Evening times-Republican. [volume] (Marshalltown, Iowa) 1890-1923, 1906-09-01
PRAYERS VS.. FIRST MORTGAGES.

PRAYERS VS.. FIRST MORTGAGES.
1t is an old lesson in the business
world but one that countless thousands
have yet failed to learn that the pres
idency Of Sunday school can not be
safely accepted in lieu of fidelity
trust bond. The details of the Real
Estate Trust Company were all left TO
Nipple, preachers pRced their church
money in his hands, and a poor clerk
in Sioux City sent the earnings of his
lifetime back to Nipples bank all be-
cause Ripple was president of Pres
byterian Sunday school. The parading
vertising of pious principles against
the use of tobacco and liquor proved
most effective solicitors of business
and cloaks for rascality.
Grinnell, being strong church com
munity, and the home of a denomfna-
tional college, has become the home Of
great many aged preachers. Life
there Is very congenial to them and
they congregate in their declining
years Many of them have saved
few hundred dollars by years of denial
and sacrifice, as last resort in Old
age to save them from charity. A
lawyer of many years experience in
Grinnell has been asked by many Of
these men to loan their small savings
and he has invariably invested their
money in farm mortgage where the
principal could not be lost by any pos
sible error In human judgment. The
interest income of 5iA or 6 per cent
has been small, to be sure, but the
careful business judgment of the law
yer told him that these aged preachers
were too old to take aven the remotest
chance of losing their principal. But
because Of small returns from few
hundred dollars at 6 per cent interest
superanuated preachers in Grinnell
have been the constant prey of pious
| sharks from abroad who make spec.
| ialty Of loaning money for preachers"
who come to them with long prayer
| and literature illuminated with scrip
tural texts offering ten per cent or a
possible twenty per cent on their
| money. Time and time again have
I 4ha.a ornd ,,,ap foJlap victims taken
| their money out of a guaranteed farm
| mortgage, sent 1T to the brother of the
/ long prayer and returned to the law
| yer's office to cry like children when
| the loss of all they had in the world
had been finally discovered by them
| preachers by nature, occupation and
training are not ,financiers, hence are
easily caught Up to date they have
not achieved prominence as CAPT.
talistic class, hence it would seem
strange that any money lender or pro-
| moter should make a speciality OF
| lending money for ministers" unless he
had "premonition' that the principal
! would not be returned. Not being a
fiancier, the average preacher can
| not see this.
The mistake made by them all is in
accepting mans prayer meeting pro-
| testations of piety and righteousness
| in business transaction on their face
| without good collateral. Knowing this
weakness in human nature many a
rascal seeks the hypocrisy Of promin-
emit church activity as cloak for his
carefully planned campaign of theft
He finds 1t good for the banking BUSH
| ness on the one hand and a key to open
wide the opportunity to escape unno-
ticed in the dishonest things which he
plans to do. Bankers and business
men who are just ordinary Christians,
| living clean, golden rule lives with lit
| tie or no professions Of piety and per-
haps not deeming it necessary to en-
gage in Sunday school work in order
to keep their banks from suspicion,
may have borrowed from them and
paid promptly a hundred times, yet
the banker. ii he does his duty, asks
for collateral of some kind, an evidence
of ability to pay. Preachers who de-
post church money or their own saw
ings, should do the same.
1t does not follow that business men
must keep out of Sunday school WORT
In order to escape suspicion of hypo-
crisy, but 1t : should be learned by
preachers and other good Christian
people that prayers will not guarantee
the principal and that honest money
loaners do not hold parlor prayer
meetings in order to solicit invest
| ments from aged couples.
As a dressing for sores, bruises and
burns. Chamberlain's Salve is all that
can be desired. 1t is soothing and
healing in its effect. 1t allays the