Trinity to Trinity

The old and blooded families of the U. S. have founded many a dynasty of bankers, polo players, industrialists, hell-raisers. Few are the dynasties of U. S. churchmen. An outstanding exception are the Kinsolvings of Virginia. George Washington Lee Kinsolving, a Tidewater aristocrat who once cut short a long sermon with, "Parson, isn't it grog time?", was bound that his only son should enter the church. Last week a great-grandson of old George Kinsolving did something as hearty as his ancestor's remark. He announced that he was leaving his big, rich, famed Boston parish for a small church in the little town of Princeton, N. J.

A certain startling heartiness is traditional among the Kinsolvings. They are celebrated in song as well as story. At the University of Virginia (where most of them go), their name figures honorably in a drinking song:

"My head is revolving," says Bishop Kinsolving, Heigh-ho, we'll blow the man down. "I'll drink till I totter," says Rt. Rev. Potter. . . . "To hell with white ribbons," says good Cardinal Gibbons. . .

The late Rt. Rev. George Herbert Kinsolving, 6 ft. 4 in. and hefty, became Episcopal Bishop of Texas ("Texas George"). Reminded, after his election, of General Sherman's statement that "if he owned Hell and Texas, he would farm out Texas and live in Hell," Texas George replied: "Since in the inscrutable providence of God, the General has been granted his choice, I think I'll go down and see what I can do with the farm." The late Rt. Rev. Lucien Lee Kinsolving, tall and handsome brother of Texas George, founded the first Protestant mission in Brazil, for 31 years was a missionary bishop in that country. His stay there resulted in Brazilian nicknames for his son and his nephew. "Big Tui," the son, was Arthur Barksdale Kinsolving II, today the stalwart, handsome dean of the Episcopal Cathedral in Garden City, L. I.

"Little Tui," the nephew, was Arthur Lee Kinsolving--son of a third clerical brother, the Rev. Arthur Barksdale Kinsolving, longtime rector of St. Paul's in Baltimore.

At the University of Virginia, wiry, handsome "Little Tui" was a Phi Beta Kappa, made the track and tennis teams.

Only when he was about to graduate did he resolve to enter the ministry--a resolution which was strengthened when, as a Rhodes Scholar at Oxford, he saw how little influence the church had on youth.

After Oxford, Arthur Kinsolving went to Amherst to be, at 25, rector of Grace Church and director of campus religious activities. In his six years at Amherst he guided no fewer than 56 men into the ministry. Then Boston's Trinity Church, the granite Romanesque pile where Phillips Brooks had risen to fame, called him. He accepted, cut the job's $15,000 salary to $10,000 because he was a bachelor. He plunged into Trinity's manifold activities --40 parish organizations, with a budget of $130,000 a year, called on as many of his 2,000 parishioners as he could manage.

In 1937 many a female Trinity heart skipped a beat when "Little Tui" announced his engagement from the pulpit, married Mary Kemp Blagden, daughter of a rich Philadelphia family. Last week it became evident that "Little Tui" had never really stopped thinking of his college work. On Sunday Bishop Wallace John Gardner of New Jersey mounted the pulpit of Trinity Church in Princeton, announced that the rector of Trinity, Boston, was resigning his pulpit, would take over the vacant rectorship of Trinity, Princeton, next September. There was no actual applause, but the congregation felt like cheering.

Princeton's Trinity is supposed to collaborate with the Procter Foundation, which maintains an Episcopal chaplain for the university. (The chaplaincy is to be vacated in June by the Rev. John Crocker, new rector of Groton School.) Of late years, Trinity's influence on both town & gown has waned. Thus the invitation which the Trinity vestry sent to Arthur Kinsolving this winter was a challenge. That he accepted it, putting aside the easy fame and popularity of Boston for the smaller prospects and pay of Princeton, may have been a surprise to those who take for granted a pride of place in the Episcopal Church. But it was no surprise to the Kinsolvings or their friends.

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