doctrine of Jesus that a bishop's wife should possess fifty thousand
dollars worth of jewels, or that she should be setting the bloodhounds
of the police on the train of a human being. I asked my clergyman
friend about it, and remember his patient explanation--that the bishop
had to know all classes and conditions of men: his wife had to go
among the rich as well as the poor, and must be able to dress so that
she would not be embarrassed. The Bishop at this time was making it
his life-work to raise a million dollars for the beginning of a great
Episcopal cathedral; and this of course compelled him to spend much
time among the rich!

The explanation satisfied me; for of course I thought there had to be
cathedrals--despite the fact that both St. Stephen and St. Paul had
declared that "the Lord dwelleth not in temples made with hands." In
the twenty-five years which have passed since that time the good
Bishop has passed to his eternal reward, but the mighty structure
which is a monument to his visitations among the rich towers over the
city from its vantage-point on Morningside Heights. It is called the
Cathedral of St. John the Divine; and knowing what I know about the
men who contributed its funds, and about the general functions of the
churches of the Metropolis of Mammon, it would not seem to me less
holy if it were built, like the monuments of ancient ravagers, out of
the skulls of human beings.

#Spiritual Interpretation#

There remains to say a few words as to the intellectual functions of
the Fifth Avenue clergy. Let us realize at the outset that they do
their preaching in the name of a proletarian rebel, who was crucified
as a common criminal because, as they said, "He stirreth up the