Purchase of this book includes free trial access to www.million-books.com where you can read more than a million books for free. This is an OCR edition with typos. Excerpt from book: CHAPTER III. A SUNDAY IN LONDON. The Temple Church?A Service in St. Paul’s?A Sermon in the Abbey?Canon Farrar. DR. JOHNSON said to Boswell more than a century ago,
The full tide of life in London flows by Charing Cross. A hundred years have made great changes in the mighty city, but Johnson’s words are as true to-day as when they were spoken. We were wakened on our first Sunday morning in the English metropolis by the chimes of St. Martin’s church at Charing Cross, once called appropriately
St. Martin’s in the Fields. The old name still remains, but
The Field
is covered with massive granite buildings. Only a few pleasure-seekers were in the Strand as we walked toward the great Cathedral of St. Paul’s. There were many London preachers whom I was anxious to hear, but the times were unpropitious. Newman Hall and Joseph Parker were out of the city, and Mr. Spur- geon was ill. With but very few exceptions London shops are closed on Sunday, and the business streets deserted. I have never seen a city where the change from Saturday to Sunday was so marked. As we passed on toward the Cathedral, we felt that everystep of the way was historic ground, consecrated by the lives of Milton and Goldsmith and Johnson and Reynolds. Many a time had they trodden this same street; looked upon these same warehouses and shops and churches. Here just before us is where the famous Temple Bar stood so long. English kings and queens have dismounted before it, to ask of the Lord Mayor a formal permission to enter the city. Upon its graceful arch the heads of traitors and enemies to the crown were uplifted with huge pikes, as a warning to any evildoers who might pass that way in the surging crowds. But the increase of traffic was not to be impeded by even so historic a gate as this. …
