Religion: Bishop v. Drink

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"Jack be nimble, Jack be quick; Jack jump over this here stick!" shouted the drunken father, who had sold the family Furniture to buy liquor. While mother and sister wept to see such sport, the tearful little sprout jumped over a broom handle, again & again until he fell exhausted. The scene shifted—years had passed. The son, arriving home drunk from a football game, forced his aging father to jump over a stick. "Have mercy on my grey hairs," begged the old man. "You didn't have any mercy on my black ones," said the boy. "Jump again." Father swooned.

A preacher and a doctor entered. They agreed that alcohol was a bad thing. Curtain, followed by Where is My Wandering Boy Tonight? by a male quartet. Then a shorter play, a real tearjerker, in which five youngsters watched the town drunk. Old Joe Sharp, having D. T.s—he had snakes in his sleeves, even in his boots (see cut). As he slouched off, the boys said: "We've been over to Alma Temple and signed the pledge and joined the Dry Legion Crusaders. We shall never drink a drop, and when we're old enough we are going to vote the wicked stuff out of existence."

Author of these plays, written for radio and church performance, and acted last week on the platform in a church in Boulder, Colo., was a masterful, mannish-voiced gynotheocrat, Bishop Alma White, 77. Once a Methodist, wife of a preacher, Mrs. White read herself out of her church because it frowned on her preaching. She founded a society of her own. That was nearly 40 years ago. Her church became known as the Pillar of Fire. Widowed, Mrs. White started a pious, shouting, camp-meeting community in New Jersey, named it Zarephath after the place where the "widow woman" sustained Elijah. Alma White was soon acting like a bishop toward her flock; why should she not be "the first woman bishop in the history of the Christian church?" Pillar of Fire consecrated her as such in 1918.

Indomitable Bishop White has built 49 churches, three colleges. She edits six magazines, travels continually between Zarephath and the West. She learned to drive an automobile at 50, to swim at 55, to paint in oils at 70. She has two radio stations, WAWZ at Zarephath, KPOF in Denver, where her Alma Temple is also a thriving concern. Her Prohibition plays, written with broadcasting in mind, had their premiere there. Her audience, recruited from Denver churches, thought them pillar-powerful, fiery-fierce.