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In 1922 the "Men of Malvern" (Laymen's Weekend Retreat League) purchased a 106-acre estate for $60,000 from Philadelphia's rich Coxe family, now have a fulltime retreat master, Rev. Dr. James W. Gibbons, who conducts 45 sessions a year. President of the League is John J. Sullivan, austere heir to a traction fortune, vice president of Philadelphia's Market Street National Bank and professor of business law at the University of Pennsylvania. Malvern has a mailing list of 6,000 men who have made at least one retreat there. Total attendance last year was 4,132. The secular spadework of organizing the gatherings is divided up among retreat captains, chairman of whom is wiry young William ("Bill") Lennox, business manager of athletics at Penn. Worked up to a great state of pious enthusiasm by Chairman Lennox, Retreat Captain Tom O'Connor, master boilermaker at the Philadelphia Navy Yard, mustered this summer's largest group of retreatants, 135 boilermakers, riveters, mechanics who spent last Independence Day weekend at Malvern. Scheduled for this week is Malvern's first retreat for young boys, to be followed by a midweek retreat for physicians & surgeons. Old retreatants and new keep abreast of Malvern doings by reading the Malvern Mustard Seed, founded by Logan Bullitt, dress-shop owner and cousin of William Christian Bullitt, U. S. Ambassador to the U. S. S. R., and of Episcopalian Archdeacon James Fry Bullitt of the Pennsylvania diocese.
Last week's Malvern retreatants were policemen, firemen and others unable to get off weekends. They, too, spent most of their time in silence, save during religious observances, meals, conversations with those in charge of the retreat. Their day began with a rising bell at 7 a. m. A prefect awakened each with "Let us bless the Lord," to which the correct reply was: "And give thanks to God." Followed Angelus, meditation, Mass, prayers and breakfast. At this and other meals, excellently cooked and served by nine buxom German nuns, a meditation reader read briefly. When he exclaimed "Prosit!" general conversation was in order.
After the hour or so of free time which follows every Malvern meal, the day continued with more meditation, individual conferences, the Stations of the Cross, spiritual reading, prayers, beads, confession, finally Benediction of the Blessed Sacrament. Spiritual climax of the retreat came the second night, when each retreatant was permitted 15 minutes of private Adoration of the Sacrament. To a Catholic, the ineffable privilege of kneeling alone near the Consecrated Host— usually impossible in a crowded city church—is equivalent to kneeling alone close to God. Men of Malvern, prizing the still hours of early morning, last week drew lots for their turns to enter the chapel, emerge exalted and spiritually cleansed.