CHURCH CONGRESS

Evening Post, Volume CII, Issue 151, 23 December 1921, Page 3

CHURCH CONGRESS

PLEA FOR BETTER PREACHERS WHAT IS WRONG WITH THE SERVICES! (»om on* own oomimwitomt.) LONDON, 19th October. At the closing session of the Church Congress, held last week in Birmingham, the president, the Bishop of Birmingham, said that he had been much impressed by the general sense of comradeship and tbe desire of all parties in the Church to get into touch with one another, with a view not merely to personal friendship, but to honest cooperation ■on public "matters. The congress had altogether surpassed his expectations, and the experiences of the week gave hiip great bop^ for the future of the Church: ' The discussions have been full of pubhe interest, and in some cases very outspoken. On the subject of church attendance the Bishop of Chelmsford said that the services as at present conducted had ceased to possess a drawing-power. Hymns should be drawn from sources other than the usual hymn-books of the Church. Choruses should not be barred. In looking over the old records of his parish in Bethnal Green he found that more men decided for God during the singing of "Where is My Wandering Boy To-night?" than was the case with any other hymn, Yet to the poet or the musician the words and tune would be an abomination. He was not advocating the use of such hymns at the regular services for the faithful. He was only pleading that when they went fishing they must use common-sens* and throw1 out such bait as was best\calculated to catch the fish. He expressed doubt whether there was a single service in the Prayer Book that appealed to. the ordinary man outside the churches., Pleading for greater sympathy and freedom, he explained that he did not mean it to be unlimited. There was a wild and impossible-class, neither Anglican nor Catholic, who threw over all restraint: They were not happy in the Church of England, and would j never be hapoy in the Church of Rome. They were simply religious Bolsheviks. A REVISED PRAYER BOOK. The Rey. R. J. Campbell said that, without giving up anything that time had honoured, they ought to be able to increase the alternative forms of service. They did' not want a new' Prayer Book, but there was no earthly reason why they should not • have a thoroughly revised Prayer Book.' The mapiage service contained expressions .'whioh were offensive, to modern delicacy of feeling, and i they could be removed without detriment to the solemnity and historic force of this office. The burial service ought to be entirely rewritten. /It struck an almost painful note of mournfulness and gloom, and did not1 contain enough in the way of hope and consolation' for the bereaved. It had been said we had too many prayers for the King and the Royal Family,' and that in this democratic age the emphasis in our petitions for national benefits should be differently placed. , That might be, but what was wanted was addition rather than elimination. We ought to have authorised forms of prayer for all Ministers of State, makers of public opinion, and trainers' of the young."-. ■ ■ PBEACHEBS. NOT CHATTERERS.

There was no more crying need in th* Church to-day, said Mr. Campbell, than the need for preachers as contrasted with mere chatterers or deliverers of inconsequent addresses. It was the dearth of preachers more than anything else that was keeping the churches empty. ' Lay opinion found due expression upon < some of the!problems discussed. A distinguished array of churchmen, including Sir 'Robert Newman, Sir William JoynsonHicks, M.P.. and Mr. W. de Winton joined with the Archbishop of Wale* and the Bishop of "Chichester in discussing the proposed legislative measures for the alteration of the ■ constitution of the Church. All the speakers were anxious that the laity should have a stronger Voice in the choosing -pf theii priest*. High churchmen, and evangelical, in the persons of Sir Robert Newman and Sir William Joynson-Hicks respectively, were in agreement with regard to present principle o{ patronage, that the greatest care should be exercised before any change was decided upon. With all its faults, it was said, the present system had worked very well in practice. I PRIME MINISTER'S APPOINTMENTS. '■' '•.'• . Sir W. Joynson-Hicks, MP., said that patrons who regarded patronage as a solemn, trust'conferring high privileges would be very unwilling to relinquish their responsibilities. In Crown patronage the utmost pains were taken in the Prime Mjnis'ter's and, the Lord Chancellor's Departments to appoint the most suitable man. It was quite true wo had a Nonconformist Prime Minister, but it was equally true that there had been, no fault.found by the Church or the people with regard to the Prime Minister's episcopal patronage. If they wanted to take patronage out of the hands of the Crown, tins' would have to decide wheth-i er they wanted to be an Established Church or not - It was -difficult' to make any defence of the sale of livings, and the practice was one that all churchmen wanted to see abolished altogether./ He thought it should be declared illegal for a private patron to appoint a relative to a living, and ' that consideration should be given, more than it had been in the past, to the views and needs and desire* of the parish to which a clergyman was being sent..

PAYMENT OF CLERGY. Major J. D, Birchall, M.P., spoke of the payment of the clergy. We did not want, he said, the machine-made minister; the monastic type, in which poverty was regarded as a virtue; the celibate type, shorn of responsibility of wife, children, or home; the small class of men of inherited private wealth, nor the part-time < clergy j but we wanted the best men we could get irrespective of influence, birth, or position. The salary to be aimed at should be £500 a year, With allowances for children. (Cheer*) The average income of all benefices in the country was £285, and many of the • clergy were either living on their private capital or slowly starving. Pew rente were gradually disappearing. They introduced class consciousness on a cash basis into the congregation. There was too much of the box-office about' them, i and their retention waa very difficult to defend. :' f. '. /1 "ROUTE MARCH AND GAS." Mr. Clifton Kdway, secretary of the Church Reform League1, speaking on the right* of the laity, maintained that the laity had the-right to claim loyalty to the Prayer Book, and a real consistency in the use of its contents. The number of the laity who would tolerate the suppression of the Prayer Book was negligible. Nevertheless, in many churches to-day it waa practically, suppressed. At any rate, it was so used or misused, that the congregations—and more certainly the outside churchman or non-parishioner— could never know what omissions, alterations, or additions they might expect at any serviced ' . The laity also had tho right to instruction Not long ago several convalescent soldiers attended a church, where-, in the service was of an advanced character, utterly unlike anything they had ever known. Being a festival, moreover, the choral celebration was preceded by a, procession with incense. On their roturn they described their experiences, i

"But-what really happened?" asked the sister. " Well," said the spokesman, "I don't quite know. But first of all they had a route march around the church, and then they gassed ns!" CINEMA SERVICE. i One of the novelties of the congress was a cinema service at St. Bartholomew's Church, Birmingham, where the special film " Christus " was shown. The arrangement was made with the sanction ■of the congress authorities, and was perhaps the most remarkable of the innovations that mark this year's meeting. St. Bartholomew's is one of the few English churches that have installed a fullyequipped cinema apparatus, and tho idea prompting this particular, display was that visitors should see what could bo, done with films in public, worship for( mission districts. The display in St. Bartholomew's Church was treated as ah act of worship, with a-, service conducted by Canon Grose Hodge, rector of Birmingham, and tho Rev. G. B. Code, vicar of the parish. -