TREADING the stone floors of old Christ Church, Philadelphia, under which lie buried early governors of Pennsylvania and soldiers of Colonial times, we can picture to ourselves President Washington, stately little Lady Washington, and lovely Nellie Custis, preceded by their footman, entering the church to take their places in the pew reserved for them between those of Bishop White and Dr. Franklin. Sitting in the Washington pew, in Christ

Church at Alexandria, where the General was a vestryman, the spare form and intellectual face of the present rector under the sounding-board recall Seba Smith's lines,

"That sounding board, to me it seemed

A cherub poised on high

A mystery I almost deemed
Quite hid from vulgar eye;

And that old pastor, wrapt in prayer,
Looked doubly awful 'neath it there."

In Trinity. Church, New York, once called King's Chapel, the tombs and memorials of early American bishops and heroes almost cause us to overlook the fact that but one stone remains of the original building; while in the older church of St. Paul's, one remembers that William Vesey, reared upon the stern doctrine of Increase Mather, turned aside from that especial way of righteousness to preach here as early as 1704. Farther north, in a region long inhospitable to churches, Cotton Mather having announced that he "found no just ground in Scripture to apply such a trope as church to a public assembly," we find our way through the winding streets of old

Salem to the first meeting-house, erected in 1634, only two years after that of Smithfield, Virginia. As severe and unadorned in its architecture as the religious life of its founders is this little building, which proclaims with a certain force the doctrine for which they contended,-the right of man to seek his God and serve Him according to the dictates of his conscience. We turn from Boston's "Old South," long the stronghold of Puritanism, to Christ Church, called the "Old North," from which the signal lantern was hung aloft in the belfry arch on the night of April 18, 1775; or, wandering through the aisles of King's Chapel, pause before the governor's pew to remember that General Washington worshipped here long before the Revolution,* or notice the square pew, once adorned with the royal arms of England,

* Colonel Washington went to Boston in 1756, accompanied by Captain George Mercer, to confer with General Shirley with reference to the precedence in military rank between crown and provincial commissions." Early Sketches of George Washington," by William S. Baker.

which was in Colonial days reserved for any member of the Hanover family who might be pleased to cross the water to visit his American subjects. Worshipping today in such ancient churches as are left to this generation, or reading familiar names from the tablets upon their walls, or from the headstones in their graveyards, that old life seems so near our own, so knit to it by strands of religious faith and domestic association, that we can almost see the stately throng of men and women as they once passed through the doors and along the aisles to their pews. The ladies are stiff in satin, brocade and buckram, and yet not too rigid to send forth bewildering glances from beneath their overshadowing plumed hats upon the cavaliers who attend them, and who are as brave as they in their picturesque costumes, rich with lace and embroidery. Even in New England, with all the preaching and legislating against silk, lace, embroideries, cut-works, and slashed garments, human nature prevailed. The Abbé Robin remarked, in view of the gaudy dress of the women in

church, that it was the only theatre that they had for the display of their finery, while we with equal indulgence may pardon those fair ones of the olden time who allowed their eyes to wander in the pauses of devotion toward the Governor's pew where Madam, recently returned from a visit to her English relatives, was seated, resplendent in the latest London modes.

Mr. Bynner has given us a picture of the first appearance of Agnes Surriage and Sir Henry Frankland at church together, the occasion being the funeral service of Madam Shirley, the kindly and generous friend of the fisherman's daughter from Marblehead. Induced to appear in public with her lover through her strong affection for her benefactress, Agnes, in deep mourning, takes her place in a pew near that of the governor and his children, where she is soon made to feel the bitter scorn of the high-born dames who had once delighted to heap compliments upon her beauty, while Sir Henry finds that he is powerless to defend the shrinking girl from the insolent glances of his comrades. These