During the first year we had a tremendous stimulus in the meetings from the active participation of four of the most prominent theosophists in the country—­two of whom are members of the vestry.  They sharpened the line between spiritual and material things.  They brought to the notice of working-class Socialists the essential things of the soul.  They made the meetings a melting-pot in which the finest, best and most permanent things were made to stand out distinctly.  The world affords not a better field either for the testing or propagating of their philosophy, but they did not come the second year and we missed them very much.

There was a good deal of misunderstanding about the meetings, arising from garbled newspaper reports.  The newspaper reporter has a bias for things off colour—­buzzard-like, he sees only the carrion—­at least he is trained to report only the carrion—­this always against his will.  So we were kept explaining to men and women of the church who had not been able to attend and see for themselves.  There was not only misunderstanding but prejudice.  I came in contact with it in quarters the most unlikely.  The people of independent means in the Church of the Ascension have social ideals, those of the working class who are in the church have none—­none whatever, and what prejudice I found came from those who had never contributed anything to the church but their presence, and to whom the church from their childhood had been an almshouse, a hospital, and a place of amusement.

These were the people, baptized and confirmed Christians, who spoke with bitterness and a sneer of the evening meetings because the majority of the attendants were Jews.  The other phase of their prejudice was against Socialism—­which they supposed to be a process of “dividing up.”  My chief encouragement came from the richest people in the church, the sneer came from the poorest.

The range of topics was as wide as the interests of human life.  The speakers were the leading men of New York and distinguished visitors from other lands.  One of the earliest speakers was Mrs. Cobden Sanderson, the daughter of Richard Cobden and the intimate friend of William Morris.  Capitalism was represented by Professor J.B.  Clark, Dr. Thomas R. Slicer and Herman Robinson of the American Federation of Labour.  There were many others, of course, but these were the best known.  The Socialist leaders were W.J.  Ghent, Rufus Weeks, Gaylord Wilshire and R.W.  Bruere.  Exponents of individualism were many, and most of them were brilliant.  The most powerful address on behalf of labour was made by R. Fulton Cutting.  There has been no attempt to bait an ecclesiastical hook to catch the masses.  We have tried to make men think and to act on their best thought.

This venture in ecclesiology is not the democratization of a church.  It is the leadership of a rector—­Mr. Grant is an ecclesiastical statesman—­he has a strong cabinet in his vestry.  Men who, having made big ventures in the business world, are not averse to an occasional venture in matters not directly in their line.  He has enough reaction among them to keep the balance level.