Stated Clerk

Probably the most powerful single post in any U. S. Protestant church is that of Stated Clerk of the Presbyterian Church in the U. S. A. "Stated" or settled in his post, the Clerk nominally holds office for five years, but the terms of the last two, Rev. Dr. William H. Roberts and Rev. Dr. Lewis Seymour Mudge, totaled 56 years. At the annual Assemblies of the church, the Moderator (elected for one year) presides, but between times the Stated Clerk, resident in the "Presbyterian Vatican" in Philadelphia's musty old Witherspoon Building, directs the activities of the church, answers hard questions on church law, handles all documents, acts as a one-man committee on Assembly arrangements and the credentials of delegates. Last week, with Stated Clerk Mudge about to retire at 70, the 150th Assembly, in Philadelphia, prepared to elect his successor. Obvious choice was a big-jawed, heavy-set Presbyterian who had worked in the "Vatican" since 1903--Rev. Dr. William Barrow Pugh, 49, of Chester, Pa., nephew of Stated Clerk Roberts and assistant since 1922 of Stated Clerk Mudge.

Dr. Pugh, however, was a prominent anti-Machenite: the man who, in 1934, was credited with perfecting the legal devices by which fundamentalist followers of the late Dr. J. Gresham Machen were read out of the Presbyterian Church. As a sudden, random gesture of conciliation toward the Machenites, the nominating committee last week picked a dark horse. The gesture was so random that the dark horse. Rev. Paul Coverly Johnston of Rochester, N. Y., had gone home unaware he was nominated. He telegraphed his withdrawal, whereupon Dr. Pugh won hands down.

Meanwhile in Quarryville, Pa. met the small, Machenite Presbyterian Church in America. Its members elected as their Moderator a stiff-haired, stiff-backed Netherlander who was nominated as a man "on whom the mantle of Dr. Machen has to some extent fallen." This was cautious praise. Dr. Rienk Bouke.Kuiper, 52, was a good friend of Dr. Machen. taught at Westminster Seminary which his friend founded, succeeded him as chairman of its faculty. Along with other Machenites, Moderator Kuiper last week viewed the election of Stated Clerk Pugh as proof that they had done well to leave the Presbyterian Church in the U. S. A. Of church unity, toward which the larger Presbyterian Church seemed favorably disposed, he said stiffly: "This is no time for it. There ought to be more splits, in every denomination.''

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