The Emporia news. [volume] (Emporia, Kan.) 1859-1881, 1876-10-13
CnURCHEs FoR THE RICH.
What a Bishop says AbOut the
Evils OF Our Church
Pew System.

What a Bishop says About the
/ Evils OF Our Church
Pew System.
From a sermon by Bishop Potter, report
ed in the Times
The erection of free chapeis
In connection with parish churches
which were not free was part of
their modern and American system
of experiments. He should not
undertake to trace the rise and
growth of what was called the pew
system beyond their own shores, or
to explain its origin amid other
surroundings. 1t was enough to
say that in any land, where it had
been known for many generations,
and where some of its worst abu-
ses had ripened to maturity, it had
always existed with qualifications
largely unknown among us, and
that to-day, in the Church of Eng
land. it was as verify 6 decaying
and vanishing usage as is the use
of the whipping-post or the i'm.
prisonment of men for debt.
Unfortunately, however, this
could not be said of it in the Uni
ted States, where the tendency, if
it is marked enough to be detected
in any particular direction, lie in the
direction OF the wider prevalence
of the pew system. He knew that
this was not the case in their own
church, where Gas he believed was
true in MInneso:a) there were
whole dioceses where there was no
church or chapel which were not
free. But in communions outside
the church, as among the Method
lists, the pew system had certainly
gained ground in cities, while at
the other ecclesiastical extreme the
Church Of the Roman obedience had
many of them peWs which were
let or sublet to two or three series
of tenants. Aud among themselves,
while there had been progress it
had not been rapid, and the
growth of sonnder sentiment in
the church at large had, on the
whole, been painfully slow. As it
should be in all reforms, the clergy
had been in the advance, and too
much honor could not be given to
men who had committed them
selves to the free church movement,
in noble disregard of every per-
sohal consideration of comfort or
| security. But the clergy had not
been largely followed by the Iaity,
nor was it, perhaps greatly surpris-
| ing.
The success of the free church
movement in England had been
achieved, it should be remembered,
under very different surroundings
from their own. English society
was substantially of fixed classes
and of sharply defined social lines.
Men held their place in it mainly
by virtue of hereditary considera-
tons quite outside of any purchas-
ed precedence in the house of God.
Indeed. so firmly fixed were those
lines, and so potent in separating
classes, that when men came to the
house of God they were anxious
the loftiest even more than the low
liest-to forget and obliterate those
lines by every means in their
power.
A friend of the preacher visiting
q crowded church in the east end
of London, which was the Five
Points neighborhood of that great
city, reached over the shoulder of
some near him in the throng which
gathered in the porch, and in ac-
cordance with vicious custom
not yet extinct in England, drop
ped shilling in the hand of some
one whom he had observed with
his back to hun busily seating
strangers. The supposed verger
turned at once and faced him, and
he recognized in him one of the
first nOblemen in England. In 9TH
er words, man of high rank came
to the services, mainly that he
might be the servant of the lowli-
est stranger that sought entrance.
But with us the condition OF
things was very different. In
America there were no favored
classes, but there was in every gen.
GRAFTON q large class who were
struggling for social precedence
and who were willing to buy it at
any cost. And for this class the
pew system seemed to haYe been
specially contrived. To buy q place
in conspicuous church and have
that place itself as conspicuous as
might be-this was title to q GER
tain recognition which, however
haZy and indefinite it might be
when one undertook to anaIyze it,
was not indefinite in its actual re-
suits. And so it came TO pass that
many churches were composed al
most exclusively of persons of one
class, or, at all events, of those of
ample means, if not of great wealth.
He knew that it might be answered
that even in such churches there
was abundant hospitality to stran-
gers, and that that hospitality was
exerclsed generously from one
years end to another. He presum-
cd there were many churches in
New York in which there were no
free sittings, and yet in which, as in
that to which il was his own privi-
lege to minister, the strangers who
were welcomed to it's pews might
be counted by hundreds. But he
was speaking of the general work.
ing of q system, and as to the re-
suits of that system, il seemed to
him that no candid mind could re.
ally be in doubt.
If the facts that could be cited had
any me aiming, they meant that the
present system of pewed churches
was mistake, and that If it had
any seeming warrant IN the ext
gencies of other days, it must soon
er or later give way before the
power, might we not truly say. the
stronger exigencies of our own.
He knew that there were many
pewed churches that were still
thronged and prosperous. If, for
instance, he were content not TO
look beyond the walls Of the edi-
fee in which he ministered, he
might easily dismiss all anxiety for
the welfare of the church at large.
Bat a few churches, occupying q
central position, and with means
and ample accommodation, were no
criterion Of the vast majority that
| were Otherwise elrcumstancad.