Religion: Grocer

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Just as they once tried to balance church and state, prelates now work to reconcile religion and business. Some organize their vestry into a board of directors, incorporate their church properties, advertise sermons in penny slogans on glass billboards. Others denounce Mammon, at the same time reminding their parishioners that it is more blessed to give than to receive. In Fort Worth the Rev. H. L. Wilkinson, pastor of the Cranberry Avenue Baptist Church, found still another way. He opened a grocery store. To meet the debt incurred by building a new church he turns his salary back into the church treasury, and lives on the profits of his store. A kindly, immensely energetic man with spectacles, thin hair and strong forearms, he last week explained his policy:

"Very few of my customers knew I was a minister until they read a news story. . . . No one has tried to take advantage of me because I am a preacher. . . . Strictly cash basis . . . the store is open for a short time on Sunday. . . . I have lots of calls for malt and other articles used in making home-brew . . . do not handle them. . . . I'd like to see sharper teeth put into the [prohibition] law . . . only $1,100 is still owed on the $4,000 building . . . membership of my church has grown in three years from 18 to 125 . . . religion and business mix. . . ."