PRAYER BOOK REVISION

Southland Times, Issue 19546, 9 May 1925, Page 9

PRAYER BOOK REVISION

DISCUSSED BY CHURCH CONGRESS.

CLOAK FOR REACTION.

(By Telegraph.—Press Assn.-Copyright) (Australian and N.Z. Cable Association.) MELBOURNE, May 7.

At the Australian Congress of the Anglican Church, addresses concerning the revision of the prayer book were delivered by the Dean of Bristol (England), and the Very Reverend E. Burroughs. The Rev. Burroughs, who was one of the six members in charge of the Prayer Book Revision when it came before . the House of Clergy in 1923, said that the question had first arisen out of a Royal Commission on ecclesiastical discipline in 1908. The inadequacy of the sixteenth century forms and language, the necessity for softening hard lines, the reformation of theology and consequent rules and prohibitions, were recognised by the Commission, but it desired no alteration in d oc_ trinal balance or scope. These proposals had changed beyond recognition in the measure that came before the Church Assembly in 1923. The Dean of Bristol dealt with the crucial position created by the demand for the reservation of the Sacrament. “We have been pushed, step by step, to a position,” he said, “which, although not so intended, can in fact, be made to cover perpetual reservation. The sting lies in the fact that the Anglo-Catholic leaders have told us that the Adoration is their ultimate aim. Many of us are now wondering if we ought not to move back and say that there should be no revision if it was only a cloak for reaction.” In conclusion, he appealed to his hearers in their attitude upon the question to be, and to remain, British.