[To the Editor of t4e SPECTATOR.1' SIR, — Allow me to congratulate
. you on , your admirable article on the Prayer Book Measure, .1928, and . on your insistence on the fact that comprehensiveness is the distinctive characteristic of the English Church. , - This vital fact implies as a necessary consequence that none of us can haire things all his own way, and that every party in the Church of England and every school of thought must. submit to the Salutary presenee and the critical and quali. fying influence of others as firmly. planted as itself within. the far-flung fold of the National Church.
The opposition of extremists at either end -is, therefore; an unconscious and Unwilling testimony to the.. excellence and Vane of the work done by the Bishops, -and should be a recommendation in the eyes of the vast- majority-of English.. men of the new Prayer BOok Measure. And surely no men of good will at the. present time would either desire Disestablialurieiit Or think light-heartedly of -it.- - It -seeing, to me, when I look back at the Disestablishment 'agitation of 1885; *filch I renieniber very well, that the Disestablishment of the Church of England, if it had occurred then, would have done far less harm- than now, and would have left the great 'Spiritual 'forees of the nation: compare- tiyely_ uninjured.•_To-day, though' there is Much to hope for, there is also 'much to' fear here and there throughout the world. Gaping wounds hint been inflicted on 'humanity by_ the World War, and a Shock dealt to its nervous system.
That at the 'very moment when she is about to -enter on a fresh career of WorldWide usefulness the ChurCh of England should be rent in pieces- :by the "sacrilegious hands of her own misguided children, would surely be in literal truth a tragedy too' sotio*ful -fer wards.:=-I sin, Sir,. .&c.; Poyvr‘ SAYDERSON.
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