ere there are sights to see, and
for that matter I don't suppose there is any harm in it. You don't go
to a show; but if the church and the people and the minister are all a
show, what can you do about it?

As I sat listening in the French Cathedral to a service I but a quarter
comprehended, the residual three fourths of me went wandering at its
own sweet will, and queried why it is that a battle-ground should so
stir the blood, while a church suffers one to pass calmly and coldly
out through its portals. I do not believe it is total depravity; for
though the church stands for what is good, the battle-field does not
stand for all that is bad. The church does indeed represent man's
highest aspirations, his longings for holiness and heaven. But the
battle-field speaks not, I think, of retrogression. It is in the same
line as the church. It stands in the upward path. The church and its
influences are the dew and sunshine and spring rains that nourish a
gentle, wholesome growth. Battle is the mighty convulsion that marks a
geologic era. The fierce throes of battle upheave a continent. The
church clothes it with soft alluvium, adorns it with velvet verdure,
enriches it with fruits and grains, glorifies it with the beauty of
blooms. In the struggle all seems to be chaos and destruction; but
after each shock the elevation is greater. Perhaps it is that always
the concussion of the shock impresses, while the soft, slow, silent
constancy accustoms us and is unheeded; but I think there is another
cause. In any church you are not sure of sincerity, of earnestness.
Church building and church organization are the outgrowth of man's
wants, and mark his upward path; but you do not know of a certainty
whether this individual edifice represents life, or vanity,
ostentation, custom, thrift. You look around upon the worshippers in a
church, and you are not usually thrilled. You do not see the presence
and prevalence of an absorbing, exclusive idea. Devotion does not fix
them. They are diffusive, observant, often apparently indifferent,
sometimes positively EXHIBITIVE. They adjust their draperies, whisper
to their neighbors, took vacant about the mouth. The beat of a drum or
the bleat of a calf outside disturbs and distracts them. An untimely
comer dissipates their attention. They are floating, loose,
incoherent, at the mercy of trifles. The most inward, vital part of
religion does not often show itself in church, though