Buchman "House Party"

Frank N. D. Buchman, instigator of "Buchmanism" among the young people of U. S. colleges, last week closed a "house party" of his adepts at Lake Minnewaska. N. Y. H. Alexander Smith, executive secretary of Princeton University and Professor W. B. Harris of the Princeton faculty were there, and great emphasis was given to their presence, for last spring the university authorities had forbidden Mr. Buchman the practice of his system there. The undergraduates were being "unhealthily" treated was the opinion.

Mr. Buchman is a Christian evangelist so unusual in his practices that he has brought considerable obloquy upon himself (TIME, Oct. 18, Nov. 1). A graduate of Muhlenberg College and a Lutheran minister, he has discovered that ordinary church work fails to reach many nominal Christians. Neither are these people affected by the conventional tabernacle howlers. Aimee Semple McPherson, Dr. J. Frank Norris, William A. Sunday can reach great crowds, can excite many a soul to march up the sawdust trail to salvation. But the enduring effect of such theatrical evangelizing is always dubitable. More important, few of the hymn-singing throngs are deeply affected; many are left totally cold.

To reach the cold ones, Mr. Buchman invented an evangelizing process that still is little understood. He uses the intimate interview, the personal exhortation. And he has been effective. His adepts stop at nothing in telling their experiences. It becomes a goal for them to reveal their sins, to bare their private pollutions.

At Princeton in recent years he acquired a stout following chiefly among members of the Philadelphian Society, the university Christian organization. These young men, made zealous, tried to bring their friends to grace, delving with dangerous ignorance into delicate problems. The university authorities asked Mr. Buchman to keep away, banned his technique.

At Lake Minnewaska last week there were no restrictions. Young men and women, their hearts welling with religious feeling, talked quietly of confession, guidance, personal work; fortified themselves spiritually for this earthly life.