OXFORD MOVEMENT

Greymouth Evening Star, 17 July 1933, Page 5

OXFORD MOVEMENT

SERVICE AT STADIUM RECORD CONGREGATION [BY CABLE—TRESS ASSN. —COPYBIGHT.] (Received July 17, Noon). . LONDON, July lb. England's Aiiglo-Catholics probably prayed last night, for fine weathei, for to-day’s High Mass at the White City Stadium, terminating the centenary celebrations of the Oxford Movement.

Fifty thousand attended the largest service held in England, beginning at 11.30, the dog racers having vacated the Stadium twelve hours previously. Hymn numbers, instead of betting figures, were displayed on the totalisator board.

Sunlight glittered on the gold, crimson, black and white robes of the Bishop of St. Albans, who presided, with the other prelates, priests . and choristers, and illuminated the gilded altar canopy of the Gospel and Epistle pulpits. Loud speakers amplified the prayers and chants. A huge kite bearing yellow streamers inscribed “The Protestant Alliance declares High Mass illegal,” floated over the Stadium until the Avind dropped. The police kept the Alliance counter-demonstration • constantly moving outside. Rain fell in torrents at 11.50. The priests, in. drenched surplices, stood bareheaded, only one opening an um'brella. A roar of thunder accompanied the Bishop of Colombo’s final blessing, after the celebration of the Mass, in Avhich four trumpeters heralded the Elevation of the Host. Seven mackintoshed laymen,- besides the priests, Avere the only communicants.

J. Kensit, of the Protestant Truth Society, presided over five hundred congregants at Spurgeon’s Tabernacle, repudiating .the Oxford Movement as a. “return to the cave of mediaeval superstition.”