THE REJECTED PRAYER BOOK
[To the Editor of the SPECTATOR.] SIR,—Will you allow me space for a few words in reply to the objections raised by your correspondent Mr. E. K. C. Hamilton to my letter in your issue of the 14th inst. ? I shall not in any case trespass further on your indulgence in this connexion.
First as to Reservation, the familiar argument that what is not expressly forbidden is allowable will not hold water. In quoting from the last paragraph of Article XXVIII., why stop short of the final words : " carried about, lifted up, or worshipped" ? To the plain man all four actions are equally reprobated by the use of the particle " or." To justify Reservation by the law of necessity savours of disingenuous- ness. It would surely be more candid frankly to admit that the demand for it proceeds mainly from those who insist on fasting communion, and is therefore dictated by the convenience of the priest, rather than the comfort of the sick and the dying, whose spiritual needs in this respect have not suffered in the past at the hands of the faithful non-fasting parish priest. If, however, your correspondent still thinks me inaccurate in describing the practice as illegal I would refer him to the Report of the Royal Commission, 1906, which alludes to Reservation under conditions which lead to adoration, and other prevalent practices as " clearly inconsistent with and subversive of the teaching of the Church of England as declared by the Articles and set forth in the Prayer Book."
Secondly, as regards discipline, the manifesto of the Federation of Anglo-Catholic Priests to which I referred was quoted in the House of Commons without contradiction as emanating from some 1,400 of them. But even if 700 have dissociated themselves from it on second thoughts, the remaining 700 present a disciplinary problem of sufficient magnitude. My critic also takes exception to the use of the word " lawlessness " as inaccurate and question-begging. There again he will find the term, with the added epithet " defiant," in the Report of the Royal Commission, which, I may remind him, was signed by the Archbishop of Canterbury and the then Bishops of Gloucester and Oxford.
Your correspondent opines that these two main con- siderations, which I contend and he admits determined the fate of the measure, are misapprehensions—apprehensions would perhaps be more appropriate ; but his letter does little or nothing to remove them. It may be that it is the destiny of the Church of England to drift back into mediaevalism ; but the point I wished to make is that as yet most of her children are not prepared for any such retro- gression, and tha in rejecting the Deposited Book, the House of Commons faithfully reflected the present view of the majority of Church people.—I am, Sir, &c., RURAL LAYMAN,,
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