for some little time afterwards, than it has been
since, at all events until a very recent date. Archbishop Sancroft, in
his circular letter of 1688 to the bishops of his province, had
specially urged the public performance of the daily office 'in all
market and other great towns,' and as far as possible in less populous
places also.[979] In London there was little to complain of. Although
Puritan opinion had been unfavourable to daily services--Baxter having
gone so far as to say, that 'it must needs be a sinful impediment
against other duties to say common prayer twice a day'[980]--the old
feeling as to the propriety of daily worship was by no means so
thoroughly impaired as it soon came to be. Conscientious Church people
in towns would generally have acknowledged that it was a duty, wherever
there was no real impediment. Paterson's account of the London churches
shows that, in 1714, a large proportion of them were open morning and
evening for common prayer. He notes, however, with an expression of
great regret, that the number of worshippers was visibly falling off,
and that in some cases evening service was being wholly discontinued in
consequence of the paucity of attendance.[981] In the popular writings
of Queen Anne's time constant allusion may be found to the early
six-o'clock matins. It must be acknowledged, however, that the daily
services were sometimes attended for other purposes than those of
devotion. Steele, in a paper in the 'Guardian,'[982] in which he highly
commends the practice of daily morning prayers, says that 'going to
six-o'clock service, upon admonition of the morning bell, he found when
he got there many poor souls who had really come to pray. But presently,
after the confession, in came pretty young ladies in mobs, popping in
here and there about the church, clattering the pew doors behind them,
and squatting into whispers behind their fans.' Before long 'there was a
great deal of good company come in.' A few did, indeed, seem to take
pleasure in the worship; but many seemed to make it a task rather than a
voluntary act, and some employed themselves only in gossip or
flirtation. He remarks, towards the close of the paper, that later hours
were becoming more in vogue than the early service.

The duty of daily public worship was, as might be expected, chiefly
insisted upon by the High Churchmen of the period. Thus we find Robert
Nelson urging it. There were very few men of business, he said, wh