Patton Prays

Under a screen of heavy rains and thick fogs, the German Army pushed deep into Belgium. It was too much for blood & guts alone.

Last week came news that hard-riding Lieut. General George S. Patton Jr., in his moment of need, had put aside his pearl-handled pistols, taken up a pen, and appealed to a Higher Authority. Wrote he: "Almighty and most merciful Father, we humbly beseech Thee . . . to restrain these immoderate rains. . .. Grant us fair weather for battle. Graciously hearken to us as soldiers who call upon Thee that, armed with Thy power, we may advance from victory to victory . . . and establish Thy justice among men and nations. Amen."

Patton's prayer was answered. The skies cleared, the Ninth Air Force and the tanks came out, and the German offensive was stopped.

God Speed the Plough

Along the lanes and highroads, past the bare beech forests and the smooth slopes of the Downs, came the farmers of Sussex. Afoot and in wagons, they converged on Chichester Cathedral, whose distant spire was a grey needle against the sea. They filed into the famed early Norman church, packed it to the doors, and waited self-consciously. For the first time in 300 years, the British festival of Plough Monday was being celebrated.

Eight farmers in white milking coats carried a red, blue and silver plough down the nave, laid it at the chancel steps and knelt around it. Then another farmer gave thanks for God's gifts while the congregation joined him in repeating the last three words of each sentence: "The rich soil, the smell of the fresh-turned earth--come from God. . . . The beauty of a clean-cut furrow, the sweep of a well-ploughed field --come from God."

At the end of the service, a Sussex ploughman asked Dr. George K. A. Bell, Bishop of Chichester, to bless the plough, "the sign of all our labor in the countryside." The Bishop, wearing a gleaming cape of green and gold, raised his hand over the plough and the kneeling farmers: "God speed the plough: the beam and the mouldboard, the slade and the sidecap, the share and the coulters . . . in fair weather and foul, in success and disappointment, in rain and wind, or in frost and sunshine. God speed the plough."

Plough Monday is the first Monday after Twelfth-night (Epiphany). Traditionally, this is the first day of the farmer's year, when the ground has thawed enough for a share to cut cleanly through the turf. The event, the origin of which is obscure, gradually came to be celebrated as a British religious festival. By the 17th Century, observance of the day had ended: instead of going to church the ploughmen celebrated by getting drunk on sack.

Immoderate Moderator

When the Presbyterian Church, U.S.A. elected its new moderator (an annual affair) last May, many of its 2,090,000 members knew very little about the new incumbent. Dr. Roy Ewing Vale, 59, was a relatively obscure Indianapolis pastor, with a reputation for somewhat meek piety.

Last week Moderator Vale had not only Presbyterians but many other Protestants goggle-eyed. Turning from lamb into lion, he had begun a slam-bang crusade against the Roman Catholic Church. For ten weeks he will speak two or three times a day in major cities, repeating the ominous words he uttered in Dallas last week:

"The Roman Catholic hierarchy is engaged in a deliberate attempt to take away from the Protestant churches of America [their] leadership in religious life . . . and are seeking ultimately to take the leadership in the political life of the country. . . ."

Dr. Vale insists that he is not conducting a campaign against the Catholics and is merely answering issues which they have raised at a time when unity is imperative. But some felt that his sermons narrowly skirt the kind of anti-Catholic talk which incites religious intolerance. The coincidence of Dr. Vale's campaign with a series of Christian Century articles on Catholic strength in the U.S. (TIME, Jan. 22) indicated not only Protestant concern over the rise of U.S. Catholicism, but a possibly dangerous trend toward anti-Catholicism. The second possibility disturbs many thoughtful Protestants, who know that intolerance is a boomerang.

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