The millionaire pewholder was a liberal
giver. It rarely occurs to the fashionable dispensers of spiritual
knowledge to ask whether the devil's money should be used to gild the
Lord's temple; nor to question if it be a wise religion which allows
a man to rob his neighbours on weekdays, to give to the cause of
charity on Sundays.
And yet if every clergyman and priest in the land were to make and
maintain these standards for their followers, there might be an
astonishing decrease in the needs of the poor and unfortunate.
Were every church member obliged to open his month's ledgers to a
competent jury of inspectors, before he was allowed to take the holy
sacrament and avow himself a humble follower of Christ, what a
revolution might ensue! How church spires would crumble for lack of
support, and poorhouses lessen in number for lack of inmates!
But the leniency of clergymen toward the shortcomings of their
wealthy parishioners is often a touching lesson in charity to the
thoughtful observer who stands outside the fold.
For how could they obtain money to convert the heathen, unless this
sweet cloak of charity were cast over the sins of the liberal rich?
Christ is crucified by the fashionable clergymen to-day more cruelly
than he was by the Jews of old.
Senator Cheney was not a church member, and he seldom attended
service.
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