.NjY.MjYzNjQ

When the United States took over the 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 alter gold is impervious to fire and is not corroded by rust. (or corrupted by greed)__ But it would seem logical that if the worshipers must of needs dwell in hovels and shacks that it is fitting the house of the Lord shall alsobe a hovel and shack. (Please do not tell me all the worshipers would not fit in a shack. You have no promise. 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, marble front cathedral.)__ The cost 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 foreboding piles of it without 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 rickety 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?)__