AUTHORESS AS MISSIONARY

New Zealand Herald, Volume LXX, Issue 21520, 17 June 1933, Page 9 (Supplement)

AUTHORESS AS MISSIONARY

PEARL S. BUCK RESIGNS Mrs. Pearl S. Buck, the missionaryauthoress whose novel " Good Earth'" ranks not only as a " best seller," but as a classic among novels descriptive of China, has cleared a delicate situation for the United States Presbyterian Board of Missions by resigning her appointment as a missionary of that church. Speaking at a public gathering in America on tho eve of her return to China, Mrs. Buck aroused consternation in the ranks of the fundamentalists of her ohurch by declaring that the doctrine that heathen races were damned unless they heard the gospel was a " magic religion." She also declared that even were Christ proved to bo a myth she would accept Christianity and, further, sho criticised tho type of missionaries sent to China. Mrs. Buck's chief critic, Dr. J. Gresham Machon, tho leader of the fundamentalist group, demanded that she be tried on charges of heresy and threatened to carry the issue to the individual members of the church. Ho was opposed by other leaders of the church. A spokesman for the Mission Board says Mrs. Buck will continue to act as a member of the Presbyterian Church