148 ISLES OF SUMMER. 
in the States, it is apparently often deemed advisable if not nec- 
essary, to unite all who worship or statedly attend devotional 
exercises in the same place, in what is practically a social club. 
It is difficult for the church to secure the attendance of people 
generally to its meetings of a purely religious and devotional 
character, where the cities are constantly placarded, and the 
columns of the newspapers teem with notices and advertisements 
of an endless variety of shows and public entertainments. Hence 
the number of church fairs, church festivals, church feasts, 
church concerts, and church picnics. It has been deemed nec- 
essary, not so much to aid the church as an aggressive force in 
\ the world, but in self-defense, to surround religion with some of 
the rational enjoyments and healthy diversions which otherwise 
will be practically used by the devil to undermine its influence 
and destroy its power. At Nassau, religion dominates without 
these adjuncts, as it did in New England in the days of the pil- 
grims—and for the same reason. ~ 
Public attention is called to some of the holy days and fasts of 
the church by placards, printed in large type and posted upon 
the street corners and in other public places. Good Friday was 
thus announced, and the following wecopied from one of the 
hand-bills. 
““Goop FRIDAY. 
“Tg it nothing to you, all ye that pass by? 
“Good Friday is the most solemn, the most awful day i in the 
whole year to the Christian. 
“Qn Good Friday, the Lord Jesus Christ, God in the nature 
of man, suffered on the cross of shame, dying that He might 
gaye you. 
“It is everything to you that He died, for He suffered for your 
sin—yes, your’s! 
