LORDS DEBATE PRAYER BOOK.

Star (Christchurch), Issue 18338, 15 December 1927, Page 5

LORDS DEBATE PRAYER BOOK.

CROWDS SCRAMBLE FOR SEATS IN HOUSE. By Telegraph.—Press Assn.—Copyright. A.P.A. and Sydney " Sun ” Cable. (Received December 15, 1.15 p.m.) LONDON, December 14. The House of Lords assented to the prayer book measure by 242 votes to SS. The chamber was crowded in anticipation of the division, and there was almost a scramble for places in the galleries. Those unable to gain admittance made a long queue. The Bishop of Durham said that it was ridiculously fictional to suggest that the bishops had been guilty of unwarranted interference. Revision was solely undertaken because the situation in the country had become intolerable. The Bishops of Norwich and Birmingham, protagonists against revision, had no parochial experience. Pastoral experience was imperative for sound judgment on the subject. The new book had been modernised in the best sense. It expressed what was genuinely describablc as scientific thought, but excluded theories merely describable as “ the view of the hour.” It represented the desires of a majority of the 3,500,000 church folk represented by the Church Assembly. He believed that the new’ book would lay the foundation of the restoration of discipline. The revision consisted mainly of the existing procedure. “ Here is an instrument which the church declares indispensable,” said the Bishop of Durham. “ Can the House justify refusal?” Lord Cushenden, opposing, said that he thought the proposals more farreaching than those ever present in the minds of the electors of the Church Assembly, while numbers of the laity who had voted at the diocesan conferences were negligible. The alternative services would lead to bitter strife in every parish, especially when a new incumbent was being appointed.