A Fashionable Church by Fanny Fern

Publishing Committee · Battle Creek, Mich. · Jan 17, 1856

A Fashionable Church.

By Fanny Fern

"Read the following, from the pen of the true-hearted, keen-eyed Fanny Fern, on the subject of fashionable churches:"

You enter the church porch. The portly sexton, with his thumbs in the arm-holes of his vest, meets you at the door. He glances at you; your hat and coat are new, so he graciously escorts you to an eligible seat in the broad aisle. Close behind you follows a poor meek, plainly clad seamstress, reprieved from her tread mill round, to think one day in seven of the immortal! The sexton is struck with sudden blindness. She stands embarrassed one moment, then as the truth dawns upon her, retraces her steps, and with a crimson blush, recrosses the threshold, which she had profaned with her plebeian feet. Hark to the organ! It is a strain from "Norma," slightly Sabbatized. Now the worshippers one after another glide in—silks rattle—plumes wave—satins glisten—diamonds glitter—and scores of forty dollar handkerchiefs shake out their perfumed odors! What absurdity to preach the gospel of the lowly Nazarite to such a set! The clergyman knows better than to do so. He values his fat salary and handsome parsonage too highly. So, with a velvety tread, he walks all around the ten commandments—places the downiest pillow under the dying profligate's head, and ushers him with seraphic hymning into an UPPER TEN heaven.