The Coconino sun., 1917-03-09
ADVERTISE CHRISTIANITY
 AS YOU WOULD SOAP

A committee called on me the other day and asked me to write an advertisement for the GO to church" movement to be used in the local pa pers. Two ministers and several lay men discussed the propriety of adver- Using religious service and asked my views. I offered the following in a spirit. of helpfulness.
 First we must understand advertis- ing in its broadest sense as related to christianity. Advertising is the art of seeing and picking out the events one wants to happen and then pictur- ing them to the people until they do happen. If you believe the people need soap, you must see that fact in your minds eye and then picture to the people the necessity or advantage of the use of soap till they all buy it. The results of advertising depend opon the degree to which you get the attention of the people.
 Having a vision of what the people needed to do and then picturing these things ti them till they did it seems to me to be the way christianity be- gan. Christ picked out certain order of events he deemed it best to have happen to the people and then he picked out twelve men who could call attention to them and make them happen. To my mind his most stup- endous achievement was that he real ly succeeded in arresting the atten- ton of twelve men to his own inter pretation of the life and hope of the world--of course he died to get the really profound attention and he arose again to get the eternal atten- tion of twelve men.
 His whole career was devoted to getting men permanently attracted, believing that if men could once be made to see what was good, they would then do it.
 Therefore if the church or institu- tion in this modern age will get the attention of men in the same degree that Christ did-especially the atten- tion that lies inside the man who does not go to church--the churches then shall be the effective builders of the worlds inner life.
 I sometimes try to think of what could be made to happen if as much money and brains could be spent in year in getting people to know as much about why we live and what we live for as we know about Pears soap.
 Any country that spends >, three times as much for advertising chew ing gum as it does for advertising its religion is bound to be second rate iii spiritual things.
 While Mir. Rockefeller is spending million dollars on advertising how not to have a hookworm, sometimes try to figure what would result if some other millionaire would spend million dollars advertising the doc Urine of brotherly love-or of inform ing every man in the nation of what living for.
 Why doesn't some denomination hire the back page of the Saturday Even ing Post for $5000 and tell the man who never goes to church S5000 worth of glorified publicity as to how to spend his life to get the most out of it instead of merely news about some new kind of toothbrush or safety pin. Which is most important to the na tion?
 What is the Christian church of to- day organized for? It claims the privilege of spreading christianity to ALL the people. Then it breaches, Sunday after Sunday, to the few faithful members who already con- fess to its belief. To be sure we see occasionally little notice of the ser vices at some church but does it ever carry message to the ! ;durch | goer in as convincing sl,-u-.. as the message from Ivory soap?
 We should invent, discover and se- lect an idea that will be of the great est benefit to the. spiritual life of the man who does not go to church and then present it to ALL the people of the reading world as quickly, as vigor- ously and aggressively as would of bathtubs, silk stock ings or union suits until it at least catches up to Murad cigarettes in it's prominence before the eyes of ALL the people.
 Therefore the natural convenient shortcut of this day to all the peo- pie, where the most men and most