St. Paul daily globe. [volume] (Saint Paul, Minn.) 1884-1896, 1894-07-08
RELIC IONISM AND CHURCH
BUILDING.

American humor has found queer
outlet In the practical joking of church
builders to perpetuate names that the
world would willingly let die.
Memorial meeting houses are the
fashion of the time with excessively
wealthy people, who. unable to follow
English grandeedom in the bestowlng
OF llvings. have struck out for them
selves in church building to glorify the
money-maker of the family. Who
would ever suppose that a tabernacle
would be raised to Jay Gould, OF Erie
sanctity. with the costliest stained
glass, illustrating the most divergent
possible gospel SCIENCES from those that
were prominent in Gould's career.
While the artistic finishing touches
are going on the edfice in the Catskills,
heredity was never more strikingly ap-
parent Ethan In the filiaI progeny of Jay,
evading with every bubble lawful tax
alton, and disavowing, unto swearing,
residence i'll NewYor kcity--yet tenderly
solicitous for each extravagant de-
tail OF the memorial temple. to prove
them all Goulds of one unmistakable
redOlence.
In reading about the American opal
escent glass, the hardwood, the marble,
the stone, the tiled aisles and mosaic
chancel floor, the mind has an enlarged
vision of the humorous, but gravely ac-
cepted hypocrisy of our time. Every
one sees the sham, but the worship of
money Is paramount, and the fun of
the thing is stifled.
If the congregation of jays chapel is
given to the pensive there must ineyita-
bly, be considerable distraction when
the memorial windows of American
opalescent glass representing Christ
blessing little children, for one, and an
other typifying music by heavenly
choir OF eight angel figures in flowing
draperies, standing among clouds, hold
ing the harp, trumpet, and other
strlngcd instruments. Passing the first
as wholly one of place, without any
pertInence whatever, the second be-
comes dlverting when one knows the
only stringed instruments that ever
made music for jays ear in their per-
petual click day and night. His figures
were without flowing draperies and
clouds, and because they were the
American opalescent glass windows of
the Memorial meeting house can afford
TO have them in lronical luxuriance.
1t is not certain that Jay would ap-
prove of his daughters church to his
memory. because of its being an invest
ment without any tangible return;
therefore, waste of money, and, more
over. as an ultimate inconsistency. He
certainly was not inconsistent, for he
lived throughout his career in the finan-
cial world with the black flag always
flying. He made no final concessions
with his money that men of his peculiar
methods are prone to make, when
the safety of superabundant wealth
leads them to give it some fresh interest
that may hatter their acquisltive vanity,
and survive them in reflex luster on the
name. He left his money to his family,
because he knew it would bring them
more distinction than anything else
nowadays. Togain it was his ambition,
his life's sole object-money and money
alone-that to him was the fulcrum
which supported every lever of any use
to modern humanity.
He could never be guilty OF the
blunder, worse than crime In his
casuistry, of endowing great uniyer-
sity and have the government sue his
estate for millions of lawful dues as a
climax.
Money with the successful average
might be a means to some ambitious
end-social prominence, educational or
charitable endowment, philanthropy,
and all the rest of the brilliant gratifca-
ton it holds for those whose lives have
known some particular deprivation
and long to supply it, but to
Gould. of the Catskills church. money
was all-sufficing-the one thing nee
essary. Hence this memorial church is
boldly set up in devotion to the golden
Jay. while in strict consonance with the
stock, watered and blooded. the family
is fighting the lawful taxation of New
York city, and will doubtless get the
better of it.
1t looks as if the fashion tor memorial
churches among the excessively
wealthy was in cheering vogue, with
just enough OF Limitation as to imi-
tatOrs to console the favored ones that
the fashion can never become very
common. In country solitudes where
meeting houses are scarce and gener-
ally bare and unsuggestive, it is a god.
send when wealthy women build men,
orial shrlneS where once week ut
least, lonesome, deprived rustics can
encourage a struggling sense of the
n iSfi nd hn
temptation of the massed perfection of
all.beautifying aids.
Doubtless, too, in harmonious defer
ence, there should be some mild and
mellow voiced Rev. Cream Cheese
modernizei from the first limned by
George William Curtis. consututionally
averse to forcible Interpretation of the
Scriptures, with one unalterable convic-
ton directing his ministerial career, to
reserve it solely for the wealthy, who
are seldom served by persons special V
fit by birth, ASSOCIATION and manners to
exhale. as it were, the spiritual elegance
requisite for fashionable churches in
town or country.
The next memorial imitator Is the
widow of Elliott F. Shepard. who has
decided to have an imposing Presby-
terian church built on the family estate
at Scarborough, on the Hudson, in last
ing recognition of her husbands uncon-
trollable headers among Biblical texts,
which are about all that the public re-
members of his contradictory person
atty. The editice will be superb, and
goodly sum of Vanderbillian dol