Inside, to-day, all was harmony and peace. Sunshine flowing through plain glass windows lay athwart the floor of choir and chancel; when the music ceased there came a twittering of birds on the window ledges. Yes, agreed the priest, it was a beautiful old organ. In a few years, he said, it would be a hundred years old. Then he told a story concerning it. He could not vouch for it himself, although he had heard it vouched for by reliable persons.
At the time of the war of 1812, when the church was comparatively new, it had sufficient money in hand for a pipe organ, which was ordered of a company in Philadelphia, and when completed was shipped to New York by water. On the way the vessel which bore it was captured by a British frigate, and the organ was taken to London. Here it remained two years, and was then yielded up after the payment of two thousand dollars. Time has imparted to it a rare tonal richness. It is just the organ for this edifice, so suggestive of things that once were.
Men who know say that you will find such chapel interiors only in the old Sir Christopher Wren churches in London. The cruciform architecture of more modern houses of worship is not here in St. John's. Lines are sweeping, stately. Heavy fluted columns support the gallery. The windows are of the older sort, unstained, and the walls and ceilings are an even gray, undecorated.
Notes of color are confined to organ pipes and choir stalls, which are red and blue and white, with gilding. But these are not as bright as they once were; neither are the blue-starred arches above chancel and choir.
Years ago, when St. John's Park was not covered by a freight station, and when many of the "first families" lived hereabouts, the congregations bore comparison with those of any church in the city. But tide of travel made uptown before encroaching commerce, which eventually flowed over the district, converting it utterly.
Congregations which gather here each Sunday are not so fashionable as in years gone. But they are none the less faithful and earnest and devout. You will find 'longshoremen and their families here now—dwellers of the Laight and Vestry and Hudson Street tenements; you will find their children in the Sunday-school. To-day there are nearly, if not quite, 500 communicants in this parish—no indication, it might be thought, that the church has outlived its usefulness.
