aid Mrs. Fletcher, "they got all sorts of people inside
the same meeting-house."

"Yes, and made them feel they were all sorts; but in those, days they
were not much disturbed by that feeling."

"Do you mean to say," asked Mr. Lyon, "that in this country you have
churches for the rich and other churches for the poor?"

"Not at all. We have in the cities rich churches and poor churches, with
prices of pews according to the means of each sort, and the rich are
always glad to have the poor come, and if they do not give them the best
seats, they equalize it by taking up a collection for them."

"Mr. Lyon," Mrs. Morgan interrupted, "you are getting a travesty of
the whole thing. I don't believe there is elsewhere in the world such a
spirit of Christian charity as in our churches of all sects."

"There is no doubt about the charity; but that doesn't seem to make the
social machine run any more smoothly in the church associations. I'm
not sure but we shall have to go back to the old idea of considering the
churches places of worship, and not opportunities for sewing-societies,
and the cultivation of social equality."

"I found the idea in Rome," said Mr. Lyon, "that the United States is
now the most promising field for the spread and permanence of the Roman
Catholic faith."

"How is that?" Mr. Fletcher asked, with a smile of Puritan incredulity.

"A high functionary at the Propaganda gave as a reason that the United
States is the most democratic country and the Roman Catholic is the most
democratic religion, having this one notion that all men, high or low,
are equally sinners and equally in need of one thing only. And I must
say that in this country I don't find the question of social equality
interfering much with the work in their churches."

"That is because they are not trying to make this world any better, but
only to prepare for another," said Mrs. Fletcher.

"Now, we think that the nearer we approach the kingdom-of-heaven idea on
earth, the better off we shall be hereafter. Is that a modern idea?"

"It is an idea that is giving us a great deal of trouble. We've got
into such a sophisticated state that it seems easier to take care of the
future than of the present."

"And it isn't a very bad doctrine that if you take care of the present,
the future will take care of itself," rejoined Mrs. Fletcher.

"Yes, I know," insisted Mr. Morgan; "it's the modern notion of
accumulation and compensation--take care of t