p. 182 | Untitled article by J. S. Comins

Pacific Press Publishing Company · New York · June 7, 1894

Making Merchandise of Religion.

By J. S. Comins

A LECTURE was recently delivered in Holyoke, Mass., which to my mind is worthy of note. The lecturer was sent out by a syndicate of food firms for the purpose of creating a demand by stimulating public sentiment in favor of the foods handled by these firms. The lecturer’s method is to reach the “better” classes by giving his lectures under the auspices of the Woman’s Christian Temperance Union or the Young Men’s Christian Association, or some other popular society. Having secured his audience of the well-to-do, his first step is to create a distrust in the minds of his hearers in regard to food producers in general. Even the honest old farmers of Vermont toiling amid their sugar camps in the Green Mountains are made to appear as unprincipled adulterators of the sweet extracts from their woody vales.

The lecturer himself appears more honorable by contrast and by the very contempt which he manifests for such things. He would scorn anything that came short of the highest Christian integrity. Neither was he alone in his views. The firms which he represented were all of them composed of high-toned, honorable, Christian gentlemen. Temperance men; God fearing men; men who respected the Sabbath. None of their products were manufactured or transported upon the Sabbath day. Surely such men were worthy of patronage. Their products cost a trifle more, but you could rest assured that such men would give you only the genuine article.

I thought that the fact that the religion of these men, and especially their observance of Sunday was made so prominent a feature of this lecture, and a reason why they should be patronized was significant. J. S. COMINS.