NOW, AND TEN YEARS AGO.

Samoa Times and South Sea Gazette, Issue 26, 30 March 1878, Page 2

NOW, AND TEN YEARS AGO.

(From the "New York Sun.") THE wane of Beeeher's popularity, as indicated in the great reduction of prices realized at the recent auction sale of pews, is noticeable also in the congregations, as contrasted with the overflowing and enthusiastic) assemblages in Plymouth Church before Beecher was unmasked.

The weather yesterday was in every respect inviting to church-goers ; yet, dining tlie half-hour between I<H and 10J o'clock, the period in which informer days the Fulton ferry-boats were tivercrowded with well dressed persons, strangers, and regular attendants, hastening to morning service in Plymouth Church, there was so little of this to be seen that a frequenter of the boats at that hour, say two years ago, suddenly returned to his post, after such an interval, blight well have supposed the once popular pastor to he either dead or absent from the city. At no time were all the seats in the cabin filled, and fully one-half of the passengers were on their way to other places of worship, if churchgoers at all. The marked change was equally noticeable it the approaches to the church, and jpd about the church itself. The made a*lo*r& at ° noe > . at 1O ' :i0 ?' cloL *; the way P"»« <d 1 „.„.,,i, "l ,iv . jHiek-street hill, and branched oft at tnS n, ~ ,„ , „„,,..„„ . • .-, , "lymouth Church entrances in ( ran berry ■, n streets, had dwindled to a Sfraggv^ S A inconspicuous string of forty or'tn'J. persons. Only six vehicles were standing in Orange street, which was of old crowded with elegant private equipages at that hour. The basement side entrance from Cranberry street, which used to be literally packed with disappointed but persistent men and women, unable to gain admittance at the side-doors, was vaceut throughout the services, with the exception of a few persons hastily threading the way before reaching the doors, at which 'there was then no difficulty of entrance. The vestibules at the front of flic church were at no time crowded. The interior of the church itself, at the time when Beecher began his sermon, was filled comfortably, with, perhaps, ovory seat occupied, and as many as ten or twelve standing just inside the doors, and no more.