By the bye, have you heard the queer stories
Of Overend, Gurney and Co.?
Lively Young Lady. Do you know you've been talking at the top of your voice all the time grace was going on?
Agreeable Rattle. Not really? I'm awfully sorry. But our host mumbles so, I never can make out what he's saying.
Lively Young Lady. I can't imagine why people don't have grace after dessert. I know I'm much more thankful for strawberry ice than for saddle of mutton.
And so on and so forth. On the whole, I am not sure that the abolition of grace is a sign of moral degeneracy, but I note it as a social change which I have seen.
Another such change is the disuse of Family Players. In the days of my youth, morning prayers at least formed part of the ritual of every well-ordered household. The scene recurs vividly to the mental eye—the dining-room arranged for breakfast, and the master of the house in top-boots and breeches with the family Bible in close proximity to the urn on the table. Mamma very often breakfasted upstairs; but the sons and daughters of the house, perhaps with their toilettes not quite complete, came in with a rush just as the proceedings began, and a long row of maid-servants, headed by the housekeeper and supported by the footmen, were ranged with military precision against the opposite wall. In families of a more pronouncedly religious tone, evening prayers were frequently superadded; and at ten o'clock the assembled guests were aroused from "Squails" or "Consequences" by the entrance of the butler with "Thornton's Family Prayers" on a silver salver. In one very Evangelical house which I knew in my youth, printed prayers were superseded by extempore devotions, and, as the experiment seemed successful, the servants were invited to make their contributions in their own words. As long as only the butler and the housekeeper voiced the aspirations of their fellows, all was well; but, in an evil moment, a recalcitrant kitchenmaid uttered an unlooked-for petition for her master and mistress—"And we pray for Sir Thomas and her Ladyship. Oh! may they have now hearts given them." And the bare suggestion that there was room for such an improvement caused a prompt return to the lively oracles of Henry Thornton.
I note the disappearance of the domestic liturgy; and here again, as in the matter of grace, I submit that, unless the rite can be decently, reasonably, and reverently performed, it is more honoured in the breach than in the observance.
Much more significant is the secularization of Sunday. This is not merely a change, but a change conspicuously for the worse. The amount of church-going always differed in different circles; religious people went often and careless people went seldom, but almost every one went sometimes, if merely from a sense of duty and decorum. Mr. Gladstone, whose traditions were Evangelical, thought very poorly of what he called a "once-er," i.e. a person who attended divine service only once on a Sunday. He himself was always a "twice-er," and often a "thrice-er"; but to-day it would puzzle the social critic to discover a "twice-er," and even a "once-er" is sufficiently rare to be noticeable.
But far more serious than the decay of mere attendance at church is the complete abolition of the Day of Rest. People, who have nothing to do but to amuse themselves, work at that entrancing occupation with redoubled energy on Sundays. If they are in London, they whirl off to spend the "week-end" amid the meretricious splendours of the stockbroker's suburban paradise; and, if they are entertaining friends at their country houses, they play bridge or tennis or croquet; they row, ride, cycle, and drive, spend the afternoon in a punt, and wind up the evening with "The Washington Post."
All this is an enormous change since the days when the only decorous amusement for Sunday was a visit after church to the stables, or a walk in the afternoon to the home farm or the kitchen garden; and, of course, it entails a corresponding amount of labour for the servants. Maids and valets spend the "week-end" in a whirl of packing and unpacking, and the whole staff of the kitchen is continuously employed.