Show A COSTLY PRIVILEGE Expense of Maintaining Membership Member-ship in a Fashionable Church If you propose to attend a fashionable church prepare to put your hands deeply deep-ly into your exchequer and make upI up-I your mind to do it cheerfully and without bargaining The fashionable church provides you with dignity and I privacy at your devotions its atmosphere I atmos-phere is kept in winter at a mellow temperature its furnishings are complete com-plete chaste and comfortable the music I inspiring and the service just as high or low as you please I Of course the expenses are a little I staggering at first but on the authority elf a single woman who claims mEmbership mEm-bership in the most modish congregation congrega-tion of her city 1000 a year about covers the cost of her church going GENERAL EXPENSES Naturally that includes a great deal of charity dispensed through the cler gymans hands but they are charities much in the nature of cast iron obligations obli-gations that the feminine element of a smart congregation must accept and to avoid or ignore them would be a mistake indeed AS connection with a leading church I often leads to great things socially for her who has ambitions to rise in that direction quite aside from her natural religious aspirations the expenses of Sunday attendance must be laid out with discretion A woman who wishes to introduce herself in a prominent church must dress wellnot showily but with quiet richness and with sufficient regard to fashion and detail to lift her above criticism SOME OF THE DETAILS It will be noticed whether her seat is in one of the moderately costly moderately roomy pews in the body of the church and whether she fills her racks with handsome large service books bound In flexible Russia leather or Morocco bearing her name on tne covers Her engraved silver pew plate will be scrutinized her sense of good dorm judged by the size of her regular Sunday contribution and her generosity generos-ity measured by her gifts to the choir fund and her offerings on special days In the fashionable church however vulgar extravagance is as deeply deplored de-plored as abject stinginess and a fine conservatism governs everything Not more than five dollars every week in the ordinary collection is considered sufficient suffi-cient and not less than twentyfive dollars on the big feast days or special occasions as hospital Sunday etc covers cov-ers that ground of ones duty Among the dozen or more organizations such as the Kings Daughters Day Nursery Girls Friendly society etc allied to each church a woman member < is almost al-most obliged to connect herself with at least three She may not have the time or inclination to work actively in these guilds but she must show her sympathy sym-pathy by paying fees of membership and making donations at intervals At Thanksgiving Christmas and Easter Eas-ter another big tax will be levied in the form of contributions for decorations decora-tions so that the single woman who kept her accounts for attendance at a fashionable church for one year roughly rough-ly estimated some of the costs as follows fol-lows Pew rent 175 To choir fund 50 Sunday offerings 200 Four special offerings 100 Fees to three guilds 30 Donations to guilds 50 For decorations 30 Set < of service books 50 Pew plate 5 Pew cushions 10 Total 700 From this grand total was left three hundred dollars easily accounted for when she figured in her contributions to trimming and donating Christmas tree ornaments and toys that her name was down on the list subscribing a New Years present for the clergyman and the help they asked her to give with the fresh air fund and lightening the church debt SCARCELY VOLUNTARY In addition she approved of a fund for a new organ gave her mite toward fresh frescoes and lent some aid in raising rais-ing a memorial tablet to the late pastor pas-tor To have refused in any of these cases would have been grievously ungracious un-gracious and to agree was merely to maintain her good standing Her church year really began the 1st of October and ended in June when the doors of the fashionable sanctuary closed as usual literally for lack of a summer congregation And yet this she says is not churchgoing church-going on an extravagant scale The wealthy matron with a family that attends at-tends regularly pays double and trebel the amount given above for her privileges privi-leges and standing in an Important congregation The big well placed pews cost from three to five hundred dollars Their fittings books cushions and footstools foot-stools a full hundred more and where a pew worth five hundred dollars Lsrhe t property of a family the church levies a tax of 5 per cent on the whole value The owner thereof Is then expected to proportionately interest herself in the church guilds and societies in the cler gymans ten thousand dollar salary and the running expenses of the parish par-ish To the thrIfty church woman who haunts the free sittings and pute one carefully hoarded dime in the plate Sunday mOrning all this may seem iopele5 extravagance but truly it seems only justice when our rich women wo-men pay so much for the Joys of an opera or lay out double the amount every year In diamonds FANNY ENDERS |