OXFORD MOVEMENT'S DAY

Taranaki Daily News, 18 July 1933, Page 5

OXFORD MOVEMENT'S DAY

CENTENARY CELEBRATIONS COUNTER DEMONSTRATION FIFTY THOUSAND ATTEND WHITE CITY STADIUM MASS By Telegraph—Press Assn.—Copyright London, July 16. England’s Anglo-Catholic prayed last' night for fine weather for to-day’s High Mass at the White City stadium, terminating the centenary Celebrations of the Oxford Movement Fifty thousand attended the largest service held in Eng-< land, beginning at 11.30 aan., The dog racers having vacated the stadium 12 hours previously, hymn numbers instead of beting figures were dis-; played on the totalisator board. The sunlight glittered on the gold, crimson, black and white robes of the Bishop of St Albans, who presided, and the other prelates, priests and choristers, and illuminated the gilded altar canopy, gospel and epistle pulpits. Loud speakers amplified the prayers and chants. A huge kite bearing yellow streamers inscribed “The Protestant Alliance declares High Mass illegal,” floated over the stadium until the wind dropped. The police kept the Alliance’s counter demonstration constantly moving outside. Rain fell in torrents at 11.50, but the priests, in drenched surplices, stood bareheaded, only one opening an umbrella. A roar of thunder accompanied the Bishop of Colombo’s final blessing after the celebration of Mass in which four trumpeters heralded the elevation of the Host. Seven mackintoshed laymen, besides priests, were the only, communicants. Mr. J. Kensit, of the Protestant Truth Society; presided over 500 congregants at Spurgeon’s Tabernacle. They repudiated the Oxford Movement as “a return to the cave of mediaeval superstition.”