The New York herald. [volume] (New York [N.Y.]) 1840-1920, 1879-10-26

When the denizens of Manhattan Island
start for church to-day they will be encased.
as they should be. in thick coats. cloaks
and wraps to protect them against the
chilling weather that has suddenly sur
rounded us as reminder that winter is
coming AS they breathe the cool but brac-
ing atmosphere they will be so invigorated,
so raised from the physical and mental dead
level that the fixed air peculiar to a
warmed home in late autumn induces, that
they will be in that impressible and recep-
tive condition which affords the clergyman
the best opportunity that he ever has
for impressing spiritual truths upon
minds generally absorbed by things
material. But between pulpit and pew
there is wide gulf fxed-a great space,
apparently vacant, but nevertheless occu-
pied to its full capacity by whatever air the
congregation is to breathe during the SER
vice. The sexton and his underlings,
being human, know as we'll Us the pew
holders do that the weather is cold. and to
their ordinary human honesty the signifi-
canoe of the day perhaps adds certain de-
tention to the furnaces, in the basement,
that supply warm air to the church. There
is peculiar quality of delight in doing
anything that has the merit Of rarity, and
as fires have not been lighted in churches
for about half year the men at the fur
naces work with spirit and energy that
seldom characterize people who labor for
hire they are going to have the establish
ment warm if fuel and labor can make it so.
But the walls are of stone, which absorbs a
great deal Of moisture perhaps, too, the
floor is of stone the windows have been
partly open all summer and fall until
within the past day or two, and it seems
as if the chill of the building would
never abate. Suddenly one Of the
men thinks of the ventilators-appliance
which seldom come to mind, but which
nevertheless afford egress for great deal
of air that may be light enough to rise; so
these are promptly and securely closed. 1t
matters little that neither hot air nor any
other kind OF atmosphere will willingly
intrude upon space from which nothing
can be displaced to make room for it; be-
sides, a knowledge of this or any other fact
in philosophy is not reckoned among the
, qualifications to be inquired about when
"a church is selecting O sexton and his as
sistants. II the ventintors were lett
open the hot air would rise steadily through
the registers, displace the fixed air of the
building, and afford warm and tolerably
pure atmosphere to be breathed by the
worshippers who enter. AS, however, the
church does not seem to warm rapidly, the
furnaces are driven to their utmost ca
pacity, their surfaces become red hot, and
whatever air ascends from them is deoxy-
genated, foul with carbonic acid gas, and,
perhaps, carbonic oxide, while the sickening
smell OF rusty iron, peculiar to furnaces
newly lighted, makes it's presence known
the instant a person enters the door. In
such a building the strongest, brightest,
most devotional natures will become stolid
and then somnolent, and the preacher, no
matter what his text and subject, will in
evitably follow their example. When in
the late autumn n preacher wonders why
the pleasant places of Zion are made DESC
late, and why devotees would rather sleep
in some church other than his, let him look
| to the manner in which the air is warmed
and the supplying OF fresh air made impos-
sible. When he has remeded these it is
time to blame his hearers or his sermon.
|