Morning journal and courier., 1889-03-04
RELIGION IN HIGH LIFE.
The Salvation Army Invades the DraWInG-ROoms of the Four Hun.
 

The salvation Army Invades the
 DraXVInG-Hooms of the Four HuB-
 dred.
 New York Letter in the Hartford Courantl
 The other recent social sensation is the ex- citement among fashionable women over the
 evangelist, Mrs. Booth, of the Salvation
 army. say fashionable because any one of
 the women named could enter that charmed
 circle if they so willed. But, az New York
 CTS well know, many of the best bon and
 richest women give themselves to religion
 instead o+ clothes and gay doings, and their
 eccentric. les in that direction are quite as
 extravagant as the routs, dinners and balls
 of the four hundred. l have not been able
 to find out how it came about, but recently
 numbers of these ladies, among whom were
 Miss HameIsley, Mrs. William s. Rsinsford,
 Mrs. J. M. Cornell and Mrs. Frederick Perry
 invited their friends to meet in their own
 parlors Mrs. Ballington Booth, wife of the
 commander in chief of the Salvation army.
 These outside friends had often met in the
 houses of the ladies named such celebrities
 as Miss Winter, the faith curist, Madame
 Raise, the Christian scientist, Mrs. Croft, the
 mind reader, and as many other new lights
 as the day brought to pass; but the Salya- tion army was surprise, and there was 8 distinct sensation through the room when 8 pale little lady with brown hair, which she wore down her back, hazel eyes, au naturel, and black brows, au crayon, mounted on 8 cover with all the 'fliberty" that Talmadge enjoys when he paces his rostrum. It is to the credit of Mrs. Booths sagacity that she told her audience that she didn't expect many re- cruits among the elite, but she thinks if she can interest them in the condition of the classes for whom the Salvation army is or ganized she will do good work. The fact that Mrs. Rsinsford opened her parlors to the Booths has occasioned much talk. The rector of St. George is the most liberal of men, and has the most populous and at the same time the best organized parish in the city. He has abolished the hired pew sys- tenn, and the poorest man or women in New York has his choice of sittiugs if he arrives before others. So liberal are Dr. Rainsford's B doctrines that it is supposed that nothing but the bishops tolerance of the high church goings on at St. Ignstius and St. Mary the Virgins saves him from the censure of his spiritual superior. But if Dr. Potter disap- proves of one end of it he must of the other, so evangelists and ritualists go scot free.
 Dr. Rainsfords only comment on Mrs. Booth and her lieutenants and tambourines is, '1 believe she should have chance to set forth
 her views, and in order to give her that op-
 portunity I have thrown open my house to her meeting"
 Apropos of the Booth-R -Rainsford question, quite as queer discussion is going on in the
 highest of the high church circles. l have
 often spoken to you of the remarkable work
 of the celibate priest, Father Huntington, who represents the extreme doctrines of the Anglican church. Dr. Huntington is the rector of the Church of the Holy Cross, 8 church and convent somewhere in the slums of avenue A. He is a devoted follower of the doctrines of Henry George, and, though the renegade priest, Dr. McGlynn, must have been hard for his ecclesiastical stomach to digest, he attended, and constantly spoke with him at the Cooper Union and academy anti-poverty meetings. When, therefore, the seven hundred ostrich -feather-worker girls struck for higher wages, and for seven weeks have held out against cold and hunger rather than leave this noble hearted, liberal priest, in his black robes and tonsured head united with the muscular Christian Rains ford, to whom all form is more or less a sham, and with Mary P. Jacobi, the woman doctor and the wife of Jew, and a non-be- liever, and with Josephine Shaw Lowell. the l sister-in-law of the poet, and since 1876 one of the three commissioners of the State board of charities, and raised a sum of be- tween fifteen hundred and two thousand dol lars to help the little strikers in their ex- tremity. But when Father Huntington asked that the union appoint three of it's off, ficers to distribute the money, the little feather heads, as their occupation and their conduct make the term appropriate, decided that to receive money in that way was to make them the recipients of charity, and they declined to take one cent of the collect ed fund. People are sympathizing with Father Huntington that his monastic vows remove him from further discussion with a sex that is so difficult to manage.