Methodists

The scene was solemn, though not splendid. On a high platform in Convention Hall, Kansas City, sat 40 bishops. Above them could be seen the U. S. flag, draped with elaborate tassels; also the Christian flag, an emblem composed of a red cross on a blue square in a white field. The organ console and the pulpit were in view, as was the communion table covered with a shining linen cloth. The spectators, of whom there were thousands sitting in the balconies, looked up at windows which were illumined by hidden lights. An electric cross was hung in a high arch and in a western balcony, near the invisible organ, sat 65 choristers. This was the opening of the quadrennial General Conference of the Methodist Episcopal Church. As well as the 40 bishops, there were present 875 delegates from 35 nations representing some 15,000,000 communicants.

Had a stranger or a heathen wandered into Convention Hall, he might well have been confused as well as humbled by the scene which confronted him. Who, he might have asked, among all these dignitaries, is most worthy to be watched? What delegate is notable enough to justify rigorous attention? There would, of course, have been no way to decide this for the stranger. But since it would obviously be impossible for him to follow every move of the Conference, even if he desired to do so, one man he could select who would probably be near the centre of activity at all times. For such a cynosure, a stranger might have done no better than to choose Bishop Francis John McConnell* of Pittsburgh, who recently returned from Palestine after distinguishing himself at the International Missionary Council (TIME, April 16).

It was rumored that Bishop McConnell would be required to stand trial upon two curious charges: maladministration and immorality. The basis of these charges was probably to be found in the Bishop's admission that "evolution was a matter to be decided by experts not by votes of the people," and in his administration of certain church trials. The charge had been brought by a rabid fundamentalist.

Regardless of this paper sword which swung above Bishop McConnell's liberal head, his associates elected him to head the court of seventeen ministers who would hear less frivolous charges brought against Bishop Anton Bast of Copenhagen, the first foreigner ever elevated to the Episcopacy. This character, it was alleged, has misused charity funds of the church, acting in an "imprudent and unministerial" fashion. Bishop Bast had been condemned, by a civil court in Europe, to spend three months in jail; nonetheless, his friends were confident that Bishop Bast's dilemma had been brought about by civil interference rather than by his own dishonesty. There was high feeling, sharply divided, among the delegates; the trial would be held in secrecy behind guarded doors.

Later, Bishop Luther Wilson got up to read the Episcopal address whose substance had been prepared by the Board of Bishops but whose clear and strident phraseology was in large part his own. In this, there was a reprimand that applied to Dr. Sloan and exemplified the admirable Methodist point of view on the evolution bugaboo: "If the preacher assumes to answer every adversary of Christianity he will make the place a battlefield instead of a sheepfold."

The report further condemned: easy divorce and speedy remarriage, "which has upon the community the demoralizing effect of authorized marital exchange;" companionate marriage; racy literature; questionable stage productions; extreme dress; war. It denied any immediate possibility of worldwide church unity, because of "the attitude shown by the Vatican and the Church of England." The younger generation, that topic upon which any church conference can agree just as chance acquaintances can always agree about the weather, was "more sinned against than sinning." Prohibition, though at present not universally admired, would eventually be acceptable to all and must remain.

Prohibition, the last point in the Episcopal or Keynote report, was one upon which the approval of all Methodists was most vehement. As a religious body, their attention to worldly things has been focused upon the abolition of strong drink. Prohibition is their pet and their darling, if not their very child. Their politics are guided by this principle, their private lives led in accordance with it, their conversation carbonated with it. All drys may not be Methodists, but it is safe to say that every good Methodist is a very good dry. Therefore it was not surprising that the militant aridity of Methodism should be further exhibited in a motion, which the Conference carried, to send five Bishops to the Democratic and five more to the Republican National Convention that they might beseech each one to nominate a "dry" candidate.

* Bishop McConnell is 56 years old; he was born in Trinway, Ohio. He graduated from Ohio Wesleyan University in 1894, and became an Ohio Wesleyan pastor at West Chelmsford, Mass. and other New England towns; in 1909 he was elected president of De Pauw University and he became a Methodist Episcopal bishop by vote of the quadrennial conference in May, 1912.