In London

In London last week were two potent U. S. preachers-Bishop William Thomas Manning of the Protestant Episcopal diocese of New York, and Dr. Samuel Parkes Cadman, President of the Federal Council of Churches of Christ in America. Each was stopping over in London on his way to Lausanne, Switzerland, where during August they will attend the World Conference on Faith & Order. This conference, which will meet under the presidency of Bishop Charles H. Brent of the Protestant Episcopal diocese of Western New York, will try to improve sodality between Christian sects. *Bishop Manning who has come to seem dour and harsh as he has grown pontifical, in London repeated his great sermon castigating "companionate marriages," the term by which he describes ephemeral connubialities wherein contraceptives are used (TIME, July 4). Because he was in England, where wrath against the Russian Soviets is temporarily being kept hot (TIME, May 23), he made his sermon timely by blaming the idea of such unions on the Soviets. The present diplomatic separation between Great Britain and the Soviets, he said, the U. S. unanimously endorsed. Dr. Cadman, a less intense, a more mundane orator, had quips and fancies to offer at St. Martin's Church in Trafalgar Square, London. He opened a "question box," a sort of forum during which he offered to answer pontifically questions thrown at him viva voce. Verbally he did what he has been doing in the columns of the New York Herald Tribune* for more than a year. Some Cadmanswers, some Cadmonitions: P:Rotary gatherings "are not intellectual triumphs. They are daily lunches." He has often attended them. P: "The evolution flurry has done one great good in America, since it has shown the Darwinian theory to be harmless and useless. We know spiritual certitudes are due to intuition and not to learning. As for fundamentalism, I read the Bible like I eat fish-leave the bones and eat the flesh.-P:Elmer Gantry (Sinclair Lewis' carping at evangelicanism) "represents a huge ocean of mud" contains "barnyard piffle" and "garage gossip." P: Of tolerance: "It is up to us to show the Jews what we mean by properly living our own religion, showing them that we have a better one than they."

*Roman Catholics will not officially join this movement. The reason: the Roman Catholic Church presumes exclusive religious authority delegated from God. From that viewpoint, Protestant sects are but erring scions. "Orthodox" churches subordinate phenomena. *Dr. Cadman's feature column continues in that newspaper while he visits abroad.