The congregation is almost entirely made up of working people. A few
middle class and wealthy persons attend the place--some sitting in
the gallery, and others at the higher end of the church--but the
general body consists of toiling every-day folk. The poorest
section, including the Irish--who, in every Catholic Church, do a
great stroke of business on a Sunday with holy water, beads and
crucifixes--are located in the rear. It is a source of sacred
pleasure to quietly watch some of these poor yet curious beings.
They are all amazingly in earnest while the fit is on them; they
bow, and kneel, and make hand motions with a dexterity which nothing
but long years of practice could ensure; and they drive on with
their prayers in a style which, whatever may be the character of its
sincerity, has certainly the merit of fastness. How to get through
the greatest number of words in the shortest possible time may be a
problem which they are trying, to solve. The great bulk of the
congregation are calm and unostentatious, evincing a quiet demeanour
in conjunction with a determined devotion. There are several very
excellent sleepers in the multitude of worshippers; but they are
mainly at the entrance end where they are least seen. We happened to
be at the church the other Sunday morning and in ten minutes after
the sermon had been commenced about 16 persons, all within a
moderate space, were fast asleep. Their number increased slowly till
the conclusion. Several appeared to be struggling very severely
against the Morphean deity dining the whole service; a few might be
seen at intervals rescuing themselves from his grasp--getting upon
the very edge of a snooze, starting suddenly with a shake and waking
up, dropping down their heads to a certain point of calmness and
then retracing their steps to consciousness.