Ecclesiastical Notes

At Marion, Ill., Catholics, ever fraternal, were drawn closer to each other one day last week. "Did you hear what happened last night?" they asked each other. Some person or persons--the police could not say who--had set a bomb on the basement steps of the church. It went off, ripped the basement steps, shattered windows, scattered suspicion.

At 13th Street near Sixth Avenue, Manhattan, John Markle, anthracite tycoon, helped Commander Evangeline Booth, of the Salvation Army, with a bit of digging, then turned, spade in hand, to acknowledge the cheers of many a Salvation Army cadet. Ground had been broken for the $500,000 John & Mary Markle residence-hotel for businesswomen. Said Henry Waters Taft, second youngest of the four Taft brothers and chairman of the Salvation Army Advisory Board: "He gives twice who gives quickly . . . he gives thrice who gives meekly."

In 1816 Dona Petronila de Guzman made her will, provided for the annual celebration of 60 masses for the repose of her soul. Dona Petronila, a Filipino, died four years later. A chaplaincy to see to the celebration of the masses was provided for. but has been vacant and the income has gone to the care of the Archbishop of Manila. One Paul Rogerio Gonzalez, kin of Dona Petronila, seeks now to recover $86,862.50, alleged income of the chaplaincy between 1911 and 1925. The Supreme Court of the U. S. will decide.

From the Roman Catholic Bishop of Nashville, Tenn., last week came a strange suggestion to the nuns of his diocese. "Don't vote," he said in effect. His reason: the obvious hostile comment upon nuns' voting would be that they were helping to swell the Smith vote total and that the Church was massed for Smith; this he wished to avoid.

The sermons of Dr. Harry Emerson Fosdick usually are preached from his pulpit in the Park Avenue Baptist Church, Manhattan. He preaches to packed houses; it therefore is not easy to attend his church, but to gain admittance to the church proper the following instructions have been issued: attend the service in the men's auditorium, hear Dr. Fosdick's voice through an amplifier; sign a blank and receive a ticket for admission to the church proper on the following Sunday.

In Glasgow, Scotland, the Students' Union was a bedlam. The air was filled with tobacco smoke, flying playing-cards, the words and music of a slightly ribald chant, "Oh, Aimee, dear Aimee, we all love you so!" Hung in the hall were signs: GOOD OLD WHISKEY! LADIES MAY SMOKE! SCOTCH WHISKEY IS GOOD FOR ALL COMPLEXIONS! Vitreous vessels, onetime containers of whiskey, stout, champagne, were in idle profusion--all dedicated to the embarrassment of Aimee Semple McPherson, notorious evangelist who inadvertently had chosen university election time to speak to the studentry. Pitifully, persistently she tried to make herself heard above the heckling din. Only when she said, "Let us pray," did the studentry bow their heads in real or simulated reverence. When the prayer came to Amen the divine interlude ended: smoke was blown in the McPherson's face and to it was offered many a beer mug.