Missionaries Old-Style

Fundamentalists in the Presbyterian Church stoutly believe that the Virgin Birth, the Inspiration of the Scriptures, the Substitutionary Atonement, the Bodily Resurrection of Our Lord and the Historicity of His Miraculous Life are true, unique, not to be tampered with. Never tired of fighting for their beliefs, they were especially incensed last year when the Presbyterian Board of Foreign Missions failed to repudiate Author Pearl Buck who, as a missionary teacher in China, was decidedly a tamperer. Led by Dr. John Gresham Machen, who five years ago left Princeton Seminary because it was too liberal and helped found Westminster Theological Seminary in Philadelphia, the Fundamentalists took their fight to the Presbyterian General Assembly. They were soundly trounced (TIME, June 5). Very well, said they. They would go home and found a missions board of their own, to get contributions from Fundamentalists and send out Fundamentalist missionaries to preach God's own Fundamentals to black, brown and yellow men in far corners of the earth. In Philadelphia last October they set up the Independent Board for Presbyterian Foreign Missions. And for its general secretary and most active worker they chose no grizzled Presbyterian die-hard but a keen, quick-smiling young missionary named Charles J. Woodbridge.

Princeton students, and especially soccer players, of a decade ago remember Charley Woodbridge well. They remember him carrying trays in Commons as he worked his way through. They remember his antic agility on the soccer field, where he more than held his own in the forward line against much heavier men. He had learned the game from the English at school in China, where he was born in 1901 in a family which counts 14 generations of ministers, back to 1493. They remember that, without being a "greasy-grind," Charley Woodbridge was always near the head of his class in studies and that without ever being a meddlesome "Christer" he was quietly, sincerely, and it seemed merrily, pious.

Charley Woodbridge emerged from Princeton Seminary untouched by its liberalism, studied at Berlin and Marburg, took a pastorate in Flushing, L. I. where he married a missionary's daughter. When he went as missionary to the French Cameroun in 1932 it was to replace a man who had been fatally stung by an insect. Studying the local dialect, Missionary Woodbridge evangelized for six months in the malaria-ridden jungle, then took charge of no evangelists covering

5,000 sq. mi. A firm Bible-believer, he learned to deplore the ways of the official Presbyterian Board, such as when a member on an inspection tour addressed 3,500 naked Cameroun heathens who had never heard of the Gospel, on the subject: "The Power of Personality." When informed of his election as secretary of the upstart Board, Missionary Woodbridge resigned his post, returned in January with his pretty wife and two daughters. With another General Assembly meeting next month, the Fundamentalists last week were tightening their lines for a new battle. And Secretary Woodbridge, with his Independent Board incorporated and installed in a new office, was enthusiastic and confident. How much money was coming in he would not say. But 40 people have volunteered to serve as missionaries in Madagascar, India, China, Korea, Japan, the Sudan. At least four will be sent out in the next few months. Appointed last week were the first two, Rev. & Mrs. Henry W. Coray of Pittston, Pa., who will go to north China. Announcing this from a church pulpit. Secretary Woodbridge cried: "This is a historic occasion! . . . This movement is the vanguard of a Reformation in the Presbyterian Church. . . . We stand four-square on the Word of God."

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