OXFORD MOVEMENT

Northern Advocate, 18 July 1933, Page 6

OXFORD MOVEMENT

CENTENARY OBSERVANCE HIGH MASS TERMINATION. GLITTERING PAGEANTRY. FIFTY THOUSAND WORSHIPPERS. (Untied Press Association— By Electric Telegraph.—Copyright.) ’-’tv ■•'(Received 1 p.m.) LONDON, July 16. England’s Anglo-Catholics prayed last - night for fine weather for today’s High Mass at the White City Stadium, terminating the centenary celebrations of the Oxford Movement. Fifty thousands, attended the largest service held in England, beginning at 13.30 a.m. Dog racers having vacated the stadium 32 hours previously, hymn numbers were displayed instead of betting figures on the totalisator board. ' Sunlight glittered on gold, crimson . and black and white robes of the Bishop of St. Albans (Dr. M. B. Furse) who presided with other prelates, priests and choristers, and illuminated the gilded altar canopy and Gospel .Epistle pulpits. Loud-speakers amplified the prayers and chants, and a huge kite, bearing yellow streamers and inscribed, ‘‘The Protestant Alliance' Declares High Mass is Illegal,” floated, over the stadium until the wind dropped. i < •; The police kept' a counter-demonstra-tion of the alliance constantly moving outside. Rain fell in torrents at 11.50 and priests, in drenched surplices, stood bareheaded, only one opening an umbrella.

A roar of thunder accompanied the final blessing -of the Bishop of Colombo {Dr. Carpenter-Garnier) after the celebration of mass, in which four trumpeters heralded the Elevation of the Host. Seven laymen dressed in macintosh coats, besides priests, were the only communicants. ; ..Mr J. Kensit, of the Protestant Truth Society, presided over 500 congregants in Spurgeon’s Tabernacle, repudiating the Oxford Movement as (‘a return to cave and medieval superstition.” ,/