The Girl of the Period, and Other Social Essays, Vol. 2 (of 2)Linton, E. Lynn (Elizabeth Lynn)
General
The Girl of the Period, and Other Social Essays, Vol. 2 (of 2)
Linton, E. Lynn (Elizabeth Lynn)
Girls; Women
Again, in the manner of following the services you see the oddest
diversity among the strangers at church. The regular congregation has
by this time got pretty well in step together, and stands up or sits
down, speaks or keeps silence, with some kind of uniformity; even the
older men having come to tolerate innovations which at first split the
parish into factions. But the strangers, who have come from the north
and from the south, from the east and from the west, have brought
their own views and habits, and take a pride in making them manifest.
Say that the service is only moderately High--that is, conducted with
decency and solemnity but not going into extremes; your left-hand
neighbour evidently belongs to one of the ultra-Ritualistic
congregations, and disdains to conceal her affiliation. If she be a
tall woman, and therefore conspicuous, her genuflexions are more
profound than any other person's; and her sudden and automatic way of
dropping on her knees, and then getting up again as if she were worked
by wires, attracts the attention of all about her. She crosses herself
at various times; and ostentatiously forbears to use her book save at
certain congregational passages. She regards the service as an act of
priestly sacrifice and mediation, and her own attitude therefore is
one of acceptance, not participation.
Your neighbour on your right is a sturdy Low Churchman, who sticks to
the ways of his father and flings hard names at the new system. He
makes his protest against what he calls 'all this mummery' visibly, if
not audibly. He sits like a rock during the occasional intervals when
modern congregations rise; and he reads his Prayer-book with unshaken
fidelity from first to last, making the responses, which are intoned
by the choir and the bulk of the congregation, in a loud and level
voice, and even muttering _sotto voce_ the clergyman's part after him.
In the creed, when the Ritualistic lady bends both her knees and
almost touches the ground, he simply bobs his head, as if saluting
Robinson or Jones; and during the doxology, where she repeats the
obeisance, and looks as if she were speaking confidentially to the
matting, he holds up his chin and stares about him. She, the
pronounced Ritualist, knows all the hymns by heart and joins in them
like one well accustomed; but he, the Evangelist, stumbles over the
lines, with his _pince-nez_ slipping off his nose, satisfied if he
catches a word here and there so as to know something of his
whereabouts. She sings correctly all through; but he can do no more
than put in a fancy note on occasions, and perhaps come in with a
flourish at the end. There are many such songsters at church who think
they have done all that can be demanded of them in the way of
congregational harmony if they hit the last two notes fairly, and join
the pack at the Amen.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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