REJECTED BY COMMONS

Evening Star, Issue 19893, 15 June 1928, Page 4

REJECTED BY COMMONS

THE REVISED PRAYER BOOK MAJORITY AGAINST—6 Press Association —By Telegraph—Copyright LONDON, June 15. (Received June 16, at noon.) The Prayer Book was rejected by 220 votes to 220.—Australian Press Associa-tion-United Service. THE DEBATE (British Official Wireless.) Press Association —By Telegraph—Copyright. RUGBY, Juno 14. (Received June 15, at noon.) When the House of Commons resumed the debate on the revised Pjrayer Book measure, Sir W. Joynson-Hicks, in opposing the measure, said that he did not do so lightly. Ho was convinced that tho question at issue was not one of a few ceremonies, vestments, or ornaments, but that a definite change of doctrine was embodied in this book. Nor was this merely a domestic matter of tho Church of England. Sir W. Joynson Hicks reviewed the history of the Prayer Book, which, he pointed out, was oxdginally set up and established by Parliament. It was Parliament that abolished the jurisdiction of the bishops of Rome in these islands. Tho first and second Prayer Books of King Edward VI. were established by Parliament in tho years 1549 and 1552. Tho forms of worship, doctrines, and discipline of the church had all been settled by Parliament. They could not bo altered without an Act of Parliament. He and his supporters asked Parliament to reject the Prayer Book because they believed that it made it easier rather than more difficult to swing back to prereformation ideas. There was in the hearts and minds of men a feeling that the alterations in the Prayer Book had been made in response to the demands of the Anglo-Catholics. The reservation of the sacrament was still the principal matter, as it was when tho New Prayer Book was rejected by the House last December. If they had the reservation they could not prevent adoration. During tho last twenty-five years the number of churches in which tho reservation and adoration were practiced had grown from thirty to nearly 700. The number would undoubtedly increase when the reservation was authorised. The revised Prayer Book would not bring peace in the land. Tho church life of the nation was at stake.

Lord Hugh Cecil (Couservative) declared that it was perfectly clear that there was no transubstantiation in the new book. He denied that the book embodied new doctrines. The reservation of the Sacrament had been practised for 800 years, and it was untrue to say that the reservation had always been followed by adoration. Ho denied that there had been a gain in priestcraft, and said that the progress made by the Jaity in the Church of England could not have taken place in the Church of Romo. 1 To-day the real difference between the Church of Rome and the Church of England was that one was a church of authority, or, as he might say, of despotism, and the other was the church of liberty. The whole body of the clergy of this country, from the extreme Anglo-Catholic to evangelical, were divided in the nonessentials, but in essentials were really one.