I'm halfway through The Joy of the Snow, but no mention of her favorite author, yet.
"...nearly everyone did go to church and Sunday was a day set apart, entirely different from other days, with a different flavour to it.
In town and city alike one awoke to a sense of serenity and quietness, unbroken until the bell-ringers got going in every tower and steeple in the land. But it was not noise they made, it was music. In the country the wind carried the sound of the bells over the fields from one village to the other, and in the towns there seemed to be bell-song at every street's end.
To what extent God himself mattered to each one only that one could have told you. But for the many I do believe that faith in God was deep and strong, and so his law as they conceived it was important, and sin mattered, and the discipline of their moral code was as binding as their faith and gave strength to the nation....I believe they had paradoxically a basic happiness that we have largely lost today because we no longer have their discipline."
- Elizabeth Goudge
Yes, I think this is basically true. Not everyone in days gone by had faith but only the very few would admit to that. Sundays were special/different until fairly recently. Nowadays, admitting that you have a faith puts you in the firing line!
ReplyDeleteYes, it's too bad.
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