Manners and customs; Rites and ceremonies -- Great Britain
The new church was certainly more comfortable for the schoolboys, and the
singing still continued good. But the new rector made some alterations in
matters on which his predecessors had been strong. He was a very
pronounced Puritan, and forbade the school children to turn eastward for
the Creeds. He forbade such simple anthems as "Lord of all power and
might," and Cecil's "I will arise." But he had his very good points. He
was young and active, and visited his people assiduously, established a
monthly Communion, and worked up a regular branch of the Church Missionary
Society, which nobody in the village had ever heard of before. I grew up
to manhood during his incumbency, and though I regarded his Puritan
practices, and listened to his Calvinistic sermons and tirades against
Popery with extreme dislike, I see now that he was a man who was most
faithful to his convictions, and no man could be more earnest for the
spiritual welfare of his people. He was no scholar, I doubt whether he
could have read a page of the Greek Testament in his later days. But he
was the kind friend of the sick and the aged, and looked after the young
people of his flock, and when they went forth into the world gave them
loving and sensible counsels. His wife was as sweet and saintly a
character as ever I knew, and their large family have all proved the
wisdom of their training. One son has earned himself a name as respected
as it is widely known.
His successor was a man of like views, better read, and a kindly-hearted
man. But he was less in his parish. Though he kept no curate, he was
constantly absent as a "missionary deputation," and his congregation, who
had never been instructed in church principles, fell away. He died, and
his successor, who was only there for a year or two, was, I am told, a
failure, greatly owing to weak health; and so we come down to present
times. An organ has been given to the church, thanks to a generous layman;
the choir march in procession to their places in the chancel, they do a
respectable choral service, and of course turn eastward for their Creed.
The parson looks thoroughly well after them, and loves them. There are
regular week-day services, and a fair attendance on holy days, and the
Sunday congregation is steadily increasing. It had gone down terribly.
Such is an impartial review of the church life in an out-of-the-way
country village. My own special old Rector (for I owe more to him than I
could ever tell), the builder of the church, was one of the original
movers in the celebrated movement of 1833, was in fact one of the persons
present at the meeting at Hadleigh Rectory, under the presidency of Hugh
James Rose, which led to the starting of the _Tracts for the Times_.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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