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100 years ago: Puritan rules his parish

by
18 October 2024

October 17th, 1924.

IN ANOTHER column our Manchester correspondent reports that the Rev. G. H. Ensor, the new vicar of Leyland, has demanded that all his Sunday school teachers shall make a solemn promise that they will never enter a theatre or a cinema, never go to a dance or attend a whist-drive. It is deplorable that a Church of England priest should issue so unchristian a ukase. If they have any self-respect, the Sunday school teachers will of course resign. But the presence in a parish of a clergyman with so banal an idea of his religion will necessarily increase antagonism to religion among sensible people who have not as yet learnt its realities. The English are essentially a humorous and cheerful people. The indifference to religion in this country began when the Puritans laid down the truly awful doctrine that godliness and gloominess are much the same thing. Nowadays this doctrine is only held by a small minority of the stricter Dissenters. Just as Mr. Spurgeon declared that it was possible to smoke a cigar to the glory of God, so the modern Nonconformist divine has discovered that he may watch a performance of “St. Joan” without outraging his religious principles. And it is dreadful that a Church of England clergyman should in these days still brazenly profess allegiance to the narrow, intolerant creed of Praise-God-Barebones. It is hardly necessary to add that Mr. Ensor was presented to his living by a body of Protestant trustees who have been busy buying up Lancashire advowsons.

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