Stocking to Newton

In the 270 years of its existence, First Church in Newton, Mass, has had only a dozen pastors. Its last one, Rev. Dwight Jacques Bradley, went last autumn to Boston's musty Union Congregational Church which he soon titillated by calling in an interpretative dancer named Eleanor Schirmer (TIME, Dec. 31). Last month the call of First Church's congregation of 1.013 sedate suburbanites for a successor to Mr. Bradley was answered by no less a person than the Moderator of the Congregational & Christian Churches -- Rev. Dr. Jay Thomas Stocking. The new shepherd will take the Newton pulpit next May.

Born in Lisbon, N. Y. 64 years ago, Dr. Stocking was educated at Amherst (1895), held his first pastorates in New Haven, Bellows Falls, Vt., Newtonville, Mass. He has been at St. Louis' Pilgrim Church for the last seven years. Tall, grizzled, genial, he is the father of four daughters to each of whom he gave the middle name Porter. Much in demand as a college preacher, Dr. Stocking has written numerous ethical-whimsical books for children (Query Queer, The Golden Goblet, Mr. Friend o'Man).

Last week in Evanston Dr. Stocking presided over the annual meeting of the Congregational & Christian national executive conference. In his moderatorial address he gave his hearers stark news. "Our day has been asking for a comfortable God to believe in," said he. "We have sought a God who was satisfied with moderate virtue. But the only God by whom this world can be saved is an uncomfortable God who gives man no rest in the presence of need until he rises to meet it."

Dr. Stocking also expounded Hell, against which he said the Congregational & Christian Churches are making an organized attack. "To save men from Hell," said the Moderator, "must ever be the motive of missions. We must have a sense of Hell, not the Hell of a onetime theological faith but the Hell that is a present observable fact. We do not need to preach Hell for there is plenty of it in the world to be seen."

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