Blatant

The attraction of the sins of Manhattan for ministers of the Gospel from the hinterland is periodically demonstrated, and never more clearly than last week when the Chairman of the Sabbath Crusade Committee of the Tennessee Synod of the Methodist Episcopal Church, South, opened his mouth in the Bible House, Manhattan :

"Churchmen who condone Sabbath-breaking are as wicked in God's sight as bootleggers, robbers, bank breakers, adulterers, drunkards and liars' whom they condemn. . . .

"Anybody who buys a Sunday newspaper is helping the devil to ruin America.

"God's word is my authority.

"Every one of our 20,000,000 Sunday papers is Satan's ambassador and a decoy to ruin America.

"Every one of our 2,500 Sunday trains is hurrying America toward the Hell of God's wrath. Every Sunday train is hurrying somebody to ruin, some soul to Hell. . . .

"All the virtues, freedom and wealth of New York and America will be lost if we destroy the Sabbath. I challenge every American editor to show an error in my statement."

With Methodist money the Sabbath Chairman telegraphed every railroad president, asking cooperation. One replied. Frederick D. Atterbury President of the Erie, said he would be delighted to abolish Sunday trains; they lose money.

Down in Doyers St., Manhattan, the miserables of the island, unostentatiously mouch along. Drunks muse on the likelihood of panhandling the price of a finger or two of "likker" (anything with alcoholic content). Drug addicts deviously ponder methods of getting another "shot of morph" (hypodermic injection of morphine), or a "sniff of snow" (nasal inhalation of crystalline cocaine). Homeless and friendless they are for the most part, and normally mindful of their own fuzzy, vague affairs.

To such, in a paid newspaper advertisement as blatant as any circus poster, last week spoke one Thomas J. Noonan, superintendent of the Rescue Society, holding a nightly mission in the Old Chinese Theatre on Doyers St., located amidst their haunts. "Evangelistic, enthusiastic, extraordinary," ballyhooed the ad with circus alliteration. "Drunkards, drug addicts, the homeless and friendless especially invited."

Nearly as noisy yet more circus-like was the "Parade of Warning," advertised similarly by "The Famous Welsh Evangelists, Clark and Bell." The "parade" was to start from the Gospel Tabernacle at 44th St. and 8th Ave., and in circus similitude proceed therefrom "to 34th St.; thence to 59th St. via 7th Ave. and Broadway, returning to 44th St. by 8th Ave. Bring your autos or come on foot."