London

by Walter Besant

LUD GATE

He then proceeds to propose the erection of equestrian statues in various parts of the City. This has now been accomplished, but yet we are not wholly satisfied. He would put up piazzas, porticos, and triumphal arches here and there; he would remove the bars and chains of Holborn, Smithfield, Aldersgate, Bishopsgate, and Whitechapel, and would put up stone piers with the City arms upon them. We have almost forgotten those bars and chains. He proposes a new stone bridge across the river at the mouth of Fleet Ditch. Blackfriars Bridge has been erected there. It is a most instructive pamphlet, written, it is evident, by a man much in advance of his age.

The best description of London about this time is certainly Gay's "Trivia." Witness the following lines on Thames Street:

"O who that rugged street would traverse o'er,
That stretches, O Fleet Ditch, from thy black shore
To the Tow'r's moated walls? Here steams ascend
That, in mixed fumes, the wrinkled nose offend.
Where chandler's cauldrons boil; where fishy prey
Hide the wet stall, long absent from the sea;
And where the cleaver chops the heifer's spoil,
And where huge hogsheads sweat with trainy oil;
Thy breathing nostril hold: but how shall I
Pass, where in piles Carnavian cheeses lie;
Cheese, that the table's closing rites denies,
And bids me with th' unwilling chaplain, rise?"

If you were to ask any person specially interested in the Church of England—not necessarily a clergyman of that Church—which was the deadest and lowest and feeblest period in the history of the Anglican Church, he would, without the least hesitation, reply that the reign of George the Second covered that period. This is universally accepted. I think, however, that one may show, without much trouble, that this belief is not based upon inquiry into the facts of the time. The Church of George the Second did not, it is true, greatly resemble that of this generation: it had its own customs, and it had its own life. It is certain that the churches were what is commonly called "ugly"—that is to say, they were built by Wren, or were imitations of his style, and had nothing to do with Early English, or Decorated, or even Perpendicular. Also, it is certain that the congregations sat in pews, each family by itself; that there were some few pews of greater dignity than others, where sat my Lord Mayor, or the aldermen, or the sheriffs, or the masters of City companies. It is also certain that all the churches had galleries; that the services were performed from a "three-decker;" that the sermon was preached in a black gown, and that the clergyman called himself a minister, and not a priest. All these things are abominations to some of us in the latter half of the nineteenth century. There were also pluralists; the poor were left very much to themselves, and the parish was not "worked" according to modern ideas. There were no mothers' meetings, no day in the country, no lectures and tea-meetings; no activity; no "working," in fact, at all. But was it quite a dead time? Let us see.

There were at that time a hundred and nine parish churches in London and Westminster. At forty-four of these there was daily service—surely this is a recognized indication of some religious activity—at one of these there were three daily services; at all of them—the whole hundred and nine—there were services every Wednesday and Friday, and on all holy days and saints' days. There were endowments for occasional sermons in nearly every church. So much of the Puritan spirit remained that the sermon was still considered the most important part of Church service; in other words, sound doctrine being then held to be essential to salvation, instruction in doctrine was considered of far greater importance than prayer or praise; a fact which quite sufficiently accounts for the slovenly character of Church services down to thirty or forty years ago. The singing, observe, might be deplorable, but the sermon—the essential—was sound.

Sound doctrine. That was the one thing needful. It trampled on everything else. Of commercial morality, of the duties and responsibilities of masters towards servants, of any rights possessed by the producers either in their produce or in their government, or in their power to better their position, not one word was ever said. The same men who would gravely and earnestly and with fervent prayers discuss the meaning of a text, would take a share in a slaver bound for the Guinea Coast and Jamaica, or go out to watch the flogging of a wretch at the cart-tail, or the hanging of a poor woman for stealing a loaf of bread, without a thought that they were doing or witnessing anything but what was right and laudable. The same men would cheerfully pay their servants wages just enough to live upon and make tenfold, twentyfold profit to themselves, and think they were doing God service. So far the religious life of the century was low and feeble. But the science of morals advances; it has very little indeed to do with sound doctrine, but a great deal with human brotherhood; could we look into the middle of the next century we should perhaps shudder to discover how we ourselves will be regarded as inhuman sweaters and oppressors of the poor. Let us, therefore, cease to speak of our forefathers with contempt. They had their religion; it differed from ours; we have ours, and our grandchildren's will differ from that.

There were no Sunday-schools. These came in towards the end of the century; still there were schools in almost every parish in the City. At these schools the children were instructed in the rudiments of the Christian faith. Why, the free-schools of the City, without counting the great grammar-schools of St. Paul's, Merchant Taylors', Charter House, Christ's Hospital, the Mercers', St. Olave's, and St. Saviour's, gave instruction to five thousand boys and half that number of girls. There was not a poor boy of respectable parents in the whole City, I believe, who could not receive a sound education—quite as good as he would now get at a Board School, and on Sunday he had to go to church and was duly catechised.