The Churches
The Trumpets Shall Sound
From MONICA FURLONG
CAN IEROURY
Iis a macabre thought that if the Canterbury 'Special had crashed last Tuesday morning it might have wiped out at one go practically the whole of the English episcopate together with numerous foreign bishops and archbishops, most of the Orthodox Patriarchs, the leaders of the Lutheran Churches in half a dozen countries in Europe and the heads of our own Free Churches. The platform at Victoria Station before the train arrived resembled nothing so much as one's first few minutes in heaven, as top Christians greeted one cheerfully, and introduced other top Christians whom—give a millennium, take a millennium—one had missed on earth.
Inside the Cathedral it was even more Paradisal with a host of white-robed clergy apparently floating in space behind the High Altar, and a great sea of bishops spread over the floor of the choir, wearing lawn sleeves and scarlet chimeres which clashed excitingly with the red of the carpeted stairs rising up to the Altar. There were old bishops and young biShops, coloured bishops and crippled bishops, palsied bishops and vigorous bishops. One picked out the faces which for one reason or another are most readily recog- nisable: the Bishop of Southwark with his fierce, left-wing scowl; the Bishop of St. Albans look- ing like the only ascetic among the lot; the Boat- Race Bishop, quite the best-looking; Bishop Stephen Bayne, First Wit of the Anglican Com- munion; The Archbishop of Dublin, who forty minutes before had bought me a cup of coffee in Lyons, and the Bishop of Amritsar who had gallantly offered me half his apricot pie.
Then -there were all the Orthodox Patriarchs, the most colourful figures at the Enthronement, in spite of being dressed in sombre black. Their square head-dresses and long, shapeless beards, their silver-topped staffs, round, beaming faces and twinkling black eyes, caught the fancy of the crowds outside and inside the Cathedral. One Patriarch carried an immense rosary with purple tassels and red beads the size of pigeons' eggs looped over his wrist. Another wore a purple velvet fez with white curls fluffing beneath it like candy floss. At eighty-seven the Dean of Canterbury was lo'oking a splendid advertisement for the rejuvenating powers of one or the other of his two religions; and the Dean of West- minster wore that beautiful red velvet cope with the gold stars which all the other Cathedrals must covet desperately.
But the most riveting figure was the new Arch- bishop wearing a shining golden cope that glowed like fire under the lights, Mostly he moved among the endless processions with a bewildered and abstracted air like a man who has strayed by mistake into some thrilling and incomprehensible ceremony and finds to his amazement that he is the key figure. 1 kept expect- ing him to look over his shoulder to make sure that all the fuss was not really intended for the man behind. Occasionally, catching the note of appeal in his address, one sensed the affront so much pomp was to his inborn simplicity, and almost expected him to fling down his staff shout- ing, 'Nolo arcltiepiscopari.' But he fought down the temptation and was duly enthroned into the Archbishopric of Canterbury 'with all its metro- political rights, dignities, honours, privileges, and appurtenances whatsoever.'
The pomp, it must he said, was magnificent, a meal of an experience guaranteed to keep t eyes and ears fed for at least a month. No one, imagine, believes that at an Enthronement cer mony one sees the heart of the Christian religio The worst-attended service of the Eucharist, t loneliest, saddest, ugliest aspects of the hums situation reveal more about Christ in ten minut than an Enthronement in its whole two hour 4 But the preposterous gaiety of Christianity Is'a well worth catching in such dramatic form fru desprit nicely expressed in one of the prin stage directions; The Archbishop standing in his Throne, th TRUMPETS shall sound and all the people sha sing.
From his Throne the Archbishop gave his Enthronement sermon, and his preoccupationl were clearly writ. He reminded his hearers that his job required him to be a shepherd and a teacher, He emphasised that the Church of England, though reformed, insists on its Catholic contirr uity and considers its special flavour to be Scrip' tural, Catholic and liberal. He spoke of units', explicitly condemned racialism, and talked of Christians becoming involved in the communitl by immersing themselves in industry, science and the arts. It was important to follow him mos( closely when he spoke of the links between Church and State. issuing a clear and unmistak' able challenge: . . we seek for a greater free' dom in the ordering and in the urgent revising Of our forms of worship. If the link of Church and State were broken, it would not be we who ask for this freedom who broke it, but those—if there be such—who denied that freedom to us.'
This refers, of course, to the bitterness and frustration felt by the Church in 1928 when its prayer-book was rejected by the House of Corn- mons. many of whose members were not prac- tising Christians. It has not been an easy blow to forget. While Dr. Ramsey is Archbishop the 'Church will not, it is clear, endure this painful experience a second time without taking vigorous action. The Church is neither subject to the State, nor ultimately answerable to it; its voice must speak up loud and clear, promising service but not obedience.
But the main excitement of Dr. Ramsey's ser- mon was that it caught the growing longing io the Church of England for a deeper spirituality, for a new understanding of prayer and a dedi- cated practice of it. The words of Irenaeus, which Dr. Ramsey quoted, struck the mood exactly: 'Offer thy heart to God in a soft and tractable state, lest thou lose the impress of His fingers; lest by being hardened thou might miss both 1-115 craftsmanship and thy life.'
'There's no vulgarity about Michael,' said a priest I met soon after the appointment of Dr. Ramsey was announced, and after seeing and hearing him at Canterbury one feels sure there is no triviality either. The fine brain, the grasp of spiritual things (as Archbishop one of his titles is Guardian of the Spiritualities), the idiosyncratic voice, the regal yet puzzled bearing like a lion who has turned vegetarian for philosophical reasons, are not, let us admit, going to make him an accessible figure to the unbelieving man in the street. From such an Archbishop, however. it seems possible that many of his fellow" Christians may draw strength and inspiration to make their own offerings of love and truth.
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