Religion: Stunt

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Through empty dark streets in Cincinnati about 3 a. m. one night last week, a handful of pious folk hastened to North Presbyterian Church. Its lights blazed strangely, excitingly. Inside, in the pulpit, was Rev. Homer Campbell, reading aloud the beginning of the New Testament, the gospel of Matthew. After a time he let a parishioner mount the pulpit, take his place, continue the reading. Day broke, the morning brightened, more worshippers drifted in, and still the reading went on, through Mark, Luke and John, into Acts. Fresh readers spelled tired ones every ten minutes. The words of the New Testament flowed on & on until 7:40 p. m., when the last words of Revelation were read, "The Grace of our Lord Jesus Christ be with you all, Amen."

That was not all. At 3 a. m. a carpenter had gotten out of bed and, as is his habit, began the day reading aloud from the Bible. This day he began at the beginning of the Old Testament, "In the beginning God created the heaven and the earth." After he had finished, by prearrangement another North Presbyterian parishioner elsewhere took up the reading. Throughout the day, a businessman on a trolley, a stenographer in the street, a group of old ladies in a home, at scheduled times took up 130 separate stints of enunciating psalms, proverbs, laws, lists of begatters.

A pious stunt introduced in an evangelistic campaign, the Cincinnati Bible-reading was so timed that Old & New Testaments, within and without North Presbyterian Church, would be finished simultaneously by nightfall. It took 16 hr. 40 min. to read the Bible's 66 books, 1,189 chapters, 31,173 verses, 773,746 words, 3,566,480 letters.*