The Bridgeport Evening Farmer

WOMEN LAY BRICKS BUILDING CHURCH
Jersey City Sect Determined the Edifice Shall Be Erected With Their Own Hands
THE MEN CARRY THE HODS
Foundation and First Floor Finished and Two More Stories Are to Go Up.

New York, Sept. 17.—Half a dozen women, their aprons bespattered with mortar, and trowels in their hands, labored beside about a dozen men, by lantern and torchlight last night, in building the first floor of a church on Wayne street near Baldwin avenue, Jersey City Heights. Faithfully the men, each carrying his load of mortar or bricks, toiled up the short ladders that led from the street; and faithfully, by the light of the flaring torches, the women laid on the bricks and laboriously plastered them into place. When a line of one brick's thickness was successfully laid along one wall, they rested for only a moment, uttering in chorus: "Glory be!" A surprised policeman who happened upon them in the midst of their labors was told that the work had been going on there for some time, and that the bricks and mortar, laid thus upon a woman suffrage or equal right basis, would ultimately be the new Apostolic Church, whose congregation of about 300 members have hitherto been holding their worship in meeting rooms just adjoining the present site. The congregation, he was told, was determined that this should be, literally, their own church, and so had decided to build it, brick by brick, themselves. Incidentally, he was told, this would be most economical, as the work would be given quite free, and the building grow in exact proportion to the funds in hand to buy material. Those engaged in the work would not tell anything about themselves. They merely said they were a sect that believed in taking all the old Bible doctrines literally. In charge of the work of construction was Mrs. Sarah B. Earle, pastor of the congregation. Among the other women, it was said, were five sisters, and another younger woman, said to be the daughter of a Confederate Colonel. All of them wore dark suits of heavy material, liberally sprinkled with lime and mortar. Mrs. Earle finally explained that they were going to build a three-story structure on the lot, 67 feet long and 36 feet wide. It would have a basement, an auditorium on the second, and meeting rooms on the third floor. She said the original impetus had been given to her a few years ago when altogether, without solicitation on her part, small contributions began to pour in upon her, without any suggestion as to what should be done with them. She saved them until she had $700, and then broached to the congregation the plan of building a new church. It took at once. They were balked for a while by the foundation, feeling that unless real masons should build this important groundwork, they would labor in vain who built it. Finally, she said, some member of the congregation who was in the building trade volunteered to look after the foundations. Thereafter another member of the congregation who was a bricklayer gave instructions to the rest in the gentle art of laying bricks, and after nightly rehearsals they were able to lay the bricks, men and women alike, to suit the most exacting boss. The head bricklayer of the congregation, it was said, was John Lutz. The members took part in the work in relays of eighteen or twenty persons. Last night the first floor of the new building was almost completed before the men laid aside their hods and the women their trowels and aprons. All looked tired and ready for sound sleep. They said, however, that the work would be pushed steadily as fast as the material for building could be purchased.