24 JUNE 1938, Page 6

The Oxford Group has been celebrating Dr. Buchman's sixtieth birthday

with characteristic vigour. Among the celebrations I have noticed have been a function given by the Mayor and Mayoress of West Ham (or was it Poplar ?), a West End dinner with a message from the Archbishop of Canterbury, a dinner at the House of Commons, with messages from the Finnish Foreign Minister and others, and there may well have been others which in spite of the activity of the Oxford Group Press Front I have somehow over- looked. All the same I hope a new fashion in birthday festivities is not going to be set. Seventy is commonly regarded as the first milestone calling for special note, and even that in these days of longevity is getting displaced by eighty. On the whole it is better so. To begin too soon means having no heights left to climb.

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