The daily morning journal and courier., 1895-07-01
ELDgRLY AND INFLUEYTIAI.

If women, who are much better than
 even men who are called to preach the
 gospel. can ride bicycles without losing their dignity or impairing their morals,
 1t Is not easy to see how male preachers
 can be lowered or harmed by using the
 bicycle for pleasure or to make those
 cheering and useful visits known as
 pastoral calls" And yet. as we not
 iced the other day, a Baptist preacher in
 Albany, New York, was driven out of
 his pulpit because he had found bicy-
 cle helpful to his progress in doing the
 work of the Lord among his parishion-
 CTS. Certain elderly and influentiaw
 male members of his church, who prob-
 ably couldn't ride bicycle if they
 wanted to,got the notion that their min
 ister didn't look holy enough on a wheel
 and so they used their age and their in- fiuence in such way as to get him put out of their pulpit. It was cruel thing to do, but elderly and influential members of churches sometimes do cruel things when they make up their
 minds that the interests of the Lord re- quire them. How surprised those eld- erly and influential Albany church
 members will be if they go to Heaven and find bicycles in general use. Lest the idea of bicycles in Heaven may seem ridiculous to some of our readers we hasten to say that celebrated woman writer has given the world assurance that Heaven is a place where people have what they most want If this is so, and if the bicycle craze continues to spread there will soon be great number of pious people who would not find Heaven complete without bicycles.
 The celebrated woman writer may know as much about Heaven as any
 body. Her books certainly indicate that she does. If she does, Heaven
 may be as full of bicycles as the earth is going to be, and even the timers there may catch the craze from the newcomers. Just imagine Adam, Abra- ham, Melchizedek and Moses on bicy- cles!
 But it is not our object to show that
 Heaven may be a place for "the Safety. as we'll as a place for safety. What we
 want to do is to call attention to the fact that the elderly and influential AL
 bany Baptists who drove a good man
 and "a good wheelman out of their pull pit are not up to date. They can find
 some profit and perhaps some shame in
 that which Is going on in Towson, Ma
 ryland. In that town the young and
 influential women of the Trinity Protes- tant Episcopal church are raising mon-
 ey with which to buy a bicycle for the
 beloved rector of the church, which he is to use in making pastoral visits and
 in attending to other duties. This is
 something like. The young and infiuen- tial women of the Trinity Protestant
 Episcopal church in Towson, Maryland, know what is right and proper in church
 matters a great deal better than the elderly and influential male members
 of the Hope Baptist church of Albany,
 New York. And it may be added that if "a rector of the Protestant Episcopal
 Church can ride a bicycle without loss
 of dignity or character surely a Baptist preacher can do it.
 It is all right to be elderly and infiu- ential if one can't help it. We suppose that many of the Pharfsees were elder ly and influential, and it is not probable that they could have been induced to ride the bicycle, although they wouldn't have looked any more ridiculous on it than they did when appropriately mounted on the ass of their native land U