Atlanta Georgian. (Atlanta, Ga.) 1912-1939, December 21, 1913, Image 32

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2 E TTEARSTS MDAV AMERICAN’, ATLANTA. ('A. Sl'XDAY, DECEMBER 21 1113 \ By Frederick Townsend Martin. T HE children of the super-rich are crea tures of an ahnormaJ environment which superinduces in them the growth of ir- rn! llty. Everything ahoi them Is ov-*- done. too elaborate, even their clothing. They sec., like little waxen figures, fort d out in finery In which they ara r-ver comfort able. The children of the poor are exposed to the ".eases of poverty, but they are free from the of prosperity. Money can provide expert medical ... won erful nurseries, French and German governesses, splendid tutors and a rotmue of serv nts. Money may procure everything that make.^for health a~d perhaps even beauty, and a degree of culture, ood traits, rational habits, a bal— d character, a sweet and wholesome disposition, cannot be bought any vuere r any price. Only a simple, rational environment can make for the development of a rational character. They are over-stocked with too many things o interest and amuse them. They become sated. As a result, their Interest is so dulled that they do not know- real pleasure. Lite Is often made monotonous for these little folk. At the very outset of their lives interest In the ji'aln and the wholesome Is destroyed. I’pon them are showered a multitude of strange and startling devices, so that they literally surfeit in a sea of evervthanglng extravagance, and the I- f lid life Is a perpetual debauch In loy- dom. This fosters In them a false taste, a craving for reaseleets novelty, everything new every day, every hour, and each surprise on’v sharpens their appetites for a greater surprise, and as they go trom toy to toy they become utterly tv-ary. Their craving for novelty is so stimulated that reaction Is inevitable and becomes stale and flat. They are over-stimulated and are intoxicated VInil the strange, the absurd, the extraordinary. They have no chance to live close to the common things of Me They do not know v L ! i^ h r nJoy . th \ s,mple !,nd tL > nPar hand Everything In their environment fosters a craving for novelty that normal life cannot satisfy. And we wonder why they lack poise! this corrupting of their innocence Is the great v-st crime of the rich. It is this that develops In their children a disease that finally gives t se to a self-indulgent society It were better by far that they were like the children of the poor, who have but few toys, and those home made. If a boy wants a kite, let him learn how to mako one. He learns many things in learning how to make a kite. The boy who Is forced to make his own play things Is making something out of himself— Is building his own character by giving ex presslon to the constructive principle in his life. Moreover, the boy who makes his own plavthings not only enjoys, but he earns them. 1 he children of the rich do not earn their playthings, for they have no hand In making them: That Is why they do not really enjoy them. The boy that makes his own playthings sees in them the expression of his life, his dreams, his aspirations. He experiences the ecstasy of the builder, the artist! .The love of art kindled in his soul, he grows into a beau- tiful adult life, a factor for good to mankind. I he environment of all children should tend to educate their senses, promote a joyous, whole some interest in simple things, and prepare them for a life of usefulness. Bii with the eons of millionaires, who are rlchfy endowed by the accident of birth, and are brought up In the midst of great luxury, everything that forces its way into their consciousness is a lesson In glittering, material ostentation. They are trained to a life of Indolence from child hood, In households conspicuous by money, where extravagance reigns supreme. By the time they reach college life they are bent solely upon pleasure. How can we blame them for leading the lives of their elders? Colleges and universities deplore' their Influ ence. While many of the sons of the less for- lunate work their way through college, as waiters, bookkeepers and secretaries, the sons of the rich are occupied in spending their abnormal allowances. They ransack the shops or their college town for the finest of every thing, and they soon tire of these things, u.s- card them and make new purchases. They study the fashion plates more studiously than science, literature and history. Tailors are kept busy designing and making all (sorts of eccentric clothing. I have heard some of them remark, "No gen tleman can wear the same suit twice," though we know that only a gentleman can wear an old coat gracefully. They must have the fast est and the most cosily automobiles, and with these they risk their lives and menace the lives or others in a drunken frenzy for speed. Thev lead a life of Intemperance* and in their drunken brawls they often smash the furnish ings of the drinking shops they visit. They do not fear prosecution, b ause they have the price to pay the cost, and feel themselveJ above the law. They are on the down-grade all the time, while all around them the sons of the merely well-off, or even nf the poor, are gathering knowledge, and rise above them and outshine w.em In learning. It Is a common place that, some of these poor boys find relief from their financial strug gles In the ignorance and the drunken stupid Ity of the rich, for they often support them selves by coaching these "gentlemen." Intem perance is the keynote of their life. They are Intemperate in eierything, in pleasure. In what they eat, in their wearing apparel, in thrir habits, even in their hopes. Thy forever con template themselves above others, although they lack the Intelligence as well ds the stick- to-itlveneas of those they deem their inferiors. Their snobbishness is born of such stupidity that It causes them to look down upon their betters. They seem to be incapable of realiz ing that they themselves are the Inferiors. What an awful environment is that which causes people to think tnemselves gupe- rior simply because of their material po slons! What a tragedy it Is to have more honor than he deserves! I blame (hem not. I merely explain and call atten tion to the causes of their downfall. I condemn their environment, for I fully realize that they are victims. What else can be expected from young men that have ob served parents In their lavishness erect a theatre lor a single performance, only to have it torn down the next day, or a ballroom at a cost of *o0,000, torn down after a single er ing's entertainment. To them the all-important fact in life is that are the sons of magnates, destined to In ' ""It an inexhaustible fortune. It is this, in their consciousness, that makes them so seu- satlsfled that they come out of college emptv- headed, vain and vacant-minded, gullible and easily fooled. Ever fawned upon, their ego be comes so enormously inflamed that they s -ffer from exaggerated silliness. They give a ready - to every flattering tongue, and become tne of toadies. They succumb easily to all ' of snares openly spread at their feet by those that live upon the stupidity of the rich- sponges, blackmailers, gamblers, chorus girls ’ Then comes the great fortune bequeathed hv their fathers, which only aggravates their spending proclivities until their vocation of spending money degenerates into a ir-»--la Spending money Is under certain circumstances a necessity as well as an interesting occupa tion. I regard It as a task of selection to which great powers may be devoted with effect of forming out of the chaos of the world’s i' ■ *- M ■fxr ' Mr. Frederick Townsend Mertin. Copyright by Puffer. materials a desirable and ordered property, or of wresting rare experiences from the world. That was the task of their fathers, but the splendid qualities that made it possible lor them to amass their great fortunes, those qualities are dissipated In their sons, who are mere debauchees, crazed by their abnormal pc tsslons. The enormous wealth wrested from the work ers of the nations and showered upon these young coxcombs but engrosses them in a lue- destroying pursuit of spending their inexhaust ible treasures. The moral fiber of the best can hardly withstand the deteriorating effects of luxurious living. What qf those that are con stantly puzzled to discover novel forms of ''cormously costly amusement? Tn them every good Impulse is strangled, every high hope blighted, every noble aspiration crushed. They can but crave to be fashionable, and only that Is recognized by them as fashionable whl'h must necessarily be expensive. Lacking good sense, they lack good taste. They see beauty only in glittering display and the vulgar and the spectacular. They get hap piness only out of enormous lavishness. It hurts me to think of the sordid details of what are considered by the richest as magnificent functions, for it always brings before my mind’s eye the indescribable sufferings of the poor. I never see their millton-dollar mansions, most of the time unoccupied, In charge of a retinue of servants, without recalling the wretched derelicts of humanity whose only - and place of rest is a bench In a city "ark. « - ns In their childhood they regarded the worlu as a mere toy shop, so everything in their environment up from their childhood has brought them to a "manhood” which causes then to regard life as mere play, and the world as a mere playground made for their especial amusement. If they could but pluck the stars out of the heavens! They must have enormous yachts, practi cally ocean steamships—floating temples of gastronomy—with all the luxuriouso"-* of Fifth avenue mansions; expensive banquets, the best and purest and most expensive wines, -itric meals, preposterous feasts, exquisite decorations, elaborate service, lavish entertain ments, flowers by the boatloads; mere favors to guests at a single yacht fete may easily cost $10,000. Private cars are insufficient. They must have special trains, marvelously upholstered motor cars. One well-known young millionaire of sporting proclivities considers that he is economical when he keeps In use but seven automobiles. Indeed, with a less number he would feel himself somewhat at a loss to meet his dally requirements of trans- -tation and amusement. - of the cars are racing mr" v >'nes, pur chased at thirteen and sixteen thousand lars, respectively; the latter Is of grfeater horse power. One, a $30,000 touring car, |;as a suite, a completely equipped lavatory, wasns.and,' running water, supplied from a tank: — quarters in the form of seats which are con vertible into beds, and into the walls are in serted mirrors, shallow cupboards to contain brushes, combs and towels, a cigar case and - lighter, and there are also an eseri'Mre, a place for blankets and linen, and also an ica chest—literally a palace on wheels. I know another who maintains thirty auto- . discards several of them every year ■ new ones that are spick and span, manned with flunkies dressed in crimson satin, white - -tackings, golden knee buckles and pow- dered wigs. The sentiments wh. give rise to such boundless luxury are vanity, sensuality and an exaggerated instinct of adornment, but the greatest of these is vanity, the desire to be talked about, and to appear of more im portance than others. They 'orever flaunt their luxurious possessions In the face of the less fortunate, In whose minds they create Imaginary needs, exaggerating their real wants, diverting them from thelr*true needs, fostering prodigality In society, offering through the senses a satisfaction of self-love that puffs up, but does not nourish the heart, and which presents to others a picture of happiness to which they can never attain. I know of one couple (he with an Income of $50,000 and she of $320,000) who admitted that they could scarcely make both. ends meet on $1,000 a day, and were so desperately driven to pay the bills that they actually issued a statement through the newspapers to appease the clamor ing of the shopkeepers. This absurd and .needless extravagance re sults In the expenditure of vast sums of money to no rational purpose. It destroys dally the product of years of labor without bri"-;lng any real satisfaction to the owner. This deplorable pitch of luxury and flagrant misuse of wealth always has its counterpart In obvious misery. The people are bled to the bone to furnish the means of ostentation, only to be made mad by the sight of luxury which taunts their misery. All this lavish expenditure is born of a snob bishness at once contemptible and the enemy of all progress. Th'- snobbishness has eiven rise to i. hierarchy of ostentation wich dazzles the Imagination with a magnificence greater than any that can be found in the courts of kings. A splendor such as man has not wit nessed sin. the fall of Rome. ^ hy Preachers Go Wrong?”—Reprinted from the Baptist Standard 1 his Rather Surprising Article, Under the Title of “Whv I)o Preachers Go Wrong?” Was Printed in the Baptist Standard of ( hicago. one of the Leading Religious Or- gans of the Baptist Church, with the Editorial Announce- ^ h at the Article Was Written hy a Contributor W ho Is Himself a Preacher.” v By A Preacher. Reprinted from (he Baptist Standard. D O ministers of the churches, that 1*. clergymen, priest* and preachers, go wrong in any greater proportions than do doctors, lawyers or teachers? If one an swers the question mathematically, no; If one a-swer* the question In the light of i standards for ministers of the gospel, the nega tive answer will not be so readily and decided ly given. There are few issues of the daily newspaper w-lthout at least a single item nar rating the fall of a clergyman. It would be hard to find a man or a woman who has not at some time In life become personally acquainted with a professed exponent of rellgiouR truths and high moral Ideals who has demonstrated the depths of human depravity. Yet the Indictment against the profession Is of a much more subtle character than that found In journalistic annals of crime or even In personal knowledge of gross faults on the part of clergymen. It would be folly to deny that, taken as a class, ministers live lives as pure and as free from criminal or grossly Im moral taint as any other class of persons. The indictment takes rather the form of a general impression, amounting almost to n convlctli m that the minister does not have the clear r. and high standards which the business wo demands. Business men feel that there Is somet: about the "cloth'' that makes Its wearer'll ' uoubtful proposition” when it comes to square dealing between men. A prominent lawyer in Chicago said, only the other day, "I dread see ing a clergyman enter my office; I do not want bis business; he does not have the commer cial honor of the man of affairs." He went on to give Instances of ministers who disregarded th"lr business obligations and even Ignored Ihe sanctity of the oath at the bar of justice. it is a well-knoVn fact among houses ac customed to extend credit that ministers are the slowest to pay and the most difficult from whom to collect. In the smaller tow-ns it would be difficult to find a grocer without an ected account against some minister who had left the place. Over five years ago such a preacher boasted in his farewell sermon that all his bills were paid In the village, and he owed not any man '; he should have said that he had paid not any man, and some of hii tills are still unpaid. A charitable organization in Chicago allowed a minister in a village nearby to become In ti-hted to it. He promised to pay the small account at a certain date; but a year from tuat i.me. although many letters had been written, jhe bill was unpaid. Nor was settlement made until this prominent minister on a good salary W.-3 sent a sight draft for the amount. A struggling professor in an Eastern citv coaientea to pick out a few books for a preacher up state and to have them charged to nli own account, being assured that payment would be made at once. The books were sent Du: the cash never was forthcoming, and, after a lengthy correspondence. In which many ex cuses were offered, the professor had to cc - • ins loss at the price he had paid for a lesson in trusting the "cloth.” Such evidence could be extended indefinitely The facts back of it. with the many other In stances of which these few are hut slightly in d:native, have produced the decided opinir-i In the business world that the minister is unre liable and that the ministry does not stand of r "ssity for admirable manliness. There are many exceptions. The manly, f — --v.-are mlnlste-s are u,r mere noticeable because they are exceptional. There ar -.1,1 more Ministers who are warmly admired by their congregations, hut they are admired rather for professional traits and pulpit graces than for the rugged virtues that count on the street and In the store and office. On the whole men of honor feel that to-day it Is no honor to he entitled "Reverend * 1 * * * ; the average man looks somewhat askance at the clergy man. Berhaps this Is nowhere better Illustrated ,rrn when a minister leaves his profession and desires to enter business. He finds there a strong prejudice against his past; it Is regard ed as unfitting him for work. When such a man goes Into an office experience shows that he Is likely to lack the qualities that make for trustworthiness In details in the individual and for harmony In a large force of employes. N’ow If the business of the minister Is to teach the people how to live he ought at least to know how to do it himself. His principles \ r « V “ ,U *'* 8S . lf fhev will not stand the wear ofda »Y llfe - Is the trouble with the teachings, with the message, or Is it with the man him- sell? The first reason ministers go wrong Is be cause they are men. They are not angels; hey are not the reincarnated Ideal saints that tne sisters and the sisterly brethren like to think they are. Because they are men they have human frailties. But, while that does ac count for the fact that ministers steal and break the express commandments the same as other men. It does not account for the fact that they are held below par In commercial esteem, the hypocrite. So long as there are the Inten tional pretenders and the unconscious hypo crites In the church they will enjoy the min istry of the pretender and hypocrite. So long as the churches say, "There's notuing either gt 1 or 111 but seeming makes It so.” the man w ho can-emcceed In fooling the people with ap pearances of virtues, with saintly air and pious phrase will be the man who reaches the top of his profession. Then no mortal being can stand for long the fawning and adulation which the preacher is likely to receive, especially from foolish and emotional women. He Is sure to come to be lieve that he is a superior being, one wno either can do no wrong or can do only right. Steady feeding on flattery unfits him for sound counsel regarding his shortcomings; he gets into the habit of Judging his own actions, not hy any undeviating principles, but by the measure of praise they receive. There are peculiar temptations Incident to the work of any man who appears to weak minds as a demi-god on- occasions, w-h-s* work makes unusual demands on his nerve forces, and who Is obliged to work almost exclusively with women. There is not only the temptation to llceflse In personal virtue coupled with op portunity In pastoral visitation, there is the tendency to conformity to feminine standards, so that the man becomes womanly and usually a poor kind of an old woman at that. Mere preaching puts a tremendous strain on a man s moral fibre. It is the habitual state ment of duties and ideals w-hich the preacher knows he does not reach and do. It is the e-oression of the phrases of character, not necessarily accompanied with their expression in living and doing. It results in the mental habit of considering a duty done as soon as it is declared. It exhausts the moral iiynetu3 in phrases. It makes the man act the lie. Intellectual dishonesty results from habitual standing as a special pleader; as the defender or ground which has not been honestly, can didly examined. The preacher seldom goes bac» to the evidence; he argues from the con clusions of others. He stands as an authority in that in which he frequently has made no original, unprejudiced examination. Intellectual dishonesty comes as a result of cowardice in regard to the declaration of his own honest convictions. He is perhaps uncon sciously persuaded to tiach what the church teaches rather than what he would teach if he gave himself a chance to think. Creeds may be small matters, after all. but the teach ing of a creed in xvhlch we do not believe is no small matter in Its effects on the teacher. There are many- potent reasons for fearing a heresy trial—often the thought of his children’s hungry mouths and bare backs Is one reason. It is a good deal easier to admire the men who went to the stake for a conviction than it is to follow them. The truth is, no minister who Is honest with himself and who declares what he fully believes will have any reason to fear. The church may cast him out, but he will find a thousand voices and hearts to echo to any honest truth In his own. Often the preacher is so dead ^iure that his motive Is right that he does not stop to ex amine sufficiently his method. He wants to save souls, and lf he can Go It, as It seems to him, by crooked means more quickly than by straight ones, then he takes the crooked wav. He wants to build a church—lf he can build it quicker by misrepresentation, by double dealing, by beating any one, he thinks Mr. Chesterton Disputes Bernard Shaw’s Code of Morals. George Bernard Shaw, in the Magazine Section last week, gave a lively defense of the plays and dances on the London „ M.r.ca Lie Bishop of Kensington de nounced. Gilbert K. Chesterton now en ters the lists. By GILBERT K. CHESTERTON. T HE boards of the music hall stage are still shaking with the extraordinary dance of those three highly incongru ous characters who ha\e recently performed a pas de trois before the footllght—Miss Gaby Deslys, Mr. Bernard Shaw and the Bishop of Kensington, lf I myself mount the stage and join the dance, it is largely in the hope that lf I do the whole stage will collapse. 1 do not particularly agree, or even disagree, with anybody In the discussion. To tell the truth, I never heard of Miss Gaby Deslys, which shows the narrow sphere In which each of us moves; and 1 think it very probable t' t she never heard of me or of Mr. Bernard Shaw, either; still less of the Bishop of Kensington I do not mention the probability as any intel lectual disparagement of her. but merely as an act of moral chastisement for myself. But 1 should like to say something about the ethi cal attitudes of tile other parties, so far as I think I comprehend them. So far as 1 understand the Bishop of Ken sington's line of argument (and I admit I have not followed it carefully), he holds, very right ly, that the Church should watch against an.v- think likely to lower the moral standard of human dignity and decency; and also that it should appeal to what used to be called the Secular Arm. the civil Institutions of the State, such as the Censor, to avenge any such inva slons of civilized reticence. So far as 1 understand Mr. Shaw’s position. It is that the Christian Church Is bound, of course, to criticise and Inspire, but that, In par ticular and practical Instances. It Is very diffi cult to decide whether the effects of any per formance are moral or Immoral, because all A Playful Caricature of Bernard Shaw human beings vary. Good things can be abused, and even bad things can be used—which is a yet more confusing fact He compares sexual excitement to religious excitement, and suggests that It would be extremely difficult to disentangle the really devout persons to whom a religion had done good, from the mere ly hysterical people to whom it had done harm. Those seem to be the positious. roughly speaking, of the Bishop and the dramatist. With the philosophy and moral theories of Miss Deslys 1 am not acquainted; but if (as Is barely possible) she would regard both these two moral theories by themselves, as unsatis fying, I think she would he right. I never saw Le.r much-discussed performance, but it seems to me quite tenable that she Is the best moral ist of the three. With the most genuine respect for the Bishop, and wjth an inexhaustible admiration for Mr. Shaw, | wish to tell them that thev uo not realize the time thev are living in. It Is not a nice time; but it is frightfully exciting, ft only started being exciting a few years ago. And a few years hence we shall be killed or cured. Very probably half of us will be killed and the rest cured, as has happened often enough in the hlstorv of our comic but coura geous species. But 1 am quite certain of n--e thing that the crisis that is coming, in art and sex as much as everything else, cannot be dealt with either by the mere Puritan legal!" > of the Bishop of Kensington or bv the mere artistic anarchism of the atfthor of ‘ You Never Oan Tel!.’’ Take Mr. Bernard Shaw- first. When he' savs In substance; “It is very difficult to distinguish between healthy and dirty sex sentiment; but so It Is to distinguish between heroic religion and hysteric religion,” 1 should answer “G. B. S.” somewhat thus: Yes; It is very difficult; hut especially difficult when you have deliber ately abolished all the weights and measure, denied the existence of any tables or standards, torn up all the ready-reckoners and smashed all the working instruments that the practical wit of man has made. It Is especially difficult if you have begun by writing “Quintessence of.Ibsenism.” It Is especially difficult if you have started by saying "The Golden Rule Is that there is no Golden Rule.” It is especially difficult if you start with the assumption that all your an cestors were wild asses in a desert of how” g ignorance, and all their ideals were fetishes and fanciful taboos. It Is especially difficult if you systematically leave out the possibility that humanity may have had a little experience of morality—especially of bad morality. This seems to me carrying too far the principle of A'ou Never Can Tell.” Human codes are faulty, like human clocks. But to smash all the clocks and then say, dog matically, “You never can tell the time.” affects me as unreasonable. Ideals may be doubtful, as the stars may be dim. But to blacken all the stars out, and then declare that no one has ever steered a boat by them Is slightly fal lacious. There was a French atheist, I think, who recently informed the Chamber that he had succeeded in putting out all the lights of heaven. I think he must have made a mis take somewhere, for T have seen stars on sev eral subsequent occasions. But I do not think even that atheist would have been so little of a rationalist as to re duce the dome of heaven to everlasting dark ness, and then say it was beyond human intel ligence to distinguish between the sun and the moon. So It is with the really indecent art or the really insane religion. All those compli cated moral tests of which "G. B. S.” has al ways complained were a part of the science of morality. The object of them was to distin guish between decent and indecent sex senti ment. The whole of those theological tests to which he objects were part of the science of religion. The object of them was to distin guish between sincere and hysterical religion. I deny that you never can tell. I deny that nobody can draw- the line between fan and . Priapus. between Rabelais and Zoia. But I say that wherever you draw a line you must write a line. It must be a clear definition, and. therefore, a creed. It is growing more neces sary with every step of the modern peril. There have been rare royal courts (fortunately rare) where men were as irresponsible as Nero. There have been despotisms without discipline. But nobody has ever managed to have a revolution without discipline. But if the artist is not to be trusted, still less is the censor. That is where the Bishop does not know the time he lives in. He calls on Gov. ernment and the panic-stricken, compromising creatures of modern government. He appeals to Caesar to defend morality. Well, he is ap pealing to Nero to defend morality. If the modern State did really intervene to impose a standard of sex-discussion It would be the standard now existing among mosj statesmen. It would be based on the way in which poli ticians of both parties talk to each other. At its best It would be the music hall song and the smoking room story. At its worst it would be things that justify the parallel with Nero. The Bishop must be made to understand that his religion has returned to its best and noblest and most disagreeable days. It Is not appeal ing to a Christian society; it is defying a pagan one. But It has this enormous advantage on its side, as it had In the time of Nero: that Chris tianity has something to say, and paganism has nothin; to say. The Bishop, I am sure, will act on Christian principles. The censor, I am cer- tain, will act on pagan ones. only of the church, and that overweighs any other consideration. Take the matter of ministers (and others, too) lying in the stories and illustrations they tell. We have all heard preachers tell as hap pening to them some incident which we rc:..i when we were boys; perhaps before they were born. The man is so carried aw-ay with de sire to impress the truth on you that he con sents to lie to make the illustration more per sonal and forceful. That makes It none tne less a lie; but after he has told it that wav a lew times he forgets that it is a lie. One of the principal reasons for the disre spect in which the preacher is often regarded by the business world lies In the shamefully unbusinesslike manner in which the preacher has been treated in regard to compensation for his work. If his work is worthless why not say so and tell him to get out. and do some thing worth while? If it is worth doing then he ought to be paid sufficient for a living with out being compelled to become a cadger and a pauper. The old donation party may have had a good beginning, but it has had a'bad effect on the minister’s character. Add to the moral results of being compelled to digest frozen potatoes, wooden turnips and other donation specimens the experience of being forced into the atti tude, at least annually, of a beggar, and one will begin to appreciate the difficulty lie preacher has in maintaining his self-respect. When one makes it hard for a man to respect him self, how long is one likely to resr--^ him When the man in the pulpit Is dependent for his daily bread on the tolerance and ood will of the man in the pew; when he feels that he may get butter on his bread or even a little cake now and then if he can only get In the good graces of that smug old sinner sitting down there, it Is easy to see how he has been tempted to fawn on him, how he has been tempted to speak of the old humbug’s robbery of the widow and the orphan as one of the achievements of modern commerce and civil ization. It has always been “hard hitting the devil over the back If you are feeding under his belly.” The preacher In the country and in the old days could get along very well between the neighborly gifts he received and the produce of his little farm or garden when these were added to his small salary. But when, without ■increase of salary that same man is placed in the city in our days of swollen prices for neces- "ies ne is bard put to It to keep out of deui remain honest in the ministry. TT„ao r the pressure some men have turned to crooked schemes, to selling mining stock and otaer bogus Investments, and some have gone out of the ministry. But the greater number have stayed in and are working hard to make ends meet and to stay straight. Ministers have gone "wrong because thev have not been trained right in their profes sional schools; they have been educated only for oratorical labor, and that with the intent of persuading men to certain things by dint of tneir eloquence. What seminaries are gl* Jr courses corresponding to those In other professional schools on professional ethics? They have gone wrong in instances because their employers, the people, have not tr-—*' 1 them right, have not given them a fair —'-e to live right; they have paid f hem. and are paying them, less than we pay mechanics and clerks, and yet they expect the minister to live according to their social standards. When the people who employ the ministers will give them an honest return for their work, when they will also encourage them to be honest in their preaching and teaching, there will be fewer unworthy ministers. When the theological schools get out of their shells and Into the cities, and the preachers get out of their cloth and among folk, when they take off their garments of sanctimoniousness anu get busy helping and leading others to better living, and to making this world a better place to live in, the ministers will be a good many notches higher In the world’s esteem. It is' needless to say there are a great many min- )' '••ev have made good in these ways. ; 1 l B| ( ; » (*