Religion: Thrice Bishop

No Caesar thrice offered emperor’s wreath, no Macbeth thrice foredoomed to kingship ever proved so obdurate against election as has Dr. Horace Percy Silver, thrice designated bishop in the Protestant Episcopal Church and thrice scornful of the honor. Dr. Silver is rector of the Church of the Incarnation, Manhattan. He is not to be confused with Jesse Forrest Silver, Free Methodist clergyman of Los Angeles, or with Abba Hillel Silver, Cleveland rabbi.

Dr. Horace Percy Silver, in 1912, was nominated bishop coadjutor of Kansas for his powerful pastorates at Omaha and Lincoln, Neb., and his missionary work in the southwest. But because he was divorced, only 48 of the 98 Protestant Episcopal bishops voted for him to join their body. He withdrew his candidacy.

Later sufficient bishops considered him worthy and elected him a second time, in this instance to be bishop coadjutor of Texas. He refused the elevation.

Last week he had opportunity to reject a bishopric a third time. The House of Bishops had elected him missionary bishop of Wyoming. For three weeks he pondered. Then last week when Bishop John Gardner Murray of Maryland, Presiding Bishop, went to Manhattan from the Church Congress in San Francisco, Dr. Silver sent him a letter. It read: “The action of the bishops of the Church in selecting me for the post of bishop of the Missionary District of Wyoming has received serious and prayerful consideration. It has, I confess, brought back to me many happy and sacred memories of the nearly 20 years during which I was permitted to live and work among the people of the West, for whom I have a deep affection, and among whom I number many of my dearest friends. . . . While I feel all this very deeply, and while I appreciate the expression of confidence and esteem on the part of the bishops of the Church, yet I am convinced that I can far better serve the Church where I now am, and therefore, my dear Bishop, I believe it to be my duty to decline the election.”

Bishop Murray, aged 69, careworn, has been trying, as his church paper Living Church states, “to visit all parts of the country that people might see him, not as an individual, but as the executive head of the Church in whom they might realize the unity of the Church.” Of Dr. Silver’s contumacy he had nothing immediate to say.