Rensselaer Republican, Volume 17, Number 9, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 6 November 1884 — Scenes in St. Paul’s. [ARTICLE]

Scenes in St. Paul’s.

Every one may go to St. Paul’s Cathedral in the afternoon: and every one may use his ears and eyes when he gets there, says London Truth. When I went I used my ears, and heard an excellent sermon by Canon Liddon, and, among other things, this is what 1 saw: When the canon began to preach, one choirman went fast asleep immediately; the man next to him kept awake. About the middle of the sermon the first man had woke up; but then his companion had gone off. On the other side, I saw another choirman fast asleep. That makes three—some I could not see. I was not surprised, after this, to find the boys in the greatest disorder; one boy was actually lying almost across his companion, his neck hanging over him, in a dead sleep; his friend would not arouse him, but kept awake till he awoke and then went to sleep himself. The boys opposite me seemed more lively, but, if possible, still less devout. One was engaged in making Punch and Judy with his surplice; sucked sweets; another had a scent-squirt; while his. friends were engaged in making little paper things, and trying to get them to stand up on his bench, to the great delight of the rest. A lady who sat next to me was so scandalized, got so fidgety—especially about the brazen boy who lay xvitli his head acroM the other—that I thought she would have got up and roused him herself. I think St. Paul says something about things being “done decently and in order;” more’s the scandal that such

scenes should® be enacted on Sunday afternoon in a cathedral bearing his great name. I beg to state tjris paragraph is not a joke; if I have extenuated nothing, I have certainly “set down naught m malice.”