Gold Coast to Blue Grass

All Kentucky is divided into two Episcopalian dioceses. Over Louisville's presides Bishop Charles Edward Woodcock. The bishop of the hill-country diocese of Lexington, who recently resigned, is gentle soft-spoken Lewis William Burton.

Lexington stands 950 feet above sea level in the Blue Grass country, famed for Bourbon whiskey, tobacco, horses, stock farms (Elmendorf Ashland). Near Lexington was born Abraham Lincoln. And once in Lexington a statue of Native Henry Clay was decapitated by a prankish thunderbolt.

Episcopal duties in Lexington do not consist merely of preaching in the great Cathedral on Church Street. The Bishop must visit the poor up in the hills. He must ride on senescent irresponsible trains. Sometimes he rides on a mule.

This year Bishop Burton will be 77. For more than 30 years he has toiled with his scant and scattered 5,000 parishioners. But this year he will rest. His successor, who will be consecrated bishop of the diocese on May 15, is Dr. Henry Pryor Almon Abbott of St. Chrysostom's Church, Chicago.

St. Chrysostom's stands at No. 1424 North Dearborn Parkway, on the edge of Chicago's "Gold Coast." Originally it was a small vine-covered church. Now it looms, magnificently Gothic, splendid rival of St. James, Chicago's other great Episcopalian church.

For nearly 20 years Dr. Norman Hutton was St. Chrysostom's rector. He was famed for his scholarly, dignified manner. His tact quelled brewing intramural quarrels. His persuasiveness brought much money to the church which he remodeled and enlarged. Last September, however, he resigned and Dr. Abbott succeeded him.

Rector Abbott's manner is dynamic. Like his brother, Headmaster Mather Almon Abbott of Lawrenceville, he inclines towards brusque action. Where Dr. Hutton had been mild and diffident, Rector Abbott seemed vigorously urgent, especially when his church needed money.

Dr. Abbott's salary as St. Chrysostom's rector was $20,000. His salary as Lexington's bishop will be $5,000. But he did not hesitate when he was offered the opportunity to move from the Gold Coast to the Blue Grass.

Last week, 'Chicago's Bishop Charles Palmerston Anderson and Lexington's Rector Charles Stewart Hale joined in praising him for a renunciatory act. But Dr. Abbott was content to say merely, "It will bring me into contact with all sorts of people; the rich and fashionable, the poor and mountaineers." He intends traveling through his diocese by automobile.

Pressed by a newsman to declare his pet aversion, he said, "Fools, perhaps. Scripture tells us 'Suffer fools gladly,' but Chesterton goes Scripture one better with 'Enjoy fools uproariously.' " His favorite novelist is Warwick Deeping, his favorite novel Sorrell and Son.