Pastoresses?

If grim old John Knox ever turned in his grave, last week he turned again. For no less Presbyterian a person than Dr. Cleland Boyd McAfee, Moderator of the Presbyterian General Assembly, wrote with at least an open mind to his 10,000 pastors on the question of admitting women to preach and hold high office in the Presbyterian Church.

Said the letter: "No theological issue is involved. No change is suggested in our confession of faith. . . . No one suggests that women shall be ministers or ruling elders whether they will or no. . . ."

Moderator McAfee was not exploding a bombshell. Last May the annual General Assembly at St. Paul, Minn, voted to send to some 300 Presbyteries three "overtures" to be voted upon. If the majority vote in the majority of the Presbyteries was in favor, changes suggested by the overtures would become effective in May 1930. Said the overtures: Shall women be ordained as lay evangelists? elders? ministers?

Carefully Moderator McAfee pointed out that "the overtures are not a yielding to the clamor of the women nor an acceptance of their demand. There is no such clamor, no such demand." Added Feminist Ella Alexander Boole, President of the Women's Christian Temperance Union: "It is not at all probable that many women will seek ordination."

Of 114 U. S. denominations, 44 allow women to be ordained to the ministry. The better known : Christian Scientists, Congregationalists, Pillars of Fire, Friends, Primitive Methodists, Salvation Army, Spiritualists, Unitarians, Universalists.