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    Untitled Article

    ON KNEELING IN PUBLIC WORSHIP . To the Editor of the Monthly Repository . Sir , Having been hitherto disappointed in repeated endeavours to obtain some satisfactory information on a subject , which , however unimportant it may appear to many people , is , in my humble opinion , of very material consequence ; particularly to young persons , who certainly ought to be warned agailist

    suffering themselves to be influenced , m the performance of any religious act ( as well as in their faith and common practice ) , merely by example of habits in others—formed , perhaps , from prejudices , originally founded on a too hasty and violent spirit of opposition—I now beg leave farther to make known my wishes , through the channel of your useful periodical

    publication , and to request the favour of having them gratified by any of your correspondents who may be able , and kindly willing , to inform me , from whence proceeded ( or , rather , why yet is continued ) that general custom amongst original Dissenters from the Established Church , of standing ( minister and congregation ) when they offer up , or approvingly join in public addresses to the Great Lord of heaven and earth ? And why ,

    likewise , their invariable sitting posture , in their " endeavours to worship" him , by singing psalms and hymns to his praise , &c . ? By way of answer to the first of these queries ^ I was some years ago told by the son and son-in-law of two Dissenting ministers , that kneeling is a servile attitude . But I trust the

    number of those persons is small indeed who dare to think so highly of themselves as to deem the humblest posture we can use servility / ' when addressing petitions , &c . to our Creator and Almighty Benefactor ! From another person , more recently applied to , ( and who also , it was expected , must know if any worthy reason could be given ) , nothing more was gained ^ than a " supposition '' that the customs alluded to had at first

    arisen from a too greatly extended prejudice against the society from which a separation was made , and had most probably been , in consequence , continued from generation to generation ^ out of respect to ancestors , &x . without farther consideration * Surely , however , in this enlightened age , and at a period , too > when many of those Dissenters , in particular , have , much tq > their honour , publicly discarded other strpng and baneful pre ^ judices in which they were educated , by forming societies for a more pure and rational worship of the One True Gdd , none

    amongst them will be found acting from such unworthy influence only . A conjecture has sometimes occurred , that the habit < p £

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• Citation
  • Monthly Repository (1806-1838) and Unitarian Chronicle (1832-1833), Dec. 2, 1806, page 627, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse-os.kdl.kcl.ac.uk/periodicals/mruc/issues/vm2-ncseproduct1731/page/11/