Article April 10, 1902 Issue

The Hall of Faith

The Morning Leader

If you are sick to death of the commonplace, if the debit and credit of life's "daily pit-a-pat" wearies you past endurance, if the modern world with its hard, matter-of-fact ways has "got on" your nerves, steer your course for the Marble Arch any Wednesday evening a few minutes before eight. Turn into Edgware Road, and take the first, the very first turning on your right. You will find yourself in Bryanston Street. Why? you will ask: a commonplace street enough, surely! Yes, but do you see there on the right a patch of light which streams in welcoming fashion out into the darkened street from a large doorway like that of a church? There is your haven!—make for it.

As you approach, carriages and cabs are rattling up, depositing their occupants in the patch of light, and disappearing as quickly into the shadow to make room for other vehicles. A ray-haired janitor, who has been eying you sympathetically, approaches and inquires whether you wish to attend the service. You confess that is your ambition, and he directs you to go up-stairs.

The janitor preceding, you enter a large room, packed to its furthest corners with plain brown kitchen chairs. The room is square, the ceiling supported by rows of columns, the walls are distempered biscuit color, and through the ranks of chairs run three aisles. At the eastern end of the apartment is a dais, upon which is a reading-desk over which is fixed an electric light, two other lecterns of carved wood, and a large chair somewhat resembling the Speaker's chair without its canopy, and another smaller seat, and close by the dais is a piano. Behind the dais the wall has been painted a pale sky blue, forming a rounded background of color which gives the idea of an altar, though there is no altar there. The whole adornment of the place is severely chaste. That is the first impression you receive after your astonishment at the scores of people present, for the place is crowded almost to the degree of discomfort. Row upon row of men and women, old and young, rich and poor, fashionable and dowdy, sit there with quiet, earnest faces, waiting for the service to commence. For this is the London centre of Christian Science, and you are about to assist at the weekly service for testimony.

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