He who now stands on London Bridge and looks down the river, will see a large number of steamers lying off the quays; there are barges, river steamers, and boats, there are great ocean steamers working up or down the river; but there is little to give the stranger even a suspicion of the enormous trade that is carried on at the Port of London.  That port is now hidden behind the dock gates; the trade is invisible unless one enters the docks and reckons up the ships and their tonnage, the warehouses and their contents.  But a hundred years ago this trade was visible to any who chose to look at it, and the ships in which the trade was carried on were visible as well.

Below the Bridge, the river, for more than a mile, pursues a straight course with a uniform breadth.  It then bends in a north-easterly direction for a mile or so, when it turns southward, passing Deptford and Greenwich.  Now, a hundred years ago, for two miles and more below the bridge, the ships lay moored side by side in double lines, with a narrow channel between.  There were no docks; all the loading and the unloading had to be done by means of barges and lighters in the stream.  One can hardly realize this vast concourse of boats and barges and ships; the thousands of men at work; the passage to and fro of the barges laden to the water’s edge, or returning empty to the ship’s side; the yeo-heave-oh! of the sailors hoisting up the casks and bales and cases; the shouting, the turmoil, the quarrelling, the fighting, the tumult upon the river, now so peaceful.  But when we talk of a riverside parish we must remember this great concourse, because it was the cause of practices from which we suffer to the present day.

Of these things we may be perfectly certain.  First, that without the presence among a people of some higher life, some nobler standard, than that of the senses, this people will sink rapidly and surely.  Next, that no class of persons, whether in the better or the worser rank, can ever be trusted to be a law unto themselves.  For which reason we may continue to be grateful to our ancestors who caused to be written in large letters of gold, for all the world to see once a week, “THUS SAITH THE LORD, Thou shalt not steal,” and the rest:  the lack of which reminder sometimes causes in Nonconformist circles, it is whispered, a deplorable separation of faith and works.  The third maxim, axiom, or self-evident proposition is, that when people can steal without fear of consequences they will steal.  All through the last century, and indeed far into this, the only influence brought to bear upon the common people was that of authority.  The master ruled his servants; he watched over them; when they were young he had them catechized and taught the sentiments proper to their station; he also flogged them soundly; when they grew up he gave them wages and work; he made them go to church regularly; he rewarded them for industry by fraternal care; he sent them to the almshouse when they were old.  At church the sermons were not for the servants but for the masters; yet the former were reminded every week of the Ten Commandments, which were not only written out large for all to see, but were read out for their instruction every Sunday morning.  The decay of authority is one of the distinguishing features of the present century.