Trends

Children's Church. Tuesday afternoons this Lenten season, children come flocking to the Church of the Ascension, Manhattan. They are coming to their own Children's Church, coming to hear Rev. John W. Suter Jr. talk to them in simple and understandable terms about religion and ideals. Their service is nonsectarian, has the support of five churches working in the Washington Square district-First Presbyterian, Washington Square Methodist, Judson Memorial Baptist, Grace Church and Church of the Ascension.

Servus Servorum. In 1902, James Cash Penney began business with one store in Wyoming. Last year his 676 stores in 44 states (all except Vermont, Delaware, Rhode Island, Florida) did business aggregating $90,000,000-chiefly small-town gear.* Last week he announced a gift of half a million dollars to construct a building containing 100 small apartments to be occupied, rent-free, by aged Evangelical ministers. This home of God's retired servants will be located at Green Cove Springs, Fla., on the St. John's River. Mr. Penney's summer home is in Belle Isle, Miami Beach.

"Sacred Whisker." Charles I of England had his head chopped off in 1649. Some one pulled a whisker from the chin. That whisker became a "sacred" symbol to be venerated by Anglo-Catholics when they celebrated "King Charles the Martyr's Day," Jan. 30. At this veneration the Churchman, upright and respected Protestant weekly, took another crack last week when it reported the protest of Dean Howard Chandler Robbins of the Cathedral of St. John the Divine against "the tendency [of Anglo-Catholics] to import into America certain English viewpoints and emphases which are alien and exotic."

Roumanian Bishopric. The Balkan political and war upheavals which began some 15 years ago started many Roumanian emigrants towards the U. S. At the last census (1920) there were 134,318 in the U. S., settled mostly in the east and east central manufacturing districts. Most of them and their children belong to the Roumanian Orthodox Church, which until last week had no distinctive head here. Reverend Professor Lazar Gherman of Manhattan is the Archimandrite. But he has been functioning under the general supervision of the Russian Orthodox Church through its Manhattan headquarters. (His home Church is in communion with Greek, Russian, Serbian and other Eastern Orthodox Churches.) Last week the Holy Synod in session in Roumania decided to create a bishopric for the U. S., with headquarters in Detroit.

Voyage. Jolly ship-news reporters welcomed home to Hoboken last week the U. S. liner Republic. Promptly they smelled a delicious story of bourgeoisie abroad. The stewards, deckhands, pursers, eager to chatter, reported that for 51 days they had been nursing a party of middle-western ministers to and from the Holy Land. Gossip insisted: that the ministers had conducted five religious services a day; that none of the ministers had "tipped" during or after the voyage; that several passengers refused to leave the ship because it had returned home one day sooner than the contract called for; that cabins had been cluttered with bottles of water from the River Jordan, from Red, Dead, Galilee Seas (bidding, at the end of the trip, sent the price per bottle to 50); that at Constantinople many failed to see the mosques' interiors because they would not trust their shoes to Moslem doormen.

Catholic Financing. Bonds of the $5,000,000 Bavarian diocesan loan were offered the U. S. public last week. These bonds are against the General Union of the Eight Bavarian Dioceses of the Roman Catholic Church. Net proceeds of the sale will be loaned as needed to the Bavarian dioceses against first mortgages on Church property or against approved collateral of equal value. This financing is considered an innovation in Catholic Church affairs.

"Damned Souls." Two expected reactions came during the week from the self-organization of eleven University of Rochester undergraduates into a "Damned Souls" society (TIME, March 15). The student newspaper, The Campus, published an editorial crying, needlessly, that the "Damned Souls" were not representative of the student body. And the American Association for the Advancement of Atheism took advantage of publicity to say that similar societies would be organized at other schools, specifically at Yale, whose charter provides that it shall "fit young men for service in church and civil state." The A. A. A. A. claims that many university professors are atheists.

*During the last year Mr. Penney's business has shown a greater gain than any other well-known chain stores except F. & W. Grand.