Evening Star Newspaper, September 29, 1929, Page 120

2 R AR AT g TN . PN SR > | . LT TR XY 3 S AP N AR H - 20 E— - BY JOSEPHINE TIGHE. brick church in Columbia Heights. Dramatis Personae: A squad of busy, alert, important-looking police. Report- ers and photographers. Traffic cops. Secret Service operatives. Loafing messenger boys. And more than likely a few cranks. Two long lines of men, women and children stretch- in queue-like, west and north. . Impediments: Taxicabs. Sight-seeing busses. Private automobiles. Movietone cars with su- perimposed cameras and yards and yards of ‘dutstretched sound-absorbing hose. Finally, The Person, Himself. A Quaker goes to meeting. He is the Chief Executive of the most important country in the world. Her- ‘bert Hoover, President of the United States. At 9 o'clock any Sunday morning, rain or in chill or heat, the police squad ma to the corner of Thirteenth and Irving streets northwest, individual members filing off 40 ingividual duties. One officer placards dree-trunks and lamp-posts with “No Park- ing” signs. Others drag from behind the church iron standards, placing them at inter- wals around the wide lawns, of the Friends# Orthodox Quaker Church, where the head of a nation worships. Heavy ropes are laced HE Time: Any Sunday morning, rain 3 or shine, cold or hot. ¥ | t The Place: A small, one-story, i k. dhrough tops of these standards, to restrain vis- dtors from trampling the barberry hedge or the grass. One policeman searches basement and morridors to locate possible secreted trouble- makers. Another officer stations himself in a Blind alley extending between the edifice and next building, a private residence, occupied, by . the way, by a family of Quakers. "« Traffic police take their positions and be- Come human semaphores, hastening, slowing or detouring taxicabs, motor cycles, city and sight-seeing busses and streams of private cars. It is about 9:30 when these conveyances begin to arrive and discharge their cargoes of visitors %o the “Presiden:’s church.” Pedestrians aug- ment the crowd, which the police keep in line, . three and four abreast. It is the usual, quiet- Ay dressed, well behaved throng of churchgoers, ‘with herc and there a flapper arrayed in pris- ':FRO!( the church issue sounds of congrega- =" . tional singing, accompanied by a piano. It is Sunday school time. The infant class ‘heroically raises shrill, childish treble in the ‘never-to-be-forgotton song, “Hear the pennies airopping: listen as they fall; every one for .Jesus; He will get them all!” Then the adult class, ringing out meaningly and triumphantly, ‘“Onward, Christian Soldiers”—with many of the waiting crowds joining in heartily. A final prayer. The infant class is dismissed, wig- ‘and giggling its way out between the columns of sightseers. ‘The majority of “grown-ups” of the Sunday school remain for church service. .- At precisely 20 minutes of 11 some 400 of the patiently waiting visitors gain admission to ‘the edifice, while twice as many more are turned away, because there is no room for shem. Men of the Young People’s Society act @8 ushers, members of the congregation re- ‘veiving first consideration for admission and ts. : groups of persons unable to get into urch remain to be consoled in seeing the Smart, private car of the President drive up %o the church. Acoompanied by secret service men—always absorbing interest to sightseers and the pub- £ g g THE SUNDAY . STAR, WASHINGTWQN.‘ D. C. SEPTEMRER 729,‘ President Hoover, Member of the Little Congregation on Columbia Heights, Takes Part in Traditional Services of Friends. lic generally—the White House automobile rolls up to the church curb invariably at 10:55 a.m. and the presidential party enter the staid, small house of worship. The seated congregation, by this time made up of Quakers, Methodists, Baptists, Jews, Gen- tiles, Catholics, respectfully rises and remains standing until the Executive family is seated. Except on rare occasions Mrs. Hoover, relatives, house visitors or friends accompany the Presi- dent. . On the platform, by this time, is the pastor of the Friends’ Orthodox Church of Washing- ton, the Rev. A. T. Murray; on his right, per- haps, a visiting lady Quakeress, say, of Phila- delphia; next to her, J. Edgar Hiatt, head of the pastoral committee; on the pastor's left, usually two visiting Quakers. For several minutes the group on the rostrum and the people of the congregation remain deeply, prayerfully contemplative, many of them with half-bowed heads and closed eyelids, At 11, Mr. Murray arises and leads in short, fervent rayer. (It is usual in Protestant and Catho- c stated prayers to ask of heaven divine .guidance for the President of the United States, together with a plea for his continued good health, and success in all his undertak< ings. As there are no stated prayers in Quaker services, Mr. Hoover in his own church fails to hear himself individually petitioneds for at the Throne of Mercy.) Mr. Murray resuming his seat, silence de- scends, The pleasant-voiced clock, over a doorway, ticks and tocks with precision and dignity. Two redbirds, which for years have made their nests in the pin-oaks that line Irving street, strain tiny throats in benisons to the God of the Universe. All traffic has been detoured for one hour, 11 am. to noon, ancd the only automobile horn heard is that on a ridiculous, red-top automobile belonging to a four-year-old “Little Breeches” of the neighborhood. He respects no man, regards not mother, ruler or police, and honk-honks at will, THESE are all the sounds which break the meditative stillness, until a man's voice from somewhere in the congregation says: “Let us sing hymn No. 295" A rusiling. of hymn " book leaves and the selection proves to be “Sweet hour of prayer, sweet hour of prayer, that calls me from a world of care.” The piano furnishes the prelude and congre- gation, including the President, all seated, join with measured sweetness in that soul-satisfying melody of restfulness and faith. After the hymn—silence. Tick tock, tick tock, measures out the clock. “Glory to God in the highest—highest,” sing Mr. and Mrs. Red- bird. “Glory, glory, glory, glory!” chant the feathered choristers outside. “It is an old saying that God has set eternity in a man’s heart.” Alfred Briggs, one of the visiting Philadelphia Friends, is speaking. Ris- ing and pausing in prayer a moment, he steps forward and gives this expression, continuing: Mr. Bisbee’s Princess — * aiganMr. Doelger,” said Mr. Bisbee, as, quickly ':mducm( his gold match case, he give Alice To the vanity cases and mesh bags she paid little attention, but when the cigarette cases arrived, she took one of them up, saying: " “This one’s perfect.” “But don't you think,” Mrs. Murchison asked fim, “that cigarette cases make a rather strange gift for bridesmaids?” “In my younger days,” returned Mr. Bisbee tactfully, “we might of thought so; but not any Jonger, madam, not any longer.” . “Certainly not,” said Alice. “Send me six of them.” She rose. “Come along mother; I'm late for the hairdresser.” But instead of fol- lowing Mrs. Murchison from the room, she crossed, put her cigarette in the ash tray, and leaning on the desk as if in no hurry, asked: “When can you deliver them.” - “Before the end of the week,” he assured her. He observed that her hand was resting idly on the edge of the blotting pad, and that her finger-tips were touching the back of the magazine, which protruded slightly. “That’ll do nicely,” she said. Now, in an absent-minded manner, she was picking at the magazine. “You are really satisfied that cigarette cases aren’t in bad taste for a wedding?” she asked. The copy of Chit-Chat was now in full view. “Absolutely.” He backed toward the door, hoping she would follow. “Well,” she said, “I'm glad you feel that way. I wouldn’t want to make mother uncomfort- u know. In fact, Mr. Bisbee,” she went L ing at him brightly. “I wouldn’t want to make anybody uncomfortable—not for the world. It makes one so uncomfortable to be uncomfortable, doesn’t it?” And with that, never having once glanced at the detested jour= nal, she passed out of the room. It was a busy day at the store of the William P. Bisbee Co.; before mid-day Mrs. Emory Rathbone came in, and under the personal at- tention of Mr. Bisbee himself, purchased as a wedding gift a handsome set of sterling silver table ornaments; and before closing time all previous sales-records had been surpassed. Mr. Bishee carried his cheerfulness home with him—telling Stella and Pauline the good news from the store, and it was not until they = were seated at supper that his wife inquired about his interview with Mr. Rathhone. “He has the matter under advisement,” he replied evasively, informed by some instinct that it would be best to let her learn gradually that the suit was abandened. “A lawsuit’s an expensive thing. It's not a thing you want to jump into without due consideration. Stella, I been thinking a lot about the hardship all this gossip’s been to you.” “It's about time you thought of me,” she said. “Well, that's what I been doing, all right, and I guess you and Pauline’ll be suited first- rate when you know what I've got in mind Understand, I don't say positively I'll do it, but the way things are looking at the store, I ex- pect I can.” He leaned back, beaming at them, and announced: “As a matter of fact, I'm thinking of knocking off work for a while next Summer and taking you both to Europe.” *“Oh, papa!” Paulipe clapped her hands ec- statically, but from Mrs. Bisbee there came no sign of pleasure. Bending forward, she fixed him with a shrewd scrutiny, demanding: “Do I look as if I was born yesterday? Don't imagine you fool me, William Bisbee! I know why you want to go to Europe. It’s that woman again!” IT was not until the following Spring that there burst upon the community again a piece of news sufficiently sensational to divert from Mr. Bisbee the last remnants of his fame. Alicz Murchison Thresher, who had started with her husband on a leisurely trip around the world, suddenly left him and came home to live, and -"umors concerning the reason for the separgtion ran riot through the town. Un.er the furious torrent of new gossip Mr. Bisbee found himself and his last-year’s ro- mance submerged and apparently forgotten. The saddening consciousness he had of drop- ping into the dull old ways culminated one eve- ning when he came home and found himself involved in a new argument. Stella and Pau- line had decided that the sedan was inadequate to their needs and that, since the new ccuntry club would soon be opening they ought to have a chauffer and a limousine. When he mildly protested, Stella became angry. “Lord Bacon used the same idea when he wrote ‘God has set the world in man's heart.’ * * * I give you another precept, ‘He that can spir- itualize democracy will save the world’' * * * When Lawrence came out of Arabia sev- eral years ago he brought with him, from the Arabs, a message to the world. It dwelt on the permanence of the unseen and the imperma- nence of the seen. In this is food for thought.” Again, silence, nowhere deeper, more solemn or more serious than within a Quaker colony, in a Quaker church, deep in Quaker prayer and reflection, Tick tock. Tick tock. Tick tock. “Glory to God in the highest!” Tick tock. Tick tock. “Let us Sing No. 375.” Another soft leaving of hymnbook pages. “More love to Thee, O Christ, more love to Thee; this is my earnest plea, more love, O Christ, to Thee!” Quaker, Catholic, Jew and Gentile, a President and a policeman, are joining in the chorus, “More love to Thee!” The music hushes the clock and en- courages the redbirds liquid psalm. At the end of the hymn, Mr. Murray is “moved by the spirit” to talk eloquently for 15 or more minutes. He selects as his theme two modern posts, Tennyson and the Quaker poet Whittier, and extemporaneously and impressive- ly quotes from them line after line, verse after verse. When he has resumed his seat, there is another period of potent, tender silence and the head of the pastoral committee (an office cor- responding to elder, deacon or vestryman in other Protestant forms of worship) gives notice of a coming quarterly meeting at Lincoln, Loudoun County, Va., adding, “The offering will now be taken.” Four wooden plates arc passed. even as in your church and mine; there is one more short prayer, one more long sil- ence. Precisely at noon Mr. Murray turns and shakes hands smilingly, yet gravely, with the Quakeress on his right and with the Friend on his left. It is the signal that worship is over. The congregation rises and remains standing while a distinguished Friend and his party de- part. Another, and a typical, Friends' service is over. A Quaker has been to meeting. SECRET service men accompany the Presi- *” dent and his party to the waiting motor, enter their own machines, and there is a too- swift getaway, as far as the interested on- lookers are concerned. Gradually the groups of visitors at the “President’s church” decrease. Taxicabs drive up, load and speed away. News photographers pack up their troubles and their cameras in their old kit bags and depart. Movietone operators cease grnding. And 1if ever there was a delicious definition of the word “futility,” it's a Movietone reproduction of a Quaker meeting. The hymnbook used in the Orthodox Quaker Church today is called “Hymns of the United Church,” edited by Charles Clayton Morrison and Herbert S. Willet and published in 1910, Its foreword tells of a “deeply felt need for a collection of hymns adequately interpreting “It’s only that I don't want to throw money around,” he said. “I mustn't stop laying 1% by. I want to leave my wife and daughter- well fixed.” “Do you imagine I don't know you?” Stella asked bitterly. “Here Pauline and I are mak- ing a lot of desirable friends, getting away from the rag-tag-and-bobtail crowd we used to go with, and what help do we get from you? None! You're nothing but an old stick- in-the-mud!” Stick-in-the-mud! She had called him thac before—he who at the present rate would soon be the largest retail silverware and jewelry deal- er in the entire State! The memory of the outrageous term lingered with him as he went downtown next morn- ing, giving him a new sense of the futility of life... He entered the store, and on his way back to the office, took the morning mail from Miss Glick, but instead of opening the letters when he reached his desk, he fell into a fit of abstraction and sat staring at the carpet. What was it all about? What was he strug- gling for? Why was he always hoping that some day Stella would understand him and treat him decently? He (ook up his steel letter opener and ran through the pile of mail, swiftly slitting the successive envelopes until he came to a large oblong one of crisp, light-blue paper. It bore foreign stamps, and the moment he saw the bold, angular handwriting his heart leaped and he snatched the letter out, and with fingers that trembled in their eagerness, un- folded the single sheet of paper. At the upper left corner a coronet was stamped in dark blue, and at the right the name of a chateau. Rapidly he read: Dear Mr. Bisbee: £ Last year when I was crossing the American continent you were so good as to give me a pair of patent eyeglasses which have been most useful. Having broken them, and being unable to find any like them over here, I was quite in despair until today I found your card. Will you please send me two pair of the 1929. e— piiemecrme NATION LOOKS ON AS A QUAKER GOES TO CHURCH modern Christian faith and experience.” In the book will be found, state the editors, “hymns of Christian unity, of modern social motive and of the inner life. Hymns of many creeds, in- terpreting, however, but one faith,” A swift glance at its pages shows that in- cluded in the large list of religious songs are such well known, well loved and well aged ones as “The Spacious Firmament on High,” by Haydn, 1795; Dykes' “Hark, Hark, My Soul,” 1868; Sherwin's “Day Is Dying in the West,” 1877, and “Hark, the Herald Angels Sing.” No building could be plainer or more restful to the eye than the simple little meeting house, the Friends’ Orthodox Church, at Thirteenth and Irving streets, which President Hoover se- lected as his official church while he is resi- dent of the White House. It is but one story high, of light buff brick with concrete steps and windows of faint opaque yellow. No belfry or spire decorates it, no bell calls the faithful to prayers. Its congregation is an unusually friendly group of Friends. On Thanksgiving and other cccasions the members “pool” their dinners, cook them in the well equipped church kitchen and dine en famille in the Sunday school room. The Ladies’ Aid Society makes a specialty of “quilting bees.” Sitting before the big frames the members quilt-down pieced quilts, charging the coverlet’'s owner according to the number of spools of cotton used in the process. Stitches are set with all the care and alignment demanded of a Quaker seamstress, witiv the result that this fast vanish .g art of quilting is exquisitely exemplified. ABOUT five years ago the meeting house was badly damaged by fire, due to defec- tive wiring, and while firemen erected ladders from the outside of the building, strains of or- gan music issued from the inside. The bate talion chief investigated and found that one of his men, suffering somewhat from the hand of Johnny Volstead Law, was soothing his ruf- fled feclings, even as Nero. A Washington official visiting the Irving street edifice remarked impressively to one of its members, “So this is Mr. Hoover's church!” “No,” quietly remarked the Friend, “this is not Mr. Hoover's church, it's God's church.” A very great improvement has been made in the building's general appearance by land- scaping the broad lawns. Spruce, cedar and fir trees now form a green and undulating fringe close to the walls of the building, and a hedge of Japanese barberry bushes has been planted the entire length of the plaza bordering on Irving street and Thirteenth street. Formerly the grass plots resembled municipal play- grounds—which they were, the neighborhood children using them. . The Department of Commerce In the Fall of 1928 issued a census of religious bodies in the United States, which had been compiled as of 1926. It listed four branches of Friends: Society of Friends (orthodox) the branch in which Mr. Hoover has “birthright” or mem- bership. In 1916 it had 805 churches and a membership of 92,379. In 1926 its church edi- fices were listed as 715 and membership 91,326. The Religious Society of Priends (Hicksites) in 1916 supported 166 churches, with a total membership of 17,107. The 1926 census showed 128 churches; membership 16,105. Orthodox Conservative Friends (Wilburites) totaled 41 churches in 1926, as against 50 in 1916; membership, 1916, 3,373, compared wita 2,966 in 1926. The last branch perhaps, by this time, has disappeared from census totals, for in 1926 it reported 2 churches and 60 members, while in 1926 but 1 church with 25 members remained. Continued From Thirteenth Page glasses at the above address and let me know the amount due? Sincerely yours, Gabriella Lescaboura. P. 8. I do not forget your kindness. Gk She did not forget! There, in her beauti- ful brave writing, over the initials that stood for her beautiful name, was the assurance! He laid the letter on the desk before him and, without removing his eyes from it, drew out his pocketbook, felt for the postcard photograph, extracted it, put it down beside the letter. NCE more kind Providence vouchsafed a chance to serve her. Ah, could she but know with what tumultuous joy he welcomed the opportunity! So, ever, he would welcome it. She could ask of him nothing that he would not do— nothing! The efficiency, the resourcefulness which had made the Willlam P. Bisbee Co. practically the leading firm in the State, would be at her command so long as breath re- mained in his bcdy. Always he would be ready, waiting, whc"‘,‘rum across the world should come heér cau! She alone had never failed to understand him. Without her the world would be empty. A tear trickled down his cheek. Faugh! H2 brushed it away. Tears were not for men. He must not weaken. He stiffened his spine, sitting ertect in his swivel chair, and as he did so, his spirit stiffened. Now in his imagination iron-studded docrs swung back against stone walls and brass- throated bugles sang. Grasping the letter open- er, he leaped to his feet and raised it with a sweeping gesture. “Your highness!" He was a hussar of the guards with sword at the salute—a sword which, at need, could flash in her defense. He narrowed his eyes and with one hand poised behind him, pointed the weapon grimly as if holding off the blade of a determined adversary. “For a laay's name!” Let them come! He was more than a match for them all. He would meet steel with cold steel, fight- ing for her until life itself paid the forfeit. «Copyright, 1929.) 2 | { i 1 RS H R R SRS £ H $ ) § Fi o £ R ke AR SRR W