Ninth annual report of the St. Mary Abbott's, Kensington, Church of England District Visiting Society: with some account of the different societies subordinate or affiliated to itAnonymous
Religion
Ninth annual report of the St. Mary Abbott's, Kensington, Church of England District Visiting Society: with some account of the different societies subordinate or affiliated to it
Anonymous
Charities -- England -- London; Visitations (Church work) -- England -- London
Outward tests of soundness in the one thing needful, must be mainly
sought in reverence for the Lord’s Day, in appreciation of His appointed
ordinances, and attendance at Public Worship. With some of the smaller
tradespeople, who formerly were accustomed to keep open their shops, and
drive their usual trade on Sunday, the persuasions of the Visitors have
been effectual in procuring an entire cessation of business; and others,
who have not strength of principle wholly to forego their profits,
trusting to the blessing of the Lord, have yet been influenced, by the
prevailing sense of decorum, to intermit their sale during the hours of
Divine Service. So, too, as the Church accommodation has been enlarged,
Church-goers have increased. Within a comparatively short period, it was
mockery to reprove a poor man for not attending the House of Prayer;
there was no room for him. Of late years a change has taken place: three
new churches have been built; they are all filled; another is required.
The free seats, extended as they have been at St. Mary’s, are crowded;
Christ Church, consecrated but eighteen months ago, has in the morning
scarcely a vacant bench. Its opening must have provided for several
hundred Churchmen, formerly wanderers from Church to Church. The
Register of Baptisms presents rather an increased than a diminished
average; but there must be a progressive augmentation in its entrances,
before it can be considered as a satisfactory record. There exists a
tendency amongst the ignorant to confound Registration with Baptism, and
many believe that the civil supersedes the religions ceremony. After all
the exertions of the Visitors to diffuse information on this subject, and
to awaken the Christian sensibilities of the parents to the importance of
the Sacrament, their returns exhibit a catalogue of nearly one hundred
children unbaptized. And though many of these are infants, and some the
offspring of Baptists, enough remain to demonstrate what would soon
become the spiritual condition of the people, were their vigilance to
sleep, or their admonitions to be withdrawn. The candidates for
Confirmation at the last celebration of the Rite, were more numerous than
usual; and drew forth the commendation of the Bishop for their devotional
propriety of demeanour. To the greater proportion of those admitted to
the Sacred Ordinance, it has been the door and vestibule of the Holy
Communion of the Body and Blood of their Redeemer. Hence, amongst other
causes, there has accrued an accession to the Communicants of the
District, the approximate estimate founded on the Easter Administrations,
being in 1851, 614, in 1852, 670. The total attendances at both Churches
was 5423. Nor must it be supposed that these are furnished solely from
the pew-holders in the Congregations; the humblest ranks are represented,
and form, though a minority, one that is both respectable and slowly
increasing. No habitual receiver of the Blessed Sacrament can fail to
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