Perry's Assessor

Eighty of the 130 U. S. Episcopal bishops convened last week in Davenport, Iowa for a meeting of the House of Bishops. Large on their docket lay the matter of appointing a new assessor (assistant) to the Presiding Bishop of the church, to succeed Bishop Hugh Latimer Burleson of South Dakota who died last August. Presiding Bishop James De Wolf Perry had chosen his man and the House of Bishops approved: Bishop Philip ("Phil") Cook of Delaware. A tall, grey-haired, hearty, eloquent churchman, Bishop Cook has been a missionary on the Dakota plains, a vicar in Manhattan, a breezy rector in San Antonio, Tex. and Baltimore. Missouri-born (July 4, 1875), he now lives at "Bishopstead" in Wilmington. His specialty has been home missions. When he went to the War he told his friends: "I don't know what I'm going to do along the lines, but you may be sure I'll do my damnedest."

As Bishop Perry's assessor, Bishop Cook's duties will be far from strenuous, involving such functions as consecrations, dinners, graduations, cornerstone-layings which the Presiding Bishop is too busy to attend. There was speculation last week as to Bishop Cook's chances of eventually becoming Presiding Bishop. But the Episcopal Church does not provide for recall of bishops, and Bishop Perry, 62, is a healthy tennis-player and onetime high-jumper.

In Davenport last week the House of Bishops acknowledged but did nothing about a petition of 2,115 clergymen against admitting non-Episcopal ministers to Episcopal communion, occasioned by a service in which the administering of communion was shared by Episcopalians, Baptists and Methodists in St. Louis Episcopal Cathedral last year. The House also urged the U. S. to join the World Court; came out for aggressive pacifism; sympathized with persecuted Jews in Germany.

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