All this noise in the Church has begun in the playhouse. I’m sure of it. Foolish people say and write that we English folks don’t care about plays. There never was such a mistake. In our hearts, all of us, and especially many of the bishops and clergy, dote upon the playhouse; but then, you see, it isn’t thought quite the thing for the clergy to go there. The Bishop of Exeter--I’m cocksure of it--has a consuming love for a pantomime; but then he wouldn’t like to be seen in the boxes of Drury Lane, giving his countenance to the clown, that takes his tithe of all sorts of things that come under his nose. The Bishop of London too--he, I’ve heard it said, got made a bishop of by some intimate acquaintance of his that wrote plays in Greek. Well, he can’t go and enjoy his laugh at the Haymarket, or have his feelings warmed, till they boil over at his eyes, at the Victoria (that was once the Coburg); so you see, as the bishops can’t decently stir from the Church to the playhouse, they’ve set their heads together to bring the playhouse to the Church. And this accounts for all their fuss in the Church about what the playhouse people call the “dresses and decorations.” They seem to think that religion isn’t enough of itself, unless it’s “splendidly got up.” Whereupon they want to go back to the old properties of crosses and candlesticks, and so forth, to fill the pews. Well, when the bishops--the grey, sober men, the fathers of the Church--have this hankering after a bit of show, it isn’t to be expected that the young fellows will refuse the finery. Certainly not. Whereupon they’re bringing in all sorts of fashions, it seems. They don’t think it enough to belong to the Army of Martyrs, unless they’ve very handsome regimentals.