Evening Republican, Volume 16, Number 283, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 26 November 1912 — Cales of GOTHAM and other CITIES [ARTICLE+ILLUSTRATION]

Cales of GOTHAM and other CITIES

Returns to Church Money He Stole When a Boy

NEW YORK. —In the mall of Rev. William B. Wallace, pastor of the Baptist Temple, Schermerhorn street and Third avenue, there came recently a letter in a strange hand. The ■writer had a story to tell which interested the pastor greatly. Years and years before he had stolen some money from the Sunday school fund of the church at the time it was on Nassau street Now he wanted to restore It Nearly forty years had elapsed since the writer, then a 15-year-old boy, had pilfered a small sum of money from the funds of the church. Most of those who attended the church at that time have long been in their graves. Dr. Wallace has been in charge only twH or three years and the incident was new to him. At the regular monthly meeting of th.e board of dea-

' cons, held last night, he asked the members of the board if they remembered anything about it, but none did. Dr. Wallace wrote his unknown correspondenttoday that the matter of restitution was something which rested with his own conscience. “In the dayß when the church was on Nassau street,” explained Dr. Wallace the qther day, “a boy took a small sum of money from the Sunday school funds. That was in 1873. Nothing more was heard of it until five days ago, when I received a letter in which I was informed that the boy had Bince grown to man's estate; that his conscience had troubled him and that he wished to return the amount that he had taken 39 years ago. is a powerful sermon in the facta if they are correctly told. “I know nothing about the theft or how much it was. The man had no fortune. He is a person of moderate means, as I understand it, and simply wanted to make restitution of the amount missing. The man has been converted within the last two or three years and his better nature has moved him to take this step. I wrote to him this morning to act according to the light of his own conscience,”