Methodists

In the last week of their Quadrennial General Conference, the potentates of the Methodist Episcopal Church set out to elect three bishops. Two they rapidly chose: Dr. Raymond J. Wade of Chicago and Dr. James Chamberlain Baker of Urbana, Ill. Over the many able candidates for the third, they wrangled and ballotted 19 times without avail. At last the two leading candidates withdrew their names, a Korean lady made a potent speech and the Methodists elected the 33rd Bishop of the Church by a sweeping majority. He was the famed Rev. Eli Stanley Jones, missionary in India and author of The Christ of the Indian Road. No sooner had he received this honor, ultimate for any Methodist and seldom given to a man only 44 years old, than Dr. Jones declined to accept it. Said he:

"I was elected on the wave of an emotional appeal and I feel sure that I am not entitled to be so honored. . . . There is also a possibility that the new post might take me away from India, which is my

first love. I would never consent to that . . ."

These words did not seem out of character to those who knew Dr. Jones or to those (of whom there are altogether well over 300,000) who had read his book. The Christ of the Indian Road is a simple unfolding of a brilliant idea, to wit: Christ as a holy, heroic figure appeals to oriental people as deeply, if not more deeply, than to occidentals, upon whom the accidents of history first imprinted His message. His appeal for orientals differs in that they feel the native mysticism in His unruffled character, the contemplative idea of thought rather than His energy, His practical humanism. This theory makes logical the endeavor to Christianize the Orient. Also, it makes it apparent that Dr. Jones loves and understands the natives of India as well as he loves and understands Christ. It explains his refusal of the high post to which he had been elected. The Methodists did not choose another bishop in his place. Instead they elected the Rev. Edwin F. Lee of Singapore, to be missionary bishop to the Malaya provinces, a position hitherto held by one of the regular bishops of the church. For the rest in the last week of their session, the Methodists refused to abolish life tenure of bishops;* went on record against military training for schoolboys; accepted the recommendations of the Committee on Episcopacy to the effect that there be 21 areas in the United States and 12 in foreign parts; considered a committee's report which suggested liberalizing in favor of the innocent party church rulings against divorce.

*In TIME, May 21, it was stated that the Conference voted away the eight-year time limit upon; the tenure of office of Methodist bishops . . . this phrase was incorrect. It should have been "tenure in a given residence."