Christian in training. All the wealth of the town centres about B
street. All the society life extends out from it on each side. It is
considered the most fashionable street for drives and promenades. It is
well lighted, well paved, well kept. The people who come out of the
houses on B street are always well dressed. The people who go into these
seven churches are, as a rule, well-dressed and comfortable looking.
Mind you," continued Philip, raising his hand with a significant
gesture, "I do not want to have you think that I consider good clothes
and comfortable looks as unchristian or anything against the people who
present such an appearance. Far from it. I simply mention this fact to
make the contrast I am going to show you all the plainer. For let us
leave B street now and go down into the flats by the river, where nearly
all the mill people have their homes. I wish you would note first the
distance from B street and the churches to this tenement district. It is
nine blocks--that is, a little over a mile. To the edge of the tenement
houses farthest from our own church building it is a mile and
three-quarters. And within that entire district, measuring nearly two by
three miles, there is not a church building. There are two feeble
mission-schools, which are held in plain, unattractive halls, where
every Sunday a handful of children meet; but nothing practically is
being done by the Church of Christ in this place to give the people in
that part of the town the privileges and power of the life of Christ,
the life more abundantly. The houses down there are of the cheapest
description. The people who come out of them are far from well-dressed.
The streets and alleys are dirty and ill-smelling. And no one cares to
promenade for pleasure up and down the sidewalks in that neighborhood.
It is not a safe place to go to at night. The most frequent disturbances
come from that part of the town. All the hard characters find refuge
there. And let me say that I am not now speaking of the working people.
They are almost without exception law-abiding. But in every town like