'...When we consider, that, in our churches in general, we breathe a gross stagnated air, surcharged with damps from vaults, tombs, and charnel-houses, may we not term them so many magazines of rheums, created for the benefit of the medical faculty, and safely aver that more bodies are lost than souls saved by going to church, in the winter especially, which may be said to engross eight months in the year[?] I should be glad to know what offence it would give to tender consciences, if the house of God was made more comfortable, or less dangerous to the health of valetudinarians; and whether it would not be an encouragement to piety, as well as the salvation of many lives, if the place of worship was well-floored, wainscoted, warmed, and ventilated, and its area kept sacred from the pollution of the dead...'
from Matt Bramble's letter to Dr Lewis, dated July 4, in The Expedition of Humphry Clinker by Tobias Smollett
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