"JosephAddison&RichardSteele-DaysWithSirRogerDeCoverley" - читать интересную книгу автора (Addison Joseph)

my friend's wisdom or simplicity.



A COUNTRY SUNDAY.

I am always very well pleased with a country Sunday, and think,
if keeping holy the seventh day were only a human institution, it
would be the best method that could have been thought of for the
polishing and civilizing of mankind. It is certain the country
people would soon degenerate into a kind of savages and
barbarians, were there not such frequent returns of a stated
time, in which the whole village meet together with their best
faces, and in their cleanliest habits, to converse with one
another upon indifferent subjects, hear their duties explained to
them, and join together in adoration of the Supreme Being.
Sunday clears away the rust of the whole week, not only as it
refreshes in their minds the notions of religion, but as it puts
both the sexes upon appearing in their most agreeable forms, and
exerting all such qualities as are apt to give them a figure in
the eye of the village. A country-fellow distinguishes himself
as much in the Church-yard, as a citizen does upon the Change,
the whole parish-politicks being generally discussed in that
place either after sermon or before the bell rings.

My friend Sir Roger, being a good churchman, has beautified the
inside of his church with several texts of his own choosing. He
has likewise given a handsome pulpit-cloth, and railed in the
communion-table at his own expense. He has often told me, that
at his coming to his estate he found his parishioners very
irregular; and that in order to make them kneel and join in their
responses, he gave every one of them a hassock and a common
prayer-book: and at the same time employed an itinerant singing-
master, who goes about the country for that purpose, to instruct
them rightly in the tunes of the psalms; upon which they now very
much value themselves, and indeed outdo most of the country
churches that I have ever heard.

As Sir Roger is landlord to the whole congregation, he keeps them
in very good order, and will suffer nobody to sleep in it besides
himself; for if by chance he has been surprised into a short nap
at sermon, upon recovering out of it he stands up and looks about
him, and if he sees any body else nodding, either wakes them
himself, or sends his servants to them. Several other of the old
Knight's particularities break out upon these occasions.
Sometimes he will be lengthening out a verse in the singing-
psalms, half a minute after the rest of the congregation have
done with it; sometimes, when he is pleased with the matter of
his devotion, he pronounces Amen three or four times to the same
prayer; and sometimes stands up when every body else is upon