BEAUTY IN WORSHIP

Evening Post, Volume CV, Issue 6, 9 January 1928, Page 5

BEAUTY IN WORSHIP

"I believe that the effect of beaut3on the worshipper is enormous and immensely under-estimated and undervalued in England," declared Sir Henry Hadow, Vice-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'? I do not see why in our churches there should not be banks of flowers. How many of our English churches, which are architecturally beautiful, are spoiled by bad stained glass? There are two cathedrals which 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. If a visitor from another planet attended one of our services, he believed his impression would be that we wanted to iget out as soou as possible. We were not nearly careful enough in the choice of our hymn music. Some of the tunes in tho hymn-book were tawdry, miserable, and sontimental. The most beautiful services in this country were ofteu in village churches, where there was someone who knew how to choose tho music. The Dean of Manchester confessed that he loved the smell of incense and tho perfumes of flowers in church. "I have seen a church transformed," ho said, "merely by taking out a mass of pews." The Kural Dean of Heaton said that very rarely could anyone go to the cinema without seeing something that was really beautiful. People had become accustomed by the wireless to the most beautiful music and to hearing tlie Bible read most beautifully from the wireless stations. Why could we not do it in the same way in parish churches?

The chief speaker at a recent Reading temperance meeting was the Rev. T. Caddy.