near those places.  The churches on Sunday were not nearly so well attended as they now are.  The proportion of persons who made the Sabbath a day of recreation, was much greater.  The time was spent in riding into the country, walking about the fields and pastures, and visiting friends in town.  But little order was preserved in the streets on that day.  People in passing to meeting thro’ Prison Lane, (as County-street was then called) and its environs, encountered frequent and large groups of men and boys, noisily engaged in gambling with props, pitching coppers, &c. occasionally enlivened by the uproar of a quarrel.

The doctrines of Tom Paine and his French coadjutors, were much more in vogue then than now.  Infidelity stalked over the land with a giant stride, to which the mincing pace of the fooleries of Fanny Wright can bear no comparison; and virtue and good order were almost put out of countenance.  Intemperance, habitual or occasional, was so common, as to be hardly considered a matter of reproach; and the kindred vices abounded, which usually follow in its train.

The state of society has been continually improving since.  The bad habits of that time have been discarded one after another, by all who would maintain a reputable standing; and open immorality now places a man at once in the lowest rank of society.  Intemperance has been diminished in a surprising degree.  Debauchery has been compelled to retreat to lurking holes and corners, instead of obtruding its “horrid front” to the public gaze.  Education has been improved, and universally diffused; and public worship is more generally attended.—­Terrible crimes have indeed been committed amongst us, and may be again, but the habits and manners which lead to crime, are less prevalent at the present time than they have been for fifty years before.

It seems to us to be clearly a mistake for those of ultra-liberal notions to suppose that all who cannot assent to their views of Sunday must of necessity be either Pharisees or hypocrites,—­quite as great a mistake as that of the ultra-conservatives, who condemn as wicked all who do not believe in a puritanical observance of Sunday.

Whatever we may think or say or do, people nowadays will not be forced to attend church.  Among all denominations the services are more attractive than they once were, and every year there is less and less of the repulsive kinds of doctrine preached.  But in spite of this, while many men regard attendance on divine service as both a pleasure and a privilege, there are others, and they not few, whom no influence or persuasion can induce to attend Sunday worship.  Such persons must be left to spend the day as they please.

A very large proportion of those who do not attend church services are people of culture and character, from whom church-goers have nothing to fear as regards a disturbance of their worship.  Generally this class are interested in having Sunday kept as a day of quiet and rest, and their non-attendance at church is no evidence that they have any desire to secularize Sunday.