NEW YEAR'S RESOLUTION.

New Zealand Herald, Volume XLVI, Issue 13990, 20 February 1909, Page 2 (Supplement)

NEW YEAR'S RESOLUTION.

RELIGIOUS LIFE IN OHIO.

New York, January Cleveland despatches report that the 1800 members of the local Nonconformist congregation who promised on New Year's Eve to Live as Christ lived for just two weeks" are not making particularly good progress." This congregation, on being exhorted by the minister, stood up to the number of 1800, and pledged themselves for two weeks to abstain from smoking, drinking, backbiting, idle conversation, arrogance, etc., to rise early, work cheerfully, retire by 10.30 p.m., and so forth. The names of the aspirants to the Christian life for just two weeks were formally enrolled and published in many American papers, which viewed the Cleveland experiment with great interest, and prophesied important results.

Now it. appears that over 750 of the elect have been released from their two weeks' pledge on the ground that Cleveland offers too many temptations to make even two weeks' Christian living a practicable task for the average man and woman. "It might be done in New York or Philadelphia, or Chicago," says one caustic critic, " but in Cleveland it is impossible." Most of the aspirants succumbed on smoking, teetotal, and backbiting clauses, but many confessed that early rising had been their undoing. Some of these moral derelicts have been interviewed, and they give interesting answers. " You simply can't live as Jesus would and be an employee of a large business house," says Miss Eleanor McGovern, aged 21, who was among those who attempted to begin living for two weeks as she thinks Christ would. A two days' experiment convinced her of its impossibility in Cleveland business life. "It can't be done by an employee," she said. The employer himself might carry the morality of Jesus into his business if he chose. The case is not hopeless. But the employer, at least my employer, does not, and it is suicidal for the employee to attempt it."

The sarcasm of the situation is very apparent to American readers, who realise that Cleveland by comparison with New York or Chicago is a city of incorruptible virtue. As to Chicago, it is usually quoted here as ''a great sink of iniquity."