Holds Church Over 'Phone

1920

Dakota Preacher Sends Gospel Twelve Miles Away.

DEVILS LAKE, North Dakota. — The Rev. P. H. Case of the Presbyterian Church here has perfected his "preach by phone" system, until any one on the circuit within a radius of twelve miles can take down the receiver and find himself at church.

—The Saturday Blade, Chicago, Aug. 7, 1920, p. 2.

Mad Dog in Church

1920

DUNBAR, Pennsylvania. — When a mad dog ran into the First Presbyterian Church here during an entertainment women, men and children were thrown into a panic. The worst bitten by the canine was Earl, a small son of Howard Anderson. A load of buckshot ended the career of the dog. A number of persons were bitten by the dog during the several days that it was running wild.

—The Saturday Blade, Chicago, Aug. 7, 1920, p. 2.

Father Was Hanged For Crime of Son

1920

FLESHERTON, Ontario, Canada. — "Arise and confess your sins," shouted the Rev. G. N. Sharp, evangelist, in appealing to a revival meeting at Salem, Grey County.

Arnold Love, 21, an industrious and respected farmer, arose and confessed to murdering his mother seven years ago. His father was hanged for the crime on circumstantial evidence. Arnold, 14 years old at the time, never was suspected.

"I was eating my breakfast," Love said, in describing the murder, "when my mother warned me to avoid keeping bad company.

"I grabbed a stick of wood and hit her on the head. I dragged the body to the cellar and covered it with earth and then went to school."

Love was held by authorities of Owen Sound.

—The Saturday Blade, Chicago, Aug. 7, 1920, p. 1.

Woman's Voice Never Heard Here

(Click the picture for bigger view)

1920

On Mount Athos, the "Holy Mountain of Greece," no females, human or animal, may ever tread. On top of the mountain are located twenty monasteries which house 3,000 monks and as many laymen. These buildings date back more than a thousand years and contain many valuable religious works. The monks have a sort of republic there and have preserved their independence and ceremonies thru three centuries of Moslem rule.

—The Saturday Blade, Chicago, Jan. 3, 1920, p. 11.

Keeps Women Silent, How Does He Do It?

1920

Pastor Finds Long-sought-for Method of Hushing Talkative Sex.

Women are not allowed to preach or to bear rule or authority in the church at Zion City, Ill., near Chicago.

"I will not allow any woman to come on the platform and preach or teach," said Overseer Voliva. "Paul said, 'Let the women keep silent in the churches,' and in Zion no woman can be a public speaker. No woman is entitled to bear rule or to be placed in authority. When the apostles were selected, there wasn't a woman among them. When God chose a prophet, or a messenger, he always chose a man."

Here are some of the things that a woman can do, according to Voliva:

She can stay at home and mend socks; wash the dishes; knit and darn; cook; keep her home and her children clean and tidy, and she can be an angel of mercy to the sick and distressed. But she can't preach.

Besides accepting the apostle Paul as an authority on woman's place. Voliva also takes the position that woman was to be subject to man, from creation down. Voliva gives as his reasons for this position that Adam was first created, then woman was created from the rib of man, and that Eve was first in the transgressions in the Garden of Eden. She didn't keep her place, and not only got into trouble, but dragged man into trouble after her.

—The Saturday Blade, Chicago, Jan. 3, 1920, p. 5.

Biggest Bible To Visit U.S. On Its Worldwide Mission

1920

The year 1920 is to be marked by the visit to the United States and Canada of the most remarkable copy of the Sacred Scriptures ever produced. Weighing three-quarters of a ton, the volume stands 5 feet 2 inches high. It is 3 feet 6 inches across and when opened flat measures 7 feet 10 inches across the pages.

Carried in a specially constructed automobile with an attractive reading stand and platform, this wonderful book is to be the feature of a world-wide campaign for the popularizing of the Bible.

The campaign will start early in the new year and will be conducted by the Bible crusade of England, whose founder is William Henry Fry, grandson of the great English Quakeress, Elizabeth Fry.

Instead of being set in type and printed in a press, every verse of the Bible is being written by a different person and signed with his or her signature as a personal record of their belief in its teachings. So far about 2,000 texts have been written by the scribes, ranging from bishops to laborers.

Twelve large goatskins were required for the binding, which is in rich Levant Morocco leather of the finest quality. The book contains 175 sheets of stout paper boards. It is sewed with twine in the old-fashioned way round six stout hempen ropes. Each rope is thicker than the ordinary clothes-line.

To hasten the building of the book during the various processes of binding a staging was erected, from the cross beam of which depended an iron chain and pulley block, without which it would have required six men to manipulate the volume.

—The Saturday Blade, Chicago, Jan. 3, 1920, p. 2.

'Bookless Religion' Menace Told Pastoral Conference

1920

BERKELEY, California, Nov. 17. — A bookless religion may develop from the higher criticism of the Bible unless men and women of the present day rise from an alleged state of illiteracy, was the prediction this morning of a prominent divine speaking at the second day session of an Interdenominational Pastoral conference held at the First Congregational church under the auspices of the Pacific School of Religion.

New religious cults were characterized as the dogma of illiterates by Professor C. A. Johnston Ross of Union Theological Seminary, New York, while a modern Bible to fit twentieth century needs was urged by Rev. W. T. Bentley, pastor of the First Christian church of San Francisco.

"We may come to the time when we shall see a bookless religion," was the statement of Dr. Ross. "Religion was not always organized around a book. Abraham never owned a Bible and never went to a prayer meeting. Religion may be organized about the philosophy of life." Dr. Ross scored ridiculers of the Bible, declaring that when men were unable to make translations which suited their whims that they immediately turned scoffers. He said: "The present criticism of the Bible is but part of the indifference to history as a whole. Because the Bible speaks a language that is necessarily antique, does not mean that it has lost its value. If the state of education were higher in the country today a more truthful interpretation could be made."

"The prophecy of the present day that the church will lose the Bible is not an amazing thing," said Dr. Bentley. "Many people have lost it already. The re-orientation of the Bible to fit present needs is necessary."

Prayer in the present day seems to be regarded as a "kind of pious exercise," Rev. James M. Campbell, D. D., 80-year-old preacher and author of Manhattan Beach., Cal., told the ministers assembled at the opening session of the conference yesterday afternoon.

Ministers, he said, were to be included among those who said their prayers in this fashion. The man who gave an outward appearance of a "holy life," but who "inwardly" was undeserving of respect was scored by the gray-haired minister, whose book, "The Indwelling Christ," and other volumes are well known in religious lay circles.

"The things one thinks are far more important than the things one does," he said in speaking on the subject, "The Inner Life of the Minister." "Being is greater than doing."

"Examine thyself, not others. As ministers you think first of others, but turn your attention to yourselves for a change. Hold yourselves to strict account; scrutinize your every action. Every preacher has a battle to fight — the battle between the spirit and the flesh. Prayer is a necessity, but in this age prayer has come to be a pious exercise instead of what it really is."

—Oakland Tribune, Oakland, CA, Nov. 17, 1920, p. 2.

Ouija Board and Spirit Messages Are Additional Terrors to Death

1920

By GEORGE BERNARD SHAW

My mother was always having communion with the dead. She took it quite seriously. She was a wise and balanced woman, too.

The first planchette that ever came to Ireland came to our house. I used it incessantly till it became a deadly bore — as it does in about a week.

I have looked into the subject, but it has not convinced me. I feel much like a man I know whose dearest friend, a woman, was close to death.

"You are about to pass over, my dear," he told her with tears in his eyes, "and I want you to promise me solemnly that if it is possible for you to communicate with me from the other world, you won't do it."

Fortunately she recovered, but she has since died, and now my friend is scared stiff for fear she will come to him just for spite!

Fancy the poor dead having to spend their time tilting tables for people in this world! And ringing bells and sending messages. Why, it adds terrors to death.

Noah's Ark as Model for Boat

1920

Lake Erie Fisherman Had Faith Enough in Idea to Build One

Saudusky, Ohio — Ed Lampe, a fisherman at Vermilion, a Lake Erie port town twenty-two miles east of this city, was reading a story about Noah's ark to his children one night several months ago, when it occurred to him that were the craft of Noah's time resurrected and modernized a little it might have a tendency to lessen the toll that storms take annually in the Great Lakes section.

Lampe is a gillnetter of many years' experience, and in the picture of Noah's ark that embellished the story he was reading, he recognized wonderful possibilities. The storms of the Great Lakes section rage furiously in spring, following the opening of the navigation season, and again in fall, just before the season closes. Many men lose their lives and much valuable property is destroyed.

The gillnetters, as those fishermen who fish with gill nets are known, are oftener the victims than are the members of any other body of men engaged in fishing; their work is more hazardous. When disaster comes it is usually the gillnetters' boat, or "tug," that is destroyed.

A Real Success

Lampe designed a boat on the plan of Noah's ark. With the aid of several fishermen friends he brought his design to materialization. He tried the craft out and it met every expectation. It ploughed the most vicious billows, going out and returning when other boats had to be kept in port.

Lampe's craft attracted the attention, of the commercial fishing interests of the Lake Erie section and investigators were sent to Vermilion. If it were true that a Vermilion fisherman had invented a boat patterned after Noah's ark that would lessen the risk of spring and fall season fishing they wanted to give the fishermen the benefit of the discovery, they said.

The Vermilion gillnetter would not listen to a proposition to sell his idea, nor would he talk of royalty.

"If you can save some poor devil's life by using my style of boat, go ahead and use it," he said.

The United Fisheries company of this city, one of the largest organizations of its kind operating on Lake Erie, recently completed the first of six gillnet tugs of the type designed by Lampe, at a shipbuilding plant in this city. The other five are to be ready to be commissioned at the beginning of the spring fishing season of 1920.

Lampe christened his boat Victory, for the reason that she is believed to have triumphed over the storm. With a bow like that of a battleship, and a body otherwise that resembles the conventional pictures of Noah's ark, she has been successfully combating the roughest seas that the Lake Erie nor'easter has been able thus far to kick up.

Victory is fifty-five feet long, with a fifteen foot beam. She is equipped with two power plants, so that if one should happen to "go bad," the other will be available. Her upper works are so constructed that they can be made almost water tight and her hull bears the weight required to right her immediately if she should happen to turnover.

"I would as lief be sitting in the cabin of Victory as in my office or my home, no matter how severe the storm," said Charles F. Mischler, president of the United Fisheries company, discussing the new gillnetting craft.

Fishermen say that boats of this kind will, in the near future, replace the old-time gillnetting tugs now in use, and that a big saving in life and property will result.

Jonah Doesn't Belong in Bible

Feb. 1920

American Educator Explains Presence in Book of Myth of Jonah and the Whale

Dr. R. G. Moulton, professor of literature at the University of Chicago, addressing a gathering of Wesleyans at Bath, England, where he received his education, insisted that Jonah was not swallowed by the whale and that the story forms no part of the real Bible.

The Bible, mighty in itself, said Doctor Moulton, had passed through the hands of commentators who had no knowledge, no understanding of literature, and who reduced it to a form which had little or no likeness to the real Bible. One of these numerous commentators had written into that most spiritual and beautiful book of Jonah the narrative of the whale, the only effect being one of distortion and disfigurement.

In actual fact the story, asserted Doctor Moulton, had been originally in the form of a mere footnote comment in manuscript, but by some blunder, due to careless, slipshod printing from which the Bible suffered more than any other book in the world, the fable of the whale had been included in the general text. And in this way had it come down through the ages to the modern world as pure comedy, or what was worse, ribald satire.


Miserable Comforters

Why was Job always cold in bed? Because he had such miserable comforters.

Noah, Not Adam, Ate the Apple

Feb. 1920

Delver in Ancient Lore Finds Evidence Older Than the Bible

Apparent History of Human Race Back 14,000 Years Before Christ

Philadelphia, Pa. — What the discoverer claims to be evidence older than the Bible by two or three thousand years, that woman had nothing to do with the downfall of the human race, was produced by the museum of the University of Pennsylvania in the form of a new set of translations by Dr. Stephen Herbert Langdon.

Doctor Langdon is now professor of Assyriology at Oxford University, England. He was for three years curator of the Babylonian section at the university museum, and while there studied and translated thousands of ancient clay tablets from the ruins of Nippur, in ancient Babylonia.

Noah Ate the Apple

The new book is the fourth in a series depicting the religious life of the Sumerians, a mysterious race, the origin of which is unknown, which was finally swallowed up by the later Semitics. According to one of the flood stories in the collection Noah ate the forbidden fruit after he had been saved from the deluge.

This salvation was accomplished, according to the Sumerian version, by a woman deity. There is no mention of any Eve in the story. Clay tablets from which this and other stories are taken are said to be at least one thousand years older than Babylonian tablets.

14,000 Years Before Christ

After the Sumerians had been extinguished in their political power, according to Doctor Langdon, the Babylonians retained the language for ecclesiastical purposes for many centuries, just as Latin is now used in the Roman Catholic church.

The Sumerian records at the university provide an apparent history of mankind back to 14,000 years before Christ, but this is not considered absolutely authentic, because many of the reigns of kings are collateral. The Sumerians believed that the patriarchs, corresponding to those of the Old Testament, ruled before the flood for 360,000 years. According to their story it was 35,000 years after the deluge when Cyrus of Persia conquered Babylonia.

Amen Corner

1920

The phrase "amen corner," is said to have originated in London, where, at the end of Paternoster row, the monks at one time finished their recitation of the "Pater Noster" as they went in procession on Corpus Christi day to St. Paul's cathedral. They began in Paternoster room with the Lord's prayer in Latin, continuing it to the end of the street, and then said "amen" at the corner of the row. As used in this country the phrase describes the corner of a church where the elderly members sit and pronounce the word "amen" at intervals.


Interesting Old Bible

One of the original owners of the Treacle Bible, living in the eighteenth century, had made notations on the fly leaf concerning "John, who was born on Friday the 10th of February, 1769, at a quarter after eight at night, was baptized at Crossgate church on March 16 following, by the Reverend Mr. Wheeler, who died of smallpox, 12th Aprile, 1769, and was buried the next day at Crossgate church, aged eight weeks and five days." Other deaths, marriages and births were dated as far back as 1701-1702.

Remits Dime After 7 Years

1920

Conscience Prompts Man to Pay Debt He Couldn't Forget

MEMPHIS, Tenn. — Elmer Green of Mitchell, has sent Walter Simmons, Louisville hardware dealer, 10 cents which he owed for seven years on a baseball glove.

"I owe you 10 cents on a baseball mitt I bought seven years ago," Green writes, "so I hope you will forgive me and let me know if you will accept the dime. The Lord has saved me, and I have had no peace because I haven't paid you. I want to make everything right so I won't have to come up short at the judgment bar of God."


1896

Gods on the Average

The average Japanese god is sixty feet high.

The latest fad is to tell people's characters by their teeth.

The foundation of a church at San Como, Guatemala, has been shifted seven inches by the growth of two large white gum trees.

The Ouija Declines

1920

William and Isaac Fuld are contestants in a comparatively unimportant suit in a Baltimore court. Each claims to have invented the Ouija board. Each one claims the right to profit from the sale of the invention. The court is asked to settle the dispute and decide who is entitled to the profits from the sale last year of 375,000 of these popular instruments of modern psychism.

Newspaper correspondents were quick to grasp the incongruity. A court with all its admitted human failings was asked to decide the question. The arbitration of the all-wise and all-known Ouija board was refused by those who might be expected to know its virtues best.

The Fuld brothers hit on a queer policy of advertising their wares.

Frequently it is reported that Ouija board devotees have become insane through too great faith in the mysterious powers of the omnipotent board. It would seem that the Fuld brothers were a trifle crazy so publicly to confess the purely mundane origin of Ouija. After such a confession in court it would appear that only those who already are mentally unbalanced would purchase Ouija as anything more than a toy.

If Ouija cannot designate its own inventor, what can be expected of it in other fields?

—The Saturday Blade, Chicago, March 20, 1920, p. 6.

Church Ring Bout is Found Success

1920

Pastor Wrestles After Fight is Finished

Bible Class and Sewing Circle Girls Wildly Cheer as Boxers Draw Blood

KANSAS CITY, Mo., March 18. — The pastor arose, motioned for silence from his flock gathered around the platform in the church basement, and announced:

"The next number on the program will be a 3-round bout between the amateur champion lightweight of the United States and the ex-welter weight champion. Following that event, I challenge anyone present to 'Indian wrestle' with me. The Sunday School superintendent has asked to be first."

That book place recently at the First Congregational Church in Rosedale, a suburb. Rev. J. H. Jones, pastor, was acting as master of ceremonies of an "athletic carnival" staged in the church basement by the ladies' aid society for the benefit of the church building fund. A swimming pool, billiard tables, moving picture machine and other items of that nature are the goal of the building fund.

Bout Draws Mixed Crowd

Young men and young women of the age frequently found in public dance halls were at the entertainment. There were, however, some of the older folks, but in every case the wrinkles about their eyes turned up instead of down.

After the pastor made his announcement, into the ring walked Tommy Murphy, lightweight, and Roy Helton, welterweight.

More excited spectators, probably, never watched Murphy and Helton. Members of the sewing circle shouted for side swipes and jaw punches. Students in the men's Bible class used the proper technical terms, while the young girls' organization invented phrases expressive, but of hazy wording.

Murphy Drew First Blood

Murphy drew blood from Helton's nose and was condemned harshly for so doing, as Helton is a member and regular attendant at the First Congregational Church. Helton landed jarring jabs on Murphy's ribs and was urged to greater effort.

Thus they fought three rounds and when time was called, kept right on fighting. The extra punches were much appreciated by the spectators, until Mr. Jones at last separated the combatants.

Mr. Jones, or as the members of his flock call him, Jones, then took to the mat. Flat on his back, with the Sunday School superintendent beside him for an Indian wrestle, the pastor seemed to lose none of his dignity.

Other husky members of the church took a turn at "Jones" and went to defeat regularly.

Pale Blue Tights Stop Church Show

1920

BOSTON, Mass., March 18. — Due to an error in booking on the part of a Boston theatrical agency, a wrong package was delivered at the Starrett Memorial Methodist Church and the "entertainment" offered by the Y.M.C.A. blew up with a loud report.

What the right package was nobody knows. The wrong one consisted of three shapely girls clad in pale blue silk tights, members of a Boston burlesque company.

The show was cut off in the prime of life, when three flashes of pale blue streaked out of the church platform wings and three feminine mouths opened in song. But the three mouths never closed again — at least not in song at that church.

The pastor, in full view of a "shocked" audience, ordered the three burlesque performers from the stage. The "entertainment" then succumbed.

Meaning of Blessed Trinity Outlined at Church Service

Texas, 1920

"The Holy Trinity" was the theme of the sermon delivered by Rev. J. P. McCarthy at St. Patrick's Church yesterday. He selected his text from Matt. 28:14, "In the name of the Father and the Son and the Holy Ghost." He said, in part:

Today, my dear brethren, the church celebrates the feast of the most holy Trinity. In Advent she glorified the Father for the merciful redemption she saw him preparing for mankind; from Christmas to Easter she adored God the Son in his birth and sufferings and death, and last Sunday she sang the praises of God the Holy Ghost, the sanctifier of mankind. And having, as it were, praised each separately, she bids her children today join one and all in praise of the ever-adorable Trinity.

What do we mean by the blessed Trinity? By the blessed Trinity we mean one God in three divine persons.

We agree with the Unitarian in saying that God, the Infinite First Cause and supreme Lord of all things, must be one, for if there were two first causes neither would be first, or if there were two infinite supreme beings both would be finite and subject to a higher third. Again, we agree with the Trinitarians that God is three because faith tells us so. But when the one tells us that "there are three gods," or when the other says "there is only one person in God " we disagree with both and stand half way between the two and say "there is one God in three persons." For just as in myself there is a human nature which I have in common with all mankind and a personality which distinguishes me from all others, so in God there is one divine nature, but three distinct personalities: Father, Son and Holy Ghost.

Some may object and say, "I cannot see how a thing can be one and three at the same time, and so I do not believe your doctrine."

Brethren, remember our Lord's words, "Blessed are they who have not seen and have believed." Faith is a belief in things unseen founded on the word of God, and without faith, especially in the blessed Trinity, it is impossible to be saved. We might as well attempt to drain the sea drop by drop into the palm of the hand as to comprehend the mystery of the Trinity with our shallow brain.

—The Galveston Daily News, Galveston, Texas, May 31, 1920, p. 6.

The Rev. Samuel A. Diehl's Work of 45 Years

Pennsylvania, 1920

Rev. Samuel A. Diehl, a native of New Oxford, and pastor of the Mt. Carmel Lutheran charge, consisting of Mt. Carmel congregation, at Moulstown, and St. Paul's, New Baltimore, who, on February 1st, handed in his resignation, to take effect June 1, 1920, has given the statistics of his 45 years' work in Pennsylvania and Maryland, during which he spent 28 years in Pennsylvania and 17 in Maryland. During his ministry Rev. Diehl baptized 1076 infants and 163 adults; confirmed 630 catechumens; received into church membership by letter 348 persons, and 106 by restoration; officiated at 724 funerals; joined in wedlock 352 couples, and preached 5,610 sermons.

—New Oxford Item, New Oxford, PA, Feb. 19, 1920, p. 6.

Man Carries Bible in One Hand, Steals Shoes with Other

1920

CARRIES BIBLE; STEALS SHOES.

Terre Haute — Leo Fairbanks held his Bible in one hand while he stole a pair of shoes with the other. Leo's doing a bit of Bible study in a quiet place now.

—The Grand Rapids Tribune, Grand Rapids, Wisconsin, March 13, 1920, p. 6.


CARRIED IT BUT DIDN'T READ IT.

TERRE HAUTE — Leo Fairbanks held his Bible in one hand while he stole a pair of shoes with the other. That's what he said in the cop court here. Leo's doing a bit of Bible study in a quiet place now.

—Bridgeport Telegram, Bridgeport, Connecticut, May 6, 1920, p. 24.



Church Needs to Keep Pace With Times

Methodists from Appleton, Neenah, Menasha and Kaukauna mobilized their forces here yesterday for a far-reaching campaign of evangelism.

In his address on "What I consider the Layman's place in the Evangelistic Movement," Prof. L. G. Schussman of Kaukauna laid bare the chief failures of the present day church.

In closing his address, Prof. Schussman stated that we cannot fool the world into changing its way of life. "They know too well," he continued, "that Christ has not yet learned to shimmy his way or to one-step along the pathway of life in His ministry of doing good. We need not hope to charm souls for the Master by the time or tune of syncopated jass. Nor are souls set up as prizes for prowess in penny-ante or rummy. The old landmarks stand to guide us. We cannot serve God and Mammon. The family altar, the closest sanctuary and the song of consecration with its never ending melody of love in daily service for the Master are the three places of strength of the layman in the great work before us."

—Appleton Post-Crescent, Appleton, Wisconsin, Feb. 9, 1920, p. 2.

Sneezes In Church, Loses False Teeth

1920

Molars Burn in Furnace, Stop Religious Meeting.

LEWIS SQUARE, N. Y., March 18 — Last week Eli Sands attended the services at the Union church. During the sermon Sands sneezed. Both plates of his false teeth left his mouth, struck the radiator and rolled into the furnace. Ten minutes later the burning plates emitted a disagreeable odor and the services were postponed to 2 p.m.

The congregation left the church while Janitor M. V. Bills opened the radiator and removed the burning plates. The church was aired and the odor disappeared.

Sands says he paid $50 for his teeth the week before, and now they are ruined.

Comments: "Now they are ruined." I suppose they are, 10 minutes in a furnace. It brings to mind that ancient proverb: "Fixodent and forget it."


Goes 30 Years Without Teeth.

ST. ALBANS, Vt. — Thirty years ago Atlas Burden, a farmer near here, had every tooth in his head extracted, intending to have false ones. Believing that he could not wear them, he kept putting it off, and not until two weeks ago did he make up his mind that he could use false teeth. He now says he feels like a colt with his new grinders.