RELIGIOUS WORLD.

Auckland Star, Volume LVII, Issue 13, 16 January 1926, Page 22

RELIGIOUS WORLD.

PRESENT DAY OUTLOOK. (Contributed.) BIRMINGHAM RITUAL CRISIS. BISHOP BARNES AND THE ANGLOCATHOLICS. The eccleßiastirnl trouble in the Diocese of Birmingham, which, according to recent Press cablegrams, has now reached an acute stage, has been developing for some time past. There lias been friction between the Bishop (Dr. Barnes) and the Anglo-Catholic section of his clergy ever since Dr. Barnes' consecration," towards the end of 1924. He is an evangelical modernist. His predecessor (Dr. Russell-Wakefield) was a moderate high churchman. Soon after taking office he made it quite plain that practices which had been permitted by Dr. Wakefield would bo no longer allowed. This sudden change of policy was bound to cause trouble. Dr. Barnes was uncompromising and impactful, anil the Anglo-Catholics are strongly entrenched in the diocese of Birmingham. A clash was inevitable. After eoine preliminary skirmishes a state of open conflict was created by the refusal of the Bishop to license assistant clergy to any parish in which it is customary to reserve the Sacrament in the open church. Reservation is the setting aside of some of the bread and wine consecrated at the Communion service. The purpose of reservation is for the Communion of the sick or for devotional purposes or both. Reservation for the communion of the sick is now generally allowed in the Church of England. The Church Assembly has definitely expressed Its approval, but in doing so it declared that the Reserved Sacrament must not be used for any other purpose. The more advanced section of the AngloCatholic party asks for permission to i use the Reserved Sacrament for adora- j tion as well as for the Communion of the sick. A crisis has now been created by the decision of fourteen Birmingham vicars to disobey the Bishop's instruction that the sacred elements must not be kept in tabernacles for the purpose pi adoration. The Anglo-Catholic Position. The Anglo-Catholics ask: (1) That they be permitted to reserve the Blessed Sacrament in their churches for the Communion of the sick and dying; (2) To be permitted to give Communion from the Reserved Sacrament to persons who for legitimate cause are unable to be present at the ordinary time of service; (3) To be permitted to reserve the Sacrament in such a manner as that it be accessible to the faithful for private prayer.

Presiding at a lecture arranged by the English Church Union and the Anglo-Catholic Congress, the Rev. G. D. Rosenthal said it was not a question any longer of certain ceremonies or whether .certain services or ornaments ■were legal or not in the judgment of a secular court, whose validity Catholics had never been willing to recognise in spiritual matters. It was not even a' question whether reservation was necessary or not, or whether devotions were desirable or not. All those things were merely side-issues to the one great fundamental vital question—the question of doctrine as to whether, after the words of consecration, the bread and wine were simply bread and wine, or whether they were the body and blood of our Lord, and therefore to be adored by all faithful Christians. The practice of reservation and devotions had been plainly attacked on the ground that the doctrine underlying them was erroneous. That was the doctrine for which they stood. He did not believe there was one of them who would be willing to move one single inch or to give up one single shred of what they believed of the central doctrine that on their altars was enshrined, that great mystery of Divine love which was called Immanuel. ■» The Bishop's Attitude. The Bishop of Birmingham, in a letter to his clergy, states: — "Correspondence in the Press has drawn public attention to the fact that a service known a3 'Devotions' before the consecrated bread and wine of the Holy Communion is held in certain churches in the diocese of Birmingham. The service of 'Devotions' cannot be carried out unless the consecrated bread and wine are publicly placed in what Roman Catholics tall a tabernacle or pyx in the church. The registrar of the diocese informs mc that no faculties for such illegal receptacles a3 tabernacles and pyxes have been granted. As to the action of my predecessor in 1917, it is unnecessary to inquire. The war was then proceeding. There was confusion in every department of national life, and there is no reason to think that the Church of Birmingham escaped the tendency to disorder. But since then progress towards orderly reform in the Church of England has been marked. The Enabling Act has been passed. The Church has now its representative Church Assembly. That Assembly has proceeded far with the work of Prayer-book revision. We know the decisions of the House of Clergy and the House of Laity. Neither is prepared to allow public reservation of the consecrated elements of the Holy munion or services which imply some doctrine akin to Transubstantiation. All that the House of Laity was prepared to agree to is contained in the following motion, passed in June last: "That, while this House believes that the great majority of the laity are satisfied with the present service of Holy Communion, the House will, nevertheless, agree to the insertion by the Bishops in the Prayer-book of one alternative form containing provision for Vestments and Reservation for the sick only, if in their opinion this will promote peace and order in the Church.' The service of .Devotions' is illegal, and will continue to be illegal when the Prayer-book is revised It is based on erroneous doctrine. ™,1 ,S° P ' haVe P romis «l to banish and drive away erroneous and strange doctrine: It is my duty to establish law and order m the diocese. I must, there fore, ask that illegal services sue as Benediction, Exposition, Devotions Procession of the Host, etc., shall cea c, and that no consecrated bread and wine shall be kept in receptacles pl aced in those par s of our churches to which the public are admitted." Ue THE PERSECUT_D~RTJSSIAN CHURCH. A cablegram published in the "Star" a few days ago shows that the Soviet has renewed its attack on the Russian Church. The Soviet has set up an organisation of its own called the "Living Church" for the purpose of undermining the influence of the historic Russian Orthodox Church. The Patriarch Krupitzki, three bishops, and fifty priests, have been arrested for refusing to recognise the sham Soviet "Living __- Church." The Soviet is making war Wk pot only on the Russian Church, but on 1

Christianity. It is a war against religion in all forms. In a recent decree the Soviet gives instructions that all religious books must be removed from the libraries. The Soviet bans all books written in the spirit of idealistic philosophy p books on religious education, church schools, etc.; scientific books that speak of the wisdom of the Creator; and books containing praise of the Church.

Events are trending towards the abolition of the Russian Patriarchate. The disappearance of the Patriarchate would probably give rise to a fundamental change in the organisation of the OrthOr dox Church in Europe, perhaps even to° the election of an independent head for the whole of the Orthodox Church beyond the Russian frontiers, preserving, a3 far as possible, the canonical order of succession from the late Patriarch Tikhon. The Bolshevist Policy. Baron Meyendorff delivered a very interesting lecture at King's College, London, recently, on "The Church in Soviet Russia." He explained the doctrine of the Bolshevists, which was that admission of the possible interference of Divine power weakened energy for self-help and that it was not by prayer that enemies might be suppressed. Soviet historians tried to find in the Church purely economic or mixed economic and political motives, and held that if those motives existed in the ecclesiastical organisations they were hostile to the new power. The Bolshevist policy had in it nothing of blind individual fanaticism; it was rather a system logically applied, and condemned any kind of religious teaching. Churches for public service, however, continued in existonce, and their congregations tended

rapidly to increase., rather than to decrease. The poor communities seemed to experience signs of revival, which the State regarded as a manifestation of hostile moral authority. Steps were taken to stop the revival, and the death penalty was introduced. The official Government survey records showed that within a period of less than two years 1273 bishops and 6775 other persons had suffered death for their faith. The Bolshevist aim was, in short, to put youth out of all contact with religious influence. Such influence and teaching remained possible only in the home. CURRENT NOTES. Christ Church, Philadelphia, has a series of windows portraying scenes in church history. Recently another has been added representing Magna Charta. A Canon recognising and regulating the Order of Deaconesses was passed by Synod of the Scottish Episcopal Church shorn of a number of the Lambeth points. The refusal to regard the Order of Deaconesses as a lifelong office was emphatic, and there was a studied determination not to allow the deaconess to appear as "a female deacon."

In her Tecently published "Reminiscences of a Students' Life," Miss Jane Ellen Harrison tells soma delightful stories about the "lions" who came across her path. There once was one of them on a yacht. "He was oldish and had a deck cabin. I happened to look in in passing. On the table lay a Bible, on the Bible a tooth brush. Cleanliness was 'next to godliness.' Oh, England— my England."

The Scottish Episcopal Church has adopted a proposal permitting representatives of non-episcopal churches to address a congregation in church, but only when the College of Bishops sanctioned such a proceeding. The purpose of this resolution was to ensure agreement on the part of all the bishops, and to prevent individual action on the part of diocesan bishops.

Dr. J. R. Mott, chairman of the World's Student Christian Federation, who is to visit Australia and New Zealand in 1926, is due to reach Brisbane on March 18. He wjll visit the various cities, and give several addresses to students at the University, as well as addressing gatherings of ministers, laymen, V.M.C.A. members and others. On April 6 he will leave Sydney for New Zealand, and after a tour of the Dominion, will return to America.

In a recently published book, "Science, Religion and Reality," Dr. William Brown, an eminent psychologist, answers the attempts of those who would explain away concepts of religion by ideas borrowed from pathological psychology. He points out that with himself the result of psycho-analysis had the effect not of explaining away his religious complexes, but of purifying themi so that "I have become more convinced than ever that religion is the most important thing in life, and that it is essential to mental health."

At the Anglican Life and Liberty Conference held in London recently, Sir Harry Verney declared that the Christian should show his religion in dancing, music and sport. That is as true of the mission field as it is of England. When the convert is told that he can only show his religion by avoiding dancing, music and sport —when, that is to say, he is taught a travesty of the Catholic Faith—he will not unnaturally prefer a more human and a more attractive religion.—Church "Times."

In a book entitled "Among the Papuan Headhunters," Mr. E- B - Riley tjells a good story about some natives of Goaribari Island, where the Rev. James Chalmers had been murdered some years before. They were to be signed on for plantation work and were sent by the recruiter to Mr. Riley's church on Sunday morning. Soon after the service had begun there was a stampede, some of the islanders rushing panic-striken through the doors, others leaping through the windows. They had recognised a large photograph of Chalmers ■hanging in the church and imagined that it was his spirit returned.

The King has approved the appointment of the Rev. Lionel Ford, M.A., Headmaster of Harrow, to the Deanery of York, vacant by the appointment of the Very Rev. William Foxley Norris, M.A., D.D.. to the Deanery of Westminster. Mr. Ford is sixty years of age, and is the youngest but one of seven famous brothers who in twenty years helped to make Repton famous for cricket and scholarship. Lionel Ford was head of the school and captain of cricket. He went from Repton to King's College, Cambridge, where he was captain of College cricket in 1887, in which year he took a first in the Classical Tripos. Five of his brothers proceeded to Cambridge, where three won their cricket Blues and two obtained firsts. Mr. Ford was ordained in 1893, and eight years later was appointed, at the age of thirtysix, headmaster of Repton, where he found among his staff several who had been masters when he himself was a boy in the school. His appointment to Harrow follow- \ ,S WIO.