The Sunday services are not the whole of this remarkable church. It
has not yet adopted Mrs. Stowe's suggestion of providing
billiard-rooms, bowling-alleys, and gymnastic apparatus for the
development of Christian muscle, though these may come in time. The
building at present contains eleven apartments, among which are two
large parlors, wherein, twice a month, there is a social gathering of
the church and congregation, for conversation with the pastor and with
one another. Perhaps, by and by, these will be always open, so as to
furnish club conveniences to young men who have no home. Doubtless,
this fine social organization is destined to development in many
directions not yet contemplated.
Among the ancient customs of New England and its colonies (of which
Brooklyn is one) is the Friday-evening prayer-meeting. Some of our
readers, perhaps, have dismal recollections of their early compelled
attendance on those occasions, when, with their hands firmly held in
the maternal grasp, lest at the last moment they should bolt under
cover of the darkness, they glided round into the back parts of the
church, lighted by one smoky lantern hung over the door of the
lecture-room, itself dimly lighted, and as silent as the adjacent
chambers of the dead.
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