PRAYER BOOK REVISION
[To the Editor of the SPECTATOR.]
SIR,—The M.P.s' protest in the Times in June. was the most important document which has yet appeared on the question of Prayer Book Revision. It went to the root of the matter--(1) by exposing the unreality of the nominally representative bodies set up under the Enabling Act ; and (2) by the assertion of the position of laymen in the Church. To the question, what are the laity ? Dr. Arnold answered, " The Church minus the clergy." " All Christian people in the Empire have a concern in the Prayer Book," the Protest reminds us ; or in Newman's words :—" I do not see how it is possible to forget that the Established Church is the Church of England ; that Dissenters are, both in their own estimation ' and in that of its own members, in some sense 4 portion of it ; and that, even were its proper laity Catholic in opinions, the whole population of England, of which Dis- genters are nearly half, would, as- represented hy Parliament,- claim it as their own:" The Revisers have been reckoning without their host, and counting on his not troubling himself to check their accounts. Should he do so, their Revision scheme will fall to pieces like a house of cards. Parliament will not, indeed, discuss the interpretation of rubrics or the structure of offices. But, if the National Assembly sends
up a measure which divides the Church, and dissatisfies the country, Parliament can throw it out.
With the possible exception of that triumph of lobbying, the Enabling Act of 1919, no important measure ever had so little public opinion behind it as the proposed Revision of the Communion Service. Except the officials concerned, no one has a good word for it. Quiet people, who dislike change, distrust it ; the Anglo-Catholics, whom it is meant to conciliate, ridicule it ; Evangelicals object to it on religious grounds ; Broad Churchmen on political. The Communion Service was the centre of the Reformation settlement, and only a complete change of opinion on the part of Englishmen with regard to this settlement would be a sufficient reason for reverting to a liturgy of another type and character. No such change of opinion has taken place. Things have come to their present pass because the officials in the National Assembly and elsewhere have consulted too exclusively the busy ' Good Churchmen,' " and have gone a long way ahead of the general sense both of the Church and the Nation. The sooner this impossible position is abandoned, the better It cannot be held.
• The possibility of Parliamentary intervention is distasteful Ito our Anglo-Ultramontanes. " Do we suppose," we are iasked, " that the Anglo-Catholic party will pay any attention ;to the House of Commons ? " No one is so foolish as to 'suppose this ; it is beyond the power of c mnipotence to devise a law which the Anglo-Catholic party would obey. Nor is there any wish to make their position in the Church impossible ; whether it is or is not so is for themselves to decide. But toleration is one thing ; domination another. Minority rule is inadmissible ; and, if a minority complains of persecution because it is not permitted to persecute, common sense must judge the value of the complaint. The organs of this party tell us plainly that, if they have their way, there • will be no room for Liberals in the Church, and that the Evangelicals . will find their natural home in the Noncon- formist bodies. They will not have their way ; nor will their empty threats be realized. But the fact that they are made shows the quarter from which the wind blows.— I am, Sir, &c., .ALFRED FAWKES.
Ashby St. Ledgers Vicarage.
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