St. George's Episcopal Church, in down-at-heels Stuyvesant Square, Manhattan, has its traditions. One is beet-nosed J. P. Morgan the elder, who for 28 years, as senior warden, loomed up & down its aisles with the collection plate, left it a $500,000 endowment in his will. Another is social service work, eloquently represented in such liberals as Dr. Karl Reiland and its present pastor, Elmore McNeill McKee. Another is its 72-year-old barytone soloist, Harry Thacker Burleigh, a Negro.
Last Sunday St. George's honored its most distinguished chorister with a special service of Negro spirituals. Headliner on the program was Harry Burleigh himself. Most...