To the Holy Land

Down on lower Fifth Avenue, Manhattan, rain drizzled upon converging churchgoers. The First Presbyterian Church took in all it could; 500 were turned away.

Scripture was read, hymns of faith sung, prayers uttered by three eminent and venerable divines. Then Harry Emerson Fosdick (TIME, Sept. 1, Oct. 13, Nov. 3) mounted 20 stone steps into his high-pitched pulpit and began his farewell: "When I leave this pulpit today, I do not expect to return."

He spoke of St. Paul--how the apostle bade farewell to the Corinthians, his only permanent flock, to whom he later wrote the immortal letter on love. As St. Paul must have done, so Dr. Fosdick would summarize "the things they had been standing for"--to wit:

Liberty: Paul struggled to release Christianity from the bonds of Judaism; so at all times men have struggled to keep Christianity free. They were always called "heretics"--even Henry Ward Beecher.

An Inclusive Church: "The tragedy of Protestantism has been this, that any time anybody got a new idea in doctrine or ecclesiastical polity, he went out, if he had power enough, and founded a new denomination to represent it. ... A hundred and more denominations in this country, competing, overlapping, each insisting on some minutiae, tithing mite, anise or cumin and neglecting the weightier matters of the law. And so far has this historic policy gone that one denomination of Mennonites is distinguished from all others by the fact that it thinks wearing buttons wrong and wears hooks and eyes instead. "Against this policy of Protestantism we have taken our stand. We have built an inclusive church."

Righteousness:"Moreover, we have stood here for the social applications of the principles of Jesus. . . . "I thank you for the liberty you have given me in this realm. I do not believe that our present economic system, as it is run and ordered, is Christian, and I have said so. I do not believe that our international life is Christian, and I have said so. I abhor the cruelties of our modern industrialism. I hate war and I never expect to bless another."

Faith:"They say that Brittany fisher folk have a legend that, off their coast, deep buried in the sea, is the ideal city of Atlantis; and from it, on the quiet nights, when the winds are still, if a man's heart is right, he can hear the pealing of the bells. Such is the soul of man with sacred things deep sunken, which life's stormy noise makes us forget; and here, oftentimes on a Sunday morning, we have been quieted in worship until we heard the pealing of the bells."

Conclusion:"Never mind about me. Stand by the Church." For an hour afterwards, the people, eyes wet, shook hands with their preacher.

On Sept. 13; Dr. Fosdick will: preach to the League of Nations from the pulpit of John Calvin, founder of Presbyterianism, in the Cathedral Church, Geneva, Switzerland. He will then proceed to the Holy Land.