Burlington weekly free press. [volume] (Burlington, Vt.) 1866-1928, 1873-04-18
For the Free Press.
Three Church Spires,

| had set my heart upon spending at least
a whole year in certain New England To-
cality, remote from the noise of railroads
and populOus districts, and famous for its
grandeur and glories OF mountain, forest
and axe. The prospect fired my heart with
fond anticipations of a long and joyous
stay-perhaps life residence-in the midst
of natural scenery the most beautiful and
romantic to be found in any zone.
| had been walking slowly along on a
crest of green hills, charmed and absorbed
by the rich landscapes that enyironed me
and exulting in the thought of my ap-
preaching some Edenic centre-some valley
Of Rassellas-some haflowed privileged spot
where rural innocence and piety would
match and harmonic with these enchant-
ing views but my clearly cherished hope
was rudely broken at the end Of this up
land road by the Ominous vision of three
church spires, oyertOpping, OyershadOwing
and dominating like defiant rods of wrath
and strife a little town below me there upon
the river bank.
4 foreigner not familiar with our social
customs and fashions Dickens or a
Trollope-taking notes and seeking occa-
sions, might have reported this place as an
American church manuiactory (and not
been far wrong either) and these three be-
spired buildings Just samples on show (and
hit the truth exactly; or they might have
intimated that our taste ran to this style of
dwelling-house architecture in parts Of the
country where people We're scarce and tim
ber abOunded
!, however, native born, could not'be in
dulged in any such pleasant ictiOns of fancy
or pleasant iancies Of fiction, even by way Of
charity. very well knew that those three
monumental " fingers" in a small country
village. hardly large enough'tO support the
dignity Of a modest way side chapel, 50 os-
tenslbly pointing to devotion, really meant
commotion-'' controversy about words to
no profit meant wasting strength and
squandering sacred means for naught and
must say so.
Yet, would you believe it, was impor-
tuned to take up my abode in that commu-
nifty. As soon as | could recoyermv speech.
| inquired if they had ever read Timothy
IitcOmb' article ON " Doing Religion On
Business Principles '
Live there Why friends, Winthrop fled
the Alps and the divine Chamouni as though
they were S0dom and Gomorrah, for a moral
defect in the inhabitants. very slight and
triling compared with that Indicated bv
those baleiul symbols.
Live there | should be afraid of tie
judgments of God. Three church spires in
an insignificant hamlet whose entire adult
population would not fiji one of the great
rooms under them. and a world in plain
sight starving and peri~hing for lack of the
gospel
There is an old adage that a person who
makes two spears of grass grow where only
one grew before. i a benelact0r of his race.
Some careless printer may have changed
spears 70 SpTeS in the prJyerb. and 81 mis-
led another poor needless wretch into the
~lul-de-troying belief that he would be do
ing humanity and God service bv helping
90 multiply church spires wherever there
happened % be post office and blacksmith
shop. Ii SD let that guilty printer. richly
deserving the gallows. repent in sackcloth
and ashes, lest a worse fate beiall him
The Christian religion never erected those
three gltteriug church spires In that ueIt
rural village.
No sir. never. The citizens Of that little
place and the country surrounding it did
not run their hands deep down into their
own pockets when those three steepies were
finally and definitely concluded upon. They
did not at that important town meeting
close the exercises with that glorious and
gioritying Yankee doxology.
Paddle your own canoe"
Permit me To inform You that those three
pretenti0us, top-sallant, high-cockalorum
spires 10 not belong % a high spirited pcJ-
plc-,hlu-h they may be hot spiritel-pro-
d. fr. q