gmen, as many
other pastors have tried to do and are trying to do, with varying
success. We hear a great deal about the church and the masses, how
they are drifting apart. Here is a minister who tried to bring
them together. He had services when all seats were free, and
workingmen were invited. He interested many of them, and many
joined the church. But the attempt was a failure, for the church
as a whole didn't take kindly to people without money. 'In the
making of a deacon,' said Mr. Irvine, 'goodness is a quality
sought after, but the qualifications for the Society's committee
is cash--cold cash. If there is a deviation from this rule, it is
on the score of patronage. Power in the case of the former is a
rope of sand; in the latter it is law.' Again on this line, Mr.
Irvine said: 'It was inevitable that these workingmen should be
weighed by their contributions. That is the standard of the
Society.'

"How true it is that this standard is applied in more churches
than the Pilgrim Church in New Haven those who are in the churches
know. It is not true, of course, universally, but this is not by
any means an isolated case. Possibly the organization of the
Congregational churches is faulty in this respect. There is the
church and there is the Society. The Society's committee runs the
business of the church. It is apt to be made up of men to whom the
dollar is most essential, and often the committee exercises
absolute power in most of the affairs of the church. In this case
it froze out a man who wanted to go out and bring in men from the
highways and byways, and now he has gone to establish what he
calls the church of the democracy. It is to be a church
independent of the rich. There are such churches--not many, to be
sure--but they come pretty close to the gospel of the New
Testament.

"'A man here may do one of three things,' said the democratic
clergyman in his good-bye address. 'He may degenerate and conform
to type. He may stay for three or four years by the aid of
diplomacy and much grace. He may go mad. Therefore, an essential
qualification for this pastorate is a keen sense of humour. If my
successor has this he will enjoy the community ministry for a few
years and will do much good among the children--he will enjoy the
view from the parsonage, the bay, the river, the mountains. He
will make friends, too, of some of the most genuinely