people, unless he is sent for to visit the sick and dying, or persons seeking help in their religious struggles. His parishioners are scattered over so wide a territory that a systematic course of visiting would consume all his time. In place of these visits, he meets his congregation at stated times in social gatherings in the church parlor, and these evenings are looked forward to with eagerness by both pastor and people.
The most characteristic meeting of this congregation, however, even more so than the Sunday services, is the Friday evening meeting, which is held in the lecture-room. This room is plain and simple. It is provided with comfortable seats and a grand piano. There is no pulpit in it, but a small table and a chair are placed for the pastor on a low platform covered with green baize. The object is to banish every thing like formalism, and to make the meeting as free and unconstrained as a social gathering. As at the Sunday services, the house is full, but now the persons present are almost entirely members of the church. Strangers rarely come to these meetings, and in staying away from them miss the chance of seeing the true inner life of Plymouth Church. A gentleman who was present at one of them, a few years ago, wrote the following account of it for the "Atlantic Monthly:"