Drury's Choice

Five times has the Protestant Episcopal diocese of Pennsylvania chosen a bishop coadjutor to assist and eventually succeed Pennsylvania's Bishop Thomas James Garland (TIME, May 20). Five times have the chosen refused to accept the position.

The last to do so was Dr. Samuel Smith Drury who last week said that "since . . . the nature of this appointment must be of a wholly indeterminate nature I feel no longer impelled to leave work of assured usefulness to accept the post, honorable as it is." By "indeterminate nature" Dr. Drury meant that he could not tell when he would succeed Bishop Garland, which is the in alienable right of all bishop coadjutors when their bishops retire or die. When he was nominated Dr. Drury wrote to Bishop Garland, asked him when he would retire. The Bishop, who is 62, refused to name a date. He called the Drury question "unparalleled in church history."