A CHRISTIAN TEMPLE

Evening Post, Volume CIX, Issue 102, 4 May 1925, Page 3

A CHRISTIAN TEMPLE

RICH GIFTS FROM ALL FAITHS

NEW YORK'S UNITED EFFORT

RELIGIOUS FAITH AND LIBERAL THOUGHT.

A remarkable article on the efforts made for funds for the completion of the Episcopal Cathedral of St. John, the Divine in New York, appears in "The Spectator." It is written by Mr. Frank P. Kent, of the Baltimore "Sun," who states that the response to the appeal was 15 million dollars (£3,000,000). This building, he said, will be one of the two or three greatest cathedrals in the world, and. it will be in the some- ■ times called "Soulless City." •■To it all contributed, and among them' Roman Catholics, Methodists, Baptists, Presbyterians, Unitarians, and Jews. Gifts of hundreds of thousands of dollars were received along with contributions of a few cents from poor ; children. Mr. Kent remarks on the in- ! spiring way in which the whole com- ! munity, "regardless of creed, colour, political preferment, or class, rose to | the spiritual note struck by Bishop ! Manning in his address in Madison Gardens opening the campaign. A PEOPLE'S TEMPLE. "The idea of the managing minds in this great drive has been not to have the cathedral a rich man's church, not ! to make of it merely a vast and magl i nificent monument, rendered possible by millionaire munificence, but something far finer and grander. They have i sought to make the movement truly and deeply representative of the people, to breathe into it a spirit genuinely fraternal, to sweep aside demoniational and sectarian lines, to wipe out creed and class, and mingle in a great unselfish movement, rich and poor, Jew and Gentile, Labour leader and bank president, physician and politician, lawyer and layman, the high and the humble. In tha movement there was given co-operation' and support from the State, the Judiciary Labour, Masonry, the Arts and Sciences, the Army and Navy, the trades and professions, all pledged by leading representatives to give to and work for the cause." There were a few millionaires in New York who between them could have given the whole sum required without' serious embarrassment, but that was not the Bishop's idea; besides, it would have destroyed the beauty of the conception and nullified the nobility of the plan. A BISHOP OF VISION.' Said Bishop Manning : "We have a vision before us so noble, so beautiful, so worthy of realisation that it has touched the heart and the spiritual im. agination of our whole city. We ara taking up a work greater by far, of its kind, than any out city or our country has ever attempted. We are undertaking to build here,,in our own city, one of the greatest cathedrals ever erected." Of course, back of this spiritual tid.ur wave that has swept the cathedral movement to success there «iecessarily. was extremely practical management, ■Mr. Kent remarks, business skill, and organising brains. ■ There has been nothing haphazard or accidental about the ''awakening" ,of New York. It was deliberately planned and worked for. For months before the Madison-square meeting in January the labour of perfecting a city and State-wide organisation had been untiring and incessant, though quiet. Franklin D. Roosevelt, as chairman of the general committee, was the directing head, with a board of advisers composed of • some of the most astute and influential men of affairs in the country. The first great step was. the enlistment of the wholehearted support. of the Press. Then a great army of men and women, ably directed by the best brains in New York, backed by practically unlimited publicity, present-id a really irresistible combination. No political campaign for votes was ever half so well organised or so skilfully conducted. The result achieved is direct and encouraging testimony that the public magnanimity needs only to bo aroused. "But," as the "Troy Times" expresses it, "deeper than the tribute to architectural grandeur as a civic asset, broader than the recognition of the \mity of a city, which, is still an American melting pot, is the acceptance, through the parable of the temple on the mount, of the celestial supremacy of the government of the heavens. Instead of the money changers being driven out of the temple, they have brought into it their consecrated wealth.'' It is a great lesson in tolerance. Bigotry has been abolished and prejudice broken down. It will stand —this cathedral —some day in the future, as a great American monument to religious faith and liberal thought."