Great Britain -- Description and travel; Great Britain -- Rural conditions
common-place, cold observation; and that, too, in language which the far
greater part of the hearers could not understand. This church is about
110 feet long and 70 feet wide in the clear. It would hold _three
thousand people_, and it had in it 214, besides 53 Sunday School or
National School boys; and these sat together, in a sort of lodge, up in
a corner, 16 feet long and 10 feet wide. Now, will any Parson Malthus,
or anybody else, have the impudence to tell me that this church was
built for the use of a population not more numerous than the present? To
be sure, when this church was built, there could be no idea of a
Methodist meeting coming to _assist_ the church, and as little, I dare
say, was it expected that the preachers in the church would ever call
upon the faithful to subscribe money to be sent up to one Joshua Watson
(living in a Wen) to be by him laid out in "promoting Christian
knowledge;" but, at any rate, the Methodists cannot take away above four
or five hundred; and what, then, was this great church built _for_, if
there were no more people, in those days, at Goudhurst, than there are
now? It is very true that the _labouring_ people have, in a great
measure, ceased to go to church. There were scarcely any of that class
at this great country church to-day. I do not believe there were _ten_.
I can remember when they were so numerous that the parson could not
attempt to begin till the rattling of their nailed shoes ceased. I have
seen, I am sure, five hundred boys and men in smock-frocks coming out of
church at one time. To-day has been a fine day: there would have been
many at church to-day, if ever there are; and here I have another to add
to the many things that convince me that the labouring classes have, in
great part, ceased to go to church; that their way of thinking and
feeling with regard to both church and clergy are totally changed; and
that there is now very little _moral hold_ which the latter possess.
This preaching for money to support the schools is a most curious affair
altogether. The King sends a _circular letter_ to the bishops (as I
understand it) to cause subscriptions for the schools; and the bishops
(if I am rightly told) tell the parish clergy to send the money, when
collected, to Joshua Watson, the Treasurer of a Society in the Wen, "for
promoting Christian Knowledge!" What! the church and all its clergy put
into motion to get money from the people to send up to one Joshua
Watson, a wine-merchant, or, late a wine-merchant, in Mincing Lane,
Fenchurch Street, London, in order that the said wine-merchant may apply
the money to the "promoting of Christian Knowledge!" What! all the
deacons, priests, curates perpetual, vicars, rectors, prebends, doctors,
deans, archdeacons and fathers in God, right reverend and most reverend;
all! yea all, engaged in getting money together to send to a
wine-merchant that he may lay it out in the promoting of Christian
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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