Rensselaer Semi-Weekly Republican, Volume 19, Number 30, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 17 December 1897 — SNOBBISHNESS. [ARTICLE]

SNOBBISHNESS.

It Has No Place in the Ordinary Economy of Life. A well-known man In London society recently affected to despise the Irish members of Parliament, and was most . contemptuous In his references to them ( in conversation. One night he met the wife of a Nationalist at a reception, and j expressed his surprise. “I nevep expected,” he said, “to see any member of your party in thin house. Tell me something that I want to know. Do the Irish members ever I wear dress coats? I have never yet seen one in evening dress.” - | “Most of them are poor men,” said the lady, with dignity; “but they are not so unfortunate as to be unable to dress properly. But It ill becomes one j who calls himself a gentleman to sneer at an Irishman’s poverty.” | That was a spirited reply, and it silenced a snob. An effort was recently ! made to raise money for a struggling j church in an English town. An enter- | tainment was planned, and the names of some of the rich and fashionable people of the town were solicited as patrons. These names appeared in the printed circulars in the same list with those of a few tradesmen and workingmen who were identified with the small parish. When the list was shown to a few of the more fashionable patrons, they shook their heads and said that it would never do. “We cannot allow our names,” they said, “to be associated even in a good cause with those of vulgar people.” The circulars were recalled, the list was revised and only the more favored names were retained. The friends of jthe mission church were very indignant, and the entertainment was not well patronized. Many working-people ceased to attend the services of the church. They resented bitterly the affront put upon some of their representative men. They asked, “Is this Christianity?” Of course it was not Christianity. It was only snobbishness. The attempt to conciliate wealth and fashion at the. expense of honest poverty was properly resented. A wealthy Londoner stumbled across an old friend iu the British Museum one day, and soon learned that the man had not prospered in life, but was a poor author whose days were spent iu study and literary drudgery. “I can’t very well ask you to call upon me,” said the well-dressed society man. “You would be uncomfortable in my house. You would not know how to get on with the men in my circle of acquaintance.” “I have more congenial company here,” said the poor author, proudly, glancing at the books on his reading-ta-ble. “I associate with great minds, and would, indeed, be lonely and depressed in an assembly of persons who pretend to a superiority they do not possess.” Of all men. he who is professedly religious should not be a snob.. Christianity recognizes humanity in every man, and gives it consideration, ami treats It with respeet. A profession of Christianity that ignores this is spurious. The best bred gentleman in the world is the one who makes the fewest people, rich or poor, uncomfortable.— Youth’s Companion.