Wheeling Sunday register. [volume] (Wheeling, W. Va.) 1882-1934, 1899-08-13

able man racked his brains to find
means of winning the hearts of his
strange parishioners. He organized
concerts and flower shows. Once ne
took a party of them down to Brigh-
ton. The party included three men
who had been in penal servitude, and
the rest were p~ickpockets. Father Jay
said he was obliged to remind them
that they were going down for pleas
ure and not for business. These eff
forts of his succeeded in part, but the
process was pitifully slow. Mr.. Jay
said: again and again | lost hope
of ever reaching them, and | took pat
tern by one of our boxers, a man who
always lost his fights, but who kept on
fighting till everybody admired him."
SHARP CRITICISM.
And Mr.. Jays fight was not only to
win his parish to him, but against the
sneers of the outside world. Sermons
were preached against him and the
means he had taken to gain his end;
pamphlets were circulated, editorials
were written. To these he replied.
and fought on. The sanitary condi-
ton of the place was terrible, and
Father Jay dinned the story of it into
the ears of the City Council until they
took action and razed the worst of it
and made it a fairly healthy locality.
That took two years; five had passed
since Father Jay began his crusade,
but at the end of that time he found
his first church too small and planned
to build another. He did it. Where
clares he does not know. He got it
from friends, he lectured and earned
more, he wrote a book called Life in
Darkest England and sold it. And
when he had accumulated e400 he be-
gan the building that is now Holy
Trinity church, on which 100000 have
been spent, with its impressive place
for worship-aLd its boxing ringt
For this boxing ring which exists under
his very altar rail Father Jay makes no
apology. BY giving the men of that de-
based neighborhood a hance to engage in
their pet pastime he got nearer TO them
than he could have done in any other way.
1T is nonsense says Father jay, Ito
speak of religion to such men--as great
nonsense as ii would be to talk English to
an African. To lead a man ii is necessary
to know him. Every man who Is in my
congregation came to me Of his own free
will and asked to join it. without my hay-
ing urged him"
He says that it is true that some Of his
proteges have graduated into the prize
ring, that Darby Edwards began there ard
that willy Smith. the ten-stone cham
pion of England. once boxed nightly in his
club. 1T is asked added Father Jay.
why afford in a club opportunities for
learning boxing when it may be thus
abused? Why teach any one to write
when perhaps some day he will commit
forgery? Shoreditch is called 'pugiiism's
cradle and its men and boys will box
whether you like 1t or no, and il not in
my clab in some low 'boozer.' al they call
the public houses. It was a noble lord
who spoke against my club in answer to
a deputation which waited on him on the
subject of education. o, my lord, my lord.
II was only on the day before that you
were watching and paying for a fight held
on Sunday morning. to which one of our
bows went from church and fought for a
nurse. That was a bad way for both the
boy and the peer to pass the Sabbath. bnt
the poor boy went for the sake OF pay
meut, your Iordship 10 be amused. ] don't
know. sir. if this plan will succeed IN
America. but it has here
CURTIS BROWN