CHURCH CEREMONIES.

New Zealand Herald, Volume XXV, Issue 9078, 12 June 1888, Page 6

CHURCH CEREMONIES.

TO THE EDITOR.

Sir,—l thought that the question of Church ceremonies and superstitions had been sufficiently ventilated in your columns for Ahe time being, but your correspondent " Churchman," with true British pluck, thinks not, for after saying in his second letter that that would be the last which he would write on the subject, he now returns to the conflict without answering any of my letters, or explaining his expressions with reference to the plain instructions of the Prayerbook ; he now refers us to the canons and Tertullian and St. Cyril. As to the canons, I know of none which are sanctioned by the Anglican Church. There are, certainly, some very copious ecclesiastical laws, or canons, promulgated by Roman Catholic Councils, but I thought that the Reformation cleared all that musty rubbish away for ever, and returned to the simple teaching of the Bible as explained in the Book of Common Prayer. Your correspondent had better read the rubrics attached to the Communion Service, and Articles vi., xix., xxi., xxv., and xxvin. He would find it

more profitable than the reading of the tract which he recommends about holy signs to drive away evil suggestions. As to Tertullian, who ' was born in the middle of the second century, his works contain many erroneous, ana some pernicious opinions. With reference to St. Cyril, which does he mean ; aa there* were two St. Cyrilsthe one Bishop of Jerusalem, born in the fourth century, who was particularly enthusiastic in inculcating the worship of the cross, and firmly believed in the miraculous multiplication of its fragments the other, the Patriarch of Alexandria, was an ambitious man, who persecuted Novatians and the . Jews with relentless fury, and who was jealous of the influence of Hypatia over Orestes, and excited the monks and the ignorant populace to drag her to the church and there murder her, by tearing her piecemeal with fragments of shells and pottery. I think that true genuine churchmen of this generation would prefer to follow the teaching of the Gospel rather than expect to gain any good from reading the works of these so-called saints. The assumed name of High Church is one of the tlievish tricks of the Ritualists. They found the name Puseyites and Ritualists did not take very well, so they called themselves High Church, which was formerly only applied to Tory Churchmen, like the late Dr. Croly, rector of St. Stephen's, Wallbrook, London. Not to trouble your readers, or to occupy your valuable space with repetitions, I would refer them to my last letter in the Herald of June 2.— am, etc., Another Churchman. Auckland, Juno 9.