The Salt Lake herald. [volume] (Salt Lake City [Utah]) 1870-1909, 1899-06-11

we gave them concerts and other en-
tertainments in place of the lectures:
We included insurance and sick BEN
efits in the clubs features. We saw
| to it that some person of intelligence
and force of character, not one of them,
was among them in each room every
night, in order to keep the current al
ways turned in the right direction The
games included billiards, backgammon,
checkers and the like, but not cards.
The refreshments served did not in
| clude beer. In my judgment, beer would
have ruined everything. We excluded
cards out of respect to the prejudiceS of
the town. They might have been no
more harmful than checkers, provided
] there was no gambling, but it would
| have been foolish to allow card play
ing in Philadelphia workingman $
club"
asked Dean Hoffman if the work of
the club in which the members weren't
much worried about religion attracted
many of its members to the church.
Reformed Many Drunkards.
by degrees, yes. We didn't hasten
matters, but now and again there would
be death or sickness in the family of
ii workingman who had never before
called in clergyman but who had
come to know the rector of st. Marks
through the club. and would send for
him at once. To me the most surpris-
ing thing about that club was the num-
Der Of drunkards it reformed, though
that feature doesn't surprise me now.
Many men become hard drinkers sim
ply because they have no pleasant
places, except gin mills. to go to and
talk with other men of an evening, and
believe that the wholesale establish
ment of proper places of resort in the
poorer quarters of our great cities
would do more than anything else that
has ever been devised to lift the moral
and mental level of the working
Masses
DR.. Hoffman, soon became personally
acquainted with virtually every mem
Der of the club, and after it had been
running little while he surprised the
good people of st. Marks with a novel
pulpit announcement:
Beginning with next week. he said
substantially, "a special Sunday even
ing service will be held in this church
do not wish to see the regular mem
bers of the church and congregation in
st. Marks peWS at those services. If
any of you come l shall request you to
go away. You have the privilege of
coming to church twice on every Sun
day; You don't need a third service
and | want this beautiful edifice thrown
open once "a week for the free use of
those living near by who have no
church home
1t made no end of talk among the
people, both in and out of the church
OF course, there was opposition from
some church members; a few We're
even bitter. However the first of the
special Sunday evening services was
held on schedule time and an audience
of more than 200, not used to wor-
Shipping God in st. Marks church, filled
the pews. Some went from curiosity.
no doubt, as shown by the presence of
Quakers, who. according to the tradi-
tions of faith, kept their hats on
throughout the service. In little time
the plan was seen by every one to be
a thorough going success, and before
the first year of the Hoffman, rector
ate was over the communicates of St
Marks had more than doubled in num-
Der.
Visiting Smallpox Cases.
DR.. Hoffman, remained rector of ST.
Marks till 1879. In his ten years SER
vice he had become personally ac-
quainted with some members of each of
the nearly 1000 families in the parish.
His acquaintance with his parishion-
ers was by no means perfunctory-he
knew them as a friend who always Wis
tied them when they needed him, even
when they were suffering from conta-
gious diseases. This was true also in
every one of his earlier locations. From
Brooklyn, from Elizabeth and Burling-
ton. n. J., and from Philadelphia come
stories of visitationS that were little
less than heroic made by him in times
of pestilence. His theory seems to have
been that the clergyman is needed quite
as much as the doctor when death is
near, and he never hesitated to visit a
sick parishioner even when the disease
was smallpox or yellow fever During
the prevalence of a smallpox epidemic
in one of his New Jersey parishes he
visited the patients so regularly that
the mayor of the city threatened to
lock him up unless he would promise to
stop the practice, for fear the disease
would be spread by his comings and
goings.