"THE AFTER DEATH."

Marlborough Express, Volume XLVI, Issue 118, 16 May 1912, Page 3

"THE AFTER DEATH."

PRAYERS FOR THE DEAD. j AUCKLAND, May 13. • The series of sermons delivered by Di". Croissley, tho Anglican biriiop, are exciting intense* interest and much controversy. The second of the series, which was delivered in St. Mary's Cathedral last evening, dealt with 'rPiaycu-3 for the Dead/ and the building, was crowded to its ut- j .most'capacity. '• Bishop Crossley said that at death ; the soul took with it to tho other'] world Lhe tiiimo -character as it pos- j. sessed in life, the same love. "If a \ father, mother, or brother loved us | on earth," continued the i3ishop,'j "how' they must love us now. God | is the san& God, loving and all-wise, and as He; has bidden us to pray here, so He will bid us to pray in the future state. My hope from these sermons ia that some souls may learn tho tolerability and unsinfillness of prayers for .the dead." This practice, he held, was one which gave the greatest comfort to the soul. It was unquestionably sn early and* continuous practice of the Church to pray for the departed. True?, if he were asked fur a text from the Bible commanding such prayers, he could ;iot give one, but neither could he give - a text forbidding them. If thero had been such a prohibition, the Church. Avould never, as she did for centurks, Irave regularly made use of prayers for the dead. There was, however, a text which nright reason • • a,biy 'be interpi;eted\ as favoring , ; the' .practice." In the second.epistle^ of St. Paul, Timothy, the apostle, spoke x>f the household1 of one Onesiphorus, who was assumed t6 have been then dead, and' sail of him:—"The Lord grant insti) him that he ,may find mercy of the Lord in that day." He did not press the point that Oiiesiphorous wa.s dead, and that Paul was praying for him, but it seemed the l.iost natural interpretation of, the text. The homilies of the Church, vhich were recommended in the thiity-niite articles as containing "Godly atid wholesome doctrine," had been quoted against him as condemning prayers lor the dead. He agreed that such condemnation was to be' found m ohem, but he would refer to tne opinion ot" Bishop Montagu, who wrote in 1625 as showing that the homilies had. not the authority of dogmatic declarations of the Church of England. His authority said in particular that they stretched soma uses and sayings beyond the use of thto Church, and declared that tho ■clergy wera not bound by them. A inoie important question was whether tht> homilies prevented the of the practico of praying for the dead. The question had been in subject of an-ecclesiastical trial in the Aiches Court of Canterbury in 1838, when partly on "the authority of the' third lioH'ily on, prayer, it was urged, that the practice was unlawful. The judge. Sir Herbert Jenner, first gave a decisiori to tho effect that while it seemed tl>at it was1 the intention of the author of the homilies to discourage prayers for the dead, it did not appear that they were anywhere declared unlawful. The Judge added, that even if the Avriter* had declared thorn to be unlawful, ,it was riot to be inferred tlfat the Churcli of England had adopted every particular -of t-lic doctriiifcia. contained in the homilies. ':'Jhi3 is tho decision of the official court of xny Church," said the Bishop, "and, therefore, when a. man charges me with teaching: contrary to the teaching of mv- Church, he is ignorant; «.f ,the- facts." The- Ghurch of Ehgliind had paid a. heavy; price for liberty, and there -Avas':' no 'compulsion; in the iuatter of praying: ;for,the'dead, hoi- -v/as there anyprohibiticin. Tho custom "a.s neither illegal nor immoral. It brought comfort into Holy Communion and 'was helpful to. .the living, in that it broke_down the partitions between .hfe 'and death. It helped all to' realise that loved ones AA'ere alive beyond the> grave, and that Jovo was stronger than death. The Star publishes interviews with tho leading clergymen of the Pros-' byterian, AVesieyan, and Baptist denominations. The Rev. Mr Jolly points out that whilst the first reform prayer-book of 1549 included prayers for the dead, all such prayers were deliberately omitted from the second reform prayer-bock of 1552. Further, the homilies published within ten years of the issuing of the latter prayerhook, especially condemned the practice of priiyina- for the dead. "That," lidded Mr JolJy, ''really gives the position of the Church of England." The Rev. "W. Ready (President of the New Zealand Methodist Conference) took exception to a statement by Bishop Crossley that John Wesley advocated prayers for the de.ad. In the whole of Wesley's works, consisting of some fourteen volumes, he had net found any advocacy of prayers for tho df,ad, and he concluded that Dr. Crossley was quoting from something "Wesley had written "in his high church days, and before his conversion." . The Rev. 11. Knowles Kempton said if such prayers were of importance he w,as sure that the New Testament would havo expressly ordered them; but it did not. . He believed them to be unnecessary 2 for all the departed, whether they died' in Christ or not, wore in His' safe keeping, and sinco the. practice had been corrupted so. rv.adily, it w-©rd\ perhaps best avoided. Still, ho quite agreed with Dr. Crossley in his references to the early Church and to great names since; ifhs information, as showing the antiquity ot the; custom and thp> authorities who ■•advocated- it. ' ' ■ • v Speaking at a crowded meeting in the Opera House, Mr Scott Bennett, Socialist, suggested that Bishop Crossley's apologies and modifications of tho old teichiiigs of the Church had been rendered necessary by the spread of .Rationalistic thought.