Religion: Benefit of Clergy

The 299 ministers of the Presbyterian Church in Canada who earn the minimum yearly salary of $2,000 didn’t know who their Santa Claus was. Each of them had received an anonymous Christmas present of $25. The grateful clergymen wrote thank-you letters to the church whose stationery the mysterious donor had used—St. Andrew’s in Ottawa—and asked that the thanks be forwarded. “Some of those letters were so pathetic,” said the anonymous philanthropist later, “that I decided something must be done about it.” Last week, something was done.

The Presbyterian Church announced it had received a gift of $1,000,000 to set up a 2O-year fund for its low-salaried preachers. Every married clergyman on minimum salary will get an annual bonus of $100, plus $50 apiece for each of his first three children. The terms of the gift specified that the donor remain anonymous.

A Toronto Telegram newsman soon guessed who the Presbyterians’ unknown benefactor was: Senator Norman McLeod Paterson, 67, of Ottawa. The Telegram man put the question to Paterson by telephone. “I was flabbergasted,” Paterson admitted afterward. “I guess I didn’t do a very good job of denying it.”

Philanthropist Paterson is a self-made man who built up a grain and shipping fortune of more than $12 million. At Fort William, Ont., where he lived before his lifetime Senate appointment in 1940, he was known as an active layman who turned his mansion over to a local hospital when he moved to Ottawa. Said he of his million-dollar gift: “I was . . . just having a little fun. Why shouldn’t I enjoy my money while I live?”