NEW PRAYER BOOK.

Ashburton Guardian, Volume 48, Issue 159, 17 April 1928, Page 5

NEW PRAYER BOOK.

ADDRESS BY REV. H. ELLIOTT.

An address was given in St. Andrew’s Hall last evening by the Rev. Howard Elliott on “The Revised Prayer Book and Protestantism. The Rev. G. A. Irvine presided over a good attendance. Thefe were also present the Rev. W. Marshall, G. Verco, and C. S. Matthews. Mr Elliott said that crises arose in the history of nations and organisations beginning with small and sometimes remote movements thftt worked up until a crisis was precipitated. Such a crisis had arisen in the Church of England, and because -that Church was the national and established Church of England, and bec-ailse its prelates and functionaries occupied positions of particular privilege, and the Church itself exercised an influence of great strength and extent, the crisis i which had arisen affected all sections of the public of the Empire, and particularly the Protestant Churches. Continuing, the Speaker said there was a section in the Church of England, which was being false to the ordinance vows, and disloyal. to the doctrinal standards of the Church as by law established, and they were seeking to drag the Church from its great Protestant testimony and heritage to alliance with Roman Catholicism. The crisis had arisen in connection with the proposed revision of the Prayer Book, and the demands made were that in addition to the modernising of the language of the Prayer Book services, alternative or permissive services should be provided, the alternative or permissive- services being of such a character as to he indistinguishable from Romanism. Should the revision of the Prayer Book be approved by the House of Commons in the next few weeks, the effect would be to give' State recognition and establishment to Roman doctrines against which our forefathers in England and Scotland revolted, driving King Charles from the throne and beheading Archbishop Laud, who attempted to impose on England and Scotland a Prayer Book, similar in all respects to that now sought to be forced on the Church of England. Protestants in the Church of England and in every other church were concerned, lest the work of the Reformation be destroyed. The speaker produced a copy of the National Covenant of Scotland, and appealed to those who remembered the remarkable struggles of the past to uphold those principles which haa established the Empire, and made it honoured- and respected before the whole world. At the conclusion of his address Mr Elliott was accorded a vote of thanks.