2 MAY 1914, Page 13

THE ST. MARGARET'S TERCENTENARY.

[To see EDITOR Or TH2 &ROTATOR:1

Stn,—Members of Parliament who took part in the service held on Sunday, April 19th, in St. Margaret's Church, West- minster, to commemorate the three-hundredth anniversary of the day on which it was resolved that that church should be the place of worship of the House of Commons, must have felt some surprise on being informed from the pulpit of Farrar and Henson that the idea of a national Church " had proved itself incapable of realization, and that there was little doubt that the effort to realize it had been detrimental to politics and to religion alike " (I quote from the report in the Times of April 20th). This opinion of Canon Carnegie does not rest on the old assumption that the world of politics is one with which good Churchmen and Christians have no concern. On the contrary, he emphatically declares that organized Christianity and organized democracy touch one another at innumerable points, and cover to a large extent the same ground [perhaps this would be truer if the word "organized" were omitted]; and he goes eo far as to speak of "the modern democratic movement" as "the national expression of the Christian spirit." If these things are so, it is difficult to see why the supreme governing body of the nation should be forbidden to take steps, should it think fit to do so, with a view to making the Church of England more truly national and more adequate to the needs of the present day..—I am, Sir, Ac., X. Y. Z.