Old Bishop, Young Ideas

Aging Episcopal bishops were spotlighted last week when one of them voluntarily announced his retirement, declaring that his diocese needed a younger leader, and citing a new church law (due to take effect in 1943) requiring retirement at 72. The prelate: courtly, go-getting Dr. Ernest Milmore Stires, still hale & hearty at 74. His diocese: Long Island, whose 92,000 members make it the fourth largest (after New York, Pennsylvania, Massachusetts) in the U. S.

Among the dozen-odd other Episcopal diocesans already over 72 are: New York's William Thomas Manning, 74; Pennsylvania's Francis Marion Taitt, 79; Washington's James Edward Freeman, 74; Pittsburgh's Alexander Mann, 80; Maryland's Edward Trail Helfenstein, 75.

Dr. Stires has had many a great year in the 50 since he was priested. His first charge was rundown, rural St. John's Church at West Point, Va., where in a year he paid off a heavy debt, boosted the communicant list from 13 to 100. In 24 months he had calls from 28 parishes, finally accepted a call from the Church of the Good Shepherd, Augusta, Ga. There he stayed just long enough to meet and marry Sarah Hardwick. (Said he on his 40th wedding anniversary: "I believe the Lord sent me there so I could find my wife.") Then he served successively at two wealthy, influential parishes: Grace Church, Chicago; St. Thomas', New York. At the latter he reared what many a critic considers the loveliest Gothic church in the U. S., increased the annual income from $90,000 to $600,000, of which $550,000 went for purposes outside the parish.

Bishop Stires' pension after he retires will be about $2,000, far under his present salary of $11,250. But friends recalled that for years he gave it all back to the diocese to boost the pay of its poorer-paid pastors, even now accepts only part of it.

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Spiked last week were two alibis for not going to church. At Goldsboro, N. C., where his flock pleaded shabby clothes, a Negro preacher set one Sunday a month when he and the menfolk will come in overalls, the women in calico. At Sturgis, Mich., where laggards pleaded lack of transportation, the Church of the Nazarene bought a bus.

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