The Olden Time Series, Vol. 3: New-England Sunday | Page 3

of this holy day are forsaken and forgotten, the whole system of moral obligation must of course be also forgotten; the great, substantial and permanent good, of which religion is the only source, is effectually destroyed; the political peace and welfare of a community, the salvation of the human soul, the infinitely benevolent designs of redeeming love, the institution of the means of grace, and the obedience and sufferings of the Son of God, are frustrated and set at nought. Thus, by one effectual blow of sin, and the friends of sin, are all the great and valuable interests of mankind overthrown."
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Although our remarks are confined to America, we may mention that it has been stated by some of our own countrymen who have visited London that Sunday is generally as well observed there as in New England; yet we find in the "Salem Gazette" of Nov. 23, 1785, that the attendance on public worship in London was then rather small as compared with what might have been seen in Boston at the same date. But that was before the days of the "sensation" preachers, as they are called,--Spurgeon, Beecher, Talmage, and men of that stamp, who now draw crowds of people, many of whom are not always the most religious in the community, but who love excitement rather than quiet contemplation.
LONDON,
_Sept._ 13. Sunday being a day of rest, 739 horses were yesterday engaged on parties of pleasure.
In fifty churches, eastward of Temple-bar, the congregations amounted, on an average, to seven for each church in the morning, and five in the afternoon. This shews the state of the Christian religion in the metropolis to be far better than could be expected!
1785.
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The following extract from the "Belfast Patriot" of 1825 shows how the "Lord's day" was regarded in 1776 in the "District of Maine."
FIFTY YEARS AGO. At a town meeting, held on the common, on the south end of lot No. 26, probably where the meeting house now stands, on the east side of the river, in Belfast, Oct. 10th, 1776, the town then having been incorporated two years--among other things "to see if there can be any plan laid to stop the Inhabitants from visiting on Sunday." "Voted, That if any person makes unnecessary vizits on the Sabeth they shall be Lookt on with Contempt untill they make acknowledgement to the Public."
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Houses of worship were formerly "as cold as a barn."
Notwithstanding all the comforts and conveniences of modern places of worship, to say nothing about the more interesting preaching and other exercises, some people consider it a hardship to be obliged to attend even one service on Sunday. How was it in "old times"? Our ancestors were obliged to conform to the prevalent custom of going to meeting whether they liked it or not. The law did not then excuse any one from attendance at public worship, except for sickness. Not to be a "meeting-goer" in those days was to range one's self with thieves and robbers and other outlaws. No matter if the meeting-house was cold, and there was danger of consumption; it was apparently "more pleasing to the Lord" that a man should get sick attending services in "his house" than by staying away preserve his health. Mr. Felt, in his "Annals of Salem," says: "For a long period the people of our country did not consider that a comfortable degree of warmth while at public worship contributed much to a profitable hearing of the gospel. The first stove we have heard of in Massachusetts for a meeting-house was put up by the First congregation of Boston in 1773. In Salem the Friends' Society had two plate-stoves brought from Philadelphia in 1793. The North Church had one in 1809; the South had a brick Russian stove in 1812. About the same date the First Church had a stove and the Tabernacle had one also. The objections that [to heat churches] was contrary to the custom of their hardy fathers and mothers, [and that it] was an indication of extravagance and degeneracy, had ceased to be advanced. Not a few remember the general knocking of feet on cold days and near the close of long sermons. On such occasions the Rev. Dr. Hopkins used to say, now and then: 'My hearers, have a little patience, and I will soon close.'"
Mr. Felt says that Hugh Peters (one of the ministers of the First Church) was represented by an English painter as in a pulpit with a large assembly before him, turning an hour-glass and using these words: "I know you are good fellows, stay and take another glass."
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The Lord's Day in Connecticut in 1788.
ANECDOTE.
A Gentleman in the State of Connecticut, regularly attended publick worship