pon clergy and laity alike, to address their religious
energies too exclusively to those tasks whereby human life
may be made more abundant and wholesome materially.... We
need constantly to be reminded that spiritual things come
first.

There come before my mental eye the elegant ladies and gentlemen for
whom these comfortable sayings are prepared: the vestrymen and pillars
of the Church, with black frock coats and black kid gloves and shiny
tophats; the ladies of Good Society with their Easter costumes in
pastel shades, their gracious smiles and their sweet intoxicating
odors. I picture them as I have seen them at St. George's, where that
aged wild boar, Pierpont Morgan, the elder, used to pass the
collection plate; at Holy Trinity, where they drove downtown in
old-fashioned carriages with grooms and footmen sitting like twin
statues of insolence; at St. Thomas', where you might see all the
"Four Hundred" on exhibition at once; at St. Mary the Virgin's, where
the choir paraded through the aisles, swinging costly incense into my
childish nostrils, the stout clergyman walking alone with nose
upturned, carrying on his back a jewelled robe for which some adoring
female had paid sixty thousand dollars. "Spiritual things come first?"
Ah, yes! "Seek first the kingdom of God, and the jewelled robes shall
be added unto you!" And it is so dreadful about the French and German
Socialists, who, as the "Churchman" reports, "make a creed out of
materialism." But then, what is this I find in one issue of the organ
of the "Church of Good Society"?

Business men contribute to the Y.M.C.A. because they realize
that if their employes are well cared for and religiously
influenced, they can be of greater service in business!

Who let that material cat out of the spiritual bag?

* * * * *

#BOOK THREE#

#The Church of the Servant-girls#

Was it for this--that prayers like these
Should spend themselves about thy feet,
And with hard, overlabored knees
Kneeling, these slaves of men should beat
Bosoms too lean to suckle sons
And fruitless as their orisons?

Was it for this--that men should make
Thy name a fetter on men's necks,
Poor men made poorer for thy sake,
And women withered out of sex?
Was it for this--that slaves should be--
Thy word was passed to set men free?

Swinburne.

* * * * *