One of the significant changes in community life during my lifetime has been the sharp decline in weekly church attendance.

Like membership in civic organizations, clubs, and hobbyist groups, regular church attendance has fallen off gradually, and then more rapidly.

Cultural institutions, like opera houses and symphony orchestras, have seen a decline in regular season ticket holders, also.

Americans participate in far fewer affinity groups than adults did in the years following World War II.

This change is widely discussed by pundits of various political and religious persuasions, and by numerous social scientists.

A postcard story is not the appropriate place to enter into that discussion – except to note how different this scene appears to contemporary viewers,

One has to have reached retirement age to remember how many stores and restaurants were once closed on Sundays and how churches and other places of worship were filled.

This postcard illustration, copyrighted in 1907, captures the normal Sunday of small towns and villages of that time.

Two figures, in large sunbonnets, hasten toward the village church on a Sunday morning.

The original drawing was copyrighted by H.L. Robbins – I believe (based on the insignia on the reverse) that this is the publishing company and not the individual artist.

May the peace and tranquility of Sunday morning refresh us.