United Baptists

The two brothers were estranged, cinema-wise, over Slavery. Last week, 87 years having passed, they were reunited. In Washington, D. C., on the same platform, stood President Mattison Boyd Jones of the Northern Baptist Convention and President William Joseph McGlothlin of the Southern Baptist Convention. With the kindly approval of 24,000 Baptist churches in the South, 8,000 in the North, they had made a joint speaking tour of Cincinnati, Chicago, Detroit, Cleveland, Buffalo, Rochester, Boston, Brooklyn, Manhattan, Philadelphia, Pittsburgh. Never, all agreed, had the two Baptist sects been so amicable.

To the executive secretary of the Northern Convention, came inquiries last spring from James Hughes Anderson, rich businessman of Knoxville, Tenn. who has tithed his wealth, in increasing amounts, to his church. Mr. Anderson, most potent of Southern laymen, wished to know about the successful Yankee "Every Member Canvass" scheme. Soon Northern President Jones was touring the South, helping the brethren promote their canvass. So enthusiastic was the Baptist Association of the District of Columbia, whose churches support both conventions equally, that it memorialized the Northerners for reunion. This, a matter for committee consideration, is not likely to result in any organic union, is at least certain to be a lengthy business. But it resulted in the two leading Northern and Southern brothers going off, arm-in-arm, to barnstorm for friendliness.

No Yankee is Northern Brother Jones. He was born 62 years ago in Kentucky, went to the University of Kentucky where he later taught Mathematics, Military Science. A man of parts, he became a lawyer, an ardent Mason, went to Los Angeles whose climate he now praises incessantly. He helped organize Los Angeles' Temple Baptist Church, has been president of nearly every important Baptist body on the Pacific Coast, is probably the tallest president the Northern Baptist Convention has ever had.

Smaller is his Southern Brother. Dr. William Joseph McGlothlin, 64, is president of Furman University (Baptist, Greenville, S. C.) whose enrollment has more than doubled since he took the post in 1919. Poised, scholarly, a Ph.D. from the University of Berlin, Dr. McGlothlin can give his hearers rich metaphor, did so in New York: "How can we break through the fog which dulls our vision? How can we kindle the blaze of spiritual power which will enable us to overcome the material age in which we live? The answer is that no one can bring peace and happiness back to us except Jesus Christ."

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