Mineral Point tribune. (Mineral Point, Wis.) 1869-1938, 1890-10-16
PEWS SHOULD Be FREE.
A New York Divine Is Opposed to the
System of Renting Pews.
He Says 1t Keeps the Poor From At.
tending Churchill Shuts Them
Out.
A Strong And Earnest Plea For a
Change Of the Entire System.

The Rev. w. T. Rainsford, rector of St.
Georges, New York, stopped at the Grand
Pacific Motel recently en- route home from
a long vacation in the mountains, to which
his doctor bad ordered him. Mr.. Rains
ford is one of these Dig muscular Chris
tians, who are dead in earnest and who ex-
cite enthusiasm in their listeners so that
man wants to shout "Hooray!" about
every four sentences. Mr.. Rainsford has
hearty hatred for the pew system In
churches.
"To begin with" said he, "the church
is the only society on earth whose bond of
cohesion is or should be love for man, the
recognition that we are all the children of
God, the fact for which the Incarnation
stands. You can't preach that doctrine in
the pulpit and recognize distinctions in
the pews. We must have some place be-
sides the grave where men have equal
rights. The Roman Catholic Church is
right in that respect The beginning of
Professionalism was right for it brought out
individualism. but Professionalism is fail
ure because it has developed into system
of clubs for religious purposes. 1t has
driven the poor man out-ot-doors. The
doctrine of the brotherhood of man is the
life of the church. The pew system which
denies this must go. Even if it be hard
work to get along without it it must go,
but as a fact the church can just as well be
supported by the free-will offerings as by
pew rents. This is fact of my own ex-
perience. 1t is nothing to get rich man
to give $4,000 or $1,000 a year to the
church. He doesn't feel it, He doesn't
smoke cheaper cigars for it, but it is hard
for him to give up the sense of being
stakeholder in the church. And that can
not be. The church must preach by con-
crete example as well as by word of mouth,
and the free and open church is the out
ward and visible sign of an inward and
spiritual grace.
'What do you think of Bishop Harring-
tons recent paper advocating the church's
taking stanu for the people in the social
problems of the day?"
81 haven't seen it yet I'm just from
the mountains. But Bishop Harrington is
one of the ablest men in our communion,
one who has kept silence until the last
years of his life. A grand man. The
church take sides in the social problems?
Certainly Why shouldn't it? Isn't iG
the only socitey chat iseorganized to stand
up for the poor man? 1t is nothing in
the world but this cursed pew system and
The stockholding spirit which keeps it
back. The church is asleep, so to speak.
No, it is Lazarus bound with grave clothes
and the napkin about his head. But God
has great work for it. He will say:
Come forth and what we took to be all
inertia will be instinct with life. The
rock is ages in forming but God makes
mountain fit IN minute Tie church in
the east is doing something like what it
should among the poor ! was permitted
last Easter to give the sacrament into the
the hands of 1880 persons and most OF
them were the hard and grimy hands of
the workers, tenament house people But
out in the west-it makes me sick at heart.
The church is an eddy in the tide. 1t is
the place where the soreheads of the de-
nominations go when they have a quarrel
1t is the place for the wood be aristocrats
The stock holding spirit is there and rules
everything. | was sick at heart when |
few young men in Cassocks aping the
took me into the library and showed with
great pride what? Two tons and a half
of fathers! What did the fathers know
about New York or Chicago? What do
those young men know about Chicago.
The church is not an old hen that has LAID
an egg centuries ago and must cackle
about it forever. No, she is living organ
ism to declare that mankind are brothers
and that Jesus Christ forever ennobled
and dignifed human flesh when He took it
upon Him and for us men and for our sal |
vation came down from heaven.