Playing Chess for the Church.
PENNSYLVANIA seems to take the lead in devising ways that are novel and wicked for raising funds for church purposes. It was in Pittsburg, where at a church fair last year, ladies, completely enveloped in sheets, were auctioned off to the highest bidder, and then unveiled. They were to be the partners for the rest of the evening of the ones who paid the highest price. Young fellows, it is reported, kept up a lively competition, and the bidding sometimes ran up to astonishing figures. This was the first instance of so disgraceful a proceeding to raise money for the church. And now a report comes to us through an exchange, that a game of chess was lately played at Sewickly, Pa., the figures being actual ladies and gentlemen, and the object being to raise funds to buy a new carpet for the church. “The squares were made of red and white cloth, and were two feet square. The figures were dressed in appropriate costumes, and bore spears, shields, flags, etc. The game was played by two gentlemen on a raised platform on opposite sides of the hall, each with a chess board before him. Other assistants called out the moves and saw that they were correctly made.” What next? Any way to raise funds except the way which the word of God prescribes, namely, as an act of religion, a direct gift and sacrifice to the Lord. Such acts only as these last named will he accept. All else he will reject with infinite loathing. As iniquity practiced in the name of religion always goes hand in hand with bigotry and intolerance, it may be pertinent to add that Pennsylvania is the State where observers of the seventh-day as the Sabbath, are persecuted to fine and imprisonment for disregarding the traditional Sunday, and where the legislature is now at work trying to give to existing Sunday laws a broader application, and to affix to them all more stringent penalties.