Let those people who lament the decay of religious observances read the following quotation from the "Salem Gazette" of 1830. Those who can recollect how it was at that date must see that notwithstanding a perhaps much smaller attendance now upon public worship, there is every reason to believe that, at least as far as the native population is concerned, Sunday is really more quiet than it was then. After reading this article we shall perhaps be prepared to say that "tythingmen" may have been needed just after the Revolution.
The Times we live in. The dreadful tragedy performed in this town last April, and the subsequent arrests, developments, confessions, trials, &c., by keeping the thoughts and conversation of the community continually directed to that enormity, have led to the general but very erroneous notion, that there must have been a great deterioration of the public morals.—If the words of the aged are to be received as true, the very reverse is the fact. The revolutionary war left the whole country as well depraved in morals as exhausted in resources. This was particularly the case with such towns as Salem, which had been largely exposed to the irresistibly corrupting influence of privateering.
At that time, when the population of Salem was not half so great as it is at present, more riot, debauchery, and vice, obtruded themselves upon the sight in a week, than could now be discovered by diligent search in a month. The corruption of manners was so general, that almost none escaped from its contaminating influence. Mechanics and other laboring men would leave their business in the day, and their families in the evening, to spend their time, dancing and drinking, in the dens of pollution which then abounded in "Naugus-Hole" and "Button-Hole." Merchants, professional men, &c. passed a great part of their time in taverns, drinking and gambling. Quarrelling and fighting there were not uncommon, and well-worn packs of cards were always lying about the bar-room tables, (though seldom long unemployed,) ready for the use of visitors,—the common game on these occasions being All-Fours, and the common stake a bowl of punch or a mug of flip. Pastimes like the above named, were current in every class of society. When the regular hours of drinking approached, the workmen left their labour to play at cards, the loser "treating the shop's crew." In a large establishment a boy would be kept running with his jug nearly the whole time, the contents being freely shared amongst master, journeymen, boys, and numerous visitors.
At this time, and long afterward, infamous houses were kept open day and night, in the quarters of the town named in the preceding paragraph. The fiddles were kept in constant motion, and if any thought of stopping them they did not dare to attempt it. The most flagrant disorders and outrages were continually occurring, so that a timid man would go far out of his way to avoid passing near those places. The churches on Sunday were not nearly so well attended as they now are. The proportion of persons who made the Sabbath a day of recreation, was much greater. The time was spent in riding into the country, walking about the fields and pastures, and visiting friends in town. But little order was preserved in the streets on that day. People in passing to meeting thro' Prison Lane, (as County-street was then called) and its environs, encountered frequent and large groups of men and boys, noisily engaged in gambling with props, pitching coppers, &c. occasionally enlivened by the uproar of a quarrel.
The doctrines of Tom Paine and his French coadjutors, were much more in vogue then than now. Infidelity stalked over the land with a giant stride, to which the mincing pace of the fooleries of Fanny Wright can bear no comparison; and virtue and good order were almost put out of countenance. Intemperance, habitual or occasional, was so common, as to be hardly considered a matter of reproach; and the kindred vices abounded, which usually follow in its train.
The state of society has been continually improving since. The bad habits of that time have been discarded one after another, by all who would maintain a reputable standing; and open immorality now places a man at once in the lowest rank of society. Intemperance has been diminished in a surprising degree. Debauchery has been compelled to retreat to lurking holes and corners, instead of obtruding its "horrid front" to the public gaze. Education has been improved, and universally diffused; and public worship is more generally attended.—Terrible crimes have indeed been committed amongst us, and may be again, but the habits and manners which lead to crime, are less prevalent at the present time than they have been for fifty years before.
It seems to us to be clearly a mistake for those of ultra-liberal notions to suppose that all who cannot assent to their views of Sunday must of necessity be either Pharisees or hypocrites,—quite as great a mistake as that of the ultra-conservatives, who condemn as wicked all who do not believe in a puritanical observance of Sunday.
Whatever we may think or say or do, people nowadays will not be forced to attend church. Among all denominations the services are more attractive than they once were, and every year there is less and less of the repulsive kinds of doctrine preached. But in spite of this, while many men regard attendance on divine service as both a pleasure and a privilege, there are others, and they not few, whom no influence or persuasion can induce to attend Sunday worship. Such persons must be left to spend the day as they please.
A very large proportion of those who do not attend church services are people of culture and character, from whom church-goers have nothing to fear as regards a disturbance of their worship. Generally this class are interested in having Sunday kept as a day of quiet and rest, and their non-attendance at church is no evidence that they have any desire to secularize Sunday.
An eminent writer has said: "We live in a transition period, when the old faiths which comforted nations, and not only so, but made nations, seem to have spent their force.... There is faith in chemistry, in meat and wine, in wealth, in machinery, in the steam-engine, galvanic battery, turbine-wheels, sewing-machines, and in public opinion; but not in divine causes.... A silent revolution has loosed the tension of the old religious sects, and in place of the gravity and permanence of those societies of opinion, they run into freak and extravagance.... In creeds never was such levity: witness the heathenisms in Christianity,—the periodic revivals, the millennium mathematics, the peacock ritualism, the retrogression to popery, the maundering of Mormons, the squalor of mesmerism, the deliration of rappings, the rat-and-mouse revelation, thumps in table-drawers, and black art ... By the irresistible maturing of the general mind the Christian traditions have lost their hold."