Rensselaer Semi-Weekly Republican, Volume 37, Number 29, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 14 April 1905 — PREACHES DEMOCRACY. [ARTICLE+ILLUSTRATION]

PREACHES DEMOCRACY.

Secretary Shaw Advises Methodists Against Drawing Class Lines. Secretary of the Treasury Shaw addressed the Baltimore conference of the .Methodist Episcopal church in Washing-

ton the other day. cautioning the ministers against drawing class lines. He said: “That there is in the United States a very large number of unchurched people is unquestioned. Every convention, assembly, synod and conference reiterates ’ the question, ‘How shall the masses be

reached?’ and they all adjourn without satisfactorily answering the question. “Possibly people of wealth enjoy being preached to as the wealthy class. Possibly the highly educated, the ad-’ mittedly refined and cultured, enjoy being preached to as educated, refined and cultured. Be that as it may, I am positive that the poor do not enjoy being addressed as the poor. “The Alethodist churcjf wtft designed for people—rich people and poor people; educated people and uneducated people; cultured and uncultured. But I do not believe it was ever the design of God or man that it should be the church of one to the exclusion of the others. In my judgment, the only way to keep it the church of all is to stop drawing distinctions between the sons of men. “This country of ours has gotten along pretty well thus far without class distinctions, and God grant that this great church, outnumbering in membership any other Protestant body, with more universities, more colleges, more academies, more seminaries than any, with well nigh as many as any other two —God grant that this great branch of the church, designed to preach the gospel to man without distinction ns to social, financial or moral conditions, may see to it that within its borders there shall be neither rich nor poor, high nor low, bond nor free.”

SECRETARY SHAW.