I Found That There Were No Services At Any Of The Protestant
Churches In The Afternoon.
They have two services on Sunday;
at 11 A. M., and after dark.
The afternoon is spent at home,
or in friendly visiting, or teaching of Sunday Schools, or other
humane and social duties.
This is as much the practice with what at home are called the
strictest denominations as with any others. Indeed, I found
individuals, as well as public bodies, affected in a marked
degree by a change of oceans and by California life. One Sunday
afternoon I was surprised at receiving the card of a man whom I
had last known, some fifteen years ago, as a strict and formal
deacon of a Congregational Society in New England. He was a deacon
still, in San Francisco, a leader in all pious works, devoted to
his denomination and to total abstinence, - the same internally,
but externally - what a change! Gone was the downcast eye, the
bated breath, the solemn, non-natural voice, the watchful gait,
stepping as if he felt responsible for the balance of the moral
universe! He walked with a stride, an uplifted open countenance,
his face covered with beard, whiskers, and mustache, his voice
strong and natural; - and, in short, he had put off the New
England deacon and become a human being. In a visit of an hour
I learned much from him about the religious societies, the moral
reforms, the "Dashaways," - total abstinence societies, which had
taken strong hold on the young and wilder parts of society, - and
then of the Vigilance Committee, of which he was a member, and of
more secular points of interest.
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