Joke

"RECTOR OF EPISCOPAL CHURCH IS JAILED ON A CHARGE OF KIDNAPING. MYSTERY OF DISAPPEARING BABIES SOLVED AS CLERGYMAN STANDS ON CONSTITUTIONAL RIGHTS.

"Up on the Hudson River, in a parish noted for the idiosyncrasy of its rector, there have lately been a number of baptisms. In each of these, at a certain point, the rector has taken the babies to be baptized, following the Prayer Book rubric: Then the minister shall take the child into his arms. ... At the end of the service, however, he has refused to return the baby to the parents. . . ."

The foregoing is the substance of a theological joke, appearing in last week's Living Church, Episcopal high church weekly. Explanation: The parish "up on the Hudson River "is Christ Church. Poughkeepsie, N. Y., whose rector. Dr. Alexander Griswold Cummins, is an energetic and articulate low churchman (TIME, Nov. 6, 1933 et ante). To insure against high church practices, the Christ Church parish board last month passed a by-law requiring the incumbent "to abstain from the use of any ornaments, forms, services, or ritual which are not definitely allowed by the rubrics of the Book of "Common Prayer or the Canons of the Protestant Episcopal Church in the U. S. A."

As Living Church gleefully discovered, Prayer Book rubric definitely allows the minister to take the child for baptism, but nowhere definitely allows him to return it to its parents.

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