Places of Worship
My business here being not to dream, but to observe, and this morning being Sunday morning, I crept forth to attend the different church services merely as a spectator. I went first to the Roman Catholic church, called the Cathedral, and the largest and oldest in the place. The Catholic congregation is by far the most numerous here, and is composed chiefly of the lower classes and the descendants of the French settlers. On entering the porch, I found a board suspended with written regulations, to the effect that all Christians, of whatever denomination, were welcome to enter; but it was requested that all would observe the outward ceremonial, and that all gentlemen (tous les messieurs) would lay aside their pipes and cigars, take off their hats, and wipe their shoes. The interior of the church was similar to that of many other provincial Roman Catholic churches, exhibiting the usual assortment of wax tapers, gilding, artificial flowers, and daubed Madonnas. The music and singing were not good. In the course of the service, the officiating priest walked up and down the aisles, flinging about the holy water on either side, with a silver-handled brush. I had my share, though unworthy of this sprinkling, and then left the church, where the heat and the smell of incense, et cetera, were too overpowering. On the steps, and in the open space before the door, there was a crowd of peasants, all talking French—laughing, smoking, tobacco chewing, et cetera, et cetera. One or two were kneeling in the porch. Thence I went to the Methodist chapel, where I found a small congregation of the lower classes. A very ill-looking man, in comparison to whom Liston’s Mawworm were no caricature, was holding forth in a most whining and lugubrious tone; the poor people around joined in sobs and ejaculations, which soon became howling, raving, and crying. In the midst of this woful assembly I observed a little boy who was grinning furtively, kicking his heels, and sliding bits of apple from his pocket into his mouth. Not being able to endure this with proper seriousness, I left the place.
I then went into the Baptist church, on the opposite side of the road. It is one of the largest in the town, plain in appearance, but the interior handsome, and in good taste. The congregation was not crowded, but composed of most respectable, serious, well-dressed people. As I entered, the preacher was holding forth on the unpardonable sin, very incoherently and unintelligibly, but, on closing his sermon, he commenced a prayer; and I have seldom listened to one more eloquently fervent. Both the sermon and prayer were extemporaneous. He prayed for all people, nations, orders and conditions of men throughout the world, including the king of Great Britain: but the prayer for the president of the United States seemed to me a little original, and admirably calculated to suit the two parties who are at present divided on the merits of that gentleman. The suppliant besought the Almighty, that “if Mr. Van Buren were a good man, he might be made better; and if a bad man, he might be speedily regenerated.”
I was still in time for the Episcopal church, a very spacious and handsome building, though “somewhat Gothic.” On entering, I perceived at one glance that the Episcopal church is here, as at New York, the fashionable church of the place. It was crowded in every part: the women well dressed—but, as at New York, too much dressed, too fine for good taste and real fashion. I was handed immediately to the “strangers’ pew,” a book put into my hand, and it was whispered to me that the bishop would preach. Our English idea of the exterior of a bishop is an old gentleman in a wig and lawn sleeves, both equally de rigueur; I was therefore childishly surprised to find in the Bishop of Michigan a young man of very elegant appearance, wearing his own fine hair, and in a plain black silk gown. The sermon was on the well-worn subject of charity as it consists in giving—the least and lowest it may be of all the branches of charity, though indeed that depends on what we give, and how we give it. We may give our heart, our soul, our time, our health, our life, as well as our money; and the greatest of these, as well as the least, is still but charity. At home I have often thought that when people gave money they gave counters; here, when people give money they are really charitable—they give a portion of their time and their existence, both of which are devoted to money-making.
On closing his sermon, which was short and unexceptionable, the bishop leaned forward over the pulpit, and commenced an extemporaneous address to his congregation. I have often had occasion in the United States to admire the ready, graceful fluency of their extemporaneous speakers and preachers, and I have never heard anything more eloquent and more elegant than this address; it was in perfect good taste, besides being very much to the purpose. He spoke in behalf of the domestic missions of his diocese. I understood that the missions hitherto supported in the back settlements are, in consequence of the extreme pressure of the times, likely to be withdrawn, and the new, thinly-peopled districts thus left without any ministry whatever. He called on the people to give their aid towards sustaining these domestic missionaries, at least for a time, and said, among other things, that if each individual of the Episcopal church in the United States subscribed one cent. per week for a year, it would amount to more than 300,000 dollars. This address was responded to by a subscription on the spot of above 400 dollars—a large sum for a small town, suffering, like all other places, from the present commercial difficulties.