THE FIGHTING FIFTIES I$5

middle class of the eighteen-fifties liked to hear. To still its
honest fears the Government brought in an Ecclesiastical Tides
Bill, as a "slap in the face"—it was little else—"to papal aggres-
sion." There was an eternal child in the English heart, and a
little make-believe, so long as it was kept out of business hours,
was necessary from time to time.

There was no make-believe in the genuine piety of the English
middle-class home. Occasionally tyrannical and more than fre-
quently oppressive—for the English seldom did things by halves
—it was none the less the central core of life for a great body of
men and women who represented between them the major
portion of the wealth, power and activity of the world. It gave
them regularity of habit, a rule of sober conduct that made them
invincible in their narrow achievement and a certain intensity
of purpose that lent dignity and even beauty to their otherwise
monotonous and ugly lives. Over the frieze of one of the chief
London banks were written 'the words, "Lord direct our labours":
the very railway terminuses provided bibles chained to reading-
v desks for the waiting business man to consult

The Frenchman, Taine, in his Notes on England, has left a
picture of the head of an English family conducting prayers in
the sheltered bosom of his household. "On Sunday evening he
is their spiritual guide, their chaplain; they may be seen entering
in a row, the women in front, the men behind, with seriousness,
gravity, and taking their places in the drawing-room. The
family and visitors are assembled. The master reads aloud a
short sermon—next a prayer; then every one kneels or bends
forward, the face turned towards the wall; lastly, he repeats the
Lord's Prayer and, clause by clause, the worshippers respond.
This done, the servants file off, returning in the same order,
silently, meditatively . . . not a muscle of their countenances
moved."1

One saw the full intensity of that spirit of worship on the
'Sabbath. The English kept this day holy and unspotted from
the world: that is to say, they did no work on it, avoided travel,
attended church or chapd and stayed at home. Here the family
virtues were intensively cultivated. An old man who once
taught the writer of this book has recalled his childhood's Sunday
round in mid-Victorian days. At eight the elder children break-
fasted as a Sabbath treat with their parents, and after breakfast

1fffl«, Notes on England, zii.