Charles Goodyear's work, therefore, is a permanent addition to the
resources of man. The latest posterity will be indebted to him.

HENRY WARD BEECHER AND HIS CHURCH

Is there anything in America more peculiar to America, or more curious
in itself, than one of our "fashionable" Protestant churches,--such as
we see in New York, on the Fifth Avenue and in the adjacent streets?
The lion and the lamb in the Millennium will not lie down together
more lovingly than the Church and the World have blended in these
singular establishments. We are far from objecting to the coalition,
but note it only as something curious, new, and interesting.

We enter an edifice, upon the interior of which the upholsterer and
the cabinet-maker have exhausted the resources of their trades. The
word "subdued" describes the effect at which those artists have aimed.
The woods employed are costly and rich, but usually of a sombre hue,
and, though elaborately carved, are frequently unpolished. The light
which comes through the stained windows, or through the small diamond
panes, is of that description which is eminently the "_dim_,
religious." Every part of the floor is thickly carpeted. The pews
differ little from sofas, except in being more comfortable, and the
cushions for the feet or the knees are as soft as hair and cloth can
make them. It is a fashion, at present, to put the organ out of sight,
and to have a clock so unobtrusive as not to be observed. Galleries
are now viewed with an unfriendly eye by the projectors of churches,
and they are going out of use. Everything in the way of conspicuous
lighting apparatus, such as the gorgeous and dazzling chandeliers of
fifteen years ago, and the translucent globes of later date, is
discarded, and an attempt is sometimes made to hide the vulgar fact
that the church is ever open in the evening. In a word the design of
the fashionable church-builder of the present moment is to produce a
richly furnished, quietly adorned, dimly illuminated, ecclesiastical
parlor, in which a few hundred ladies and gentlemen, attired in
kindred taste, may sit perfectly at their ease, and see no object not
in harmony with the scene around them.

To say that the object of these costly and elegant arrangements is to
repel poor people would be a calumny. On the contrary, persons who
show by their dress and air that they exercise the less remunerative
vocations are as politely shown to seats as those who roll up to the