n accordance with the discoveries of science and the dignity of
man. In St. George's Hall, Langham Place, this new association meets;
its president is Baxter Langley, Esq. It dispenses with prayer, and with
the reading of the Bible, but instead there is a performance of sacred
music by a choir of a hundred voices, with solos sung by professional
ladies and gentlemen specially engaged, and then the President himself,
smiling and buoyant as if it were an election meeting, as chairman,
performs many solos on his own account. In short, as a paper lying
before me says, "Everything will be done to make the service delightful,
whilst instruction will be secured by a popular lecture each evening from
some gentleman eminent in science, literature, or art."

It seems to be a speciality of this Church of Progress that it disappears
in summer altogether. It is only in the winter time that its doors are
thrown open--not at all to the poor and needy, but to those who can pay.
Is not this a little hard? Life is short, and the disciple of progress
may well mourn that for him half the year exists in vain. Then, again,
this Church of Progress, as much as the oldest and most-abused Churches
of Christendom, makes very rigorous requirements on the pocket. Sixpence
is the minimum paid. If you would hear comfortably you must pay a
shilling. If you would have a seat where you can see and hear still more
comfortably you must shell out half-a-crown. Now, if a man goes with his
wife and family, it is obvious that the sum he will have to pay will be,
if he have but a scanty income, no small consideration. It is true that
a reduction is made if you take tickets for the course, but what I find
fault with is that the casual poor have no chance of being benefited by
this new gospel--that it does not appeal to them--that it ignores them
altogether. I may hear the greatest of Dissenting preachers, I may sit
under deans and bishops--nay, I may listen to the finished accents of an
archbishop--without putting my hand in my pocket, but for the lecture at
St. George's Hall, and the sacred minstrelsy there, I must at the least
pay sixpence. The sum is a small one, but it has a tendency to narrow
the Church and to limit its influence--it must keep outside many who
otherwise would worship there. Why should the Church of Progress only
appeal to the man with sixpence in his pocket? Is it only the capitalist
whose soul is worth looking after? For com