1830.J Affairs in General. 77 



To this proposition we can conceive no valid answer. It is certain, 

 that the absence of a whole family from home at once, exposes their 

 goods to plunder. The only resource then, is the double service. But 

 we shall go further than the petitioner, and say, that the service should 

 be strictly a full service ; that instead of the mere evening service, the 

 morning service should be repeated, so that no distinction should be 

 made in length or importance to those who might be compelled to; 

 remain at home in the early part of the day. 



For the length of the morning service we are no advocates ; and there, 

 too, we should demand a reform. All the world knows that the present 

 liturgy consists of three former ones, and knows equally, that with 

 the addition of a sermon, often the dullest of all possible compositions > 

 the mind of the worshipper becomes utterly weary. Why shall the fear 

 of change impede the common sense, that tells us the liturgy abounds in 

 repetitions, and that one of half the length would be of twice the efficacy ? 

 Two hours and a half, the shortest time in which the morning service is 

 performed, is too long for attention, and often too long for health. A 

 judicious limitation to its actual objects would bring back many a 

 deserter who had been won away by the simpler and more succinct form 

 of the dissenting chapel. 



We can have no objection to the late increase in the number of 

 churches. But we are perfectly convinced that in a large variety of 

 instances they were totally unnecessary. If we look into any of the large 

 churches of London or of the country, in the afternoon or evening, we find 

 almost a solitude. The fifty London churches do not average fifty persons 

 a piece. The country churches, except in the instance of some peculiarly 

 popular preacher, or some singularly zealous clergyman, have seldom in 

 the evening any beyond a few paupers and a charity school. In point of 

 exterior, too, the new churches are generally among the very worst speci- 

 mens of the arts. As to patronage, they are generally turned into snug 

 sinecures for the sons, or nephews, or daughters' husbands, or nieces' hus- 

 bands, or some still lower dependant, of the rector. Of course a good deal 

 of canvassing is employed to have them built wherever the rector is plagued 

 with those dependants ; and the parishes, already overwhelmed with 

 poor-rates and taxes, are burthened to make a provision for the hangers- 

 on. This, we could pledge ourselves, has been the secret history of the 

 transaction in a crowd of instances ; and all this waste, jobbery, and 

 sinecurism, might have been avoided by the obvious method of inducing 

 the morning congregation to divide itself, and find the evening service as 

 accurately and attentively performed as the morning. Thus the over- 

 flow which excites the complaint of want of room, and which has been 

 so zealously laid hold of by those whose patronage it extended, would 

 have never existed. The beggars and brats would not be the sole tenants 

 of a church capable of holding thousands ; and though we might have no 

 new monsters of brick and plaster flaring and staring at us in every 

 corner, we should have had the old churches attended as they ought, and 

 the hangers-on serving their country in the fitter employments of the 

 navy, the army, and the plough. 



Don Miguel has managed his matters in the true style of. a man born, 

 if not to a throne, for a throne. We propose him as a model for all 

 aspirants. He only swore allegiance several times, promised King 

 George, puzzled his ministers, raised an army against the constitution to 

 which he had sworn, knocked one part of its defenders on the head, 



