Episcopal Plattsburg

"There are more competent men wishing to go into the ministry than ever before in the history of the American church. ... It is a buyer's market that the bishops face. ..." So, in last week's Churchman (Episcopal), wrote Dr. Bernard Iddings Bell, warden of St. Stephen's College (Columbia University's up-the-Hud-son offspring). Dr. Bell had what he called "a modest proposal" to make. Let the bishops, said he, get all candidates for holy orders to sign a pledge to "live a life of self-sacrifice," putting themselves at the bishop's disposal for five years, to go wherever he should direct. Living conditions might be hard, salaries low. Candidates would promise not to marry or become engaged without the bishop's consent.

Few churchmen deny that the ministry has candidates aplenty. But there is dissension as to what to do about them, how to get quality in place of quantity. In a New England school last fortnight met a group of Episcopalians, to tap the wellsprings, the colleges, for eager, able young ministers. They held a New Year's meeting on the Ministry, as had been done every three years since 1920, and as will probably be done annually henceforth. The meetings are sponsored by Rev. Dr. Samuel Smith Drury, rector of St. Paul's School (Concord, N. H.). Secretary and most active worker is Rev. Charles Leslie Glenn, 32, rector of smart Christ Church in Cambridge, Mass. Intending to be an engineer, "Les" Glenn was graduated from Stevens Institute of Technology in Hoboken in 1921, taught mathematics at Lawrenceville, was in the building business in Manhattan for a year, then went into the Episcopal Church. For three years he was traveling secretary for Episcopal college work. He is the son-in-law of Mr. & Mrs. Harper Sibley of Rochester, N. Y., rich Episcopal lay members of the Laymen's Foreign Missions Inquiry.

Present at the St. Paul's School meeting were such church leaders as Bishop John Thomson Dallas of New Hampshire, Headmaster Frederick Herbert Sill of Kent School, Headmaster George Gardner Monks of Lenox School, Rev. Arthur Lee Kinsolving of Boston.* Rev. C. Rankin Barnes of the Social Service Department of the Protestant Episcopal Church. There were young Episcopalians: Harold Bend Sedgwick. Harvard 1930; Martin Firth, Hobart 1930, who spoke on "Why I Am Going to the Mission Field"; Nathaniel ("Nat") Noble. Yale 1928, who told "Why I Am Going into the Ministry." With them met students from 20 colleges. They walked, skated, played squash, talked. At midnight, while many another student was roistering 1932 away, they knelt in St. Paul's elaborate Gothic chapel.

The St. Paul's meetings have, in Secretary Glenn's estimation, led some 75 men into the ministry. Rector Kinsolving has compared them with the military training camp at Plattsburg, N. Y. where "farsighted patriots attracted men early . . . so that when war was declared leaders were ready." But not all Episcopalians approved the idea. One prominent bishop wrote Dr. Drury in much the same vein as Dr. Bell's "modest proposal": "I cannot cooperate. ... I consider it my duty at the present time to prevent men from entering the ministry, unless they have either means of their own for self-support or are on fire with the message. . . ."

Replied Leslie Glenn: "We were always taught in industry that seeking the raw material was one of the most important factors in good management. It isn't enough to sit back and choose what is offered to you. You must go out and select. . . . We do not propose to offer any man a living in the ministry. The men we want must be willing to follow the example of St. Francis. There are enough of them but they have to be sought out just as [St.] Ignatius [Loyola] sought out his first Jesuits. . . ."

"Member of a famed Episcopal family, he is not to be confused with his cousin, Chaplain Arthur B. Kinsolving of West Point. Rector Kinsolving, onetime director of religious activities at Amherst College, is a frequent diner-out in Boston. It is told how once he failed to appear at a dinner, was asked next day if he had forgotten. Tersely he told his hostess, no. She questioned her butler who explained: "Well, there was one young fellow, with a peculiar brown hat, who said his name was King Solomon. So of course I didn't let him in.''

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