BEAUTY IN WORSHIP.

Ashburton Guardian, Volume 48, Issue 81, 16 January 1928, Page 8

BEAUTY IN WORSHIP.

i: I believe that the effect of beauty on the worshipper is enormous and immensely under-estimated and underin England» declared Sir Henry Hadow, V ice-Chancellor of Sheffield University, at the Manchester Diocesan Conference. He added: "Why should not we discard . bad decorations in churches and substitute some perfectly simple form of appeal to the eye? Ido not see why in our churches there should not be banks or flowers. How many of our English churches, which are beautiful, are spoiled by bad stained glass? There are two cathedrals winch have stained glass windows which almost make you cry with pain. He had heard it said that the one pleasure that never palled was the pleasure of not going to church It a. visitor from another planet attended one of our services, he believed his impression would be that we wanted to set'out a-s won as possible. We were Sot nearly careful enough in the choice of our hymn music. Some ol the tunes in the hymn-book were tawdry, miserable and sentimental. The most beautiful services in. this country were often in village churches, where there was someone who knew how to choose the m The Dean of Manchester confessed that he loved the smell of incense and the perfumes of flowers in church 1 have seen a church transformed," he said, "merely by taking out a mass ot pews " The Rural Dean of Heatoii said that very rarely could anyone go to the cinema without seeing something that was really beautiful. People had become accustomed by the wirefa* to the most beautiful music and to hearing the Bible read most beautifully from the wireless stations. Why could we not do it in the same way in parish churches?. ________