"Ablest Preachers'"

Churchmen reading their home newspapers last week caught the headline "Ablest Preachers" propounded by Church Business; scanned the appended list of twelve names for mention of themselves or of able friends:

SAMUEL PARKES CABMAN, 63, Brooklyn; President, Federal Council of Churches of Christ in America.

WILLIAM ELEAZAR BARTON, 66, Oak Park, Ill.; retired as clergyman, active as writer, father of Bruce Barton, famed advertising agent.

HENRY VAN DYKE, 75, Princeton, N. J.; retired as clergyman, active as writer.

ERNEST WYCKOFF MANDEVILLE, Middletown, N. J.; news editor of the Churchman (Episcopalian weekly) , onetime detective.

SHAILER MATHEWS, 64, Chicago; Dean, University of Chicago Divinity School; director, religious work of Chautauqua Institution.

FRANCIS EDWARD ("FATHER ENDEAVOR") CLARK, 76, Boston; the late founder of Christian Endeavor societies (TIME, July 11).

CHRISTIAN FICHTHORNE REISNER, 55, Manhattan; President, church advertising department, Associated Advertising Clubs of the World, organizer of $4,000,000 Broadway Temple, Manhattan.

BRUCE BARTON, 41, Manhattan, President, Barton, Durstine & Osborn (advertising agents). He is son of William Eleazar Barton (see above), is no clergyman himself.

CHARLES STELZLE, 58, Manhattan; sociologist and president of church advertising department of International Advertising Association.

WILLIAM LEROY STIDGER, 42, Kansas City, Mo.; active as pastor; was Y.M.C.A. truck driver in the War.

SHERWOOD EDDY, 56, Manhattan; Y.M.C.A. secretary for Asia. Like Bruce Barton he is no clergyman.

DE. FRANK CRANE, 66, Manhattan; onetime Methodist Episcopal clergyman, long a journalist.

In this list neither Bruce Barton nor Sherwood Eddy is a preacher. Nor are all the others mentioned famed for especial ability as preachers. Obviously the list was fallacious.

Churchmen therefore were justly irate to discover that their newspapers had copied the list from "Church Business," an eight-page advertising leaflet published by the Duplex Co. of Richmond, Va. This concern makes envelopes to contain church-money offerings.