“It has been a decade-long journey,” said Angela Thorpe Mason, the center’s executive director. The house was slated for demolition in the early 2000s, and was in extremely bad shape. A group of local advocates rallied to save it. The Pauli Murray Center was established in 2012, but the rehabilitation wasn’t complete until this April.

Murray’s grandfather, Robert Fitzgerald, built the house in 1898, and Murray moved there to live with her grandparents and two aunts in 1914, at the age of 3. Her aunt sold the house in 1953, but Murray visited it even after it had been sold and felt a deep connection to it. One reason the rehabilitation took so long was a desire to restore its early 20th-century state as much as possible, using historic construction techniques.

This is not, however, a historic house museum full of period furniture. It’s also not a shrine full of altars and reliquaries. Murray’s typewriter will be on display, as will her writing, and there will be a room with a recording of her talking.

Mason does see the space as sacred, and hopes visitors will feel the same way. “I’m hoping that visitors will enter into a relationship with Pauli Murray, and that relationship building will inspire people to do something, even if it’s small, to create social change,” Mason said.

Lacking a chapel doesn’t mean Murray’s faith is overlooked. “Faith is a through line,” Mason said. The center helps with the annual St. Pauli Murray service at her home parish, St. Titus’ Episcopal Church, which is less than two miles from the center. St. Titus will host a Pauli Murray pilgrimage from the center to the parish in October. A commemoration of Murray on July 1 was added to Lesser Feasts and Fasts in 2012.

The exhibit on Murray’s life emphasizes her lifelong Episcopal faith, which was formed by her grandmother, Cornelia, as well as pioneering work in fighting for women’s rights within the Episcopal Church. Murray and her partner, Renee Barlow, attended St Mark’s-in-the-Bowery in New York City, and Murray once walked out because she was so dismayed that men filled every role other than chorister.

After Barlow’s death in 1973, Murray planned the memorial service, and the officiant asked her if she had ever considered ordination. She would be ordained to the priesthood just four years later, just a year after the Episcopal Church voted to welcome women to the priesthood.

Murray is best known as a leader in the civil rights movement. Her 1950 book States’ Laws on Race and Color catalogued and critiqued discriminatory laws, and urged civil rights lawyers to draw on sociological and psychological evidence to challenge them directly as unconstitutional, a strategy at the heart of the U.S. Supreme Court’s Brown v. Board of Education decision in 1954.

Murray critiqued sexism within the civil rights movement and coined the phrase “Jane Crow” to describe the complex challenges faced by women of color in American society. She was a cofounder of the National Organization for Women, which she hoped would follow the NAACP’s role in the civil rights movement as a leader in the fight for equality.

The center wants the space to be more than a memorial to the past, and to honor Murray’s legacy by continuing to foster activism. “This is an active space designed to move contemporary social justice work forward,” Mason said. This is part of why there are few items on display, although the center has more in storage for potential future exhibits.

The center hopes to have events and workshops for educators, reflecting Murray’s career as a professor at two law schools. It offers various free curriculum resources on a variety of aspects of her life, including a four-session Christian education course. It has hosted numerous virtual talks by professors, lawyers, and clergy about different aspects of Murray’s legacy and issues facing women, African-Americans, and LGBT people.

This July, the center hosted a pro bono legal clinic for transgender people to discuss changing their legal names. Murray’s given name was Anna Pauline, but she started using “Pauli” as a young adult. She wore androgynous clothing, was often distressed by womanhood, and tried to find a doctor who would give her hormone therapy. The center sees supporting LGBT persons as an important part of reflecting Murray’s legacy.

The center also sees itself as a place where local community organizations focused on social justice can meet and work in Murray’s spirit. The house is located in Durham’s West End, a historically black neighborhood that has been increasingly gentrified. It’s the last original structure on its street. “We want to help preserve the historical integrity of the West End,” Mason said.

“How do we activate public history for a public good?” asked Mason, who spent a decade working for the state helping black communities in North Carolina understand their history. Only 2 percent of the 95,000 places on the National Register of Historic Places focus on African-American history. The center, which was designated a National Historic Landmark by the Department of the Interior, hopes to raise awareness of the importance of preservation of African-American history to understand both the past and the present.

A report prepared by the center about the restoration said that most archaeological sites about African-Americans have, until recently, focused on pre-Emancipation history, particularly on plantations. The center hopes its work can contribute to a growing world of African-American historical interpretation focused on urban, 20th-century Black life.

The Great Need of a Priest at Cape Mount, West Africa

The request has twice been made that I should write some strong words regarding the need of a priest at Cape Mount. No inspiration, however, seemed to come, and I was tempted to say that no stronger appeal could be made than had already been sent out, first by Mrs. [M.R.] Brierley in her last letter, written not long before she left her dearly loved work.

Her thought, no doubt, was then chiefly for those to whom she had so long given her life; but even for herself, we cannot help regretting that, though upheld by strong faith and certain hope, she was deprived in her last hours of the ministrations of a priest, which would have cheered her before she went to her rest. Other workers now in the mission have written also with much earnestness on this subject. Looking at it as one absent for a time from the field, the need seems, perhaps, more apparent than when actively engaged.

The mind naturally turns to those left behind, and pictures them in all the well-known trials and difficulties, and the thought will come: “Why is it that no one offers to go to fill the most important place in the mission, to be a head and guide and chief authority in all difficult matters, promoting unity among the workers and extending the work in many directions, as only one appointed for this special work can do effectively?” The work at Cape Mount has much of interest and brightness, and though there are times of illness and discouragement, are they not found in all lives of those who are devoted to duty in any sphere?

All along the African coast, north of Liberia, are to be seen convent schools of the Roman Catholic Church, where many children are taught and trained by priests and sisters. There are also white men of different nationalities engaged in various kinds of work, officers for native troops, merchants, explorers, and traders. In much more unhealthy places than Cape Mount, these people work and risk their lives for earthly gain. How is it that here no white man is found to do the work which has the greatest recompense?

Is there no inspiration in the lives of such men as Bishop [John] Payne [Liberia’s first missionary bishop] and Bishop [James] Hannington [an English bishop, martyred during his ministry in East Africa], not to mention others who have given up everything for Africa, and have been willing to die, though young in years, without regret, counting it no sacrifice, if by their deaths any should be saved? I have stood by the graves of the brave Bishop [John Gottlieb] Auer and the devoted Mr. [Cadwallader Colden] Hoffman and his lovely wife [Virginia Haviside Hale Hoffman], in the quiet little cemetery near the chapel at Mt. Vaughan, and the memory of their ardent devotion and triumphant faith made the spot most sacred; and it seems to me that no one can be endowed with too great talents, or too great zeal, for this work, and that the call to it must still be, as it has always been, the last command of the ascending Saviour.  S.A.W.

The church at New Richmond, Wisconsin (St. Thomas’ Church), was totally destroyed in the tornado which nearly wiped out that town, on June 12th. Nothing whatever remains, excepting a hole in the ground, and a mass of wreckage about it. Altar, vestments, seats, and everything, hopelessly gone. Nor was there any tornado insurance. We ask for help to rebuild, and begin our work anew. Money can be sent to the missionary-in-charge, the Rev. W.A. Howard Jr., Star Prairie, Wis. (P.O.), or to the Bishop of Milwaukee, Milwaukee, Wis., who has been on the ground, has seen the woeful destruction, and who will guarantee this appeal.

Twelfth Sunday after Trinity, Aug 20th

Next Ephphatha Sunday (Aug. 20th) rapidly approaches, with the usual reminder to parishes within the limits of the Mid-Western Deaf-Mute Mission that offerings are needed to meet its expenses.

The Rev. A. W. Mann, General Missionary, Gambier, Ohio.

The Church Mission to Deaf-Mutes, New York, appeals for special offerings from churches, and gifts from individuals, on this appropriate day.

Rev. Thomas Gallaudet, D.D., General Manager, 112 West 78th St., New York City.

Mr. William Jewett, Treasurer, 467 Broadway, New York City.

Church and Parish

Wanted.—By a Churchwoman of experience, a position as matron in a school for girls. Address Miss E. W., care of The Living Church.

Bishop [Frank Rosebrook] Millspaugh needs five or six devoted missionaries who can live on six hundred dollars for the first year, in fields white for the harvest. Address, Bishop’s House, Topeka, Kas.

Wanted.—Organist and choirmaster. Vested choir; Catholic ritual; choral celebrations. Stipend fair, but not large. Western city. Population, 40,000. Excellent field for first-class teacher, voice and piano. Address, Archdeacon, this office.

Peoples’ wafers, 25 cents per hundred; priests’ wafers, one cent each, The Sisters of All Saints, 801 N. Eutaw Street, Baltimore, Md., also invite orders for ecclesiastical embroidery.

Wanted.—A position as governess for small children, or companion, by an educated and refined young Churchwoman References, full and satisfactory, furnished address: Clio L. Lee, Manor, Travis Co., Texas.

The appeal for a priest at Cape Mount in Northern Liberia was eventually filled. Irving Memorial Episcopal Church and the schools complex there, especially St. John’s and House of Bethany Schools, continue to thrive, and are ranked among the country’s leading educational institutions. Liberia was the Episcopal Church’s first foreign mission field, and remained an Episcopal diocese until 1982, when it was joined to the Church in the Province of West Africa.

The Tornado of June 12, 1899, which killed 117 people in New Richmond, left 1,500 homeless, and caused an estimated $18 million in damage ranks as the most destructive in Wisconsin history. The congregation of St. Thomas persevered, worshiping in homes for decades until purchasing their current church, now called St. Thomas and St. John Episcopal Church, in 1946.

Ephphatha Sunday was so called because the Gospel Reading on the Twelfth Sunday after Trinity in the pre-1979 lectionary was Mark 7:31-37, the story of Jesus’ healing of a deaf and voiceless man. The practice of taking special offerings for ministry to the deaf was instituted by the Church Mission to Deaf-Mutes in the mid-1970s. This organization was founded by the Rev. Thomas Gallaudet (1822-1902), who is commemorated on the Episcopal Church’s calendar for his pioneering ministry among deaf people.

It’s not known if Bishop Millspaugh (1848-1916) filled all five or six of his missionary slots, but his obituary recalled him as “an ardent missionary,” and under his leadership the Diocese of Kansas grew to such an extent that the Missionary District of Salina, now the Diocese of Western Kansas, was created from it in 1902.

Holland is an increasingly prominent public intellectual and popular historian. The (perhaps unexpected) rise to superstardom of his podcast, The Rest Is History, with political historian Dominic Sandbrook, has now garnered him an American fanbase, and the two are about to embark on a second visit to the United States. For the uninitiated, The Rest is History has been going since 2020, following what has become my personal favorite formula for podcasts: two affable and well-informed hosts, with ever-deepening layers of banter and in-jokes. What began as one-off, entertaining explorations of isolated incidents (Tutankhamen! Cromwell!) or thematic joyrides through the centuries (Top Ten Eunuchs! Top Ten Mistresses!) has evolved, with its fans’ devoted enthusiasm, into something more subtle and unexpected: multilayered, well-researched, nuanced explorations of complex events, presented in a conversational narrative (see, for example, their more recent series on the rise of Hitler, the sinking of the Titanic, the battle of Little Big Horn, and the beginning of World War One). Whether Sandbrook and Holland think of themselves this way or not, they are both very good teachers and storytellers, with a pedagogical style that is perhaps out of fashion in the academy today but which, in my experience, is the only way that ever actually works.

It is perhaps impossible for Holland to be a credible public intellectual in a country as secular as the United Kingdom without being a professed agnostic, and yet he has always been more sympathetic than most academics to the social and moral legacy of Christianity. For years he has been quite happy to debate with humanists, arguing that the moral basis for this or that position owes its existence to the fundamentally Christian moral bedrock of Western society — the legacy of a still present if increasingly forgotten Christendom, like the ghost of an older cathedral surviving as the crypt of the present building.

This position has become somewhat more complex in recent months by Holland’s recent encounter with cancer. In his telling, his diagnosis resulted in one desperate “foxhole” plea to the Virgin in the church of St. Bartholomew the Great in London. The medieval church of St. Bart’s housed, in the 18th century, a printing press and was, in the words of its current rector, the only place known to be visited by both the Blessed Virgin Mary and Benjamin Franklin. Holland, to his bemused surprise, seems now to be in remission, although he maintains that if he was healed, God and Our Lady must have a sense of humor. We may be fairly confident on this point at least, regardless of his health status.

Be that as it may, Pax is dedicated, generously, to Holland’s physician, and the book, if anything, is Holland’s imaginative effort to get “outside” Christendom, and thereby, perhaps, to have a standpoint from which to appreciate its real legacy. The book begins in the last years of Nero’s reign and extends to the death of the emperor Hadrian in 138, one of the so-called “Five Good Emperors.” In other words, it takes us to the opening shot of Gladiator: Rome at its greatest territorial extent, its boundaries now fixed by imperial fiat, its peace the boast of its rulers. As epigraph Holland quotes the famous laconic verdict of Tacitus, ubi solitudinem faciunt pacem appellant (“The Romans created a desert and called it peace”). And indeed, the book is an ironic exploration, not of the stability of the Roman peace, but of exactly how fragile and febrile the political situation remained in these decades.

The first half of Pax, the strongest part of the book, is a truly gripping narrative of Nero’s ever more ambitious efforts to part company with the “reality-based community,” the tumultuous events in the “year of the four emperors,” and the iron-fisted rise of Vespasian and the Flavian dynasty, culminating in the wholesale slaughter of the Roman city of Cremona and, more famously, in the savage destruction of Jerusalem in 70. The catastrophe of Pompeii and Herculaneum is followed by the death of Vespasian’s son Titus, and the succession of his younger brother, the obsessive, effective, but paranoid Domitian. Domitian’s assassination in 96 paved the way to a slightly jittery imperial procession of Galba, Trajan, and Hadrian, by coup.

Throughout, Holland notes the myriad ways Romanitas, or the idea of being Roman, constantly evolved. Geographically, the empire’s frontiers expanded and contracted with imperial conquests in Britain and Scotland and, briefly under Trajan, of Ctesiphon and Iraq. The militarizing and militarized office of emperor in this period would end, not only in marginalizing the civilian Senate from any real political power, but in making it necessary for the emperor to be a solder in command of legionary loyalties and politics, while the legions themselves relied on auxiliary units of non-Roman but Romanized peoples from the frontier zones. Vespasian’s political rise hinged on the cooperation of the (Judaean) prefect of Egypt, Alexander, and his control of its grain supply, as well as the Syrian political operator Mucianus, while his son Titus kept Yosef ben Mattityahu, or Josephus, lived in a villa as a sort of Flavian Virgil while he wrote The Judaean War.

That Vespasian’s seizure of power had come at the cost of razing a historic Italian city, Cremona, was camouflaged in the grand style by the staging of an imperial triumph over the capture of Jerusalem, which had actually been Roman for years and which in booty did little to justify the pageantry. In the ensuing years, Holland chronicles not only the destruction, but the rhetorical and political othering and “outsidering,” of the Judaeans, a group who had hitherto worked with both Greek and Roman rulers but, when handled with increasing political tactlessness, rose up in the Bar Kochba revolt during Hadrian’s reign. Holland declines to call them “Jews” as yet; likewise, “Christians” appear, in my edition, for the first time on page 352 of 360, and Holland quietly omits any mention of them, for example, in connection with Nero. This is a deliberate choice on Holland’s part: an argument that Jewish and Christian identities both were created by these events rather than acted as the sole cause of them, and both Jews and Christians were defining themselves in relation to the amorphous, shape-shifting colossus of Roman imperial power.

Like marble busts carved and recut again, the emperors crafted their political identities in imitation of and in opposition to one another: Galba aiming for a bygone republican severity, Otto role-playing Nero, Vespasian channeling Augustus amid the rubble of Nero’s Golden House, Trajan posing as the anti-Domitian even as he furthered his legacy, Hadrian reenacting Augustus again. Grandiose behavior and sexual proclivities of all kinds had a political as well as a psycho-sexual role to play in this hall of mirrors, which, often as not, tended to overwhelm the emperors.

What Holland describes in Pax is the political world before Christianity, not so much the world of Christ as the world of Paul and the gospel-writers engaging with the wider Mediterranean. The effect is to remind the reader that the Apocalypse, for example, is not a futuristic sci-fi dystopia but a meditation on the immediate political context. If that is strange to us, Holland argues, then the Roman Empire was, indeed, an irreducibly strange place to anyone looking at it from the present vantage point of Christendom. But whatever your political sympathies, it seems likely that most of us will be fated to hear, and perhaps to give, sermons on the relationship between church and empire in the next four months. Almost certainly, the language will be heated and highly colored, polarized and polarizing, and most, if I know my church, will advocate for a vision in which there can and should be no common ground between Rome and Jerusalem, church and empire. Inevitably, Constantine will come up as A Bad Thing.

In his efforts to describe the Roman world on its own terms, I believe that Holland’s Pax can potentially help us to nuance this debate somewhat: to understand not only the reasons for the ferocity of Christian polemic directed against Roman society by Paul and the gospel writers, but also to appreciate the sheer extent of the transformation of that society by Christians in compromised positions of power over the centuries, in ways which we all, Christian or no, continue to inherit today.

The Brotherhood of St. Andrew has just had its first mail advices from the party sent to Manila in April for work among the soldiers of the United States Army in the Philippines. Mr. John Howe Peyton, the leader of the party, writes of a conference of clergy and representatives of the Brotherhood of St. Andrew, held in Manila, May 31st. There were present the Rev. Cha[rles] C. Pierce, D.D., chaplain in the regular army; the Rev. David L. Fleming, chaplain of the 1st Colorado Vols.; the Rev. J.L. Smiley, and the Rev. Hugh Nethercott; Messrs. John Howe Peyton, W.H.J. Wilson, and George A. Kauffman. Chaplain Pierce was chosen chairman, and the Rev. Mr. Nethercott, secretary.

After the Brotherhood party had presented its credentials from the ecclesiastical and civil authorities in the United States, Mr. Peyton explained that he and his party had been sent to the Philippines for the purpose of rendering spiritual assistance to such soldiers as were not under the care of chaplains, and at the same time to endeavor to carry the church and her teachings to the people of the islands. Chaplain Pierce described the work that he had undertaken among the English-speaking and native residents of the city.

A plan of campaign for the future was then outlined. In accordance with this, Mr. Pierce, Mr. Nethercott, and Mr. Wilson will remain in Manila, and continue to develop the work of our church among the soldiers, English-speaking residents, and natives. The Rev. Mr. Smiley will go into the field with the soldiers, and have charge of the large service tent brought by the party from San Francisco. Chaplain Fleming, who is about to return with his regiment to the United States, placed at Mr. Smiley’s disposal a small service tent given him by the army committee of the Brotherhood in San Francisco. Mr. Peyton will spend his time between Manila and other points, endeavoring, in addition to work among the soldiers, to ascertain what opportunities may exist for regular mission work under the direction of the church authorities in the United States.

A large house has been rented in Manila just across the street from the principal barracks. The upstairs rooms will be used as Church headquarters, while the lower floor will be used for a chapel. On account of the high prices of all supplies, It has been impossible to equip the chapel in as churchly a fashion as might be desired. It has been necessary, for instance, to construct an altar by breaking up old packing boxes and using the planks. There will be daily Morning Prayer in the chapel, with celebrations of the Holy Communion on Sundays in both Spanish and English; Morning Prayer in English, particularly for the English and American residents, and an evening service especially for the soldiers. Thus the “Anglo-American Mission of the Holy Trinity” begins its work in Manila.

The dispensary which Chaplain Pierce opened some months ago has been moved to the mission house, in order that all Church work may be concentrated as closely as possible. A Church building fund has been established, and aid is urgently asked from church people in the United States. The American clerical and lay workers will have the co-operation of a number of the leading gentlemen of the congregation, as a provisional missionary committee, in carrying on the mission work.

Mr. Peyton writes that he has found between 1,800 and 2,000 sick soldiers in the city. Much work will accordingly be done in the soldiers’ hospitals. “We all feel buoyant with hope,” says Mr. Peyton in conclusion, “and certain that our coming here was by Divine appointment. I wish that we could have a. force of workers somewhat commensurate with the demands of the situation. There is an enormous field, giving every promise of a rich harvest for the Church.”

Information concerning this work may be obtained from, and contributions towards its maintenance may be made to, John P. Faure, Treasurer, Brotherhood of St. Andrew, 281 Fourth Ave., New York.

Episcopal mission in the Philippines began during the Spanish-American War. The first Episcopal worship service was conducted in Manila by the Rev. Charles Pierce on September 4, 1898, less than a month after U.S. troops defeated the Spanish army and occupied the city. Pierce was also assigned responsibility for U.S. Army’s Morgue in Manila, where he instituted a series of changes, including the introduction of “dog tags” that transformed the care of the remains of U.S. veterans. The Brotherhood of St. Andrew delegation played a central role in mission work among American soldiers and the city’s English-speaking residents for about two years, when they were relieved by missionaries sent from the Church Center in New York. Under the leadership of the Rt. Rev. Charles Henry Brent, who was consecrated in 1901 as the first Bishop of the Philippines, mission efforts directed at Chinese migrants and Filipinos began.The Episcopal Church in the Philippines, which separated from the Episcopal Church in 1988, is now one of the Anglican Communion’s 42 member churches.

Concord Conference on the Ministry

About two hundred picked boys from the first three Provinces gathered recently at St. Paul’s School, Concord, N.H., for a conference on the ministry. The boys were from the junior and senior high school classes and fifth and sixth forms of preparatory schools. The purpose of the conference was not to obtain life-work decisions, but to present fairly the claims of the ministry. The conference extended over a period of three days.

Each day began with a celebration of the Holy Communion. After breakfast the boys gathered with their group leaders for a period of study, after which was a lecture. The afternoons were devoted to athletics and recreation. Just before supper was another lecture, and after supper an address. The morning addresses were given by Bishop [Charles] Slattery, of Massachusetts, who took as his subjects the intellectual, the pastoral, and the religious life of the minister. Bishop [W. Blair] Roberts, of South Dakota, who gave the afternoon addresses, made a stirring appeal to the boys when he challenged their spirit of adventure. He spoke of the priest as a man, a citizen, and a priest. In one of the evening addresses, Canon [Frederick] Scott, of Quebec, spoke on the functions of the priest as he exercises his power to bless, to sacrifice, and to absolve. President [Remsen] Ogilby, of Trinity College, spoke on the missionary work of the Church and its call to young men. On the last night Bishop [Charles Henry] Brent, of Western New York, held the preparation service for the Corporate Communion of the conference on the following morning.

Thousands of Bible Schools in New York

Daily Vacation Bible Schools were opened this week in various churches, parish houses, and mission halls throughout the city. Three hundred and fifty such schools were opened on the first day, reporting a teaching staff of 3,000 and an enrollment of 47,000 children. The schools in the lower east side districts and in the First and Second Avenue neighborhoods reported the largest attendance. The schools are under the auspices of the Metropolitan Federation of Daily Vacation Bible Schools, whose headquarters are at 71 West Twenty-third Street.

Georgia Young People in Camp

In its initial camp for Young People’s Service League members of the Diocese of Georgia, the Department of Religious Education, which sponsored the venture, feels that it has scored a complete success. While the attendance was not as large as was expected, the impression made on those who attended wholly justified the camp idea. The attendance included the bishop [the Rt. Rev. Frederick Fock Reese], thirteen officers, councilors, and other adults, twenty-two young people, and five children, making a total of forty.

The camp was located on St. Simon’s Island, near Brunswick, at the far end, away from the summer colony, on the edge of a grove of shade trees, about two hundred feet from the ocean. The girls were quartered in a large cottage and the boys in tents; classes were held under the trees, and meals were served on the porch of the Arnold House.

Beginning on Wednesday morning and continuing through Saturday the daily schedule was as follows: 7 a.m., morning ocean dip; 8:15, prayers; 8:30, breakfast; 9 to 9:30, intermission; 9:30 to 10:15, Bible class, by the Rev. Mr. Winn for boys and girls; second class, instructions on personal religion (ideals of manhood and womanhood), the Rev. Mr. Halleck for boys, Mrs. Otto for girls; 11:30 to 12, recess; 12, noonday prayers; 12:05 to 1, third class, missionary course, “The other side of the world,” by the Rev. Mr. White; 1 to 1:30, intermission; 1:30, dinner; 2:30 to 4, quiet hour; rest of afternoon, recreation; 6, supper, followed by stunts, camp fire, and good night service.

A chief feature of the camp was the Rev. Mr. White’s class, and before the camp was over many of the boys and girls were asking questions about the duties of missionaries, and as a result of these lectures at least one member volunteered for service to the Department of Missions.

The real inspiration of the camp came at the good night service on the beach when the Camp Director led the prayers and inspirational talks. On Saturday night the whole service was given over to preparation for the corporate communion the next day. Sunday morning the campers attended service at historic Christ Church, Frederica, on the Island, and the bishop preached a special sermon and was the celebrant at the Holy Communion service. Before the service a Bible class was held under the trees, after which the young people roamed around and saw the “Wesley Oak,” under which the Wesleys preached. After service they drove to the old fort at Frederica, built by General Oglethorpe, the founder of the colony, for defense against the Spaniards.

To the Rev. Mr. Jonnard is due the success and inspiration of the camp. He was at all times the life of the camp, and the members felt that they are unusually lucky to have as their young people’s leader, one who is so exceptionally gifted in this work and who makes an appeal to youth.

College Women Study Actual Conditions

Twelve girls from as many women’s colleges arrived in New York yesterday to go to the tenements of the east side and learn more about practical economics than their textbook can teach them. They came under the auspices of the Church Charity Organization Society, which is the recipient of an anonymous donation to defray the expenses of the trip.

The girls are all juniors in college and were chosen by their respective institutions. They will spend a month at the work and when they return as seniors are expected to be able to tell their classmates the results of their study. The group met and organized yesterday. They went to the Charity Organization Society office and heard a lecture on housing by Lawson Purdy, the director. Then they were taken to various points in the city, including the Metropolitan Life Tower, where they saw a panorama of their future activities spread before them.

The students will visit most of the charitable, penal, and correctional institutions in the city. Their week will consist of three days of such visits, during the course of which they will receive explanatory lectures, and three days doing what the social workers call “family case work.” This consists of visiting families where distress has been reported, taking children to clinics, and assisting in any other way that necessity demands. One will be stationed at each of the branch establishments of the society.

Church Pageantry School

A Church Pageantry School will be conducted at St. John’s Military Academy, Delafield, Wis., August 18th to the 30th, under the auspices of a committee of the Fifth Provincial Synod and with the endorsement of the National Commission on Church Drama and Pageantry. It has thus both a national and a provincial character.

Among the departments and instructors are the following: History of Drama and Pageantry, the Rev. Irwin St. John Tucker; Composition of Plays and Pageants, the Rev. Frederick D. Graves; Acting, Miss Grace Hickox and Miss Gloria Candler; Stagecraft, Miss Dorothy E. Weller; Liturgical Pageantry and Drama, the Rev. Morton C. Stone; Story-telling, the Rev. Louis Tucker, D.D., Music, the Very Rev. George Long; other topics: Educational Dramatics, Puppets, Dance, Eurythmics.

The daily schedule begins each morning with the Holy Eucharist and contains four work periods during the forenoon, the afternoon being left for recreation, and the evening for special features. Among the latter will be shadow plays, demonstration of the sacred dance, puppet plays, a liturgical pageant, ballet dances, a stunt night, a story hour, a eurythmic demonstration, a mystery play, and an outdoor pageant. In connection with the school there will also be an exhibit of dramatic and ecclesiastical art.

The accommodations at St. John’s Military Academy are excellent, and the beauty of the site on Nagawicka Lake will be impressed upon all the visitors. The cost is low; there is a registration fee of $5 and a charge of $30 for board, lodging, etc., at the school for the entire period. Further inquiry may be made of the Very Rev. George Long, 401 Chestnut St., Quincy, Ill.

The 1920s saw a major expansion in summer youth and children’s programs in the Episcopal Church, especially at the diocesan and provincial levels. A functional provincial system for the church was created in 1913, and 1919 brought a series of canonical changes and the Nation-Wide Campaign, a fundraising effort. These gave the church a much stronger central executive authority, with a series of departments, capable of beginning new work, much of it focused on forming the faith of young people and helping the destitute. An editorial in the same July 19, 1924, issue of TLC traces the rapid way in which provinces and dioceses adapted similar structures. The result was a proliferation of summer schools, church camps, vocations conferences, and related programs.

The first Vacation Bible Schools were held in the 1890s, but these exploded in the early 1920s. The first nondenominational Vacation Bible School association was founded in 1922, and the first curriculum published in 1923. In the 1920s, the schools were generally held daily throughout the school summer vacation, usually seven or eight weeks. Two and later one-week VBS sessions were not common until the 1950s.