Religion: Emporia Prays

At 11:50 one morning during Holy Week the air-raid siren in Emporia, Kans. blared. A customer in Granger's Ready-to-Wear store said, "Oh, that prayer whistle"; a clerk clasped an Easter bonnet like a prayer book, bowed her head. Outside, car drivers pulled over to the curb. In a nearby pool hall the click of billiard balls stopped as the players stood self-consciously silent.

All during Lent, urged on by the town's 30 churches (membership: 6,500), Emporia's wartime siren had called townsmen to a daily "Sweet Minute of Prayer" for "a just and lasting peace." At first, the siren had been heeded chiefly by school children. But last week, as the climax of Lent coincided with swiftly climaxing news from Europe, a big proportion of Emporia's 13,188 citizens had acquired the habit of pausing each morning to pray. Emporia's churches hoped they could keep the practice going until V-E day.†