Pittsburg dispatch. [volume] (Pittsburg [Pa.]) 1880-1923, 1892-03-14
JAY GOULD'S GIFT.
WRITTEN FOR THE DISPATCH !

WRITTEN FOR THE pIsPATcH.l
Mn JAY GOULD could hardly have
raised more Of a furry with his sI0, ,000 If he
had spent that amount Of money in the wild.
est kind o: Wall street speculation. He has
set the parsons by the ears He has stirred
the temper OF those great religious papers
the New York times and Post and Sun. And
he has precipitated upon us q discussion
in casuistry which promises an abundance
ofinteresting and interested debate.
Evidently the Church cannot well get
along without money. There is need of
houses Of worship, and OF fuel and lights
after they are built, And neither the sex
| ton nor the minister can live and thrive on
| souls; especially, as the late Archbis hop
| of York once said when 1t is considered
| what very small souls some people have.
| The parson has to have salary. 1t is not al
together true to-day, as it was in Cotton
Mather's time, that the two cheapest COM
modities in this country are milk and minis
| ters.
Tho Church needs money. It is true that
the Church started without a cent. 1t is
| true, also, that the Church had her purest
| days and her poorest days at the same time.
| The Church can no longer echo St. Peters
confession, "Silver and gold have none;;"
and it may be partly for that reason. as a
| Roman Cardinal once remarked to the Holy
| Father, that the Church can no longer say,
Rise up and walk" True it is, that riches
and ruin have again and again walked hand
| in hand through shameful pages of &C.
clesiastical history. True it is, that one of
| the complaints which the poor make to-day
| is that the Church is the rich mans Sunday
| clubs that the religious organization Is
subsidized by the men of capital.
The Great Need of the Time.
AND yet, it is hard to see how the
Church can well get along without some
| money. One of the great needs that we have
to-day is the need of a better distribution of
| wealth. The secret of gathering great
fortune has been wonderfully discovered.
The philosophers stone, which the
| medieval alchemists searched after, which
would turn all that it touched to gold, has
long ago been found, and the possessors of
it have their palaces in every city. But the
world is out of balance. One man h as more
money than he knows what to do with; an
other man does not know where to find
dollar to feed his starving children. One
man owns whole acres and miles of fields
and forests; another man lives, with hun
dred others, in the sixth story of an unclean
and pestilential tenement. Things are most
unevenly distributed. The great need of
the time the "way out" which all the politi-
cal economists and all the socialists. all the
and thoughtful citizens are looking for, is
distribution. The wise man, the philoso-
pher, Of this day is not the man who knows
how to make money, but the man who knows
how to spend it.
The Great Duty OF the Church.
Now, the Church has other purposes in
these days. and. indeed. has had other pur-
poses from the very beginning, than to afford
an opportunity for prayer and to save mems
souls. The Church is meant to be more than
q spiritual colonization society to enlist emil
grants for heaven. The Christian Church,
from the beginning, has emphasized this
duty of distribution. The very first move in
the matter of ecclesiastical organization
was made in the appointment of deacons:
that is of relief officers. dispensers of
charity, distributors of the money of the
rich to help the necessities of the poor. One
of the great duties of the Church has al
ways been this immensely responsible and
important duty-the spending of other peo-
ple's money.
The Church has not been very careful al
ways to ask how the money thus given her
to spend was made. The great monasteries
and cathedrals of the Middle Ages were not
infrequently builded and endowed with
treasures which men gave out OF their ill
spent gains, as an ingenious way of quietly
people have distrusted the intelligence of
God, and have persuaded themselves that
they could lie to Him and He would never
find it out. King John, that royal rascal,
had himself buried in monks gown, that
he might thus stand in the garments of holi-
ness before the Judgment seat of God. and
be assigned place among the saints And
many a man has had his name written
among the benefactors of the Church that
he might get reputation for pfety even up
in heaven.
addressed these purchasers of sanctity quite
so sharply as Paul in the old time scolded
Simon Magus.
Gould's Money As Good As a Saints.
AND yet, who knows the heart? Who
knows how much goodness is mixed up with
the badness even Of the reprobate? Who
knows how much real religion and genuine
aspiration may have gone along even with
such gifts as these. For my part, / believe
that the Church did quite right to take that
money and set it to some righteous service.
There have been frequent endeavors made
to secure an absolutely pure and holy Church.
Men have tried in many ways to build up
such high walls about the Church, and to
sprinkle such a profusion of broken glass
along the top that nobody could possibly get
guarded door. The Church should be a small
and select company of the blessed
saints. But none of these endeavors have
succeeded. The sinners have always some
how managed to get in. The Church, iR-
deed, was never meant for perfect saints.
The Master, who ought to have known what
sort of church he meant to found in the
world, pictured it as a field where wheat
and tares were growing side by side. And
to the imagined question, Shall we root up
the tares? he answered, No, let them both
grow together till the Judgment
Shall we sort out the saints and sinners,
and expel the sinner? No. let that be done
by the only One who knows enough to do it,
who sees deep enough and clear enough into |
the heart to do it rightly. Let Him do that.
Shall we sort over the dimes and the dol |
lars in the Sunday offerings and throw some |
away and keep others? Here in Pittsburg,
years ago, they used to take up the collec- |
tions in some churches only after the sinners |
had gone out. When the communicates |
were by themselves and the common people |
had been dismissed, the aims basins were |
passed around to get the good money. Shall |
we do that? No. Let everybody give and |
let God keep record In the credit books of |
heaven. That is beyond us. No man can |
tell what dollar counts and what dollar |
counts not up above.
Giving About as Good as Praying.