ANGLICAN SERVICES.

Lyttelton Times, Volume CXVII, Issue 17264, 4 September 1916, Page 3

ANGLICAN SERVICES.

RESTORING THE EUCHARIST. Preaching at the Anglican Cathedral yesterday morning. Dean Carrington referred to the reasons why choral Eucharist had been, of late, made the chief service on Sunday mornings at the Cathedral, in place of matins. Dean Carrington said that the change had caused some little anxiety and trouble among some of the congregation, but there were many good reasons for the reform. The main reason was that the Eucharist was the onlv service divinely ordained, and in the early days' of the Church was the main occasion at which men, women and children joined together- in worship. But in later times the Eucharist had been displaced from its place of honour, and something k>ss important, however beautiful, had ttdcon its place. The indifference and ignorance where their religion was concerned among a great majority of those who called themselves Church of England people, and the drift from the Church which had been going on for generation were mainly due to the Holy Communion service being placed in the back ground. The war had brought homo tho sad results in startling fashion. Religion seemed to hare lost its consoling power when news of bereavement came, and the chaplains en the battlefield were unanimous in lamenting the lack of knowledge of religion and church services among the men at the front. Sixty out of every hundred of our soldiers wore nominally Church of England adherents, hut the chaplains found that out of these sixty not more than ton knew very much of their religion. Most of tho others were familiar with tho tales of Noah's Ark and of Balaam's ass, or of tho number of Solomon's wives, but such knowledge could bring no comfort to a man in his mortal agony. Theso men had never been taught to understand the message of the Communion service. The Convocation at Canterbury (England), perhaps the most conservative body in tho world, had decided by 5-1 votes to 7 that tho Eucharist should be made tho chief service at all .Anglican churches in England.