milar instances could have been produced in other parts of
England. A hundred years earlier, Ralph Thoresby, travelling in
Yorkshire, had expressed his amazement that 'on the Lord's Day we rode
from church to church and found four towns without sermon or
prayers.'[1065] This is scarcely the place to enter further into the
degree of spiritual destitution which prevailed in many parts of
England, and into the causes which brought it about. It may be enough
here to remark that the re-quickening of religious activity in the
Church of England, mainly through the labours of clergy and laymen of
the Evangelical school, came none too soon.

It should be added that, owing mainly to the thoroughly bad system of
bundling three or four poor livings together, in order to provide
respectable maintenance for a clergyman, it was very common in country
places to have only one service on the Sunday. Nothing could be more
likely than this to promote laxity of attendance at divine worship.

Dean Sherlock, in a treatise upon religious assemblies published by him
in 1681, remarked severely upon the unseemly behaviour which was
constantly to be seen in church--the looking about, the whispering, the
talking, the laughing, the deliberate reclining for sleep. Whether it
had arisen out of contempt for all the externals of worship, or whether
it were owing rather to a wild fear of any semblance of fanaticism or of
hypocrisy, this rude and slovenly conduct had come, he said, to a great
height, and brought great scandal upon our worship. The essayists of
Queen Anne's reign made a steady and laudable effort to shame people out
of these indecorous ways. The 'Spectator' constantly recurs to the
subject. At one time it is the Starer who comes in for his reprobation.
The Starer posts himself upon a hassock, and from this point of eminence
impertinently scrutinises the congregation, and puts the ladies to the
blush.[1066] In another paper he represents an Indian chief describing
his visit to a London church. There is a tradition, the illustrious
visitor says, that the building had been originally designed for
devotion, but there was very little trace of this remaining. Certainly
there was a man in black, mounted above the rest, and uttering
something with a good deal of vehemence. But people were not listening;
they were most of them bowing and curtseying to one another.[1067] Or a
distinguished Dissenter came to church. 'After the service was over, he
d