Little Falls transcript. [volume] (Little Falls, Morrison County, Minn.) 1876-1894, 1879-02-20
Was She to be eCOmmended3

A religious newspaper lately went into
Pious ecstacies over a young girl who,
though: compelled to earn her living by
hard work at machine sewing, yet con-
rrived by dint of denying herself all but
the barest necessaries Of life, to contribute
quite literally to a fund for the erection
Of a church edifce. The periodical
aforesaid praised the girl most lavishly
and held her up as a. Z example worthy Of
question whether she ought not to
be severely censured for such course of
conduct. Girls who support themselves
by taking in sewing do not fare at all
sumptuously ii they have work all the
year round (Which is of rare occurrence)
and when they expcnd all their meagre
earnings on themselves. To say of a girl
Of this class that she confines her expen-r
ditures to ''bare necessities" means that
she lives on bread and tea, goes without
proper under-clothing, and denies herself
the comfortable wrap which she needs to
protect her from cold and storms. She
moreover leaves herself without any re-
serve fund, and when work is slack, Or,
when it stops altogether, how is she to
subsist? If sickness overtakes her she is
compelled to go to the hospital and
add one more to the host who, through
Ignorance, vice and incidence have be-
come burdens on the public. Burdens
which you, my thrifty friends, are taxed
to support. It is the self-respecting, self
denying and frugal in the community
who are taxed for the maintenance of
hospitals, prisons and alms-houses. Has
any one right to increase the pauper
class or to recommend measures which
will land those who adopt them in
eleemosynary institutional Besides being
burden the poor girl will not have the
care and attention she would receive at a
private house. She will be very much at
the mercy of doctors and nurses, who are
not always the most humane of people.
Most likely she will be experimental on
by half fedged physicis ms, and subjected
to treatment which, although perfectly
legitimate, cannot fail to be extremely
distasteful to a woman, however low in
the scale Of refinement she may be. And
the object Of all this self-sacrifice is what2
To clothe the naked or feed the starving?
No, it is that certain congregation may
have fine building in which to hold it's
service. And then they have the
efrontery to call this "giving to the Lord"
Where IN the Bible is it comm ended or
ven intimated that costly churches arc
necessity. or that they are particularly
desirable; and where is the chapter and
verse wherein we ara enjoined to reduce
ourselves to abject poverty in order
that the Temple CT the Lord" may be
beautifed9 Solving to the Lerd," in
deedl It's vanity and pride and not
Righteousness which dedicates piles of
marble and stone that cost from fifty
thousand to one million dollars to the
service of God.
Christ could be content with supper
rooms," but we of this century must have
our marble tronted buildings finished
with stained-glass windows, costly altar.
pieces and expensive uphclstry. We
count it, too, as thing worthy of all
commentator that the poor should starve
their bodies and their minds in order
that our church edifces may be artistical-
ly frescoed and provided with ali the
modern requirements of elegant worship.
g Giving to the Lord!" It's rank bias.
phemv to say that.