The Bridgeport times and evening farmer., 1919-11-29
CHURCH MAKES l. GREAT. RECOVERY FROM BANKRUPTCY
St. Paul's of Brooklyn Saved By Efforts of Rev. An
 drew c. Wilson

When the county sheriff enters a church at its Easter service, strides up to the altar and seizes the collec- ton to help satisfy the church's many creditors that church IS, to put it very mildly, in 8 bad way.
 That is what happened to St. PauPs Epicopal church, Brooklyn, ten years ago. Yet St. Paups church Is not asking any money from the Nation Wide Campaign of the Episcopal church to raise $42. 100000 to aid churches in need of help and to ex- tend all phases of Episcopal activities throughout the world.
 St. PauPs church does not ask for any aid from the Nationwide Cam paign program because 1t does not need any. It is today one of the most richly fitted up churches in New York city. It has an alter that cost $100,- 900; a bronze crucifix weighing ton which cost $30,000; the largest pipe organ in the Episcopal Diocese of Long Island; a solid gold jeweled cha1ice; marble statues from Pa1es- trino, Italy, many of them life size; Cluny lace vestments from France and four rich side altars.
 The parish also maintains St. An
 drews' Home, a rectory and house for two curates. All these improve ments have been made since 1909, the year when the sheriff of Kings county made his raid on the collection pF ste. At that time the church building was
 a wreck, the roof having 257 holes in it by actual count. The average Sun day attendance was 12. It had been decided to abandon both the church and the parish.
 Then Rev. Andrew Chalmers Will son, curate of the Church of St. Mary the Virgin in the Borough of Man haitian, was called as rector.
 MT. Wilson received no salary. ~He is perhaps the only clergyman in the country who does not have to worry about receiving his salary because he 1 still receives none. Instead of be- i ing paid for his services, he pays for i the privilege of being rector of St. l PauPs. Out of his private fortune he l has contributed hundreds of thou | sands of dollars to <the church and the parish. His gifts and his knack of interesting others in fulfilling his | dream of what church should be has made of St. PauPs a Mecca for all i lovers of ecclesiastical art.
 i More than s30o0O0 has been spent i no the interior alone of the church. The parish has a s2O0, 900 endowment 1 fund. On it's rolls are found the
 names of 500 communicants, quite a
 number residing in Manhattan and . the Bronx. St. PauTs realizes for | them, too, their dream of what a l church should be. The average Sum [ day attendance now fills the church l ard at the special services hundreds | of persons are turned away.
 The methods used by Dr. Wilson to put new life into his rundown parish , bear a close resemblance to the fun :; damenta1 methods being employed 1 by the Episcopal church in it's Ma l tion-Wide Campaign to place itself in | a position to fulfill the obligations l with which it is confronted through l. i out the world as a result of the read | justment of spiritual, moral, economic and social conditions caused by the
 war. For primarily it was a spiritual | awakening which he wrought in his parish just as the Nationwide Cam paign seeks it primarily in the Epis-
 copal church at large.