Waterbury Democrat., 1901-08-23
A TRIPLE COLLECTION.
Three Times Was the Box Passed and The Visitor Changed From
 Silver to Copper.


 A Sunday among the staid burglars of Holland gave Clifton Johnson an opportunity to see three church c0llec- tions taken up ill rapid succession. He had asked to be directed to q char acteristic country church i'll an outly- ing village. As n result he went by train from Leyden to little place, where there was church as severe in it's simplicity as the meeting-house of colonial New England, It resembles them, too, In its chilliness. for there was no attempt at warming 1t, and the people were dependent upon foot stoves of the old-fashioned type that was beginning to go out of vogue i'll America hundred years ago. Several scores of these little boxes stood in the church entry, neatly piled against the wall, ready to be filled with smolderlng peat and supplied to the worshippers as they came in.
 When the time for the collection ar rived a man started out from the railed off space before the pulpit, which space was occupied by the elders, and with black pocket at the end of an eight foot pole. proceeded to his task. With this accessory he could reach clear to the end of a pew, only he had to be careful not to hit some worshipper with the butt end while making his short reaches.
 Every body in the congregation put in something, and the collector made 2 little bow every time q coin jingled in the pocket. He had gone about half way round when another elder started out with another bag and pole. The writer wondered he had not started be fore. His purpose, however, was not to help his fellow-collector finish the work. Indeed, he started just where the other had begun and passed the bag to the same people. and every one dropped in q coin as faithfully as he had done the first time.
 Nor was this the end, for the sec ond collector had no sooner got good start than q third stepped out from the pulpit front with q bag and pole and went as industriously over the ground as the two others had~ done He was just as successful as his prede- cessors.
 Things were getting serious. Tne stranger had put silver in the first bag, but fearing that the collection might continue indefinitely, he dropped copper coins in the second and third bags, and was not q little relieved when he saw that the rest of the men in the elders seats kept their places.
 Later she learned the secret of the process. The first man collected for the minister. the second for the church and the third for the poor. As each member of the congregation contribu ted one Holland cent to each bag, II seemed as if a little calculation might have saved much collecting. The sum of the three deposits would, in ouI money, be about one and one-tifth cents for each person.
 At the moment when the bags began to pass the minister gave out q hymn but the congregation finished singing it long before the collection was over There did not, however. ensue one o1 those silences during which you car hear pins drop and flies buzz, for the minister ignored the collectors, who were still making their halting pro gress through the aisles, and prompt ly began his sermon. Youths Com panion.