On the Sunday before the election, there was no better place to be seen by hundreds, even thousands, of people.

For Republican Katz, the morning visits to two churches were mainly symbolic - an attempt to demonstrate that, as mayor, he would be open to all people and all traditions.

For Democrat Street, who stopped by four large churches, the pilgrimage was a key part of his effort to stir enthusiasm for his candidacy among the voters whose support he must secure to win.

With one day to go, the race appears difficult to predict. The result may be determined by whose supporters are more motivated to leave their homes and jobs to vote.

"I want you all to vote, and I want you to get all your friends to vote," a charged-up Street practically shouted from the pulpit of Fellowship Tabernacle, a noisy, rollicking church on North Broad Street.

Katz did not speak at either of his church appearances but said later that his visits to Baptist churches in North and West Philadelphia were consistent with his campaign message that "diversity matters."

"This is the most creative, efficient and symbolic way to end the campaign," he said of his visit to Bright Hope Baptist at 12th Street and Cecil B. Moore Avenue in North Philadelphia.

Experience has shown Philadelphia politicians that people who go to church tend to be people who vote. Traditionally, some of the largest churches in North and West Philadelphia have welcomed candidates at worship services, even if just to stand and wave before moving on.

W. Wilson Goode, a Baptist deacon elected as Philadelphia's first African American mayor in 1983, has said that predominantly black churches formed the core of his volunteers and small-fund donors.

"The role the church played was crucial," he said. "It was the energy and the spirit of the campaign."

The enthusiasm that propelled Goode in '83 has diminished in '99. But Street, a Seventh Day Adventist, clearly was on his home turf yesterday.

In recent weeks, he has rallied Democratic ward leaders and union bosses to his side. But black ministers were there for him all along. They helped him win the Democratic primary in May against four party foes.

Detroit Mayor Dennis Archer, who spent the morning with Street and also spoke from the Fellowship Tabernacle pulpit, told the crowd: "This race is not about race, though that is important to many of us. It is about philosophy."

Later, appearing with Street at Christian Tabernacle, in North-Central Philadelphia, Archer linked Street to civil-rights heroes of the past - Martin Luther King Jr., Medgar Evers, Rosa Parks, Malcolm X.

"If you don't vote," he told churchgoers, "how do you explain it to your children that Rosa Parks doesn't mean anything . . . that the civil-rights movement doesn't mean a thing."

Archer was among several big-city officials who visited churches with Street and on Street's behalf yesterday.

Street's last church stop yesterday was at Deliverance Evangelistic Church, a house of worship so big that it sits on the site of the former Connie Mack Stadium, where the Phillies played. He appeared there with Archer and Anthony Williams, the Democratic mayor of Washington.

There, Street told several thousand people: "Sometimes, folks, we get a little apathetic. We can't let that happen Tuesday. . . . If the good Democrats snooze, we can lose."

Street and Katz rubbed shoulders only once on the campaign trail yesterday - at Bright Hope Baptist Church, in Street's former Council district.

Street departed as Katz arrived with his wife, Connie. Katz chased him down to wish him and his family well.

Inside, Street's campaign workers had left their mark. A wooden table in the church foyer had been stacked with campaign paraphernalia. Scores of cardboard pew fans, consisting of a head shot of Street stapled to a wooden stick, were piled next to a heap of campaign tabloids.

Bright red headlines jumped off the pages of the full-size campaign packets: "Stop! Stop! Stop! Katz's Republicans. Vote Democrat."

Democrat Deborah Wells, 46, a bereavement counselor from Mount Airy, grabbed a pair of pew fans as Katz sat inside, listening to the sermon from a front pew.

She is voting for her party's nominee.

"He is for our people," she said of Street. "He has been in politics for quite a while. He knows his way around City Hall, so he is the best choice."

For Katz, who is Jewish, the visit to Bright Hope represented a chance to underscore his role in the once-powerful political circle of former U.S. Rep. William H. Gray 3d, who is senior pastor of the church.

Katz described it as "effectively going back to the bipartisan roots I started with."

During the 1970s, Katz, then a Democrat, ran election campaigns for Gray, who now heads the United Negro College Fund.

Earlier yesterday, Katz had attended a two-hour service at Christian Stronghold Baptist Church in West Philadelphia with former mayoral candidate John White Jr.

White, whose late father was a powerful force in the political empowerment of black people in Philadelphia, has endorsed Katz in the general election.

White said it was his idea to bring Katz as a guest to the 4,000-member church at 47th Street and Lancaster Avenue, where his good friend Frances Jones is a member.

Katz's visit was important, White said, in that it showed "independent, free-thinking Democrats" - as he described worshipers at the church - that Katz has "respect and sensitivity to the worship of people of a different faith and community."

As the candidate of the GOP, which is outnumbered 4-1 by the Democrats in Philadelphia, Katz will not be able to rely on large blocs of voters. He must get his votes one by one, from people such as Simone Treadwell, 37, a florist from West Philadelphia.

Treadwell, a Democrat, was still undecided about whom to support tomorrow. But she said she was "pleasantly surprised" to see Katz seated in a front pew of Christian Stronghold.

"I'm not really leaning toward Street," she said. How about Katz? "I was thinking about it."

Katz is outspending Street for TV ads this week. That will be his main get-out-the-vote effort.

He also plans to spend the final days of the campaign meeting voters at shopping malls, diners and parties - including a midnight Halloween gala sponsored by the city's gay and lesbian community.

On Saturday night, he spent four hours in gay and lesbian nightclubs and bars singing songs and meeting people. He did not go home until after 1 a.m. yesterday.

"Wherever there are people," Katz said, "the Katz campaign is going to be present.

"The other big objective," he added, "is to stay on our feet."