Pension Expert

Princeton Junction, N. J., has an unpredictable railroad platform. Upon it you may see anybody from a debutante to an astronomer, for Princeton University is nearby. But always you will see, getting on the early morning commuters' train, getting off the early evening commuters' train, a neat, plump little man for whom a robins-egg Rolls-Royce stands at stately attention; for whom a footman leaps from the box; for whom the train will back up if necessary to set this important passenger down at the precise spot he wishes. Plump and neat, he trots between Rolls-Royce and train on trim little trotters.

He looks like a man of money. You would think him a financier, and not inaccurately. But he is also a power in the social and not wealth-despising Protestant Episcopal Church. His name is Monell Sayre. His eminence in the church began when it became apparent that Episcopalian ministers should be pensioned and famed Bishop William Lawrence of Massachusetts, stepping in where others had failed, raised $9,000,000. Bishop Lawrence's aide in that effort, then secretary, now executive vice president of the Pension Fund of the Protestant Episcopal Church, was and is substantial, trim-trotting Monell Sayre.

Pension Expert is a very real title to Mr. Sayre. Seven years after leaving Harvard in 1898, he was Pension Expert of the Carnegie Foundation. Now he is pension adviser to the U. S. Federal Reserve system, to the Church of England, as well as to the Episcopal Church. Present assets of the Protestant Episcopal Church Pension Fund are $25,000,000. Offices are at No. 14 Wall St., Manhattan. Income on the Fund supplies the pension money. To become eligible for pensioning, an Episcopal minister must be 68, retired or disabled. The average pension: $800 per year.

Last week, Monell Sayre went to a conference at the Church of the Heavenly Rest, one of Manhattan's newest, most expensive churches. The subject was not money but the "mystical element in the Christian faith." Pension Expert Sayre was the only lay speaker. He talked not on dollar-getting, but on "Mysticism to a Business Man." More and better preaching was what Mr. Sayre wanted. Parsons had propounded too much politics and social uplift, not enough mysticism, he said. What the workingman needed was an awareness of God. Said he: "If you try to talk Christianity to industrial workers they simply deny it or talk about something else. It is not that they are antagonistic, but simply that they revolve in one circle and religion in another. They do not touch. What I have myself observed in many industrial communities convinces me that the situation holds true throughout the land."