ond of saying
that it seems to him to point, as it were, a warning against the sins
of a commercial age. More particularly does he say this in his Lenten
services at noonday, when the businessmen sit in front of him in rows,
their bald heads uncovered and their faces stamped with contrition as
they think of mergers that they should have made, and real estate that
they failed to buy for lack of faith.

The ground on which St. Asaph's stands is worth seven dollars and a
half a foot. The mortgagees, as they kneel in prayer in their long
frock-coats, feel that they have built upon a rock. It is a beautifully
appointed church. There are windows with priceless stained glass that
were imported from Normandy, the rector himself swearing out the
invoices to save the congregation the grievous burden of the customs
duty. There is a pipe organ in the transept that cost ten thousand
dollars to install. The debenture-holders, as they join in the morning
anthem, love to hear the dulcet notes of the great organ and to reflect
that it is as good as new. Just behind the church is St. Asaph's Sunday
School, with a ten-thousand dollar mortgage of its own. And below that
again on the side street, is the building of the Young Men's Guild with
a bowling-alley and a swimming-bath deep enough to drown two young men
at a time, and a billiard-room with seven tables. It is the rector's
boast that with a Guild House such as that there is no need for any
young man of the congregation to frequent a saloon. Nor is there.

And on Sunday mornings, when the great organ plays, and the mortgagees
and the bond-holders and the debenture-holders and the Sunday school
teachers and the billiard-markers all lift up their voices together,
there is emitted from St. Asaph's a volume of praise that is
practically as fine and effective as paid professional work.

St. Asaph's is episcopal. As a consequence it has in it and about it
all those things which go to make up the episcopal church--brass
tablets let into its walls, blackbirds singing in its elm trees,
parishioners who dine at eight o'clock, and a rector who wears a little
crucifix and dances the tango.

On the other hand, there stands upon the same street, not a hundred
yards away, the rival church of St. Osoph--presbyterian down to its
very foundations in bed-rock, thirty feet below the level of the
avenue. It has a short, squat tower--and a low roof, and its narrow
windows are glazed with frosted glass.