Page:Path of Vision; pocket essays of East and West.djvu/156

 a spell in a mingled sense of fear and excitement. What if this huge sounding board should crash upon his Reverence when he is lashing the air with his potent words. And yet, by a freak of chance, it may be the last thing to remain intact if the church were struck to-morrow by a thunderbolt or destroyed by an earthquake. Remarkable, too, are the quadrangular pews, which are big enough to hold a few arm chairs and a rocker, and which are so arranged that the worshippers can sit in them facing each other as in a drawing room. 'The vulgar rich,' the 'lazzaronis of wealth' as they are called in America by those, I suppose, who have failed to accomplish the miracle of riches or to at- tain the 'lazzaronic' state, must feel at home and quite at ease in these little drawing rooms of their church. Not with them, however, or those who denounce them, but only with the pews am I now concerned. Why should a place of worship, I venture the question, be parcelled into lots? Why not, as in a mosque, a clear