The Newark star and Newark advertiser. [volume] (Newark, N.J.) 1909-1909, 1909-07-30
REV. WASSON HAS
RADICAL REMEDY
FOR CHURCH EVILS
Proposes Three Unrelated De-
NEUTRALITY-SUSPICIOUS., Mid
die and Lower Class.
DEFENDS MINISTER'S
ATTACK ON M0NEYED CLASS
Methodism Declining, He Says,
Because of Social Rise
of Membership.

"would 1t not be good to have three
great churches or denominations hav-
ing no relation with each other-an
upper class church. a middle class
church and a lower class church?"}
Such is the radical remedy" for
existing church conditions proposed by
the Rev. DR.. E. A. WATSON. of st.
Stephens Episcopal Church.
In commenting on the action Of the
Rev. LOOMS o. Black, who has re-
signed from the pastorate of the First
Universalist Church of Troy, and from
the ministry because he declared that
the moneyed classes control the attl-
tude of the church toward any social
problem, Dr.. WATSON says:
This is pretty strong language. Is
1t justified? This is true-that when I
preached a sermon against Withholding
fares from the trolley company before
the pay-as-you-enter cars), the sermon
was generally applauded. But if L
should preach a sermon against tariff
robbery, or against stock gambling, CT
speculation; or if I should use the
language about interest on money that
the Bible uses, l should get into hot
water. One reason given for the trouble
that the Rev. DIR. Frazer "a grand old
mani got into was that he occasionally
made derogatory remarks about the
gas company, or the Public Service
Corporation, and thereby reused the
wrath of one of his officers, Mr.. Dusen-
berry, a high official in that corpora
ton. I know, too, that after the Cliff
ton avenue murder of high school chill
dren in the trolley disaster we years
ago, 1 was bitterly denounced by a cor
poration man in my church because l
pronounced the company morally re-
sponsible for those deaths.
This is ~true-that no clergyman can
get along far in his profession if he
antagonizes the men who represent big
business interests. They expect the
same Difference in church that they
receive out OF church. They dominate
six days of the week; they do not see
WHY they should not dominate the sew
1ntn. And, for that matter, neither do
/. If they are worthy to boss six days,
why not seven? If they are not worthy
to dominate the last seventh, they are
not, worthy to dominate the other six
seventies.
"A remedy Is the class church. If
the Christian church could con1ne itself
to one class. 1t might again become a
grand power in the world. In its best
days. the church was made up of the
poor class"
Continuing, DR.. WATSON declares that
Methodism, once the refuge of the
poor, Is declining because of the social
rise of the membership of it's churches.
The Methodists have been getting
respectable he continued, like the
rest of u.s. and adds:
with social differences came weak
ness; and in cities the old fashioned
Methodist is under the ban. In one of
the leading Methodist churches in New
ark only the other day a member said
to me, Well, we have got rid OF him
at last The him was an old Meth
odist brought up in the old school, who
persisted in yelling Glory h%allelujah,'
Praise the Lord and the like, during
prayer and sermon. He was the only
one in the congregation who did it, and
in spite of plain limitations hat his
CALCULATIONS were not in favor with his
genteel, rd-playing, dancing, theatre
going fellow Methodists, he would keep
on in the way he had been brought up.
But at last he was frozen out, and
now he is in a Methodist Protestant
church, where the old ways are still
IGNORED. There is more joy in that
congregation over the freezing out of
that hallelujah Methodist than over a
hundred sinners that repent, for this
old man was a modification to all those
notwithstanding Methodists in the
face of the stranger in the gate.
1.-The strength of the Catholic church
in this country and in Ireland has been
hat it was the church of the poor. Can
you think of Irish rack-renters and
tenants worshipping together? In the
other countries of Europe the Catholic
church comprises all classes, and is
losing ground. In this country it Is
getting a rich element, and that will he
its undoing. Non-conformity in Eng
land is strong, largely because the aris-
tocratic and wealthy are not in tilt is
q middle class religion
Would it not be good to have three
great churches, or denominations, hav>
ing no relations with each other-an
upper class church, a middle class
church and a lower class church,"
DR.. WATSON expresses these senti-
ments in the current issue of his
church paper. the Crown.