People's Pilot, Volume 6, Number 23, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 26 November 1896 — PASSING THE PLATE. [ARTICLE]

PASSING THE PLATE.

An Incident Placing Millionaire Morgan In a New Light. J. Pierpont Morgan, the financier, has assumed his duties as warden of St. George’s Protestant Episcopal church. Dr. Raiusford is the rector, and among the congregation are numbered some of the wealthiest persons of the city. During the offertory Sunday Mr. Morgan rose from a seat well down near the front, and, walking up the aisle, took the collection plate and passed it. When the great banker is in town, he is a regular attendant of this church, and as all the pews are free it is no unusual sight to see him get up and offer his seat to some belated stranger. To persons who have had business dealings with Mr. Morgan his affability and gentleness in church are a revelation. This man, who when he is in his office denies himself to everybody, unless it happens to be a secretary of treasury, a high government official or a man well known in the financial wofld, is the personification of gentleness and accommodation when he enters the church door. When dealing with the congregation, there is none of that brusqueness which usually characterizes him when discussing a cold business proposition —New York Journal.