A PRISON ALTAR.

Press, Volume LXVIII, Issue 20523, 16 April 1932, Page 11

A PRISON ALTAR.

TO IHE UDITOR OP THE PRESS.. Sir, —Your correspondent, '"Tipapa," makes a curious error in attributing the destructon of altars in 1550 to 'Henry VOL. for Henry had then been dead nearly three years, his son Edward succeeding to the throne on January 28th. 1547. In 1548 the "Order of Communion" in English was appended to the Latin Mass, and in 1549 the whole service appears in the First English Prayer Hook under the name of the "Supper of the Lorde, and the Holy Communion, commonly railed the Masse." In this hook the word altar is used, and the Mass vestments ordered. In 1550 Kidley, Bishop of London, •ordered his clergy to remove the altars and substitute wooden tables,. as n :is done at St. Paul's on June lltli. On November 24th the Council of the Regency issued letters to all the bishops ordering them to have all altars in their dioceses removed. Bishop Day, of Chichester, was imprisoned for refusing, hut the existing altars were covered by the Prayer Book, which had received the authority of Parliament; even the most strenuous supporter of the Crown would hardly maintain that ti Royal letter was superior to an Act of Parliament. The Third Prayer Book, published in 1559, was a compromise between the hooks of 1549 and 1.552, but in it was included »tlie famous "Ornaments Rubric," which orders the retention and use of all ornaments, both of Church and ministers, which were in authorised use in the second year of Edward's reign, i.e.. January 28th, 1545-49. The 1549 Book came into use on Whitsunday, 1549, so that the Ornaments Rubric carries us hack to t.he days of the Latin Mass, and is our highest authority for altars, vestments, incense, holy water, organs, pews, etc. That Rubric still appears in our present Prayer Book before the service of Morning Prayer.—Yours, etc., ANOTHER ANGLICAN. April loth, 1932.