Daily Kennebec journal. [microfilm reel] (Augusta, Me.) 1870-1975, 1874-01-27
A WORD ABOUT CHURCHES.

10 me EQttOT OF nc c0tfHM
Your correspondent II. B. who writes from
New York under date of the 10Th, has appar-
emily been making diligent use of his Sunday
while in that city, in order to give the people
OF Augusta some light on the way in which
the Episcopal Church conducts its worship in
the city of Gotham. We are indebted to him
for his kindness. His mission is Evangelical.
He takes his inspiration from Evangelical
sources. He is careful to tell us that in what
he says he is simply verifying authoritative
utterxnces. We must listen of course. Now
in reading his impressions of the expensive
service" at Trinity, and of the rich heavy
silks Of Grace church, (for he went there too),
we can hardly refrain from hoping that his
criticism of the former would have been less
severe if he had gone little farther in his in
quiries. Nay, we even venture to assume
that had he bees more fully informed of that
whereof he writes, he would have magnan-
imously turned those criticisms into express
sions of coincidence. Where he has inflicted
seventies, we are persuaded he would have
ptied and spared, perhaps even suggested
some kind remedy. If he had, for instance,
carried that suggestion about the fifteen thous-
and to the authorities of that misguided par
ish, he might at least have learned that Trinity
was laboring under chronic complaint, call
ed ''expensive habits" He would have been
told, for instance, that not very long ago the
vestry of Trinity had been so neglectful Of
the "main chance" as to refuse million or so
for old ST. Paul's with its surrounding graves,
because they wanted to indulge the commun-
ity, forsaken by almost every other place Of
Protestant worship, with church and SER
vices. He would have understood that the
ways ready to gobble up Trinity and its fair
churchyard, and were willing to give untold
sums for the privilege, but that the same sell
fish extravaganza withheld ruthless hands
from making ''havoc Of all the houses of God
in the land" To add to its sin, the parish
lately built a five or six storied stone school
house for poor children to be gathered, taught
and clothed in and all for the sake of indulging
that expensive habit so common in the world,
and doubtless SO with your correspondent, Of
doing something for the poor. OF the seven
places Of worship supported by Trinity parish,
only one, Trinity chapel, is located among
the wealthy classes The rest are doing mis-
sion work among.t the neglected multitudes
with which New York teens. In some of
these churches daily service is maintained.
This is another of its expensive habits.
Your correspondent was too modest Mr..
Editor lie should have passed by the gentle
man who had just come over, and asked
some one more familiar with the ways of the
place, about the congregation He would
have discovered that he was at home in Trim
ty, seeing that many of those attending there
were strangers like himself or like that
foreigner who hid found in that section of
the great city, NJ open churches to care for
their souls The pews Of Trinity, are for the
most part free, for the benefit OF whosoeser
will use them. The money expended in pro-
viding an order of worship, reverent, symbolic
and beautiful, lat least in some peoples es-
timation) fol Gods honor, and not for mans,
may at least have the credit of coming from a
motive quite as unselfsh and perhaps more so
than that which prompted the hounces and
folds aud feathers of the ladies Of Grace
Church, which succeeded in drawing forth
such gushing homage from your devout cor
respondent. As for the chanting and the