Richard Jefferies in Hodge and his Masters spoke of some of the changes that had come about with an energetic new vicar. His predecessor had been a man of whom it was said, "he was a very good sort of man: he never interfered with anybody or anything,"
The new vicar introduced a choir, doing away with the old motley collection of village instrumentalists. He brought colours into the hangings and decoration of the church, and put flowers and candlesticks on the altar. He held early morning celebrations of communion, he left the church open all day for private prayer. He reminded the people of Lent and Easter, festivals and saints' days, and emphasised the importance of the communion service. He saw to it that the district was visited, that no cottage was left neglected.
All this was an immense change from the days when gentry dozed peacefully in high boxes-in pews while the preacher in black gown and white bands thumped the red velvet cushion in his pulpit during the lengthy course of his forty-minute sermon, which with the Litany and the Psalms formed the main part of Sunday worship.
I'm left wondering how much of an influence Jefferies was on Thomas Hardy, because here we are very much in the world of Hardy's poem The Choirmaster's Burial - an earnest, reforming new clergyman sweeps away the old ways.
You can read the poem on Hello Poetry and listen Benjamin Britten's setting of it below.
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