Page:Path of Vision; pocket essays of East and West.djvu/158

 settlers, who might have descended of old England's wearers of the purple. The pew had gone through one of those social revolutions that result only in a change of name. And thus, no other name will be written on the fly-leaf of that hymn book in the future, except by the suffrage of the nobility of wealth. Snobbery this, indeed. But those who suffer from the disadvantage of riches, of whom even the Founder of Christianity has said a few mean things,—shutting them out of heaven with a parable,—ought not be grudged the right of making a little quadrangular heaven for themselves in a little church on earth, where they can commune with their God uninterrupted and undisturbed. Here, the poor rich lock themselves up for a brief spell, and no one in all the world has a right to intrude upon them in their devote moments. And they sit down in their armchairs, snug and serene, and sing the 176th hymn or the 61st psalm in perfect assurance, imbibing religion, at every pore and feeling, at peace with themselves, with the