Marietta daily leader. (Marietta, Ohio) 1895-1906, 1901-04-26
NEW YORK TWIN EVILS.

ling and the paucity of children
their flocks, have taken up the discus
sion of these conditions with vie
to their elimination. They hav
reached the conclusion that the evil
complained of can be better met
the personal work of ministers an
trusted individuals than by attack
from the pulpit.
Conditions are. according to on
clergyman for some months in chaTg
of one of New York's great churches
startling Holy Week and the Easte
holidays had he averred. furnishes
periods of social riot. Another clergy
man related that his wife had, during
Holy Week, received a note from {
lady in the congregation urging hel
presence at a Fifth Avenue social re-
sort, as the game" would begin
promptly at the hour indicated. The
writer was one of the most prominent
members of the church and a liberal
contributor.
Another minister told that pew after
pew in his church was held by man
and wife, who sat at the respective
ends, and permitted the usfers to fill
up the middle space w4... .
The conditions in his church were not,
he claimed, different from those in the
other churches in well-to-do parts OF
New York. How came it. he asked,
that, without design, there should be
so many childless marriages? Is to
gambling, he said: 1T is my personal
opinion that a good deal of the money
put on the plates in such liberal am
cunts on Easter Sunday came easily at
the gaming table, or was made as
balm to supposed guilty consciences.
1t is a very easy form of imaginary
self-denial, this giving of money by
people who have plenty"
statistics quoted at the conference
show that twelve large churches, with
a total membership of 9,661, have on
ly 1,5OO in all their Sunday Schools,
teachers and everybody included One
church, with total membership of
1000, had but sixty-one Sunday
School members.
Some striking instances of gambling
were recited at the conference. A
woman residing in the best section of
Manhattan borough gave gambling
party for her son a Harvard student,
and his chum, young Chicagoan who
came to spend Easter at her home.
The young Westerner had 800. He
lost it all, his hostess being the win
ner She ther generously loaned him
SO to help him out of town. Anoth
er incident was that of two young men
from Pittsburg. Coming to New York
for Easter they played game on
Good Friday night which netted them
a handsome profit. They were called
on by lady on Saturday, who urged
that they should yield a certain part
of their winnings to an Easter offering
for a certain charity. They put 800
on the plate in certain church on
Easter Sunday morning.
There can be no doubt that gamb-
ling under church auspices, or for the
purpose of swelling church funds, is a
practice not to be commended. That
form of church work or charity which
can not. on it's own merits, obtain sup
port, deserves to go under. The Am
erican people are a generous people.
They are ever ready to help any good
cause, but that cause must present it
self to their judgment as invested with
fitting agencies of benefcence. There
is no need whatever for any church or
charity in the United States to resort
to the proceeds of gambling tables for
support. One of the worst features of
such recourse being taken is that it in
wolves women in practices unbecoming
rue womanliness.-Com Trib-
Inc.