DARK OUTLOOK.

Auckland Star, Volume LIX, Issue 227, 25 September 1928, Page 7

DARK OUTLOOK.

CHURCH AND STATE.

Dr. Henson Of Durham Alleges

Interference.

PRAYER BOOK ISSUE

(Australian and N.Z. Press Association.)

LONDON, September 24

The Bishop of Durham, Dr. Hensley Henson, in the course of a sermon yesterday, arg-ued that the State has no right to interfere with the Church in spiritual affairs.

Dr. Henson's declaration is specially significant because 43 archbishops and bishops are to meet at Lambeth Palace on Tuesday to discuss the situation which has arisen out of the rejection of the Prayer Book measure by Parliament.

> The bishops are expected to appoint a committee of statesmen and churchmen to consider the readjustments necessary to determine the relations between the Church and the State. But a more immediate problem is the question how to regularise public worship so as to prevent the , . Anglican Church lapsing into Congregationalism. The bishops may agree to permit variations in the service and occasional offices in the new Prayer Book, to which Parliament did not object. The difficulty is that the Anglo-Catholic clergy may be unwilling to surrender the practices they have been permitted to use by the various bishops for 25 years. On the other hand the Protestant societies, backed .as they believe by Parliament, may take legal action. A series of prosecutions would be a grievous calamity and would greatly hamper the Church. NEW HERESY HUNT. Strong Objection To Dr. Major's Views. FORMER AUCKLANDER. (United Service.) LONDON, September 24. Lord Halifax, leader of the AngloCatholics, and 724 clergymen have written a joint letter to the Bishop of Gloucester, Dr. A. C. Headlam, threatening to withdraw from the Church Congress and to persuade others not to attend. The writers object to Dr. H. D. A. Major, editor of the "Modern Churchman," speaking at the Congress. They declare that his views are shocking and only to be described as a "perversion of the gospels." The "Daily News" eays the objection is a new heresy-hunt. It understands that Dr. Major's address, relating to the Anglican interpretation of the doctrines of Christianity, dealt with the matter in a non-controversial way. New Zealand has a special interest in the Rev. H. D. A. Major, for he is the •on of a Katikati settler, and was educated at St. John's College, Auckland, and Auckland University College. He is a New Zealand M.A., with first-class honours in science. After holding positions in the Church here, Mr. Major went to England, and became principal of Ripon Hall, a theological college, at Oxford. He quickly came to the front as an exponent of modernism, and for some time has edited "The Modern Churchman," an organ of that school of thought. He is examining chaplain to the Bishop of Birmingham, and examiner for the University of London, and has lectured at Harvard. He ha* written several books.