Holy Spirit in Geneva

When a Vice-Admiral, a reformed Communist, a Rural Dean and a pioneer aviator meet in Geneva with an assortment of Germans, South Africans and Americans, they might discuss armaments, the opium traffic or a universal language. Such a group was in Geneva last week, but it was simple piety, not economics or politics, that brought it together. Misleadingly ominous were the invitations sent out for the meeting:

WORLD FORCES ARE STIRRING AGAIN. . . .

HERE AND THERE THEY HAVE CLASHED. . . .

MORE STIRRINGS AND MORE CLASHINGS ARE FEARED. . . .

The stirrings & clashings were simply the setting for an International House Party, "planned under the leadership of the Holy Spirit" by The Groups--followers of Rev. Frank Nathan Daniel Buchman. Known in the U. S. as "A First Century Christian Fellowship" ("Buchmanism" to a dubious press), The Groups held large house parties in Cape Town. South Africa two years ago and in Oxford last summer. In Manhattan, The Groups influence emanates from Calvary Protestant Episcopal Church. Their activities--personal evangelism, weekly meetings in the parish house--are led by Rev. Ray Foote Purdy, onetime Princeton Y. M. C. A. secretary, and Calvary's Rev. Samuel Moor Shoemaker Jr., who gave a demonstration of "primitive Christian practice" for the bishops of the 50th-triennial Episcopal convention in Denver last autumn (TIME, Sept. 2 et seq.).

Far-flung as they are, The Groups are young. In Geneva last week, however, they could feel as important as any older group of disarmers, antinarcotic workers or Esperantists. Their invitations had been sent out in French as well as English, for a Reunion Intime ('House-Party') to cost 13 fr. Swiss ($2.50) per day with a 10-fr. registration fee. From the U. S. came Olive Mary Jones, past president of the National Education Association, and Howard Alexander Smith, onetime executive secretary of Princeton University. The Netherlands' delegation was headed by Baron Godfrey Van Wrassenaer. Germany sent Baroness Moltzan and Baron Wilhelm von Richthofen, cousin of the late famed Aviator Manfred von Richthofen.

Assorted as any Early Christian group, gathered for mutual aid and prayer, was Great Britain's delegation to Geneva. Present was bespectacled little Founder Buchman who spends most of his time in England. From Edinburgh came Mrs. Alexander Whyte, relict of the later moderator of the Presbyterian Church in Scotland and principal of New College. Accompanying her was James Watt, onetime miner, hot Communist who used to agitate among Fifeshiremen while living on the Dole. Came also Commander Sir Walter George Windham who lists himself in Who's Who as "founder of the Aeroplane Club, 1908; took part in early motor drive to Brighton; owner of cars since 1897; Controller of the ist Aerial Meeting (England) at Doncaster; entered a monoplane constructed by himself . . . holds the silver and bronze medals of Royal Humane Society; Lloyd's silver medal for lifesaving; sailed round the world four times under sail, 1884-88 . . . mentioned in Government despatches, 1897, for connecting R. I. M. S. Warren Hastings with a rope to the shore, over which 1,200 troops were landed; made an hon. member for life of the mess of the ist Battery King's R. R. for saving life and property from the wreck of the troopship Warren Hastings. . . ."

Also present in Geneva were Vice-Admiral Sidney Robert Drury-Lowe, R. N., and Prebendary Rich of St. Paul's in London. Prebendary Rich lent ecclesiastical prestige to the International House Party; but more satisfaction derived from the words of Canon Frank Child, vicar of St. Helen's and Rural Dean of Prescot, who wrote last week in the Church of England Newspaper: "Is this movement going to do what the Archbishop's Conference with us perhaps cannot do? Is it going to solve the reunion problem [TIME, Jan. 11]? I think it may contribute very much to that but we feel here that it is the greatest spiritual movement since the time of Whitefield and Wesley. ... It has been for many Church people and Nonconformists the most complete experience of apostolic unity they have ever known."

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