"THE MAN FOSDICK AND THE RIVERSIDE IDEA": A COMPLETE AUTOGRAPH MANUSCRIPT PENNED in INK by JOHN HYDE PRESTON about the American Pastor HARRY EMERSON FOSDICK. Together with a TYPED LETTER SIGNED by FOSDICK and several pages of the subsequent typed manuscript with autograph annotations and corrections by Fosdick.

Riverside, Connecticut, 1929., 1929.. Very good. - Quarto, 32 pages, each 11 inches high by 8-1/2 inches wide. These pages comprise the complete heavily corrected manuscript of an article by John Hyde Preston. The work concerns the American pastor Harry Emerson Fosdick. The manuscript is signed in full "John Hyde Preston" and dated "March 6 - 28, 1929" in New York City. Included are an additional 10 single-sided typed pages consisting of pages 1 through 4, a single page numbered "4-10" and another numbered "5-11", page 11, and pages 21 through 23. Fosdick has penciled in numerous corrections and suggestions on pages 2 ("Please make this struggling sentence behave!"), 3 (Dr. Fosdick was "faced with the dilemma: Subscribe to the Westminster Confession or leave the pulpit. He left." The pages numbered "4-10" and those numbered "11", "21", "22", and "23" are heavily edited by Fosdick. The 32 handwritten pages of Preston's original version, with corrections throughout, was an even more devoted and passionate draft.

Preceding the manuscript is a letter signed by Harry Emerson Fosdick consisting of 300 words typed on his "Park Avenue Baptist Church" stationery dated April 24, 1929. Having received the manuscript, Fosdick writes that "Of course, it is embarrassing to a modern man to read an article like this about himself. You are an artist yourself and you have made me in your own image...." He goes on: "I have taken the liberty of marking up your manuscript with great freedom, supposing that is what you wanted me to do...." Signed in full "Harry Emerson Fosdick".

All of the pages are in generally very good condition except for page 22 of the typed draft which has substantial staining with damage to the brittle bottom edge of the sheet not affecting the text.

A broadside card of a hymn by Harry Emerson Fosdick, which has been published in 143 hymnals over the years, is also included. The 7 inch high by 3-1/2 inch wide broadside, published circa 1930, is printed on card stock. The hymn in 5 stanzas to be sung to the tune "CWM RHONDDA" composed in 1907 by the Welsh composer John Hughes, begins: "God of grace and God of glory, / On thy people pour thy power; / Crown thine ancient church's story; / Bring her bud to glorious flower. / Grant us wisdom, Grant us courage, / For the facing of this hour....". There is a crease to the card's bottom corner.

Also included is a typed letter to John Hyde Preston signed by an editor at World's Work, a Doubleday, Doran and Company publication, dated April 23, 1929. The letter mentions the "Fosdick article" for which he will receive a check in payment. A version of Preston's article was published in the November 1929 issue of "World's Work".

A central figure in the "Fundamentalist-Modernist Controversy" which took place within American Protestantism in the 1920's and 30s, Harry Emerson Fosdick (1878-1969) was one of the most prominent liberal ministers of the period. Although a Baptist, he served as pastor of the First Presbyterian Church in Manhattan's West Village and subsequently as pastor of the inter-denominational Riverside Church in Morningside Heights. Fosdick viewed the Bible, not as the literal word of God but as a record of the unfolding of God's will. Investigated by the General Assembly of the Old Presbyterian Church, Fosdick avoided censure by resigning from New York's First Presbyterian Church to become pastor of the Park Avenue Baptist Church. An avid opponent of racism and injustice Fosdick was instrumental in persuading Ruby Gates to testify for the defense in the 1933 retrial of the Scottsboro Boys, the nine black youths who were tried before all-white juries for allegedly raping 2 white women (Ruby Bates and Victoria Price). Martin Luther King, Jr. regarded Fosdick as "the greatest preacher of this century" and frequently drew on passages and themes from Fosdick's sermons. In his 1958 memoir "Stride Toward Freedom", King's inscription for Fosdick reads: "If I were called upon to select the foremost prophets of our generation, I would choose you to head the list."