At New Orleans

Not only a new man but also a new office was silhouetted upon the consciousness of the U. S. public last week. The House of Bishops of the Protestant Episcopal Church elected the Rt. Rev. John Gardner Murray, seventh Bishop of Maryland, to be the first elected Presiding Bishop of the Church. His election was approved by the House of Clerical and, Lay Deputies, which together with the House of 132 Bishops, constitutes the Church's Government, in session for the past fortnight at New Orleans (TIME, Oct. 19).

This historic election and many other decisions occupied the most arduous week of the Triennial Convention.

Bishop Murray, now eligible to the courtesy title of "Most Reverend," was born into a Methodist family of Maryland 68 years ago, and early developed a penchant for the Christian ministry. But before his education had been completed, circumstances threw him into money-making and set him down on a bookkeeper's stool in the Osage Coal and Mining Co., Selma, Ala. He rose, prospered. In 1892 he was a banker, a broker, a potential payer of income surtaxes. Having compounded with the market place, he was two years later ordained priest of the Episcopal Church and sent as missionary along the Alabama River. At the turn of the century, Baltimore called him home. He became rector of St. Michael and All Angels', not far from the residence of the "best loved man in Baltimore," James Cardinal Gibbons.

St. Michael and All Angels' has a record of bishopmaking, and in 1909, the Rev. John G. Murray was elevated to the Bishop-Coad-jutorship of Maryland, becoming Bishop in 1911.

Inspired by his business resourcefulness and spiritual energy, the Diocese of Maryland stirred with the dream of a $10,000,000 Cathedral. Six years ago, all was ready to begin, when suddenly the Bishop abandoned his dream, insisting that his diocese should first make good its quota for the missionary work of the Church. Again, in 1923, Bishop Murray yielded local aspirations to world sympathy, and produced from his diocese a supplementary fund of $180,000 for Japanese relief.

Last week, in New Orleans, when the Bishops assembled in secret, few thought that Bishop Murray would be chosen their leader, but all knew the story of his devotion to the Church National, Universal. So after 14 ballots, during which Bishop Brent of Western New York and Bishop Gailor of Tennessee unsuccessfully divided most of the votes between them, there came a sudden rush of enthusiasm for the onetime bookkeeper of Salem, Ala. He became unanimously "Primus"-- an office in a small degree comparable to that of Archbishop of Canterbury. .Elected, he bowed his head in prayer for a long period. Interviewed, he said: "... a man feels, a sense of insufficiency. I haven't got over that feeling yet." Said Bishop Brent: "We have chosen one of the most missionary- minded men in the Church. . . . We can safely trust the affairs of the Church to one who has such a broad vision and such generous hands." Fellow-Marylanders called on him, told him he was, sines Cardinal Gibbons' death, Baltimore's most loved man.

Bishop Murray will remove shortly to Manhattan, where he will function, ex officio, as President of the National Council. His salary was fixed at $15,000, although the Deputies wanted to make it $18,000, and he is allowed $5,000 for expenses.

Federal Council. The election of Bishop Murray was the more acclaimed because he has never sought reflected splendor. Neither has Bishop Brent, although for many years he has been conspicuously in the forefront of public and ecclesiastical affairs in the U. S., in Asia, in Europe. If he felt disappointment at failure to receive the honor which many thought should be his, it was trifling compared with the disappointment, which he probably expected and which he emphatically received on the following day.

The Episcopal Church decided by a vote of 50-50 that it would continue to be the only important Protestant body unattached to the Federal Council of Churches of Christ in America. (A two-thirds vote was required to authorize uniting with the Federal Council.) This defeat of the famed Bishop Brent was a victory for the Anglo-Catholic party, which prides itself on the ecclesiastical tradition of the Episcopal Church in contrast with the ecclesiastically doubtful parentage of the Puritan and other Reformation-born sects. The argument publicly put forth is that union with the "sects" would widen the breach with the Roman Catholic Church. This argument prevailed in spite of the two rebuttals: 1) The Roman Catholic Church recognizes no cousins -- from its point of view, not to be orthodox is to be heretical; a miss is as good as a mile, etc. 2) The Roman Catholic Church is not antagonistic to the Federal Council; on the contrary, it has shown great willingness to cooperate in public welfare.

Bishop Brent put the argument on a far higher plane. Paganism is rising, the non-Christian East is threatening: "That we may be prepared, and that our children may be prepared, against a cataclysm which, if it ever comes, will overshadow what we went through in the World War, we must have unity of the Christion people. We cannot, in all loyalty to the heart and mind of Christ, reject this opportunity for unity. We will either have that unity or we will have the unity which shall come if we wait until we are driven to get her in agony, like huddled sheep, by the fierceness of the storm."

But the issue was turned aside. Bishop Gailor said that some of the churches in the Council were "hindering the cause of Christ." Bishop Johnson called the Federal Council a "visionary experiment." Bishop Brent was left with his burning emotions, his rejected ideal.

Divorce. The Rev. Caleb R. Stetson, rector of famed Trinity Church, was one of several alarmed Manhattan divines who desired drastic action to check divorces. The Church now refuses to remarry the guilty party in divorce. Dr. Stetson proposed that the innocent party should also be barred from this service of the Church. The proposal was rejected. Said Dr. Percy Kammerer of Pittsburgh: "This resolution is unsound, unscientific; it evades the issue. It is negative, punitive, retributive."

Burial. A proposal to the contrary, it was decided to continue to refuse Christian burial to suicides, excommunicates and unbaptized infants.

Black Letter Saints. So far as there has been any conflict between High Church and Low Churchmen, the former have had slightly the "better of it. But on one matter they were soundly defeated. They proposed to introduce into the Prayer Book 54 saints to be named in black type. (Undisputed saints are in red.) George W. Wickersham, led the attack, riding a gentle horse of ridicule. The Rev. O. T. Porcher animadverted that St. George was only Pagan Perseus disguised, that there was no reason for believing St. Anne to be the Mother of Mary, that St. Gregory (first Pope to wield temporal power) had descended to means of doubtful morality--in short, the Prayer Book should not be opened to "perpetuation of myths and revamping of old legends." In vain did Conservative George Graig Stewart picture the joys with which the Scandinavian immigrant greeted the picture of St. Ansgarius which Dr. Stewart hung in his Evanston Church.

Deposition. Prior to the election of Bishop Murray, the Presiding Bishop of the Church was the Senior, The Rt. Rev. Ethelbert Talbot of Pennsylvania. Standing before the bishop's throne in St. Paul's Church, facing 16 other bishops, he intoned:' "I now direct my chaplain to call Bishop William Montgomery Brown."

Silence.

Voice: "Bishop William Montgomery Brown."

Silence.

Voice: "Bishop William Montgomery Brown."

There being only the answer of silence, Bishop Talbot pronounced the long, legislative words which deposed the absentee from the rank of bishop.

Thus passed the first deposition for heresy in the Church's history: Pitiable, childish, old, "Bad Bishop Brown" received the news at his hotel, muttering meaningless optimisms.