and then a talk."

"What do the other two do?" I asked.

"One makes any social an- nouncements there happens to be and the other one leads in the singing," she answered, as Rever- end Vincent began with the brief poem-like invocation.

I could begin to understand why Beth was so ofjective and receptive to the Femina idea now. She understood that it wasn't sacrilegious in any way.

This had been my first mis- take. When John first introduced the idea of a church where the men dress as women I had simply closed my mind to it. He kept re- fering to the Femina philosophy; kept mentioning it; kept telling me about Reverend Vincent; and still I couldn't begin to compre- hend anything like I was now seeing.

I had imagined Reverend Vincent would take passages from the scriptures and twist them, distort their meanings, to suit his own philosophical ideas. I had marshalled all sorts of ec- clesiastical arguments to throw at John, and at Vincent, if we should visit the church.

But as I listened to the man, as I caught the meaning of his soft-spoken words, I realized that Reverend Vincent needed no ex- plicit references to the scriptures. His philosophy was quite simple in its approach; once one became receptive to the manner in which it was introduced.

And this was just it; one had to actually take part in the idea of the Femina concept to fully understand what it meant. The idea, at face value, was start- ling; it was revolutionary in fact. But upon application it was really quite elementary.

"Did you have a lot of trouble getting dressed?" Beth whispered, when finally Rever- end Vincent was finished with his brief talk and the assistant walked to the rostrum to make some announcements.

"A little, yes," I answered, "but John was such a help, with- out him has he been dressing like this, I mean, he seems to be so expert?"

"Oh I think he just has a flair for it, dear," she replied,

"once the strangeness of it is over it shouldn't be so difficult. Don't you think you could dress again by yourself if you had to?"

"Perhaps,"

answered,

wondering at the mischievous- ness that had drifted into her tone, "after tonight, anything is possible."

She didn't reply but only grasped my hand once more as the other assistant rose and be- gan directing the group in a song.

realized that to fully under- stand Beth's complete accep- tance of the Femina idea and her enthusiasm at my own willing- ness to join into it was to fully understand a woman.

I had to admit that our so- ciety made this difficult for a man; we do, as Reverend Vincent brought out again in his talk, concentrate too much on the dif- ferences between men and wo- men. And in many areas there is an estrangement between even a man and his wife. Areas that are sovereign unto each, only be- cause it is customary or tradi- tional for neither to intrude upon the other.

But in the atmosphere where we were all dressed alike this estrangement disappeared from immediate awareness. And I considered that one didn't even worry about what others might think. Certainly if Beth had any apprehensions over my joining into the Femina services she didn't reveal them.

This was a question I put to her immediately after the ser- vices were concluded, when the four of us were standing at the end of the pew waiting for Rev- erend Vincent to come down after acknowledging our presence and motioning for John to wait.

"Oh, Richard, dear," Beth replied, "it's only a meeting, it's not as if you were joining some, some organization or something. And John's congregation he has a church right here in Los Angeles, remember."

"Worried over your image, Reverend Spellman?"

I turned to see that Rever- end Vincent was already beside us and had heard Beth's remark to my question as to what some member of our church back in St. Louis would say if they could

see me here. His smile and the way he phrased his remark com- pletely disarmed me and I replied "Not really, I've actually chang- ed my thinking about all this to a great extent.

"I thought you would," he replied, "and how about you, Mrs. Spellman isn't it?" he asked, extending his hand to Beth.

"Yes," Beth replied, shak- ing Reverend Vincent's hand en- thusiastically, "Oh, I've been en- chanted with the idea ever since Mrs. Davis told me about your church. I can't really express my feelings as well as Richard, I just know that there is something truly remarkable about all this; I knew I wanted Richard to see it for what it really was.'

"That's wonderful, "Rev- erend Vincent replied, "I want you four to come downstairs with us to the dining room. It's a little late in the day to say we're having tea, but we do have some refreshments down there, and perhaps we can talk a little more informaly. Come, follow me, he said, leading us around to a side door near the platform.'

As we walked down a short flight of stairs and then down a hall-way, John and the two girls stayed to the front and I had an opportunity to speak with Rev- erend Vincent more privately. He seemed also to be rather anxious to get my opinion, which was only natural in view of my earlier skepticism.

"You see this a little differ- ently now?" he asked.

"Yes, considerably," I re- plied, "I was a little alarmed at my feelings at first I mean. while we were getting dressed, John and I.”

Reverend Vincent searched my face and his own expression became quite serious as he said, "It's only natural you would ex- perience some excitement. This is all part of the estrangement between men and women; the thing I was driving at in my lec- ture. It's soon dissipated don't you find?"

"Oh, yes, " I answered, "I just wonder - I mean, I suppose after you dressed a number of times.

"We have any number of older members in our following,'