Religious worship, though not inculcated as absolutely necessary in the Fashionable World, is yet neither prohibited nor renounced. Certain persons of considerable influence among them, and whose connexion with them arose out of the incidental circumstances of birth, or office, or elevation, have carried into the societies of Fashion some principles which operate as a check upon the natural libertinism of the community. I impute it to this circumstance, rather than to any sober consideration of duty, that religious worship, though it is not esteemed essential to a Fashionable character, is yet not regarded as any impeachment of it. My reason, in a word, for ascribing their conformity in this particular to influence rather than principle, is the difficulty of reconciling it, on any hypothesis besides, to the other parts of their conduct. For it would be a contradiction of ideas to suppose, that persons can seriously mean to worship a God whom they habitually blaspheme; or to pray against a devil, whom they are accustomed to hold out as a bugbear or a joke.
Their mode of worship is generally that which prevails in the country in which they live: they like the credit of an Establishment, and the convenience of taking things as they find them. There are, I am told, some members of Fashion among those who dissent from the established religion. These I shall leave to the care of their Pastors; and proceed to animadvert upon the Fashionable adherents to the religion of the State.
In their manner of observing the rites of public worship, nothing is so remarkable as the degree of refinement they contrive to introduce into every part of it which is capable of being refined upon. Chapels are, for the most part, preferred to Churches; and the reason, among others, for this preference, appears to be, that the modernness of their structure, and their exemption from parochial controul, render them better adapted to such elegant improvements as are requisite for Fashionable piety. Hence that variety of ingenious accommodations, and fanciful ornaments, which gives to their favourite place of devotion the air of a drawing-room: so that a stranger, introduced to their religious assemblies, might be excused for doubting, whether he was about to worship the Deity, or to pay a Fashionable visit. The conduct of their service is, in many cases, marked by an attention to mechanical effect, which is more nearly allied to the parade of the theatre, than to the simplicity of the church. The orators who fill their pulpits, are generally preferred in proportion as they display the captivating attractions of a graceful exterior, and a liberal theology. These preachers have, indeed, a task to execute of no ordinary difficulty. By the tyranny of custom they are compelled to take their text, and to produce their authorities, from the canon of Scripture; and I think it is much to the praise of their dexterity, that so often as they have occasion to discourse from those offensive writings, they yet contrive to give so little offence. How they manage this, I am at a loss to know; unless it be by blinking every question that involves a moral application; or else by allowing their audience the benefit of that Fashionable salvo, that the company present is always excepted.
It has also been remarked by scrupulous observers, that this people perform almost the whole of their public devotions in a posture which rather accommodates their indolence, than expresses their respect for the object of their worship. If this be the fact, it is not a little extraordinary; since they use a liturgy which prescribes kneeling and standing, as well as sitting; and which contains distinct instructions, when each is to be used. I can, indeed, account, without much difficulty, for the disuse of kneeling; because the structure of the pews does not always admit of it: besides that, it is a posture into which people cannot be expected readily to fall in public, who have not much practice in private. But I cannot so easily account for their refusing to stand: for this is notoriously an attitude to which they are sufficiently accustomed. And that they do not consider the posture in which a thing is done, indifferent, is manifest from the zeal with which they rise from their seats, and expect others to do the same, when about to join in a loyal chorus. I wonder it has not occurred to them, that there is some indecency, not to say impiety, in rising from their seats to sing the praises of their King, and keeping them while they sing the praises of their God.
I have before delivered it as my opinion, that this people comply with the custom of public worship, rather from influence than from conviction; and this opinion receives some confirmation from the pains they take to remove those impressions which the offices of religion may have made upon their minds. In the metropolis, the visit to the house of God is succeeded, as soon as may be, by the drive into the Park. Here they meet with a prodigious concourse of persons of their own description; and have the most charming opportunities of seeing the world, exhibiting themselves, and conversing upon the opera of the preceding evening, or the parties for the ensuing week. The effect of this drive, upon their animal spirits and the whole frame of their mind, is just what might have been expected. Though they have so recently assisted at the most awful solemnities, they can now relax into the most idle levity or the most boisterous mirth; and satisfying themselves that they have done their duty, by remembering the Almighty in the first part of the day, they take no common pains to forget him during the remainder.
In the vicinity of the metropolis, and in other places of Fashionable residence, other expedients are resorted to, in order to produce the same happy effect. No sooner has the priest pronounced his Morning benediction, than the carriage which has conveyed the family to church must be driven round the neighbourhood; and the bells and knockers of twenty doors announce, that the restraints of public worship are at an end. This pleasant divertisement is not lost upon the great body of the inhabitants. Persons the farthest removed from all Fashionable pretensions, rejoice with their superiors at this speedy termination of the Sabbath; and, with a servile imitation of their example, pursue their pleasures in some house of entertainment, instead of seeking a second blessing in the house of God. [66]
Though there is something very lively and ingenious in this method of dissipating religious impressions, yet I think it might be an improvement upon the plan, not to allow them to be made at all. Experiments to this effect have been actually tried by some persons of no mean condition, in the Fashionable World, who have wholly renounced the habit of public worship; and these experiments would probably have been tried upon a much larger scale, had it not been for the consideration of setting a pernicious example: for it seems to be a maxim among many of them, that persons in a dependent state may really be benefited by the offices of devotion. With a charity, therefore, that does them honour, they make a sacrifice of their feelings and their time to the interests of their inferiors; and when it is considered, how much whirling in a carriage, gaping, gadding, and gossiping, it takes them, to recover the true tone of dissipation, it will be seen that the sacrifice is not inconsiderable.
In observing thus largely upon the religion of the Fashionable World, I have furnished a sufficient clue to their moral character. If, from some hints which have been thrown out in this and the preceding chapter, rigid Christians should be led to infer, that it is no better than it should be, they must be reminded, that people of Fashion have a standard peculiar to themselves; and that, therefore, what are deviations from our standard, are very often near approximations to theirs. In fact, they have acted in this respect with the same convenient policy by which they have been guided in framing every other part of their system. Pleasure being the object upon which a life of Fashion terminates, it was sagaciously enough foreseen, that an unbending morality would be utterly incompatible with the modes, and habits, and plans, of such a career. There remained therefore no alternative, but that of frittering away the strength and substance of the morality of the Gospel, till it became sufficiently tame and pliable for the sphere of accommodation in which it was to act. The consequence has been, that while they employ the same terms to denote their moral ideas, as are in use among Christians in general, yet they limit, or enlarge, their signification, as expediency requires. Thus modesty, honesty, humanity, and sobriety—names, with stricter moralists, for the purest virtues—are so modified and liberalized by Fashionable casuists, as to be capable of an alliance with a low degree of every vice to which they stand opposed. A woman may expose her bosom, paint her face, assume a forward air, gaze without emotion, and laugh without restraint, at the loosest scenes of theatrical licentiousness; and yet be, after all,—a modest woman. A man may detain the money which he owes his tradesman, and contract new debts for ostentatious superfluities, while he has neither the means nor the inclination to pay his old ones; and yet be, after all,—a very honest fellow. A woman of Fashion may disturb the repose of her family every night, abandon her children to mercenary nurses, and keep her horses and her servants in the streets till day-break,—without any impeachment of her humanity. So the gentleman of Fashion may swallow his two or three bottles a-day, and do all his friends the kindness to lay them under the table as often as they dine with him; yet, if constitution or habit secure him against the same ignominious effects, he claims to be considered—a sober man.
There would be no end of going over all the eccentricities of Fashionable morality. To those who exact that truth which allows of no duplicity, that honour which scorns all baseness, and that virtue which wars with every vice, I question but every thing in the morals of this people would appear anomalous and extraordinary: but to those who consider, how necessary a certain portion of wickedness is to such a life of sense as these people must necessarily lead, it will not be matter of surprise that there should be so little genuine morality among them; the wonder will rather be—that there should be any at all.