There were Methodists who were free and those who were Episcopalian, Episcopalians who were not Methodists but were reformed, and those who made no such pretensions; all these invited us to worship with them.
Many varieties of Baptists announced their sermons and services, offering a choice between those who were free and those who were just Baptists, and between those who were Baptists on the Seventh Day and those who did not specify the day on which they were Baptists.
We also had a chance to discriminate between Dutch Reformed, German Reformed or Presbyterian Reformed, and United Presbyterians divided from other Presbyterians (presumably unreformed) for reasons known to the Fathers who died long since.
If we had been radically inclined we might have browsed among Unitarians, Ethical Culturists, and could even have worshipped among those who make a religion out of not having any.
The most interesting column to the Herr Director was that which contained our exotic cults, those we have imported and those which prove that we have not neglected our home industry.
It was disconcerting to me, who was trying to introduce our national spirit, to realize how varied its religious expression is, and the Herr Director got no little amusement out of the story I told him of the student in one of our colleges who, it is said, came to the librarian and asked for a book on “Wild Religions I have Met.” When the librarian suggested it might be Seton Thompson’s book on Wild Animals, he said it was not in the department of Zoölogy, but in Philosophy in which the assignment for the reading was given. The book was then quickly found. It was Prof. William James’ “The Varieties of Religious Experience.”
When we succeeded in rescuing the Frau Directorin out of the maze of Sunday Supplements in which she was entangled, we started in pursuit of a proper place of worship, in anything but a worshipful mood. I was bent upon showing that which is vastly more difficult to interpret than sky-scrapers, the Herr Director was doubtful that we had any religious spirit at all, and the Frau Directorin mourned the fact that she had to leave behind her so much paper which might have served such good purposes if she had it at home.
Fifth Avenue recovers something of its departed exclusiveness on Sunday morning; for although the cheaper stores are crowding upon those which never descend to bargain counters, this is not true of the churches. They still are in good repute, and await the stated hour of service on Sunday morning without excitement, having advertised nothing, offering no ecclesiastical bargains; content to live as the birds of the air, whom the “Heavenly Father feedeth.” The street was almost deserted; here and there a taxicab darted on its way to or from the railway station; the hour of the limousines had not yet come, and the people who strolled along were evidently, like ourselves, unfashionable sojourners seeking a tabernacle in Gotham’s wilderness.
Sauntering along the street was less interesting than usual, for not only were there no crowds, the shop-windows were all artistically curtained and there was nothing to see. The Frau Directorin did not like it at all, “for what good is it to walk along the shopping streets if you can’t look into the shops?”
“You see, my dear,” the Herr Director remarked, “that is to help you obey one of the ten commandments which womankind is especially prone to break, ‘Thou shalt not covet.’ Incidentally it proves that we are in a country in which you are allowed to do as you please every day and do nothing on Sunday.”