Hardy Innovators.

Evening Star, Issue 17793, 15 October 1921, Page 6

Hardy Innovators.

Mr H. G. Wells wants a new Bible. The plea of the Rev. R. J. Campbell, of “ new theology ” fame, would be less startling when he asks for a revised Book of Common Prayer if it were not for his remarkable ideas of what needs improving. As a matter of fact, revision of the Prayer Book is a task on which a committee of the Church at Homo has been at work for something like a dozen years. It ■would be strange if the minatory clauses of the Atbanasian Creed and some of the imprecatory psalms did not have their strong critics. There are some lessons taken from the Old Testament and. read, until recently, every year whoso value it might be difficult to establish for either edification or instruction. Complaints also have been mado against certain plain expressions In the marriage service as unsuited to tboniceneas of this generation, though wo understand that the reading of these is not compulsory, and it would bo well for the present delicate ago if tho information they afford were given to more young people long before marriage. Convocation has considered numerous reports which provide for a revision of the service book on the lines of these and other criticisms. A tentatively revised Book of Common Prayer has been published, so that all Churchmen may be able to consider suggested changes, and a revised lectionary has actually been in use in many churches, even in New Zealand, for the last couple

of years. Mr Campbell, however, would go much further with his innovations. The burial service, which is for simple souls one of tho most splendid offices of a book that ia itself a chief glory of English literature, as well as of tho Anglican Church, would be “almost entirely rewritten ’’ if ho could have his way. It contains for him “ an almost pagan note of mourning.” Tho criticism is amazing. Our own idea had been that the note of this service was exaltation almost from first to last. Mournful it must bo to those who aro unable to chare tho “sure and certain hope” of a glorious resurrection which it preaches; but that is not a fault for which the liturgy can bo blamed. It will bo a bold man who will undertake to make its “large, divine, and comfortable words ,r more uplifting. Tho prayers for use at sea, Mr Campbell complains, are “scarcely usable except in times of storm,” That is true, but it would bo hard to show why special prayers should bo required for sailors when their situation is not different from what it might be on land. Wo live truly in an age of hardy innovators. Mr Campbell might revise the Prayer Book in accordance with his startling theories, but it would be unlikely to appeal more than Mr Wells’s new Bible, if that should ever be compiled.