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5 When the United States took over Phillipine Islands and laid the cash on the barrel-head, it found much of the wealth of those sorry islands in the hands of the Church. How it got there is beside the point. The point is the goodly Church did disgorge most of it and, be it said to the everlasting glory of Uncle Sam that he used only moral suasion. It seems the Church is not averse to "laying by" a little for a rainy day, contradicting the old saying "tomorrow takes care of itself." It seems then that riches is not dross to the church but only to the sinners and that the altar gold is impervious to fire and is not corroded by rust. (or corrupted by greed)-- But it would seem fitting and, crossed out logical that if the worshipers most of needs dwell in hovels and shacks that it is fitting that, crossed out the house of the Lord shall also be a hovel and a shack. (Please do not tell me all the worshipers would not fit in a shack. You have no premise. Count rather the empty pews, empty sermons and empty heads--way down south the whole congregation fits in a shack and the number of worshipers exceeds the "attendance" of a gilded, marblefront cathedral.)- The east of the cathedral would properly house the whole of the congregation. Amen. So that's where the money went? An empty church on every other corner and salvation citadel in between? So it would seem riches has an attraction that the church cannot resist and consequently garners great forboding piles of it without the, crossed out regard for a day of reckoning. This attraction persists and it is not strange that it finds favor with the shack dwellers and hovel havenors; for resplendent temples and ricketty lean-tos do not make sense. In Spain the loyalists found much of the city of Madrid private property of the Church. Banks were bulging with the treasures of the Church and people had nothing (God must have worked overtime blessing the soul-saving industry?)--