Religion: Norway Ablaze

As the famed, sharp-eyed founder of the Oxford Groups (“Buchmanites”) practically admits in his speeches, the guidance of God often comes to him in the form of choppy, telegraphic memoranda. In Oslo last March Dr. Frank Nathan Daniel Buchman declared: “Before I landed in Norway it came constantly in my Quiet Times:

“Norway Ablaze for Christ.” This week at a meeting at Manhattan’s Hotel Plaza, Group members returning from abroad were to tell how they had set ablaze not only Norway but also Denmark. It began in Geneva in 1933, when a Group team met, lunched and “changed” the Hon. Carl J. Hambro, a Speaker of the Norwegian Storting (Parliament), leader of its Conservative Party. At Speaker Hambro’s suggestion a team of 35 “life-changers” arrived in Norway last October, among them well-beloved Bishop Logan Herbert Roots of Hankow, spending a year of Group travel by special permission of the U. S. Episcopal House of Bishops. By the time it reached Copenhagen last Easter, the team had grown to 250, including the Bishop of Finland and many a Scandinavian socialite. The combined weight of big names, the Groups’ persuasive message and a good Press left Bergen, Olso and many a smaller town breathless. Said Tidens Tegn: “The mental outlook of the whole country has definitely changed.”