In the Churches

In the following places the following churchmen made news last week:

P: In Manhattan, Rev. Dr. George Unangst Wenner celebrated the 66th anniversary of his ordination as a Lutheran pastor. White-bearded and slightly deaf at 90, Dr. Wenner is the oldest U. S. minister in point of service. In 1867, a Yale graduate and a Union Theological seminarian, he began preaching in a blacksmith shop on 14th Street. Soon he founded Christ Church on 19th Street on the far East Side. His congregation grew to 500, then dwindled with an influx of Jews and Italians. With 120 members, Christ Church today shares its building with an Italian congregation. Pastor Wenner preaches on occasion, edits Der Sonntagsgast (The Sunday Visitor) in German which he had to learn years ago. A pioneer advocate of weekday religious instruction for children, Dr. Wenner has written many a tome, still doaders gently among his books and papers. Last week he spoke briefly at Christ Church at an anniversary service which was much more quiet than the one on his birthday last May. Of his long service Pastor Wenner said simply: "I stay here because I like the Lutheran Church, and because I like the Germans, and because I am a minister of Jesus Christ. I love Jesus Christ, and I find myself able to do some work for Him, and I am glad."

P: In Scotland, reported a correspondent of the Christian Century, Moderator P. D. Thomson of the Church of Scotland has taken to visiting his flocks by airplane. Typical tour: from Inverness to Kirkwall to preach at a cathedral and two churches; thence to the islands of Ronaldshay, Westray, Sanday and Stronsay; back home in less than a week.

P: In Boston, Rev. Dr. Phillips Endecott Osgood of Emanuel Church and Rev. Dr. Arthur Lee ("Little Tui") Kinsolving of Trinity Church announced a Thursday afternoon "Snow Train Service," to begin this week. Rectors of Boston's two largest Episcopal churches, they wish to bring back to church that "large and significant element in the modern community" who are kept away from Sunday worship by "the automobile and the suburban out-of-door week-end." Rectors Osgood and Kinsolving will participate jointly in the "Snow Train Service," so named after the special train on which Bostonians travel to winter weekends in Vermont and New Hampshire.

P: In Manhattan, Arnaud Cartwright Marts of Marts & Lundy, financial counsel lors to philanthropic institutions, detected an upturn in church giving. From a peak of $850,000,000 in 1929, contributions fell to $510,000,000 in 1932, to $410,000,000 in 1933. This year Counsellor Marts believes the South and West will show a 10% to 15% increase in giving. In the North and East the decline will halt. But mission boards and welfare agencies will experience the upturn more slowly than churches proper.

P: In Jersey City, 100-odd parishioners of St. Anthony's Roman Catholic Church petitioned their Bishop, Most Rev. Thomas J. Walsh, to remove their priest, Monsignor Ignatius Szudrowicz. They cited Canon No. 2,147 of their Church, which provides that a priest may be removed if his parishioners "hate" him. The petitioners assured Bishop Walsh that a majority of Monsignor Szudrowicz's flock of 4,000 Polish-Americans do indeed "hate" him. Unconvinced, the Bishop dismissed the complaint. The "haters" tried to picket the church, were prevented by police.

P: In Philadelphia, Rabbi S. J. Englander helped his son, Rabbi David Englander, install his grandson, Benjamin H. Englander, as rabbi of Congregation Shaare Shomayim.

P: In Savannah, Ga. met the 9th biennial convention of the United Lutheran Church. Re-elected president, as he has always been since the Church was organized in 1918, was Vandyke-bearded Dr. Frederick Hermann Knubel of Manhattan. The United Lutherans flayed the liquor traffic and indecent cinema; cabled a protest to Adolf Hitler over the coercion of the German churches; came out for a fixed date for Easter and for more unity among the 18 North American Lutheran bodies. Especially would the United Lutheran Church (1,500,000 members) woo the American Lutheran Church (525,000 members). But the latter's President Carl Christian Hein told the Savannah convention of two obstacles to a merger. The American Lutherans have always forbidden their members to join lodges, particularly Masonic ones; and they do not care for the indiscriminate fellowship of the United Lutheran Church with non-Lutheran groups. Politely Dr. Knubel replied that the only test his Church would apply to a merger is "the test of the ages--the salt that did not lose its savor."

P: In New York State ended Milk Month, during which ministers in many a city were urged by local milk committees to help publicize milk by preaching sermons on it. Suggested to the ministers were such texts as: And it shall come to pass in that day that the mountains shall drop new wine and the hills shall flow with milk--Joel, 3:18; His eyes are as the eyes of doves by the rivers of waters, washed with milk and fitly set--Song of Solomon, 5:12. The latter, the ministers were informed, means that "Back of the Oriental luxury of this language is the universal admiration for the perfect physical--pure blood, strong bones, flexible muscles, responsive nerves, sparkling eyes, fine teeth, clear skin. . . ."

Ministers in some 30 New York cities preached on the milky way. A keynote sermon had been delivered in advance of Milk Month by Rev. Fred Earl Dean, chaplain of the State Grange, in Rochester. Excerpt: "Jesus taught that human life is holy. Since milk means life to the human race, milk is also holy. Yes, I know how it smells and sticks, and how your shoes look around a dairy barn. I know the smart of a cow's tail swished in your eye on a hot summer night, and the sound of greedy hogs in a trough of sour milk. . . . I know the unholy feel of the business at the bottom. Still, we must insist that anything as essential to human life as milk is holy!"

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