Anti-Mothball

Believing that too many churches are "put in mothballs" during the summer, Rev. Dr. John Robbins ("Jack") Hart Jr., Philadelphia Episcopalian, last summer founded an Anti-Mothball Society (TIME, July 12, 1937). Its motto: DON'T SLOW UP. Unlike many another church promotion scheme, which quietly expires after getting some publicity, the Anti-Mothball Society last week had by no means slowed up. Energetic, curly-haired Jack Hart, associate rector of midtown St. Stephen's Church, longtime unofficial chaplain at the University of Pennsylvania, since last November the active rector of Washington Memorial Chapel in Valley Forge, expanded the activities of his Anti-Mothballers this summer. He divided them into two groups, one consisting of Philadelphia stay-at-homes, the other of people with the time and energy for such Anti-Mothball projects as a visit last week to Doylestown, Pa. for a square dance.

Both groups join in Sunday night forums at St. Stephen's, in which Catholics and Jews speak as well as Protestants. Other Anti-Mothball activities include dances, watermelon parties, athletic games. Jack Hart's Collegians, his semiprofessional baseball team on which he plays left field, have won 18 and tied three of their 32 games this season. Busy Jack Hart also runs an employment agency for his Anti-Mothballers.

No imitators of the Anti-Mothball Society have yet been reported. But last week in Dublin, Ga., Rev. T. B. Seibenham put a notice SEATS FREE on his Centenary Methodist Church, on the chance that it might increase attendance. The sign attracted such an unaccustomed spate of worshipers that Mr. Seibenham took a second look at it. It had been altered to read: EATS FREE.

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