ECCLESIASTICAL HISTORY St. Martin's in the Fields, and, above all, by Butler, who was preacher at the Rolls Chapel in 17 19, and in 1740 was made Dean of St. Paul's, The most notable feature of the religious life of Queen Anne's reign was the increase of corporate religion. The idea embodied in the mediaeval church gild had survived in the Independent congregations, and now made itself felt in the Church in the formation of the great Church societies and of private religious societies, or, as they would now be called, communicants' gilds. Though the origin of these societies was obscure even to contem- poraries they seem to have first developed among the young men of Anthony Horneck's congregation at the Savoy in 1672.^°* Similar societies were formed soon afterwards under Beveridge at St. Peter's Cornhill and Smithies at St. Giles' Cripplegate, and from these the idea spread rapidly.^"" An apparently imperfect list gives fourteen societies in London and Westminster by 1694,"° with a membership of 254; in 1699 there were about thirty-nine,"^ which had increased to forty by 1701.^'^ All the members were communi- cants,"' and were chiefly skilled artisans or shopkeepers,*'* apprentices being generally excluded. The object of all the societies was ' to promote Real Holiness of Heart and Life ' by weekly meetings for discussion and by cor- porate acts of communion."^ Much suspicion was attached at that period to private societies,"^ and so marked was the general disapproval that at least one society called itself a ' club ' and met at a tavern instead of at a private house,"^ while in another instance an incumbent refused to countenance the formation of a society without the primate's consent."^ The societies were charged with being seditious and schismatic,"' and the rules which survive appear to have been framed with a view to these objections ; each member of the society at St. Giles' declared his adherence to the Hanoverian succes- sion, and no political question might be discussed.^'" It was an essential feature of these societies that they should be under the direct control of a clergyman of the Church of England, though not necessarily of the parish priest ; the prayers used at the meetings were taken from the Liturgy, that used at St. Giles' being approved by the bishop, and attendance at the cor- porate communion once a month was obligatory on all members." In 1714 the religious societies maintained celebrations on holy days at St. Mary le Bow and St. Dunstan's in the West, and lectures at twenty-four parish churches. ^"^ Regular almsgiving was a notable feature of the societies, the money being placed in a common stock and administered by two stewards, who likewise controlled the subjects for discussion. Generally the money was given to a ^°' Kidder, Life of Rev. Anthony Horneck, 1 3 ; Woodward, Acct. of Rise and Progress of the Religious Societies in the City of Lond. (ed. 3), 22. '"' Short Acct. of the Several Sorts of Religious Societies (B.M. Pressmark 816, m, 22, no. 75). "" Bodl. Lib. Rawlinson MS. D. I 3 12.
- " [Woodward] y^cc/. 0/" //if Societies for Reformation of Manners, 15. This anonymous work has been
attributed to Defoe, but apparently it is not his (see Wilson, Life of Defoe, i, 302), and may with greater reason be attributed to Woodward. '" Woodward, Acct. of . . . Religious Societies, 40.
- " Samuel Wesley, Pious Communicant (ed. 1700), App. "* Bodl. Lib. Rawlinson MS. D. 13 12.
'" J. Wickham Legg, ' London Church Services in and about the Reign of Queen Anne,' St. PauFs Ecclesiological Soc. Trans, vi, 31. "° Cf. Remarks upon a Sermon Preached by Dr. Henry Sacheverell at the Assizes held at Derby, 14. '" Woodward, Acct. of . . . Religious Soc. 28-9. ^'* Kidder, op. cit. 16. "' Woodward, Acct. of . . . Religious Soc. 119. "° Legg, loc. cit. 33. "' Ibid. ; Kidder, op. cit. 1 3 ; Woodward, Acct. of . . . ReFtg. Soc. 133; Sharp, Life of John Sharp, i, 176. '" Secretan, Life' of Nelson, 91 ; Paterson, Pietas Lond. 1 353 45
