, but
they are churches for the rich; solemn, imposing, cathedral-aisled,
glass-stained, costly, munificently beneficed, elegantly pastored--God
locked in, the poor locked out. I know there are "mothers'" meetings
and "mite" societies, and all the rest of it, but all the same the
poor woman in her old shawl and bonnet would not think of entering one
of those expensive pews, nor does the man in his working suit feel
that that is the place for him. Outside, the majority of churches take
no account of the necessity for the consolation, the comfort, the
upbuilding, the refreshment of religion, save and only for certain
hours on Sunday, and then it must be in full toggery, and in company
with, the eminently respectable.

The most beautiful thing about the old churches abroad is not their
splendor of carving and painting, but that they stand with, open doors
week days and Sundays, for the people to enter; and they do enter. The
market woman with her basket drops in for a moment on her way home
from the labor of her weary day. The old woman totters in to say her
"Ave Maria," the young woman to pray away her perplexities. Even the
business man sometimes finds it a resource from his struggles and
temptations. The poor, with their crowded houses and narrow quarters,
have so little privacy as to make quiet, and even an opportunity for
self-communion, a luxury. Then how often in the perplexities which
fill their lives they desire for a little while a retreat, a refuge
where they can think, perhaps receive a word of counsel, at least find
an atmosphere of absolute peace and restfulness.

The Monday prayer-meeting, the afternoon exhortation; the evening
conference of the Baptists, the Methodists, the Presbyterians, or the
Congregationalists, are not what is wanted; nor is it a cold and
barn-like edifice which makes one feel, if one goes to call upon God,
as though He were out, and could only be seen at stated times, and by
the will of the sexton and the trustees.

A people's church is wanted, where the people can come and go as they
please; which asks no questions, which is always open, which has brief
singing and organ services that all and any people of any kind and
degree may attend and feel themselves welcome. A morning service of
praise, a mid-day song of rejoicing, a vesper hymn of thankfulness. No
word of condemnation, no word of controversy, no word of doubt, no
word of assertion or denial; only unceasing love, continued a