To say that the object of these costly and elegant arrangements is to repel poor people would be a calumny. On the contrary, persons who show by their dress and air that they exercise the less remunerative vocations are as politely shown to seats as those who roll up to the door in carriages, and the presence of such persons is desired, and, in many instances, systematically sought. Nevertheless, the poor are repelled. They know they cannot pay their proportion of the expense of maintaining such establishments, and they do not wish to enjoy what others pay for. Everything in and around the church seems to proclaim it a kind of exclusive ecclesiastical club, designed for the accommodation of persons of ten thousand dollars a year, and upward. Or it is as though the carriages on the Road to Heaven were divided into first-class, second-class, and third-class, and a man either takes the one that accords with his means, or denies himself the advantage of travelling that road, or prefers to trudge along on foot, an independent wayfarer.
It is Sunday morning, and the doors of this beautiful drawing-room are thrown open. Ladies dressed with subdued magnificence glide in, along with some who have not been able to leave at home the showier articles of their wardrobe. Black silk, black velvet, black lace, relieved by intimations of brighter colors, and by gleams from half-hidden jewelry, are the materials most employed. Gentlemen in uniform of black cloth and white linen announce their coming by the creaking of their boots, quenched in the padded carpeting. It cannot be said of these churches, as Mr. Carlyle remarked of certain London ones, that a pistol could be fired into a window across the church without much danger of hitting a Christian. The attendance is not generally very large; but as the audience is evenly distributed over the whole surface, it looks larger than it is. In a commercial city everything is apt to be measured by the commercial standard, and accordingly a church numerically weak, but financially strong, ranks, in the estimation of the town, not according to its number of souls, but its number of dollars. We heard a fine young fellow, last summer, full of zeal for everything high and good, conclude a glowing account of a sermon by saying that it was the direct means of adding to the church a capital of one hundred and seventy-five thousand dollars. He meant nothing low or mercenary; he honestly exulted in the fact that the power and influence attached to the possession of one hundred and seventy-five thousand dollars were thenceforward to be exerted on behalf of objects which he esteemed the highest. If therefore the church before our view cannot boast of a numerous attendance, it more than consoles itself by the reflection, that there are a dozen names of talismanic power in Wall Street on its list of members.
"But suppose the Doctor should leave you?" objected a friend of ours to a trustee, who had been urging him to buy a pew in a fashionable church.
"Well, my dear sir," was the business-like reply; "suppose he should. We should immediately engage the very first talent which money can command."
We can hardly help taking this simple view of things in rich commercial cities. Our worthy trustee merely put the thing on the correct basis. He frankly said what every church does, ought to do, and must do. He stated a universal fact in the plain and sensible language to which he was accustomed. In the same way these business-like Christians have borrowed the language of the Church, and speak of men who are "good" for a million.
The congregation is assembled. The low mumble of the organ ceases. A female voice rises melodiously above the rustle of dry-goods and the whispers of those who wear them. So sweet and powerful is it, that a stranger might almost suppose it borrowed from the choir of heaven; but the inhabitants of the town recognize it as one they have often heard at concerts or at the opera; and they listen critically, as to a professional performance, which it is. It is well that highly artificial singing prevents the hearer from catching the words of the song; for it would have rather an odd effect to hear rendered, in the modern Italian style, such plain straightforward words as these:—
"Can sinners hope for heaven
Who love this world so well?
Or dream of future happiness
While on the road to hell?"
The performance, however, is so exquisite that we do not think of these things, but listen in rapture to the voice alone. When the lady has finished her stanza, a noble barytone, also recognized as professional, takes up the strain, and performs a stanza, solo; at the conclusion of which, four voices, in enchanting accord breathe out a third. It is evident that the "first talent that money can command" has been "engaged" for the entertainment of the congregation; and we are not surprised when the information is proudly communicated that the music costs a hundred and twenty dollars per Sunday.
What is very surprising and well worthy of consideration is, that this beautiful music does not "draw." In our rovings about among the noted churches of New York,—of the kind which "engage the first talent that money can command,"—we could never see that the audience was much increased by expensive professional music. On the contrary, we can lay it down as a general rule, that the costlier the music, the smaller is the average attendance. The afternoon service at Trinity Church, for example, is little more than a delightful gratuitous concert of boys, men, and organ; and the spectacle of the altar brilliantly lighted by candles is novel and highly picturesque. The sermon also is of the fashionable length,—twenty minutes; and yet the usual afternoon congregation is about two hundred persons. Those celestial strains of music,—well, they enchant the ear, if the ear happens to be within hearing of them; but somehow they do not furnish a continuous attraction.
When this fine prelude is ended, the minister's part begins; and, unless he is a man of extraordinary bearing and talents, every one present is conscious of a kind of lapse in the tone of the occasion. Genius composed the music; the "first talent" executed it; the performance has thrilled the soul, and exalted expectation; but the voice now heard may be ordinary, and the words uttered may be homely, or even common. No one unaccustomed to the place can help feeling a certain incongruity between the language heard and the scene witnessed. Everything we see is modern; the words we hear are ancient. The preacher speaks of "humble believers," and we look around and ask, Where are they? Are these costly and elegant persons humble believers? Far be it from us to intimate that they are not; we are speaking only of their appearance, and its effect upon a casual beholder. The clergyman reads,