One is not surprised, therefore, to find on the old streets near the Delaware three churches of weather-stained brick which seem trying to make the piety of an elder age useful to the worshippers of to-day.  All three of these churches—­Gloria Dei, Christ and St. Peter’s—­now have their chief work among the poor people whom one always finds in a business quarter near the river-front, but each attracts, by its old-time associations and its modern missionary spirit, a goodly circle of attendants from the western parts of the city.  Gloria Dei Church, the oldest of the three, was built in 1700 by Swedish Lutherans on the spot where the Swedish predecessors of the Friends had located their fortified log church twenty-three years earlier.  Its bell and communion-service and some of its ornamental woodwork were presented by the king of Sweden.  It is surrounded by the usual graveyard, in which lies Alexander Wilson, the lover and biographer of birds, who asked to be buried here, in a “silent, shady place, where the birds will be apt to come and sing over my grave.”  The Old Swedes’ Church retained its Lutheran connection until recent years, when it became an Episcopal parish.

Christ Church and St. Peter’s were formerly united in one parochial government, and to the two parishes ministered William White, the first Church-of-England minister in Pennsylvania, the friend and pastor of Washington, the chaplain of Congress and one of the first two bishops of the American Church.  The present structure of Christ Church was begun in 1727, but not finished for some years.  The parish is older, dating from 1695.  Queen Anne gave it a communion-service in 1708.  In 1754 came from England its still-used chime of bells, which were laboriously transferred during the Revolution to Allentown, Pennsylvania, lest they should fall into British hands and be melted up for cannon.  At Christ Church a pew was regularly occupied by Washington during his frequent residence in Philadelphia; and here have been seated Patrick Henry, Benjamin Franklin, James Madison and many another patriot, besides Cornwallis, Howe, Andre and others on the English side.  Around and beneath the church are many graves covered by weather-worn stones, and on the walls of the interior there are a number of mural tablets.

St. Peter’s Church was begun in 1758, and completed three years later.  In quiet graciousness of appearance it is like another Christ Church, and its interior arrangements are still more quaint, the chancel being at the eastern end of the church, while the pulpit and lectern are at the western.  In the adjoining churchyard is a monument to Commodore Decatur.