suddenly made rich, they would do as the majority of our rich men do
with their money--keep it. But it is at least pleasant to think how
generous one might be, and as the rich occasionally are; and I propose
to suggest one object that I hope will one day be realized in this
great city, where everything good is possible, as well as everything
evil, and which only needs to take vital root in some active mind to
become a living reality.

Within a certain area New York may be called a city of churches, but
they are churches for the rich; solemn, imposing, cathedral-aisled,
glass-stained, costly, munificently beneficed, elegantly pastored--God
locked in, the poor locked out. I know there are "mothers'" meetings
and "mite" societies, and all the rest of it, but all the same the
poor woman in her old shawl and bonnet would not think of entering one
of those expensive pews, nor does the man in his working suit feel
that that is the place for him. Outside, the majority of churches take
no account of the necessity for the consolation, the comfort, the
upbuilding, the refreshment of religion, save and only for certain
hours on Sunday, and then it must be in full toggery, and in company
with, the eminently respectable.

The most beautiful thing about the old churches abroad is not their
splendor of carving and painting, but that they stand with, open doors
week days and Sundays, for the people to enter; and they do enter. The
market woman with her basket drops in for a moment on her way home
from the labor of her weary day. The old woman totters in to say her
"Ave Maria," the young woman to pray away her perplexities. Even the
business man sometimes finds it a resource from his struggles and
temptations. The poor, with their crowded houses and narrow quarters,
have so little privacy as to make quiet, and even an opportunity for