The daily morning journal and courier., 1901-03-28
CHURCH OF THE TRULY POOR
4 DEFINITION oF THE CLASS FOR WHOM TT IS INTENDED.
Why is 1t Needed.

Why is it Needed.
 A quiet but none the less intense con-
 troversy has arisen among some of the
 Presbyterian ministers on the upper
 West Sidc of the city about the advisa-
 bility of establishing an independent
 church in the neighborhood of Eighth
 avenue and One Hundred and Sixteenth ~ street. The founder of the new church
 which has been started there is a Pres-
 byterian. There are five or six Presby-
 terian churches within short distance
 of it; the pastors of them feel that the
 new man has encroached upon their
 grounds. There are barely enough Presbyterians in the territory, they say,
 to keep the older churches alive; new one must either starve or deprive one of
 the others of sustenance. They accord- ingly have announced their intention of preventing the Presbytery of New York from making any expression of good will toward the new church.
 In speaking of the matter the other day, the Rev. Francis F. Mullaly, a vet eran fighter of cant in the New York Presbytery, said that he thought his brethren of the upper West Side were right in their belief that there were all ready too many churches in their dis < trict Mind you" said he, T did not say too much gospel, but too many z churches" He expressed his belief that there was room, however, for a church that would find it's members among the men and women of small salaries but of more or less pretentious social posi- tion among themselves, the boolSkeep- npct or,d ,Iby oy, ,,1Y +l,,a cashiers of small establishments, who receive salaries of from eight to twenty dollars a week, and whose highest am bition is to be promoted some day to place recompensed by the payment of Twenty-Five dollars week for their ser vices These, said the old minister, are cthe truly poor.'
 They are the poorer because they must conceal their poverty. The man who sweeps the streets, the man who digs ditches, the man who drives a \ truck, may dress in shabby clothes and none will think the less of him. But the man who labors with pen and blot < ter and ruler receives no greater re- ward for his work than they, and often not so much, yet his self-respect, and very often his continued employment, depend upon his appearance outwardly x His wife and his children must be dressed at proportionate expense They must live in apartments whose rent is out of all proportion to the scale of living which his means should set for him. The only opportunity for saving is in the purchase of food and the re- < suits of it are bodies not nourished to withstand the strain of such unhappy living.
 Men and women like these are not comfortable in churches such as are presided over by the pastors who are complaining against the Rev. MT Pro- vans enterprise in One Hundred and Sixteenth street. This is not altogether the fault of the pastors. It is the fault of the congregation The constant ef- fort of the pastor must be toward the enrollment of the more prosperous members of his community. Only when the fixed revenues of the church are positively assured may he look about for those who are barely able to help themselves, and are certainly, not able to help the church. Even passive at- tendance on the services in such a church is something of modification to the spirit of the simly paid clerk. He has chosen to avoid manual labor and to enter a field where compensation is small because there are thousands like him who would rather do mice work" at small pay than work with their hands at trade for a more liberal liv- ing. His wife sits by him bitter at heart because her dress is but a mere cheap imitation of the dress of other women in the congregation. When the | contribution plate is passed he must put | in far more than he can afford or feel | that his poverty is exposed to all within sight of him.
 The stricter discipline of the church | of Rome has impressed the lesson of the | widows mite upon it's people so well, |, that there is no analogy between it's | methods of making collections and that | of such churches as those of the upper West, Side. There are Protestant churches in the city where an individu- al pastor here and there has been by force of his personality and preaching able to make his poor people feel, while in the church at any rate, on social equality with his wealthier members But if, as the Rev Provan says he is to GSldUlISH c ClIuICll 6tltpSclIGl Lol lHG Man Without the Hoe and his wife, he will find himself not much better off than the man who seeks to persuade the mission of. fashionable church that it is not a charitably despised limb of it's parent Attendance upon it will be confession of the sort that the very people for whom it is intended spend all their lives in avoiding. Whether the minister's enterprise is admirable or not, and whether it is circumspect or not, 1t provides material for heap of thinking to be done by some of those who regard it unfavoraby.-New York Sun.
 LONDON'S NEW BISHOP.