THEORETICALLY, the church is a pure democracy, a mighty family. There, if anywhere, the rich and the poor meet together on terms of absolute equality.

In that least poetical of pious jingles,—

“Blest be the tie that binds,”—

we declare that

These and other Pietistic platitudes, whether tame or tuneful, are technical, and so nearly meaningless as not to provoke debate. Every reasonable man and woman knows and does not affect to conceal his or her consciousness of the truth that social distinctions are not effaced by the enrolment of rich and poor, educated and illiterate, refined and boorish, in impartial order upon the “church books.” True religion does refine feeling and engender benevolence and charitable judgment of our fellows. In doing this, it creates a common ground of sympathy, as of belief. It elevates the moral and spiritual nature. Of itself, it does not enrich the intellect, or polish manners. One may have a clean heart and dirty flesh-and-blood hands; may be a sincere and earnest Christian, yet double his negatives, shove his food into his mouth with his knife, prefer the corner of a table-cloth to a napkin, and be an alien in the matter of finger-bowls.

It is possible that two women may work together harmoniously in church and parish associations, each esteeming the other’s excellent qualities of heart and enjoying the fellowship of her “kindred mind,” and yet that both should be intensely uncomfortable if forced into reciprocal social relations that have nothing to do with church or charity.

These are plain facts no reasonable person will dispute. In view of them the fact, equally patent, that the Newlyrich clan sometimes resort to church connection as a lever to raise them to a higher social plane, is one of the anomalies of human intercourse that may well stir the satirist to bitter ridicule and move compassionate beholders to wonder.

“When they begin to feel their oats they go off to you!” laughed the keen-witted, sweet-natured pastor of a down-town church to a brother clergyman whose flock worshiped in a finer building and a fashionable neighborhood. “The sheep with the golden fleece always finds a breach in our church-wall.”

It takes him, his ewe and his lambs, a long time to learn that pew proximity does not bring about social sympathy. It is not a week since I saw a girl, a thoroughbred from crown to toe, flush in surprise and draw herself up in unconscious hauteur, when a flashily-dressed young person greeted her across the vestibule of a concert-room with “Hello, Nellie! didn’t we have a bully time last night?”

They had attended a Sunday-school anniversary, and, as their classes were side by side, had exchanged remarks in the intervals of recitations, songs and addresses. The parvenu’s clothes were more costly than “Nellie’s;” her father was richer; they were members of the same church! To her vulgar mind these circumstances gave her the right to take a liberty with a slight acquaintance such as no well-bred person would have dreamed of assuming.

First, then, I place among the maxims of church and parish etiquette: Do not imagine that your next-pew neighbor must be your friend. If she be a newcomer and a stranger in the congregation, bow to her in meeting in lobby or in aisle cordially, recognizing her as a fellow worshiper in a temple where all are welcome and equal. If you can be of service to her in finding the place of hymn or psalm, should she be at a loss, perform the neighborly service tactfully and graciously,—always because you are in the House of the All-Father, and are His children,—not that you seek to court a mortal’s favor for any ulterior purpose.

In meeting her on the street, let your salutation be ready and pleasant, but not familiar. Don’t “Hello, Nellie!” her, then or ever, while bearing in mind that non-recognition of one you know to be a regular attendant at the same church with yourself, yet a comparative stranger there, is unkind and un-Christian.

The case is different if you are the stranger. Friendly advances should come from the other side. If they are not made, there is nothing for you to do but to content yourself with the recollection that you go to church to worship God, not to make acquaintances. Never depend on your church-connection for society. If you find congenial associates there, rejoice in the happy circumstance and make the most of it. If you do not, do not rail at the congregation as “stiff and stuck up,” at the church as a hollow sham, and the pastor as an unfaithful shepherd. The expectation on the part of some people that he should neglect the weightier matters of the law and the gospel, and prostitute his holy office by becoming a social pudding-stick for incorporating into “a jolly crowd” the divers elements of those to whom he is called to minister, disgraces humanity and civilization—not to say Christianity.

Pew hospitality has fallen into disuse to a great extent of late years, principally on account of the usher-service. The tendency of this partial desuetude is to make pew owners utterly careless of their obligation to entertain strangers. Regard for the best interests of your particular church-organization should suggest to you as a duty that you notify the usher in your aisle of your willingness to receive strangers into your pews whenever the one or two vacant seats there may be needed. If your family fills them all every Sunday, you can not exercise the grace of hospitality.

When one or two, or three, are to be absent from either service, however, take the trouble to apprise the oft-sorely-perplexed official of the fact, and give him leave to bring to your door any one he has to seat. When the stranger appears, let him see at once that you esteem his coming a pleasure. Give him a good seat, a book and a welcome generally.

By this behavior you commend to his favor your church, human nature and the cause dearest to your heart.

If you are the visiting worshiper, and it is evident that the other occupants of the pew are the owners thereof, make courteous and grateful acknowledgment at the close of the service, of the hospitality you have received. I hope the return you get will not be the cold supercilious stare one true gentlewoman had from the holder of a pew in the middle aisle of a fashionable church in New York. The guest put into Mrs. Haut Ton’s pew thanked the latter simply and gracefully for the opportunity given her of hearing an admirable sermon.

“Who are you that dare address me!” said the silent stare. “It is bad enough to have my pew invaded by an unvouched-for stranger without being subjected to the impertinence of speech!”

The last place upon God’s earth where incivility and the arrogance of self-conceit are admissible is His house. “Be pitiful,” writes the apostle who learned his code of manners from One who has been not irreverently called “the truest gentleman who ever lived.” “Be pitiful; be courteous!”

The relations of parishioner and the pastor’s family are often strained hard by the popular misconception of the social obligations existing—or that should exist—between them. In no “call” that I ever heard of is the clergyman enjoined to cater to the whims and vanities of exacting members by visits that are not demanded by spiritual or temporal needs, and which minister to nothing but the aforesaid jealous vanity. Send for a clergyman when his priestly offices are required. For the rest of his precious time let him come as he likes, and go whither he considers his duty calls him. He was a man before he took orders, and the man has social rights. Let him “neighbor,” as old-fashioned folk used to say, with his kind.

The aforesaid “call” makes no mention of his family. If you like to call on them when they come to the parish, and if you find them congenial—your congeners, in fact—keep up the association as you would with your doctor’s, or your lawyer’s family. That you belong to Doctor Barnabas’ parish, that you are the wife or daughter of an officer in his church, gives you absolutely no claim on his wife or daughters beyond what you, individually, possess. To demand that Mrs. Barnabas, refined in every instinct, highly educated and with tastes for what is best and highest in social companionship, should be bullied and patronized by Mrs. Million, a purse-proud vulgarian, unlearned and stupid, is sheer barbarity. Yet we see it—and worse—in many American churches.

Do you, sensible and amenable reader, lead the way to better things; loosen at least one buckle of the harness that bows many a fine spirit to breaking, and makes the church a smoke in the nostrils of unprejudiced outsiders. Separate ecclesiastical from social relations. Owe your right to call a fellow parishioner “friend,” and to visit at manse or parsonage, or rectory, to what you are—not to the adventitious circumstance of being a member in good standing in a fashionable, or an unfashionable, church. Exact no consideration from those who belong with you to the household of faith on the ground of that spiritual “fellowship.” The position is false; the claim ignoble.

No matter what church one is in, one should always try to conform as far as possible to its order of worship. Not to do this shows a want of proper reverence.