Presbyterians Adjourn

In cool, shady Montreal. North Carolina's mountain church-resort where one does not stay out late, the Presbyterian Church in the U. S. (Southern) concluded its annual assembly last week. Chiefly for the same reason (Birth Control) as last year, the Southern Presbyterians voted to remain outside the Federal Council of the Churches of Christ in America. Denounced as modernists whose teachings result in the decline of young morals were Harry Emerson Fosdick and Council Leaders Samuel Parkes Cadman and Bishop Francis John McConnell. The Montreat assembly named a committee to plan union with other U. S. Presbyterian branches.

In Denver, the General Assembly of the Presbyterian Church in the U. S. A. had already heard and defeated a proposal to withdraw from the Federal Council (TIME, June 6). Before adjourning last week, it quashed a second uprising by the same group of impatient Fundamentalists, led by Rev. H. McAllister Griffiths of Philadelphia. Other things the Presbyterians did:

P: Denounced aggressive War, antiProhibitionists. Radio for commercial purposes on Sunday, tobacco advertising.

P: Approved and referred to individual presbyteries a proposal to introduce into the Directory of Worship a new section on marriage, urging that "children have a God-given right to be well born; therefore, those contemplating marriage should be bodily and spiritually fit for such a relationship."

P: Heard and adopted unanimously an innocuous report of the Committee on Social and Industrial Relations. Deleted before the report was read were items favoring State compulsory unemployment insurance, large-scale economic and social planning, and recognition that three possibilities exist for Church and Nation: 1) present individualism, 2) some form of socialism, or 3) planned production.

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