"I don't know what you mean by the church, exactly," said I.
"Oh," said she, looking at me with a conscious smile, "I know what everybody means that says the church—it generally means our church—the one that is the church for us; but you, I think, belong to the Bethany," she added.
"I do," said I, "but I have large sympathies for all others, particularly for yours, which seems to me in some points more worthily to represent what a church should be, than any other."
She looked pleased, and said with warmth, "Mr. Henderson, you must not judge our church by such very imperfect specimens as you see among us. We are very unworthy children of a noble mother; our church has everything in it to call us to the highest and best life, only we fall far below her teaching."
"I think I can see," I said, "that if the scheme of living set forth by the Episcopal Church were carried out with warmth and devotion, it would make an ideal sort of society."
"It would be a really consecrated life," she said, with warmth. "If all would agree to unite in daily morning and evening prayers for instance," she said, "how beautiful it would be." "I never enjoy reading my Bible alone in my room as I do to have it read to me here in church; somehow to me there is a sacred charm about it when I hear it read there, and then to have friends, neighbors and families meet and pray together as one, every day, would be beautiful. I often think I should like to live close by one of those beautiful English cathedrals where they have choral services every day, and I would go morning and evening, but here, in this dreadful, flashy, busy, bustling New York, there is no such thing, I suppose, as getting any number of people to agree to daily worship."
"In that respect," said I, "we modern Christians seem to be less devout than the ancient heathen or the Mohammedans; you recollect Huju Buba sums up the difference between the Englishman and the Persian by saying, 'We Persians pray seven times a day, and they, never.'"
"I like to come to church," she said, "it seems a shelter and a refuge. Nowadays there are so many things said that one doesn't know what to think of; so many things disputed that one has always supposed to be true; such a perfectly fatiguing rush of ideas and assertions and new ways that for my part I am glad to fall back upon something old and established, that I feel sure isn't going to melt away into mist before to-morrow."
"I can well appreciate that feeling," I said, "for I have it myself."
"Do you? Oh, Mr. Henderson, you don't know how it perplexes one. There's sister Ida, now! she has a circle of friends—the very nicest sort of people they seem to be!—but, dear me! when I am with them a little while, I get perfectly bewildered. No two of them seem to believe alike on any subject; and if you quote the Bible to them, they just open their eyes and look amazed at you, as if that was something quite behind the age; and as there is no standard with them, of course there is nothing settled. You feel as if life was built on water, and everything was rocking and tilting till you are quite dizzy. Now, I know I am a poor sort of a specimen of a Christian; but I couldn't live so! I fly back from this sort of thing, like a frightened bird, and take refuge in the church—there is something fixed, positive, and definite, that has stood the test of time; it is noble and dignified, and I abide by that."