APPEAL TO THE CHURCHES

Press, Volume LXXII, Issue 21976, 28 December 1936, Page 3

APPEAL TO THE CHURCHES

TO THE EDITOR Or THE PRESS. Sir, —“X.Y.Z.’s” idea of appealing to the churches is ridiculous for at least two impressive reasons. The first is that the churches are absolutely under the control of a small minority, the clergy, who are not, and never were, moved by appeals. They consider the making of appeals one of their exclusive and most profitable prerogatives. It must be apparent, then, that any layman who so far forgets his role of supporter as to appeal to the churches would be more profitably employed in throwing snowballs at the moon. As near as I can guess, your correspondent wants to suggest that the churches, led by the clergy, should secure and increase the happiness of society. What a hopel How can he expect such a lead from a class that for centuries has continuously demonstrated its own members’ inability and reluctance to agree, even in the same church? My contention is that no church has a clergy that will agree to listen to any appeal from any layman. As for all of the clergy of all of the churches agreeing to anything ! A second reason for the futility of an appeal to the churches is their failure to agree not only among themselves individually but with each other collectively.—Yours, etc., PLAIN BILL. December 27, 1936.