Methodists United

When white-haired Bishop William Newman Ainsworth of the Methodist Episcopal Church, South looked about him in Macon, Ga. last month, he was displeased. Throughout the South, Methodists were engaged in an eleventh-hour battle to defeat a project dear to Bishop Ainsworth's heart--reunion of 8,000,000 U. S. Methodists into one great church. In less than three years, Northern Methodists, Methodist Protestants and six out of seven Southern Methodist conferences had approved a plan of union drawn by a commission mission of which Bishop Ainsworth was a member (TIME, Aug. 25, 1935). Ailing at 66, contemplating retirement. Bishop Ainsworth urged Southern laymen to give their final, necessary approval to the merger. He also issued a sharp statement:

"There is a ceaseless stream of propaganda going about the country that transgresses all the bounds of reason and sobriety. I refer to statements being made by responsible parties that efforts are being made to force Southern white Methodists into an organization where intermarriage between races is planned."

The plan of union contemplated a new body (The Methodist Church) composed of five regional Methodist conferences, and a sixth conference embracing 360,000 Negro Methodists regardless of geography. If this smelled of Jim Crow to some Northern liberals, it smelled of too much brotherly love to some Southern diehards. Led by Virginia's Bishop Collins Denny (retired), these antiunionists pounded the racial angle for all it was worth. Stumping the South, 84-year-old Bishop Denny cried: "What are you going to do if eight or ten Negroes come and say, 'Here are our certificates, and we want to join your church?' There is no way to keep them out." Bishop Denny also argued against unity based upon Christ's words, There shall be one fold and one shepherd. Said he: "Certainly the one fold cannot be confined to Methodism. The good Lord had His work done for centuries before He raised up a Methodist organization."

Last week 25,000 delegates and visitors gathered in Birmingham for the 23rd quadrennial conference of the Southern church. With unification the first item on the agenda, many a delegate--including Senator Carter Glass--sounded off on the Negro issue. But they could not make the tar baby stick. The merger was adopted. 434-to-26.

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