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
On a Sunday masses are said at eight, nine, ten, and eleven, and
there is an afternoon service at three. The aggregate average
attendance on a Sunday is about 3,000. There are three confessionals
in the church, towards the south-eastern-corner; they stand out like
small square boxes, and although made for everybody seem specially
adapted for thin and Cassius-like people. Falstaff's theory was--
more flesh more frailty. If this be so, then, there are either very
few "great" sinners at St. Walburge's or the large ones confess
somewhere else. The worshippers at this church are, in nine cases
out of ten, working people. The better class of people sit at the
higher end of the central benches; and if one had never seen them
there no difficulty would be experienced in finding out their seats.
You may always ascertain the character of worshippers by what they
sit upon. Working-class people rest upon bare boards; middle-class
individuals develop the cushion scheme to a moderate pitch; the
upper species push it towards consummation-like ease, and therefore
are the owners of good cushions. Very few cushions can be seen in
St. Walburge's; those noticeable are at the higher end; and the
logical inference, therefore, is that not many superb people attend
the place, and that those who do go sit just in the quarter
mentioned. At the doors of this church, as at those of other
Catholic places of worship in the town, you may see men standing
with boxes, asking for alms. These are brothers of the Society of
St. Vincent de Paul. The object of this society is to visit and
relieve the sick and the poor. The brothers are excellent
auxiliaries of the clergy; and, further, do the work of the
mendicity societies, like those now being established in London, by
examing applications for relief, and so disappointing impostors. The
conference of St. Vincent attached to St. Walburge's Church numbers
16 active members, who collected and distributed in food and
clothing during last year 112 pounds. The brothers are deserving of
all praise for spending their evenings in visiting the sick and
distressed, in courts and alleys, after their day's work.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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