The Birmingham age-herald., 1920-12-18

Highlands Methodist church. I Ainsworth had the greatest honor con ferred upon him that is within the gift of Methodism, while his breadth of view and his freedom from all the nar- | rowing influences of clericalism have placed him outside of the circle of of l ficial success and made him an inter national figure.
 1 If you have sat beneath the spell of Bishop Ainsworth's personality when | he is in the pulpit, as I have, I feel sure that you have been impressed by
 his marvellous exposition of thought and the magnetic manner in which his thoughts are delivered.
 Bishop Ainsworth seems to come into
 the pulpit under the compulsion of a sudden flash of lightning that has il- | luminated the whole landscape of his i life; he is exalted with this vision desolated with that-his mind is a harp
 upon which the winds of Heaven seem
 to blow an alternate dirge and song. 1 have heard the great English minis 1 ter, Dr. Jowett, utter his messages with gracious tenderness of spirit; I have seen pr. Campbell Morgan hold
 vast congregation by a dramatic real i ization of simple gospel story, and
 l have heard Bishop Ainsworth deliver
 his message with that meteoric flash of i genius which searches the heart of men with a terrible power, but always I with healing touch--never with a 1 wounding touch--lays bare the secrets ] Of the soul, but you do not shudder at | the revelation--hard1y are you ashamed 1 only it seems that the secret has
 vanished and that you are whole! l This influence is largely due per
 haps to his own mood which makes him apparently forgetful of his audi
 ence as he sounds the depths of his
 own heart in some still sanctuary of
 the recluse; and the mood is unchang
 ing-it is the mood of one who has
 passed through the deep waters" and
 has come to a secure haveni
 Whenever I hear Bishop Ainsworth, I i think of those great lines of Whitman:
 No array of terms can say how 1 much l am al peace.
 | About God and about Death" l Bishop Ainsworth is not only dis tinguished for hiss piety. his deep ec- l clesiastical learning and eloquence in the pulpit but for his thorough and intimate knowledge of the affairs of 1 the world, of politics, of governments.
 
 the secular interests of business Con- sequently, when his broad, analytical mind speaks, his words bear vast inn portance.
 ' I asked him yesterday to express his views regarding conditions now ob- 1 taining in church and state--and whether, after all, the world is worse, as the pessimists are wont to declare or better than of yore--and with his l delightful spirit of optimism, the bishop l said:
 1 T think the Church of God Is facing ! the greatest day in our Christian his 1 tory. Some people who share the de-, pression of the times have said Chris .tianity has failed because of the chaotic conditions of the world after twenty centuries of Christian effort, but they are mistaken.
 There always have been people who like to prophecy collapse" the bishop continued. T was reared on the col lapse of the democratic party; collapse i seemed absolutely certain until Grover Cleveland came along and saved the day. Again. collapse was imminent, and Woodrow Wilson saved the sit- uation so that the democratic party is still intact despite the predictions of the pessimists.
 Il remember when I was boy I l used to have many delightful chats with my grandfather" Bishop Aims worth reminisced, but he was con- stantly deploring the waning of piety and the general degeneracy of the times. His grandfather in turn, 1t seems, was constantly deploring the same conditions; it becomes a habit an inheritance, it would seem. The professor of archaeology of Yale said recently: The oldest truth that has ever been upturned in Egypt which