In Zion

In the beginning God created the heaven and the earth. . . .

In Zion, Ill. one night last week Rev. Finis J. Dake read these words, the ten first in the Bible, from his pulpit in small Christian Assembly Church. He continued reading, through Genesis into Exodus. After four hours he stopped. A Mr. Slutz mounted the pulpit, went on where Mr. Dake left off. Two hours later a young woman started in on Leviticus. On & on the reading went, a monotonous drone which was broadcast outside the church with loudspeakers. Preacher Dake was putting on a Bible-reading marathon and wanted everyone to know it.

Zion City is run by Overseer Wilbur Glenn ("The World Is Flat") Voliva of the Christian Catholic Apostolic Church. When he heard what the Christian Assembly Church, a schismatic upstart, was up to he became choleric, told his followers: "It's a publicity stunt. That church is a monkey house.'' Overseer Voliva sent his chief of police around but all that official could do was to have the loudspeakers shut off at night.

The Bible reading continued, with church people spelling each other, through a second night and a third, by candle light. Curiosity-seekers motored from Chicago and Milwaukee to listen and watch. At last Mr. Dake got up to attend to Revelations himself. Whipping through its 22 chapters in 55 min. he read, The grace of our Lord Jesus Christ be with you all. Amen, and flipped the Bible closed. The reading of 773,746 words had been done in 69 hr. 17 min., which Preacher Dake declared a record. (In Cincinnati the Old & New Testament were read synchronously in 16 hr. 40 min. --TIME, March 27.) Challenging any church to put up a team he said: "I'll even lay a side bet on our readers."

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