worse than expressions of patriotic loyalty.  Another frequent fault of these special prayers was uncharitableness.  Gilbert Wakefield speaks in particular of an ‘execrable prayer against the Americans,’ and of the storms which threatened him when he ’read it, but with the omission of all those unchristian words and clauses which constituted the very life and soul of the composition to the generality of hearers.’[1046]

The two anniversaries of January 30 and November 5 gave rise—­especially the former—­to a whole literature of special sermons, the great majority of which should never have been preached, or at least never published.  Extreme men on either side delighted in the favourable opportunity presented by the one or the other of these two days of airing their respective opinions on subjects which could not yet be discussed without excitement.  Protestant ardour, scarcely satisfied with commemorating Gunpowder Treason in Church services which matched in language the bonfires of the evening, found scope also for Antipapal demonstrations in other and more distant reminiscences.  November 27, the anniversary of Elizabeth’s accession, had been celebrated in London in 1679 with the most elaborate processions.[1047] In the earlier part of the eighteenth century it was still a great day in some parishes for riotous meetings,[1048] and was solemnised in some churches with special sermons and religious services.[1049] On the 14th or 20th of August there were also commemorative sermons in several London churches in remembrance of the defeat of the Armada.[1050] At St. Mary-le-Bow, Cheapside, this custom still survives.

Throughout the eighteenth century the old laws which required due attendance on public worship were still in force.  They were, in fact, formally confirmed in the thirty-first year of George the Third;[1051] and however much they had fallen into neglect, they were not removed from the statute-book till the ninth and tenth years of the present reign.[1052] We are told, however, that when the Toleration Act was passed in 1689, by one of the chief provisions of which persons who frequented a legal dissenting congregation were excused from all penalties for not coming to church, there was a general and observable falling off in the attendance at divine worship.[1053] Hitherto congregations had been swelled by numbers who went for no better reason than because it was the established rule of the realm that they must go.  Henceforward, mistaken or not, it was the popular impression that people ’had full liberty to go to church or stay away; and the services were much deserted in favour of the ale-houses.’[1054] At the beginning, however, of the eighteenth century, the churches were once again fuller than they had been for some time previously.  Dissent was at that time thoroughly unpopular; and the practice of occasional conformity brought a considerable number of moderate Dissenters into church.  It was observed that churches in London which once had