Religion: Personal Work

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Buchmanism. Educators recognized at once that the Waterbury Student Mission was a manifestation of a sect that has rooted itself spasmodically in U. S. colleges —Buchmanism. Mr. Frank N. D. Buchman was not at Waterbury, but was represented by Samuel Shoemaker, zealous disciple. Mr. Buchman is smooth, with a long intelligent nose, a hungry eye. He is to be seen from time to time traveling first class on the principal transatlantic liners. When at New Haven, or Princeton, or Cambridge, Mass., or Cambridge, Eng., he is persona grata among a group of serious-minded young men distinguished by their piety and their wealth. Like young Buchmanites, Mr. Buchman is a bachelor, though past 40. In what does his influence over them reside?

Briefly, the Buchman cult is distinguished from other forms of personal evangelism by its preoccupation with "washing out" from its members, by mutual confession, the strain of autoerotism.

The Buchman handbook, Soul Surgery, keynotes the slogan, "Woo, Win, Warn." There, personal workers read:

"Take nothing for granted. No matter how respectable a man may seem, be he clergyman or vestryman or Y. M. C. A. secretary, he may still stand in need of your moral surgery. . . .

"First, learn what is wrong with your prospective convert—either from gossip or local suspicion. There is some sin which is obstructing his free communion with God. Accuse him of the sin of which you suspect him. Then by confessing to him (man to man) your own former weaknesses you will elicit a full confession from him. . . . This is often the kind of drastic, spiritual operation which alone can prevent a superficial repentance and unreal conversion. In New York City, last winter, a university student leader came to talk with Mr. Buchman about entering the Christian ministry. . . . Mr. Buchman answered his questions on the ministry to the best of his ability, but still the man seemed unsatisfied. They had finished dinner with little accomplished, and Mr. Buchman then invited him to his room for further conversation. In time the student opened up a little more, and said: 'I'll tell you why I couldn't enter the ministry. I want my own way too much.' 'Isn't there anything else?' Mr. Buchman asked, and the student said: 'No.' Then Mr. Buchman was 'told what he should speak,'* as suspicion became conviction; and leaning forward he said earnestly to the man: 'Isn't your trouble . . . ?' The barrier of pride crumbled away, the man burst into tears, and a new beginning was made on a sure foundation, which transformed the young man into a genuine personal worker and decided finally his problems concerning the ministry."

A futher manifestation of Buchmanism is the "Buchman house party," a week-end gathering of young people of both sexes in the home of some wealthy convert at which strenuous efforts are made to "wash out" all present.