Miss Lula Higgins of Asheville Trained African Native Who Became Episcopal Bishop Yesterday, 1921

Asheville Woman Trained Bishop. . . Product of African Jungle Elected to Highest Office in Episcopal Church

New York, June 22—From African tribesman to Bishop of the Protestant Episcopal church is the remarkable record of Rev. Theophilus Momolu Gardiner, D.D., who will be consecrated Bishop Suffragan of Liberia in the Church of the Incarnation, New York, on June 23.

An interesting feature to North Carolinians is the fact that Miss Lula Higgins of Asheville was formerly a teacher at St. John’s School, Cape Mount, Liberia, and that it was under her instructions that Dr. Gardiner began his climb to fame.

Dr. Gardiner’s election to the Episcopate is one of the romances of the domestic and foreign missionary society of the Protestant Episcopal church in the United States, and by a curious coincidence it comes in the year of the centenarian(?) anniversary of the organization of the society. He was born about 50 years ago in the Vey Tribe of Liberia. As a babe, he was carried about the jungle in his mother’s arms, and lived the primitive life of his people. At the age of 10 he came under the notice of the missionaries at St. John’s Mission at Cape Mount, Liberia, who taught him his letters. That was in the early eighties. By 1890 he had learned to read and write, whereupon, to escape the influence of relatives who adhered to paganism, he was removed to Cape Palmas, where his education was continued.

By successive stages he served as catechist and teacher at Ghedibo, an interior station, and at Camp Palmas, and as one of the faculty of Cuttington Collegiate and Divinity School being subsequently made a deacon and then advanced, in 1906, to the priesthood and put in charge of Mr. Vaughn chapel, the historic station of the mission, when he was transferred to St. James Church, Hoffman. He was elected Suffragan Bishop early this year; and thus happens that, in the heart of New York city, Thursday morning, this native of the African wilds will be made a Bishop of the church and commissioned to go back to Africa and preach Christianity among his native tribesmen who are strong in the Mohammadan faith. Church men regard the elevation of this child of the jungle to Episcopal honors as one of the most significant exhibits of the importance of the Missionary movement in this anniversary year of the Episcopal Missionary society.

Dr. Gardiner will be consecrated by the venerable Bishop Daniel Sylvester Tuttle, presiding bishop of the church, 84 years old, who for 54 years has been engaged in the mission field, 20 years of which were spent in the Rocky Mountain section of the United states in the days before the railroads penetrated that region. He will be assisted by Bishops Manning of New York and Matthews of New Jersey, and by Bishop Overs of Liberia, who has just been made a member of the Educational Commission of that State by the President of Liberia. Another participant will be the Rev. F.W. Elligor, rector of All Saints Church, Willilamsbridge, N.Y., who was a schoolmate of Dr. Gardiner at St. John’s School, Cape Mount, Liberia, in the early days.

From the front page of The Dunn Dispatch, June 24, 1921