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

country.--"In
what manner," says the Address, "does this evil affect the political
interests, the essential wellbeing, of the community? All the branches
of morality are indissolubly connected. From one breach of moral
obligation to a second, to a third, and to all, the transition is easy,
necessary and rapid. From negligence of the duties we owe to God, the
passage is short to contempt for those we owe to men. The Sabbath, in
the judgment of reason and of revelation, is the great hinge on which all
these duties are turned. When the ordinances 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."
* * * * *
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.
* * * * *
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."
* * * * *
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