Baptist Fane

Harry Emerson Fosdick is a positive preacher. When he stands on a platform, his body tense, dynamic, his wavy hair brushed back, his heavy-lidded eyes gleaming, then his audience, whether it be Baptist, Presbyterian or lay, knows well that here is a leader that knows his business, his mind. He is definite and outspoken. Last year he was offered the pastorate of the Park Avenue Baptist Church,* at Park Avenue and 64th St., Manhattan, from which Dr. Cornelius Woelfkin had retired. Dr. Fosdick accepted the call, with the following stipulations: that membership in the congregation be open to all who accept evangelical Christianity (Baptists, Congregationalists, Methodists, Presbyterians and the like); that Baptist rites and doctrine be not insisted upon; that his salary shall not exceed $5,000; that he may continue teaching at the Union Theological Seminary, where since 1915 he has been professor of practical theology; that there be a large, new church somewhere near Columbia University (TIME, May 25). Such stipulations were accepted.

Last week preliminary plans were announced for a colossal new fane to rise on Riverside Drive at the corner of W. 122nd St. A fortnight ago the preacher was in Europe with his family. He left them there to inspect those plans in Manhattan (TIME, Feb. 15). He approved the plans; hurried back to Europe last week.

The church will go up on land which John D. Rockefeller Jr. now owns. An apartment thereon will be torn down when tenants' leases expire next October. Meanwhile the architects, Allen & Collens of Boston and Henry C. Pelton of Manhattan, who have had ten draftsmen working for two months, will work for six more months on the details.? The building will be of gray stone, probably of Indiana limestone, over a steel skeleton. It will cover practically all of the 22,500 feet of land (225 feet on Riverside Drive, 100 feet on W. 122nd St.) Its nave, 100 feet wide, will run north and south, parallel with the Hudson River. Its main entrance will be at the south end through a bell tower facing the Drive. Parishioners will have a turn to their left, after entering, to face the altar. They will have about 2,500 seats at their disposal, another insistence of Dr. Fosdick.

The bell tower, 75 feet square at the base, will be over 300 feet high and topped by some architectural form other than a spire. Here will be cased the 53 bells of the carillon Mr. Rockefeller has had installed in the present Park Avenue Church tower as a memorial to his mother, Laura Spelman Rockefeller.** This will be a great satisfaction and a tribute also, to Carillonneur Anton Brees, the Belgian, who has complained that the present height of this largest carillon in the world?? does not permit full effect to their marvelous tone beauty, that they should be at least 300 feet above ground. Certainly too their removal will satisfy many New Yorkers who criticised them for disturbing their Sunday morning sleeps and mopings (TIME, Dec. 7, 21).

The church will not lack funds. Its present holding, the Park Avenue Baptist Church, is undervalued, considering land values and replacement cost, at $1,750,000 and has several congregations already seeking it. This sum Mr. Rockefeller will duplicate. Additional gifts have been volunteered by others of the congregation, so that no general canvass for funds will be needed or made. If any shortage of funds develops, certain members have guaranteed sufficient financing. Such amplitude of money stopped tentative talk last summer of constructing a "skyscraper," church, like the $4,000,000 Broadway Temple to be built on Washington Heights, Manhattan, for Dr. Christian Fichthorne Reisner, with apartments, club rooms, etc., to produce income for the support of the church. The Baptists scorned the idea.

Worldlings naturally began comparing the cost of this Baptist fane with that of others. The Protestant Episcopal Cathedral of St. John the Divine, going up piecemeal since 1891 on 112th St. near Morningside Park, Manhattan, will cost about $25,000,000. But it is a cathedral. The Episcopal Church of the Heavenly Rest at Fifth Avenue and 90th St. will cost about $3,000,000 and will rank next in expense to this new one of Dr. Fosdick's.

*Established in 1841 as the Fifth Avenue Baptist Church. It is the wealthiest Baptist congregation in the world. John Davison Rockefeller Jr. is honorary president of its Bible Class, of which Charles Evans Hughes was once leader. Dr. William Herbert Perry Faunce, President of Brown University, founded the class. (Both Hughes and Rockefeller attended Brown. Hughes' son went to Brown , but Rockefeller's eldest son is at Princeton.)

?Ralph Adams Cram, U. S. authority on Gothic architecture, recently made some sketches for Mr. Rockefeller personally. He advocates churches constructed entirely of stone, walls supported by flying buttresses.

**She died in 1915.

??Interesting is the modern spread of the carillons. There are now 16 sets of these singing bells already set up, or soon to be, in the U. S. and Canada.