Manning Abroad

P: William Thomas Manning, Protestant Episcopal Bishop of New York, en route to the Lausanne World Conference on Faith & Order, paused in Paris last week to preach: "We all love France and admire Paris, but the present issuing of Paris divorces is a scandalous, shameful thing, which should be corrected; and I do not hesitate to say this here in this city, for I know the clergy of France and all God-fearing Frenchmen and Frenchwomen will say the same as strongly as I do. . . . [Trial marriages and other haphazard conjugalities] are simply harlotry and calling them by new names does not make them any better."

P: And last week he caused to be published in the Churchman his decree deposing from ministry in the Protestant Episcopal Church the Rev. Harold Arthur Lynch of Manhattan for marrying a second time after having been divorced for a cause other than adultery. The Protestant Episcopal Church recognizes only adultery as the legitimate excuse for divorce.

P: And last week from London came gossipy reports of the jokes he told during his recent visit there. Once a Negro preacher introduced him to his Negro congregation as "a sounding brass and a tinkling cymbal." Once a woman parishioner, disagreeing with him, shouted angrily: "I am a Christian woman which it is evident you are not!"