Our Churches and Chapels: Their Parsons, Priests, & Congregations: Being a Critical and Historical Account of Every Place of Worship in PrestonAtticus
History
Our Churches and Chapels: Their Parsons, Priests, & Congregations: Being a Critical and Historical Account of Every Place of Worship in Preston
Atticus
Preston (Lancashire, England) -- Church history
There is accomodation in the place for between 800 and 900 persons;
but it is not often that all the seats are filled. The average
attendance will be about 800; and nearly every one making up that
number belongs to the working-class section of life. Amongst the
body are many genial good-hearted folk-people who believe is doing
right without telling everybody about it, in obliging you without
pulling a face over it; and there are also individuals in the rank
and file of worshippers who are very Pecksniffian and dismal,
cranky, windy, authoritative, who would look sour if eating sugar,
would call a "church meeting" if you wore a lively suit of clothes,
and would tell you that they were entitled to more grace than
anybody else, and had got more. The better washed and more
respectably dressed portion of the congregation sit at the back of
the central range of seats on the ground floor, also along portions
of the sides, and in front of the gallery. Towards the front of the
central seats there is a confraternity of humble earnest-looking
beings, including several aged persons, who are true types in form,
manner, and dress, of unsophisticated Methodists. Here, as
elsewhere, there are very few people in the chapel ten minutes
"before the train starts." Those present at that time are mainly
middle-aged, unpretentious, and very seriously inclined; others of a
higher type follow; and then comes the rush, which lasts for about
five minutes. Worship is conducted in the chapel with considerable
quietness. You may hear the long-drawn gelatinous sigh, the subdued,
quiet, unctuous "amen," and if the thing gets hot a few lively half-
innate exclamations are thrown into the proceedings. But there is
nothing in any of them of a turbulent or riotous character. The
parsons can draw out none of the worshippers into a very
ungovernable frame of mind; and we believe none of the people have
for some time been very violent in either their verbal expressions
or physical contortions. They are beginning to take things quietly,
and to work inwardly during periods of bliss. There are about 400
"members" in connection with Wesley Chapel, and we hope they are
nearly half as good as such like people usually profess to be. The
rule in life is for people to be about one-third as virtuous as they
say they are; and if they can be got a trifle beyond that point by
any legitimate process, it is something to be thankful for.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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