Travels of Jardine

The congregation of mill hands, laborers and small shopkeepers listened drowsily to last Sunday evening's sermon in St. Paul's Church, Darlington. In the pulpit, speaking prosaically about Hell and God was the Rev. Robert Anderson Jardine, "the poor man's parson" who crossed the Channel and the Church of England to hallow the marriage of the Duke of Windsor and Mrs. Warfield (TIME, June 14).

A wave of excitement suddenly swept through the Church. Without warning, in the middle of his sermon Vicar Jardine declared: "I wish to announce that I have written to the trustees of this Church and the Bishop of Durham resigning my pastorate. . . . Nobody knew of my decision, not even my wife. But I have already resigned. . . . My resignation has nothing to do with events that have taken place lately."

If the Church authorities had kicked him out, Vicar Jardine took great pains to conceal it. He insisted that he was not deserting the cloth, that he merely intended to change his parish because ten years in one place was enough for anybody. He pointed out that he had warned the parochial council (governing body of the parish church) at their last meeting that he might resign. The romantically-minded hoped that the tubby little parson might become the Duke's domestic chaplain.

They were disappointed. Declared he: "It's a job I wouldn't care for--too binding." Next day another surprise followed. In London's Daily Mirror appeared a statement by Vicar Jardine, in which he announced he would go to the U. S. for a two-month lecture and sermon tour.

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