Baby Lama

Down through the snow-swept passes of Tibet last week drifted reports that yellow-hatted-monks had picked the 14th Dalai Lama, reincarnation of Buddha and successor to the late Ngag-Wang Lobsang Thubden Gya-Tsho, temporal ruler of 3,000,000 Tibetans (TIME, Jan. 1). After weighty examination of sacred books and relics, astrological signs and portents, the monks had come upon a babe in the outskirts of Lhasa, who had been born the night the old Dalai Lama died. The infant into whose body the spirit of the Dalai Lama had supposedly passed was to be left with his parents until he could toddle. After that the monks would take him into Lhasa, educate him to take office at the age of 18. Meanwhile a regency will be administered by the abbots of the great monasteries of Galdan. Sera and Debung. Still shrouded in Tibetan obscurity was the political cast of the new regime.

Meanwhile in China the Panchen Lama, spiritual ruler of Tibet who was ousted in 1924, planned to go to Nanking this week for the meeting of the Kuomintang party and discuss possibilities of getting back his old post.

Closed Cloister

In 1725 a pious German named Johann Conrad Beissel emigrated to Pennsylvania, gathered about him a small sect called Seventh Day Baptists. At Ephrata, near Lancaster, Pa., he built a big three-story cloister which he named "The Sharon." Into this cloister with his male & female followers he retired to pursue the spiritual ideal of the "Woman of the Wilderness." Changing his name to Father Friedsam "The Peaceful," Beissel was the first prior of the Ephrata Community.* He was followed by big Peter Miller, called "Jabez." The community grew to 300. After the Battle of Brandywine nearby, 500 wounded Continentals were nursed in the cloister by white-robed Ephrata nuns. As the years passed the community began to dwindle. In 1900 there were only 17 members, in 1920 none. "The Sharon" became a dilapidated catch-all for antiques, including a communion service presented by George Washington. Two groups of self-appointed trustees fought over pos session of the old shrine, took their squabble into court. The State of Pennsylvania, which plans some day to make a park of Ephrata, argued for ousting the trustees on the ground that assets have been mismanaged and the Ephrata charter (1814) had been violated by the suspension of religious services. Last week a county court approved the ouster, put "The Sharon" into the hands of a receiver whom the local citizenry heartily approved. He was Dr. John F. Mentzer, a 71-year-old country doctor who during the past 50 years ministered without charge to Seventh Day Baptists.

*Of the many such organizations which sprang up during the 18th and 19th Centuries the most famed were the Oneida and Shaker com munities (New York), New Harmony (Indiana), Amana (Iowa).

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