OXFORD GROUP MEET

Poverty Bay Herald, Volume LX, Issue 18194, 15 September 1933, Page 9

OXFORD GROUP MEET

INTERNATIONAL “HOUSE PARTY” -1000 PERSONS ATTEND LONDON, July 22. The international Oxford Group “house party” held not long ago at Oxford, England, which was attended by representatives of almost every nationality and every shade of religious tradition, aroused a deep spiritual enthusiasm in the old centre of learning. A striking contrast tu the stormy beginning of the movement at the university 1.2 years ago is pictured by the New York Times correspondent.

When Dr. Frank Buchinaii first starl cd the meetings at Oxford in 1981, “Buchnianism” was regarded suspiciously or with open hostility by university officials and the public, generally. Respectable church people were chary of identifying themselves with “stunt'' religion, and Buchmanitc meetings, with their public confessions of sin, were bitterly criticised and ridiculed Now, the Buchman movement is back in Oxford, blessed by the church and university authorities and attended by 4COO to 5000 men and women of all ages, many nationalities and nearly all denominations.

The Metropolitan of India, the 11 bishops and the 10CO ministers of various denominations in the movement demonstrate the hold Buchmanism lias obtained on the church. The head of one Oxford college, the chaplains and the hundreds of undergraduates included show Imw the university’s attitude has changed. PROFESRION S REPR ESENTE O The professions are represented by 40 doctors and about the same number of teachers, and lawyers. Six Oxford colleges and a hotel are needed to accommodate the guests at the house party, while the university students are having a vacation. Many of those here have suffered various misfortunes or made mistakes of one kind or another, and yet have been willing to speak quite openly o! them. One of the many effects of the movement has been to restore selfrespect. National, social or religious jealousies appear not to exist at the house party. At one meeting the speakers included a Roman Catholic, an Anglo-Catholic, a Jewisfi woman, a former suffragist leader and an unemployed miner. At another French speakers said they felt quite as friendly toward Germans as toward their fellow countrymen.

The Oxford Mail reports “this year’s gathering is the largest the movement has held in this country. From the ends of the earth they have come to bring home to Britain the greatest religious revival of the, century.” Many at the meetings are. worldfamous figures, including Prof. Fnul Bruner, of Zurich, Dr. Adolf Keller from Geneva, Vice-Admiral Sidney Drury-Lowe, Professor and Mrs. Philip Marshall Brown, of Princeton University, Carl Brooman, formerly assistantScerctaiy of Agriculture in the United States; Lord Noel Buxton, Lord Rochester, the British Paymaster-General; C- F. Andrews. Mahatma Gandhi's biographer and disciple; Count John Hentinek of Holland, and Baron Franckcustom, the Austiian Minister to Britain.