"I have besought them, I have begged them, I have implored them!" the minister continued. "It was no use. They are conservatives of the strictest type; and they cannot bring themselves even to consider seriously a plan that would necessitate using the church for the meeting of a boys' political debating club, or a girls' class in marketing."
"Churches are so used, in these days!" I remarked.
"Yes," the minister agreed; "but not without the sympathy and co÷peration of the leading members of the congregation!"
That suburban town is not one to which I am a frequent visitor. More than a year passed before I found myself again in the pleasant home of the minister. "I must go to my Three-Meals-a-Day Club," my hostess said shortly after my arrival on Saturday afternoon. "Wouldn't you like to go with me?"
"What is it, and where does it meet?" I asked.
"It is a girls' housekeeping class," answered the minister's wife; "and it meets in the church."
"The church?" I exclaimed. "So the 'leading spirits' have agreed to having it used for 'settlement' work! How did you win them over?"
"We didn't," she replied; "they won themselves over,—or rather the little children of one of them did it."
When I urged her to tell me how, she said, "We are invited to that 'leading spirit's' house to dinner to-morrow; and you can find out for yourself, then."
It proved to bean easy thing to discover. "I am glad to see that, since you have no parish-house, you are using your church for parish-house activities," I made an early occasion to say to our hostess, after dinner, on the Sunday. "You were not using it in that way when I was here last; it is something very new, isn't it?"