Return of a Missionary

After the Chinese Communists took over the city of Chengtu in December 1949, they stirred up an enthusiastic welcome from war-weary students at West China Union University, a 42-year-old interdenominational college run by Chinese and Western Christians. Dr. Dryden L. Phelps, 59, a Baptist missionary with 30 years' experience in China, was as enthusiastic as his students. He thought that the university's energetic reorganization, inspired by the Communists, was "the most profoundly religious Christian experience I have ever been through." He said so in a letter to the Rev. William Howard Melish, Brooklyn Episcopalian and great & good friend of Soviet Russia. The letter turned up in succession in 1) the leftish Churchman and 2) Soviet Russia Today.

The American Baptist Foreign Mission Society promptly ordered Dr. Phelps home to explain (TIME, Jan. 1, 1951). In Manhattan last week, 4 1/2 months after he finally got an exit visa from China, Dr. & Mrs. Phelps reported to the board. The directors wanted to know why he had made his pro-Communist remarks, as well as a statement that the South Koreans, not the Communists, were the aggressors in Korea.

In a long session before the board, Dr. Phelps handed in his resignation. In doing so, he clarified his views but did not deny them. He still thought, from his own observations, that the Communists had been partly responsible for "a new spirit" of cooperation and brotherhood in Chengtu. Said Dr. Phelps: "To see what good there is in something so little understood and so generally condemned as Communism in China is a moral obligation."

After accepting the resignation, board managers said they were satisfied that Dr. & Mrs. Phelps "have never been, and are not now Communists, and that they have always been, and are now, loyal American citizens."

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