in 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 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 diversion. This authority of the knight, though exerted
in that odd manner which accompanies him in all circumstances in life,
has had 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 until 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 catechising day, when Sir
Roger has been pleased with a boy that answers well, he has ordered a
bible to be given to him next day for his encouragement; and sometimes
accompanies it with a fitch of bacon to his mother. Sir Roger has
likewise to add 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.
This 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
arise 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 have 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 difference 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.
* * * * *
Without any doubt whatsoever, the outstanding characteristic of our
present day life is the extreme lack of sociability. It is the more
apparent to me, because I have lived in countries at times, especially
in Patagonia, where, in some respects, the manners and the customs of
the people closely approached the manners and customs of the early
eighteenth century. There were scandalous roisterers and hard drinkers
there, and vice was in fashion, nor was it a delicate kind of vice.
Many of the ladies would lend an ear to obscene ballads, on occasions
swear and blaspheme very prettily, and consider as a good joke, the
coarse words and oaths that flowed through their lovers’ conversation
like filth through a sewer. We were never in a hurry and a horseback
journey was an occasion for sociability. It was much so in the Addison
days. People on the highway had a will to companionship. _Will Wimble_,
as you see in the paper that follows, “joined a couple of plain men who
rode before,” and “conversed with them.” It was always so. You pick up
your Fielding to see _Tom Jones_ traveling mile after mile in company
with a chance acquaintance. _Joseph Andrews_ is carried on his way
by a man with a spare horse. _Peregrine Pickle_ on the road to Dover
overtakes and journeys with all sorts and conditions of sociable men
and _Roderick Random_ never lacks a chance friend.
Indeed, in the days when men were not so eager to save time which, when
saved, they knew not what to do with, to encounter a fellow wayfarer
was counted a high and joyful privilege. It meant companionship and
a “God be wi’ ye” at parting. If fellowship is Heaven, as Morris put
it, and the lack of fellowship is hell, then indeed we of today are
much further advanced along the downward path that is paved with
good intentions. Your present-day autoist is far more prone to knock
the wayfarer down than to pick him up, or to insult his ears with a
derisive fanfare on his klaxon than he is to bid him “God speed.” And
so to Sir Roger.