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Source: (consider it)
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Thread: 18th century Anglicanism: Boring, dull and unChristian?
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mr cheesy
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# 3330
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Kaplan Corday:
A.N. Wilson's 2014 biography of Queen Victoria refers to it, quoting L.G. Mitchell's 1997 biography of Melbourne, which in turn quotes from a primary source in the form of a letter written as an adult by one of the girls whom Melbourne abused.
Someone is quoting a biography, which is quoting a letter, which is quoting another letter.
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my new book: Biblical But Bollocks. Available in all good bookshops.
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Arethosemyfeet
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# 17047
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Enoch:
quote:
Originally posted by Arethosemyfeet:
And the Puritans were not members of churches in the Anglican Communion because, at the time, it didn't exist. I don't see how you can be an Anglican and, for example, reject episcopacy.
I think, Arethosemyfeet, that's the problem with this 'no true Anglican' argument. You are categorising people of the early to mid C17 according to a redefinition that took place, if at all, 150-200+ years after they had died.
In the C17 century, almost everybody was arguing for a comprehensive church, a Church of England to which everyone belonged. Virtually none of them would even have wanted to conceive of an ecclesia anglicana on any other basis.
What they disagreed on, was what fences those in charge should be able to impose on everyone else. They didn't, by and large, regard these fences as a matter of preference, so much as what God required of the true church. They just disagreed as to which fences God required, and which he forbade.
The notion of an 'Anglicanism' which is a matter of spiritual preferences, whether it was defining something they would have agreed with or disagreed with would be deeply alien to anyone in the C17 century. So to exclude the Puritans from one's understanding of what Anglicanism is supposed to mean, because by the time that concept developed they had been excluded, is a profoundly unhistorical way of looking at one's tradition. And if what one is discussing is a 'tradition' excluding those from the tradition on the basis of what happened after they were dead, is incompatible with the concept of a 'tradition'.
Anglicanism can only be defined by the existence of Anglican churches outside of England. I struggle to see how one can use membership of churches that are later defined as Anglican to retrospectively assign that identity. It only makes sense to look at "Anglican distinctives", such as they are. The Chicago-Lambeth quadrilateral is as good a measure as any (and my understanding is that the Puritans reject at least 2 of the 4 components), the other option is self-definition and that is pretty useless in this case for obvious reasons. Whilst I'm aware of the dangers of your (very droll) "no true Scottish Episcopalian" fallacy, I think it's worthwhile to consider that one can draw meaningful distinctions between Puritan and Anglican thought.
[ 05. August 2017, 08:37: Message edited by: Arethosemyfeet ]
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Kaplan Corday
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# 16119
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by mr cheesy:
quote:
Originally posted by Kaplan Corday:
A.N. Wilson's 2014 biography of Queen Victoria refers to it, quoting L.G. Mitchell's 1997 biography of Melbourne, which in turn quotes from a primary source in the form of a letter written as an adult by one of the girls whom Melbourne abused.
Someone is quoting a biography, which is quoting a letter, which is quoting another letter.
A secondary source is quoting another, but relevant, secondary source which bases what it says on a primary source.
If you knew anything about history, you would realise that lamentably few paper trails are as straightforward as this.
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Gamaliel
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# 812
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Posted
If you knew anything about history then ...
No, I'll stop there. I don't have a dog in this fight. It's entirely possible that Melbourne was a perv' who had a thing about young girls. But should we read that sort of thing into all gushing interest shown by Victorians and their immediate predecessors into young kids?
Francis Kilvert? Charles Dobson?
Of course we aren't going to find a document saying, 'It's a fair cop, I was a perv',' signed Lord Melbourne.
One might just as well expect to find a document saying, 'The grammatical-historical method is the most fool-proof approach to hermeneutics,' signed St John Chrysostom.
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Let us with a gladsome mind
Praise the Lord for He is kind.
http://philthebard.blogspot.com
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mr cheesy
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# 3330
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Kaplan Corday:
If you knew anything about history, you would realise that lamentably few paper trails are as straightforward as this.
If you knew anything about history, you'd realise that the chance of facts being garbled by being spread in this way is extremely high.
Sensible historians would quote from the primary source, amateurs would just mention the biography and not pretend that it was somehow quoting a primary source.
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my new book: Biblical But Bollocks. Available in all good bookshops.
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mr cheesy
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# 3330
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Gamaliel:
I don't have a dog in this fight. It's entirely possible that Melbourne was a perv' who had a thing about young girls.
Mine was simply a comment on the false factual precision being brought into a discussion.
I know nothing about this issue, but if I was making a claim that is serious at very least I'd be quoting from a secondary source which had seen the primary source in question, if not the actual primary source.
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my new book: Biblical But Bollocks. Available in all good bookshops.
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Gamaliel
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# 812
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Posted
Well yes, but you don't seem to have realised that Kaplan knows best and that's what trumps any other argument that can be made.
![[Biased]](wink.gif) ![[Razz]](tongue.gif)
Once we all simply step back and appreciate the Magisterialism of that position then it resolves all difficulties and there is no need for any further discussion.
Why did I not see this earlier?
But yes, sources, sources, sources ... context, context, context ...
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Let us with a gladsome mind
Praise the Lord for He is kind.
http://philthebard.blogspot.com
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Dafyd
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# 5549
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Arethosemyfeet:
quote:
Originally posted by Dafyd:
An Anglican is a communicant member of a church in the Anglican communion regardless of what they think their church should be like.
And the Puritans were not members of churches in the Anglican Communion because, at the time, it didn't exist. I don't see how you can be an Anglican and, for example, reject episcopacy.
One could define Anglican in such a way that nobody was Anglican before the Anglican Communion existed. But in that case that the Puritans weren't Anglican becomes a trivial truth; nobody in the seventeenth or eighteenth centuries would be Anglican under that definition.
One could reject episcopacy in the sense that one wouldn't participate in a church with such ceremonies. In that sense one couldn't be Anglican. Or one could participate in such a church but believe that it would be better if it didn't have the Episcopacy. In that sense, it seems to me that one could.
For example, I think it's unclear what George Herbert thought about bishops. Yet any definition of Anglican spirituality must include Herbert. Hence, a clear commitment to the Episcopacy is not necessary to be clearly Anglican.
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we remain, thanks to original sin, much in love with talking about, rather than with, one another. Rowan Williams
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Nick Tamen
Ship's Wayfaring Fool
# 15164
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Arethosemyfeet:
Anglicanism can only be defined by the existence of Anglican churches outside of England.
That seems like an odd assertion to me, given that the primary definition of Anglican is "of or relating to the Church of England." There were Anglicans before there were any Anglican churches outside England. Those Puritans who were communicants of the Church of England and sought to reform it may not have been mainstream Anglicans, nor did they hold positions now uniformly associated with Anglicans, such as insistence on episcopal government. But as communicants in the Church of England, they were Anglican.
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The first thing God says to Moses is, "Take off your shoes." We are on holy ground. Hard to believe, but the truest thing I know. — Anne Lamott
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Anglican_Brat
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# 12349
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Nick Tamen:
quote:
Originally posted by Arethosemyfeet:
Anglicanism can only be defined by the existence of Anglican churches outside of England.
That seems like an odd assertion to me, given that the primary definition of Anglican is "of or relating to the Church of England." There were Anglicans before there were any Anglican churches outside England. Those Puritans who were communicants of the Church of England and sought to reform it may not have been mainstream Anglicans, nor did they hold positions now uniformly associated with Anglicans, such as insistence on episcopal government. But as communicants in the Church of England, they were Anglican.
My understanding is that 1662 marked the emergence of the Independents as a separate movement that no longer desired to change the Church of England, because due to the Restoration, it was pretty clear that England was not going to relive the religious battles over Episcopacy that led to the Civil War.
While the concept of denominations were still far in the future, the emergence of the Independents suggest to me, to sow the seeds. I surmise that many Independents would have done the perfunctory duty of attending CofE services occasionally to keep in the loop of society, so in that sense, they were still "Anglican".
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Albertus
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# 13356
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Dafyd:
...
For example, I think it's unclear what George Herbert thought about bishops. ...
Really? Do tell more. I had always assumed that at the very least he took episcopacy for granted, and that as a highish churchman he probably positively believed in it. So now I am intrigued.
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Dafyd
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# 5549
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Nick Tamen:
There were Anglicans before there were any Anglican churches outside England.
I suppose it depends on when you think the Scottish Episcopalians and the Church of Ireland start to count as Anglican.
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we remain, thanks to original sin, much in love with talking about, rather than with, one another. Rowan Williams
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Dafyd
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# 5549
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Albertus:
quote:
Originally posted by Dafyd:
For example, I think it's unclear what George Herbert thought about bishops.
Really? Do tell more. I had always assumed that at the very least he took episcopacy for granted, and that as a highish churchman he probably positively believed in it.
George Herbert's friend Nicholas Ferrar was a high churchman, and so was Herbert's biographer Isaac Walton. So their accounts of him play up the evidence of his loyalty to King and Bishop. But I believe Herbert's own writings avoid the subject.(*) We know he didn't think Bishops were sufficiently objectionable to object to, but we don't have any evidence of any positive adherence to high church principles. He doesn't seem to have gone in for any Laudian ceremonials.
(*) I have just reread Walton's Life. He says that Herbert wrote poetry on the Episcopal side while at Cambridge; but he hadn't given up on a worldly career at court at that point.
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we remain, thanks to original sin, much in love with talking about, rather than with, one another. Rowan Williams
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Albertus
Shipmate
# 13356
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Posted
Yes, he was a bit of a sucker-up at that point, as John Drury's recent critical biography (Music at Midnight) shows.
But surely, although he may not have written anything positively promoting episcopacy, in the absence of any reason to suppose otherwise we must assume that he supported it, probably without ever having felt any need to question it.
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My beard is a testament to my masculinity and virility, and demonstrates that I am a real man. Trouble is, bits of quiche sometimes get caught in it.
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Nick Tamen
Ship's Wayfaring Fool
# 15164
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Dafyd:
quote:
Originally posted by Nick Tamen:
There were Anglicans before there were any Anglican churches outside England.
I suppose it depends on when you think the Scottish Episcopalians and the Church of Ireland start to count as Anglican.
Why would it depend on that? If the primary definition of Anglican is "of or relating to the Church of England," why would it depend on anything other than the existence of the Church of England?
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The first thing God says to Moses is, "Take off your shoes." We are on holy ground. Hard to believe, but the truest thing I know. — Anne Lamott
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Dafyd
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# 5549
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Nick Tamen:
quote:
Originally posted by Dafyd:
quote:
Originally posted by Nick Tamen:
There were Anglicans before there were any Anglican churches outside England.
I suppose it depends on when you think the Scottish Episcopalians and the Church of Ireland start to count as Anglican.
Why would it depend on that? If the primary definition of Anglican is "of or relating to the Church of England," why would it depend on anything other than the existence of the Church of England?
If the Church of Ireland has always counted as Anglican then there was never a time when there were Anglicans in England but no Anglican churches outside of England.
I'm inclined to agree with your definition, for what it's worth.
[ 05. August 2017, 18:37: Message edited by: Dafyd ]
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we remain, thanks to original sin, much in love with talking about, rather than with, one another. Rowan Williams
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Nick Tamen
Ship's Wayfaring Fool
# 15164
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Posted
Ah. Got it.
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The first thing God says to Moses is, "Take off your shoes." We are on holy ground. Hard to believe, but the truest thing I know. — Anne Lamott
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Planeta Plicata
Shipmate
# 17543
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Posted
On the laxity of the pre-Oxford Movement Church of England, I've always been struck by this claim by Alan Jacobs—though he doesn't cite a source, and I have no idea how representative the example he gives is:
quote:
On Easter Sunday 1800, in St. Paul’s Cathedral, the very heart of the Church of England, do you know how many people received Holy Communion?
Six. Six.
Throughout the eighteenth century church attendance — not just the receiving of Communion — had declined throughout England, even as the population had grown. There were fewer and fewer churches offering fewer and fewer services. For instance, in 1714 seventy-two churches in London offered the service of Morning Prayer every day; just eighteen years later that number had declined to forty-four.
Can anyone shed any light on whether this was typical?
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Kaplan Corday
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# 16119
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Gamaliel:
Of course we aren't going to find a document saying, 'It's a fair cop, I was a perv',' signed Lord Melbourne.
There is a document in the form of a letter written as an adult by a woman referring to Melbourne's abuse of her as a child.
It is quoted in a historically respectable biography of Melbourne, and its archival classification is provided in case anyone wants to check it.
Someone could want to ask whether it is a forgery, or whether the woman was lying, but AFAIK neither its provenance nor its truth have ever been questioned.
This is not in the urban myth category of Catherine the Great and the horse, about which I was joking a while back.
Why you find it necessary to trivialise either child abuse, or the basic principles of historical evidence, I cannot begin to imagine.
[ 05. August 2017, 22:38: Message edited by: Kaplan Corday ]
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Kaplan Corday
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# 16119
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by mr cheesy:
Sensible historians would quote from the primary source
Sensible historians will only write what can be ultimately backed by a primary source if challenged, but no historian provides a primary source for every single statement they make.
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Anglican_Brat
Shipmate
# 12349
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Planeta Plicata:
On the laxity of the pre-Oxford Movement Church of England, I've always been struck by this claim by Alan Jacobs—though he doesn't cite a source, and I have no idea how representative the example he gives is:
quote:
On Easter Sunday 1800, in St. Paul’s Cathedral, the very heart of the Church of England, do you know how many people received Holy Communion?
Six. Six.
Throughout the eighteenth century church attendance — not just the receiving of Communion — had declined throughout England, even as the population had grown. There were fewer and fewer churches offering fewer and fewer services. For instance, in 1714 seventy-two churches in London offered the service of Morning Prayer every day; just eighteen years later that number had declined to forty-four.
Can anyone shed any light on whether this was typical?
The only response I have heard was told to me in seminary, that just because there were 6 communicants on Easter Day at St Paul's Cathedral, didn't mean that there were only 6 people in church that day. Presumably, there were people who attended and did not receive communion.
Now that was only told to me as an anecdote so I don't know how strong an argument it is.
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Pangolin Guerre
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# 18686
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Posted
For Planeta Plicata and Anglican Brat:
The question of taking communion goes back to the 17thC. In Pepys's Diary, he frequently attends church, often midweek, and twice on Sunday - even having a pew built for his household and friends, at St Olaf's. However, he remonstrates with himself for taking communion so infrequently, without really explaining the reason.
This struck me as odd, because I would have thought that people would have wished to establish their C of E bona fides during the Restoration, especially since Pepys himself had a few ambiguities before 1660.
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mr cheesy
Shipmate
# 3330
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Kaplan Corday:
Sensible historians will only write what can be ultimately backed by a primary source if challenged, but no historian provides a primary source for every single statement they make.
There is quite a difference between a primary source and a modern biography which quotes another earlier biography which quotes a letter which quotes another letter.
I'm not sure why you are arguing about this.
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my new book: Biblical But Bollocks. Available in all good bookshops.
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Dafyd
Shipmate
# 5549
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Pangolin Guerre:
However, he remonstrates with himself for taking communion so infrequently, without really explaining the reason.
George Herbert says parishioners are obliged to receive communion three times a year. (That's legally obliged I take it.) However, as not all parishioners can make it to all services and it would be too busy if they all came at once, the conscientious parson will offer communion six times a year.
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we remain, thanks to original sin, much in love with talking about, rather than with, one another. Rowan Williams
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Enoch
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# 14322
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Dafyd:
George Herbert says parishioners are obliged to receive communion three times a year. (That's legally obliged I take it.) However, as not all parishioners can make it to all services and it would be too busy if they all came at once, the conscientious parson will offer communion six times a year.
The rubrics at the end of the Communion Service in the real BCP (i.e. the 1662 one) direct that every parishioner shall communicate at least three times a year, of which Easter is to be one. If this had been the Ecclesiantics board, I would have expected all Ecclesianticists to know that.
As recently as when I was confirmed (1960s) people were expected to know that, though we were encouraged to communicate at least once a month.
That is the book that would be the latest thing in services when Samuel Pepys was writing his diary. Whether the previous version of the BCP which George Herbert would have known, was the same on that, I don't know. However, there aren't that many differences, and those that exist are a bit arcane.
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Gee D
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# 13815
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Posted
Much as I was taught when confirmed in 1960. Easter, Christmas and another time as an absolute minimum, but more often was encouraged.
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Not every Anglican in Sydney is Sydney Anglican
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Kaplan Corday
Shipmate
# 16119
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by mr cheesy:
quote:
Originally posted by Kaplan Corday:
Sensible historians will only write what can be ultimately backed by a primary source if challenged, but no historian provides a primary source for every single statement they make.
There is quite a difference between a primary source and a modern biography which quotes another earlier biography which quotes a letter which quotes another letter.
Primary sources are quoted in cases of particular relevance or of controversy, which was not the situation here.
Otherwise, all that matters is that they exist somewhere at the end of a paper trail, which they do in this situation.
And you have not even read the facts straight: there was only one letter mentioned.
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andras
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# 2065
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Pangolin Guerre:
For Planeta Plicata and Anglican Brat:
The question of taking communion goes back to the 17thC. In Pepys's Diary, he frequently attends church, often midweek, and twice on Sunday - even having a pew built for his household and friends, at St Olaf's. However, he remonstrates with himself for taking communion so infrequently, without really explaining the reason.
This struck me as odd, because I would have thought that people would have wished to establish their C of E bona fides during the Restoration, especially since Pepys himself had a few ambiguities before 1660.
The pew of which you speak was an 'official' navy pew, not one which Pepys had built for himself and his mates. And there were long periods when he didn't make it to church at all: at the end of July 1664 he actually comments in his diary about his long absence from worship.
When he did go he frequently sleeps through the sermon - especially if 'the Scot', whoever he is, is preaching, and sometimes on a Sunday afternoon he simply wanders off on a tour of neighbouring churches to see what's on there. I certainly wouldn't take him as an example of a man who takes his religion particularly seriously; but then, neither apparently did Sandwich, his patron.
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God's on holiday.
(Why borrow a cat?)
Adrian Plass
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Pangolin Guerre
Shipmate
# 18686
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Posted
Andras -
If I recall correctly, Pepys wrote as though the pew had been his undertaking, not the Navy's - unless perhaps it was the Navy's, and he was responsible for its construction.
I don't think nodding off during a sermon necessarily impugns one's piety (say I somewhat defensively). There is the story (true or apocryphal) of Miles Smith walking out of a sermon he found boring. Further, if Pepys had been as insouciant about religion as you imply, why would he have mentioned in the diary (never intended for the eyes of others) that he felt that he should communicate more frequently. It seems like a sincere, personal self-reproach.
I've also wondered who "the Scot" might have been. Unfortunately, my edition, while excellent in some respects, doesn't have much of an apparatus. I'm sure that someone must have tracked him down, if he was trackable at all.
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Pangolin Guerre
Shipmate
# 18686
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Posted
Missed the edit window.
Again, going from memory, Pepys passed an implicitly critical remark about Sandwich's philosophical position, so while he was Pepys's patron, I don't think that one can impute a 1:~1 correspondence in their respective positions.
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SvitlanaV2
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# 16967
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by andras:
[Pepys] frequently sleeps through the sermon - especially if 'the Scot', whoever he is, is preaching, and sometimes on a Sunday afternoon he simply wanders off on a tour of neighbouring churches to see what's on there. I certainly wouldn't take him as an example of a man who takes his religion particularly seriously; but then, neither apparently did Sandwich, his patron.
I don't know much about Pepys apart from his infamous sexual sins. But the behaviour you mention in your post doesn't tell us much about his religiosity, IMO.
There are plenty of perfectly understandable reasons why one might fall asleep in church. It probably happens less now than in the past - but not because we're so much more devout!
(An ageing preacher I once read about bemoaned the lack of nodding heads in congregations these days - he saw it as proof that levels of stress in society had increased. I'm not sure if any of the clergymen here would be quite so charitable, but that's a topic for another thread....)
As for going from one church to another, I can understand that as well. Maybe Pepys gained something new and valuable by worshipping in unfamiliar settings, listening to preachers of differing levels of biblical knowledge, oratory skill and simple piety. If he attended Nonconformist as well as CofE services I'd count that in his favour.
[ 07. August 2017, 21:36: Message edited by: SvitlanaV2 ]
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Bishops Finger
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# 5430
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Posted
There wouldn't have been that many non-conformist churches or chapels around in Pepys' day, but yes, it would be interesting to know if he attended any.
I think I've mentioned this before, but Charles Dickens gives some typically amusing insights into Sunday worship at Anglican churches in the City of London in The Uncommercial Traveller. He, of course, was writing in the mid-19th C, but I suspect his descriptions of St. Ghastly Grim et al would probably have been valid a century before his time!
IJ
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The future is another country - they might do things differently there...
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andras
Shipmate
# 2065
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Bishops Finger:
There wouldn't have been that many non-conformist churches or chapels around in Pepys' day, but yes, it would be interesting to know if he attended any.
I think I've mentioned this before, but Charles Dickens gives some typically amusing insights into Sunday worship at Anglican churches in the City of London in The Uncommercial Traveller. He, of course, was writing in the mid-19th C, but I suspect his descriptions of St. Ghastly Grim et al would probably have been valid a century before his time!
IJ
According to the Diary he on one occasion attended a Synagogue, and didn't like it, and at least once put his head into a Catholic Mass, but was quickly asked to leave. In later life he firmly denied ever having taken part in Catholic worship, so I suppose he thought that his short attendance there didn't count. Certainly he got very concerned when his wife started to show an interest in Catholicism, which would likely have been a career wrecker for him.
He had in his youth been a strong supporter of Cromwell, and seems to have retained Cromwell's opinion that the state should not interfere with people's private worship. On one occasion when he sees a group of Quakers under arrest for attending a 'conventicle' he confides to the diary that he wishes they would either conform or at least take care not to be so easily 'catched'.
I'd say that by the standards of his day the Sam Pepys of the diary period is a conventional Anglican who goes to worship fairly regularly, knows his way round the services (on one occasion he comments of a psalm tune that it was new to him, which surprises him as he thought that he knew them all), but thinks nothing of not turning up until the sermon and then sleeping through it.
He regularly uses such conventional phrases as 'God forgive me' and 'God be praised' - the latter usually when he's got his hands on some money, the former when he's been letting his hands or his eyes roam rather freely. But of, for instance, Christian charity, there is little sign: when he discovers that his recently deceased brother had fathered a child out of wedlock, his sole concern is that no-one will try to make him financially responsible for her.
My suspicion is that he wasn't actually a very nice man, always on the make and quite ready to take advantage of any woman going. But the diary is wonderful precisely because it shows him, in true Cromwell style, 'warts and all'. And he was amazingly good at his job!
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God's on holiday.
(Why borrow a cat?)
Adrian Plass
Posts: 415 | From: Tregaron | Registered: Dec 2001
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Gamaliel
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# 812
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Posted
I've read that there were around 40 Baptist congregations around the London area by the 1640s, which doesn't include Independents with a paedobaptist polity, so non-conformists weren't particularly thin on the ground in the years leading up to the Civil Wars ... although I would imagine that some of these congregations were very small indeed.
With Pepys, of course, we are talking 17th century rather than 18th century.
I'm not sure how common or controversial it would have been for Anglicans to pop their heads into a Dissenting service of worship during the 18th century ... but I'd imagine relationships between the Dissenters and the Establishment were pretty cool by and large ... certainly as far as Unitarian Dissenters went ... Joseph Priestley's house being wrecked by a 'Church and King' mob, for instance.
As far as Methodism went, of course, before the secession from the CofE - and long after in some rural areas - people would attend both the Class Meetings and the services of the parish church.
That continued until well into the 19th century in some parts of the country and I've seen references to evangelical Anglican clergy taking part in 'testimony meetings' and the like in rural Methodist chapels ...
So the picture would have been pretty mixed, one imagines.
Certainly by the 1790s there began to be co-operation in a pan-evangelical kind of way in 'overseas mission' across both the CofE and the Dissenting groups. I've an idea that it was a founding principle of some of the early missionary societies that they include both 'Churchmen' and 'Dissenters'.
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Let us with a gladsome mind
Praise the Lord for He is kind.
http://philthebard.blogspot.com
Posts: 15239 | From: Cheshire, UK | Registered: Jul 2001
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Brenda Clough
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# 18061
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Bishops Finger:
I think I've mentioned this before, but Charles Dickens gives some typically amusing insights into Sunday worship at Anglican churches in the City of London in The Uncommercial Traveller. He, of course, was writing in the mid-19th C, but I suspect his descriptions of St. Ghastly Grim et al would probably have been valid a century before his time!
IJ
I went and looked it up on Project Gutenberg. OMG, those churches sound =depressing=. Surely the faith is in better shape in London today.
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Science fiction and fantasy writer with a Patreon page
Posts: 5061 | From: Washington DC | Registered: Mar 2014
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andras
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# 2065
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Gamaliel:
(Snipped)
As far as Methodism went, of course, before the secession from the CofE - and long after in some rural areas - people would attend both the Class Meetings and the services of the parish church.
That continued until well into the 19th century in some parts of the country and I've seen references to evangelical Anglican clergy taking part in 'testimony meetings' and the like in rural Methodist chapels ...
So the picture would have been pretty mixed, one imagines.
(Snipped)
That seems to have been the original intention: first the Class Meeting for study and personal examination, then the formal worship in the church next door.
One lasting reminder of this is the way that in Wales most of the Welsh-language chapels hold their morning worship at 10.00, with the parish church starting an hour later so you could go to both.
George Eliot commented in Adam Bede that Methodism, like asthma, tended to run in families.
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God's on holiday.
(Why borrow a cat?)
Adrian Plass
Posts: 415 | From: Tregaron | Registered: Dec 2001
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Gamaliel
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# 812
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Brenda Clough:
quote:
Originally posted by Bishops Finger:
I think I've mentioned this before, but Charles Dickens gives some typically amusing insights into Sunday worship at Anglican churches in the City of London in The Uncommercial Traveller. He, of course, was writing in the mid-19th C, but I suspect his descriptions of St. Ghastly Grim et al would probably have been valid a century before his time!
IJ
I went and looked it up on Project Gutenberg. OMG, those churches sound =depressing=. Surely the faith is in better shape in London today.
I wouldn't bank on it ...
Actually, the faith probably is in better shape in London today, but not among 'indigenous Londoners' if we want to put it that way, but among the capital's many rich and diverse migrant communities. It's been that way for some time now.
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Let us with a gladsome mind
Praise the Lord for He is kind.
http://philthebard.blogspot.com
Posts: 15239 | From: Cheshire, UK | Registered: Jul 2001
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andras
Shipmate
# 2065
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Brenda Clough:
quote:
Originally posted by Bishops Finger:
I think I've mentioned this before, but Charles Dickens gives some typically amusing insights into Sunday worship at Anglican churches in the City of London in The Uncommercial Traveller. He, of course, was writing in the mid-19th C, but I suspect his descriptions of St. Ghastly Grim et al would probably have been valid a century before his time!
IJ
I went and looked it up on Project Gutenberg. OMG, those churches sound =depressing=. Surely the faith is in better shape in London today.
St Ghastly Grim seems, curiously, to have been based on St. Olave's, Hart Street, Pepys' own church, which still bears a reference to the entrance to the Navy Office Pew, now long gone.
Link here!
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God's on holiday.
(Why borrow a cat?)
Adrian Plass
Posts: 415 | From: Tregaron | Registered: Dec 2001
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