186 A HALF CENTURY. 



trangressors and the terrors of the law, but an encounter with the 

 steady gaze of the black piercing eyes that looked down at them from 

 the pulpit and right through them, was sure to convict. 



" It was under such influences, and encouraged by the noble host 

 of ministers and divines, some of them of world-wide influence, that 

 the fathers and mothers of fifty years ago, in faith and prayer, under- 

 took the work of organization of the South Church, and, like the 

 founders of the republic, their descendants approve the wisdom of 

 their action." 



The reminisceDces in .the letter of Mrs. Mary E. (Bassett) 

 Mumford of Philadelphia, are as delightfully entertaining as 

 they are realistic. 



" Though not there in the body I shall certainly be present in the 

 spirit, and celebrate with you ; but with this difference, that while 

 your memory dwells mainly within the new South Church in its ele- 

 gant dress and gracious plenty for its children, the " South " I go back 

 to, tenderly, is the old white wooden structure, bare and unpicturesque, 

 which, thirty years ago, meekly reared its Grecian front upon the vil- 

 lage street. 



" How ugly, how forbidding it was ! And yet to childish eyes it 

 had some elements of grandeur.. What an exceedingly high flight of 

 steps was that which led up to the front church door, and how impos- 

 ing the Grecian pillars which held up the pediment, the clock, and the 

 square tower atop of all! Stiff and uncompromising in its exterior, 

 the inside was equally cold and white and bare. We didn't care to go 

 in. We would rather have lingered in the porch, and looked at the 

 worshipers as they came slowly thronging up the steps in their best 

 Sunday clothes, or watched the carriages of the country members 

 arriving one by one, delivering their burdens at the foot of the steps, 

 and then defiling soberly around to the sheds in the rear. But if we 

 must go in, and decorum whispered that there was no alternative, then 

 we sought to linger a little by the stove which stood just inside the 

 door, and sent its long black pipe across the church to now and then 

 weep dark sooty tears down upon an innocent Sunday gown. 



"What pleasure on a cold or stormy day to listen to the group of 

 older people who exchanged civilities or bits of gossip as feet were 

 warmed or dried before proceeding to the distant pews. How we 

 wished we dared to ask to sit by the stove all day rather than go on to 

 the cold family "slip," and how reluctantly at last we followed our 

 elders up the long aisle and found our places in one of the ' ' Amen 

 pews." Oh, the cold white pulpit ! Oh, the cold black horsehair sofa 

 and chairs! Oh, the long words we couldn't understand! What a 



