PRAYER BOOK REVISION.

Otago Daily Times, Issue 18872, 26 May 1923, Page 4

PRAYER BOOK REVISION.

CENTURY-OLD MOVEMENT, , LAST STRONGHOLD OF CON- > SERVATISM. (Peh United Press Association.) CHRISTCHURCH, May 25. At the Church Congress to-day the Bishop of Goulbum spoke on the question of the Prayer Book revision in general religion and in worship in particular.'. He said it was the last stronghold of conservatism. The Prayer Book of to-day represented the last of a series of revisions extending over a century. It had not been understood that it was to be the last, revision. The cessation of revision had not been a. deliberate policy—it had been due to the silencing of the convocation. Some 40 years later a revision had become necessary because the study of ancient liturgiology had revealed defects and faults in our incomparable liturgy, and because the religious needs oH changing circumstances had brought, home the fact that the Prayer Book must be brought into lino with modern conditions. -The Prayer Book .now in the final stages- of revision seemed appallingly cautious in the light of the war chaplaincy experience. The speaker outlined the position of the clergy in Australia regarding the Prayer Book revision, stating that the dioceses wore constitutionally and legislatively un-able-to alter the Prayer Book except with the full accord of “competent authorities” in England, 'they might accept a revised Pravor Book in toto. but they oould not adapt it to their particular requirements. By an act of autonomy in the sixties the Church had given away its autonomy, but even if that autonomy were reclaimed the speaker oould not help thinking that it would be a perilous task for a young church in a young country to undertake to revise such a great Catholic document as the Praver Book. There was a fringe which might be varied, but material alterations, lie thought, would he a disaster. He favoured the dominion idea of a fixed canon with a variable fringe. The Western Prayer Book could not satisfy Oriental conditions.