The Sun.
London, England, 1860-10-15 00:00:00

ST. GEORGE'S IN 711 E EAST.

Yesterday the services at the church of St.
George-in-the-East were conducted with compara-
tively little interruption upon the whole, although
after the conclusion of that in the evening there
was a disturbance within the church which, occur-
ring in any other religious edifice, would have been
considered disgraceful. At intervals, during the
morning service, a small group of persons, well
known for the opposition they have all along waged
to the rector's mode of conducting the services, ren-
dered themselves so conspicuous by the energy with
which they read the responses and by their derisive
coughing, that Mr. Compton, one of the sidesmen
charged with the duty of maintaining order within
the church, marked the ringleaders among them,
one being a young woman, with a view, it is
said, to a charge in the neighbouring police
court. At the evening service the precaution
of closing the galleries to the public was again
had recourse to, and with a satisfactory result,
for it tends to bring the whole congregation,
and especially the disorderly portion of it, more
within the view of those on whom the duty de-
volves of maintaining something like decorum in a
place where that has been long unknown. On the
doors being opened the church was speedily filled
with the usual mixed multitude, composed princi-
pally of young men and women, who took posses-
sion of the pews indiscriminately, and whose demea-
nour was marked by the customary excitement. It
required but small powers to perceive that few
were there for any other purpose than vague curio-
sity, and that there was, as there has ever been
since the disturbances began, a marked absence of
the class of grown-up people, accompanied by their
families, who usually attend the church of the parish
in which they reside. Except perhaps the rector's
and the churchwardens' pews, anything like a pro-
prietary right in a sitting in the church appears for
the present in abeyance, and the whole place is as
much common ground as the greatest stiekler for
free sittings in churches could desire. The Rev. Mr.
Hansard, who has the provisional care of the parish,
read the prayers and lessons ; and an extempore
sermon, which had for its object to inculcate the
idea of the all-pervading love of God, was afterwards
preached by the Rev. Francis Garden, M.A., Sub-
Dean of the Chapel Royal, Whitehall. Now and
then there was an attempt, during the devotional
part of the service, and at the conclusion of the les-
sons, to provoke a general cough, by a handful of
ill-mannered people, apparently acting in concert,
who had contrived to seat themselves together in
front of the reading desk, but it was a comparative
failure, a better feeling pervading the general body
of the congregation. The sermon was attentively
listened to throughout. Among the congregation
was no less distinguished a person than the Chan-
cellorthe of the Exchequer, who occupied a seat in
churchwardens' pew. For some time at the conclu-
sion
of the service the ill-disposed part of the
con-
gregation seemed loath to leave
rather
he
r alarming.church, and
once the appearance of things was
up in a corner in front of the vestry door
an uproar
for some little time, the abject of c w
A crowd of people,by chance or desiagene,iriattheewmhmieehd
the clergyman had retired, and created
leaving waslhhaurrdclyh
intelligible. Numbers who were hich
tle
church
returned returned to see what was the matter,
" confusion worse con founded;" others stood up on
pew to pew ; while the
mthaeleshenattsehotra jumped
frpeendt
from
or the vestry gave expression
to their dissatisfaction, whatever it was, in tones of
angry altercation, which rang through the building.
But at sight of the
during the service in
plain clothes, and who came to quell the disturb-
ance, assisted by the churchwardens, sidesmen, and
beadles, the people gradually dispersed and retired
from the church. Mr. Gladstone witnessed the scene
from the churchwarden's pew, and did not leave
the edifice until order was being restored.