Pittsburg dispatch. [volume] (Pittsburg [Pa.]) 1880-1923, 1892-02-08
From the Ecclesfa site Side.


thing to get letter from a tramp.
My friend, the tramp, did not address him.
self in his epistle to the economical ques-
ton. He did not tell me, as 1 would have
preferred, how he came to be q tramp and
why he continued to he tramp. He ap-
preached the great social question from the
ecclesiastical side. He informed me why
he never went to church. Even that is a
valuable piece Of information. When the
Goths and Vandals broke down the Roman
Empire they had some religion. In rude
way they were Christians. At any rate they
reverenced the Christian Church. But our
Goths and Vandals of the roadsides and the
street corners when the time for battering
down comes, will begin by breaking the
windows of the churches Indeed, a friend
of mine, a workingman who never goes to
church, said to me only a day or two ago
that the general opinion of the laboring
classes is that the Church is subsidized by
the capitalists. The Church, in the estima-
tion of the tramps, is on the side of money
1 had spoken of the difficulty that is found
to-day in getting the poor ''into our beautf-
ful churches" This is the tramp's text. &
say no WONDER" he writes, me, "they are
so beautiful and so cold that poor man is
out of place in them, and unless he is we'll
dressed he is not wanted. He is not told so,
but by the way he is treated he knows it. L
went through it. so 1 know. And God
knows am POOR, but not so poor as to let
the Chul ch give me another slap"
The tramp il, right. five want to attract
the tramps will have to build churches.
that are attractive to tramps. No doubt but
O good many of our ecclesiastical structures
are too elab0fately furnished. The carpets
were not lai6with a forethought of muddy
shoes. The cushions were not chosen to
harmonize with old clothes. There ought to
he a tramp on the building committee of
every Christian church.
Still it was not the Church itself that
slapped this tramp, as 1 read in his letter.
That was done by the church people. The
most elaborate, magnificent and gorgeous
church in christendom is ST. Marks, in
Venice, and it is crowded every day With
poor people. 1t has large congregation of
tramps, and they all enjoy it. The beauty
of it does not drive them away. T1simps are
not Indifferent to beauty. Everybody is
better for beauty. What we really need is
not less beautiful churches but more beauti-
full Christians.
Where the Tramp Is in Error
we are not any of us good enough Chris
tians. And yet, venture to say, that we are
most of us better than the tramp gives ms
credit ior This tramps letter is Indicative of
the general spirit that the poor have toward
the rich, not only in tie Church but out of it.
This man was ill-treated by somebody in
some church. He went at once to the con-
clusion that all people in all churches have
an antipathy to tramps. That was a wide
inference to make, and, venture to believe.
a most unfounded one. The chances are that
the tramp's ill-treatment was more than
half of it imagined. Men in his position
have sensitive imaginations. Thatis natural.
They fancy that everybody is looking at
them. They are usually mistaken.
1t is true, of course, that the Sermon on
the Mount is not yet adequately lived up to-
1t is easier to love our neighbor as ourself in
the abstract, than it is when our neighbor
sits in ragged dress beside us, and crowds
us with his threadbare elbows. 1t is time
that some Christian people show less sense
and thoughtfulness than they might in at
firing themselves for church. But, really
are there very many? That old jest about