"Yet the indictment against the profession is of a much more subtle character than that found in journalistic annals of crime or even in personal knowledge of gross faults on the part of clergymen. It would be folly to deny that, taken as a class, ministers live lives as pure and as free from criminal or grossly immoral taint as any other class of persons. The indictment takes rather the form of a general impression, amounting almost to a conviction, that the minister does not have the clear-cut and high standards which the business world demands. "Business men feel that there is something about the 'cloth' that makes its wearer a 'doubtful proposition' when it comes to square dealing between men. A prominent lawyer in Chicago said, only the other day, 'I dread seeing a clergyman enter my office; I do not want his business; he does not have the commercial honor of the man of affairs.' He went on to give instances of ministers who disregarded their business obligations and even ignored the sanctity of the oath at the bar of justice. "It is a well-known fact among houses accustomed to extend credit that ministers are the slowest to pay, and the most difficult from whom to collect. In the smaller towns it would be difficult to find a grocer without an uncollected account against some minister who had left the place. Over five years ago such a preacher boasted in his farewell sermon that all his bills were paid in the village, and he 'owed not any man'; he should have said that he had paid not any man, and some of his bills are still unpaid. "A charitable organization in Chicago allowed a minister in a village nearby to become indebted to it. He promised to pay the small account at a certain date; but a year from that time, although many letters had been written, the bill was unpaid. Nor was settlement made until this prominent minister on a good salary was sent a sight draft for the amount. "A struggling professor in an Eastern city consented to pick out a few books for a preacher up State, and to have them charged to his own account, being assured that payment would be made at once. The books were sent, but the cash never was forthcoming, and after a lengthy correspondence, in which many excuses were offered, the professor had to count his loss as the price he had paid for a lesson in trusting the 'cloth.' "Such evidence could be extended indefinitely. The facts back of it, with the many other instances of which these few are but slightly indicative, have produced the decided opinion in the business world that the minister is unreliable, and that the ministry does not stand of necessity for admirable manliness.