PRAYERS FOR DEAD.

Dominion, Volume 5, Issue 1439, 14 May 1912, Page 5

PRAYERS FOR DEAD.

« | SERMON BY BISHOP CROSSLEYTHE PRACTICE ADVOCATED. ■ (liy Telegraph.—Special Oorrcspondent.l Auckland, May 13. I/ There was a very large congregation at St. Mary's Cathedral last evening when l)r. Crossle.v, Bishop of Auckland, preached I lie second of a series of pennons on "The After Death." in answer to the view thai following upon ilea 111 (here was a cpssatinii of csmsciotis feeling, thai !!ie dead were, as it were, asphyxiated souls, existing, but not conscious Or. Crossle.v said that if death meant suppression of all (lint made a man himself, if it whs absolute non-consciousness, then Christ had played false with human reason, human deduction, and human hope. In the peace, of the oilier world there was prayer for tho people of this world, intense and unselfish, in the mind and by the name <vf Jesus, to a degree that had never been maintained on earth. Surely, if those who •were departed remembered in their prayers those upon earth, then tho world should remember the departed. ll© gave a warning against tho mistake that prayers for the dead were prayers to the dead. 1 They were prayers to God for the dead. "One of my great hopes from (liese sermons," (he Bishop continued, "is that soino sonls may see the tolerability and unsinfulness of prayers for their departed, and by (lie practice may regain the comfort many in the Church have been robbed of, or have robbed themselves of. I say regain because it is beyond challenge and controversy that it was an early ami continuous practice of llie Church to pray for their departed. There is no text iii tho Bible to command you to pray for the departed, but also there is no text to forbid you. to do so. Had there been the Church" of God would never as she did universally and for centuries teach the practice, but there is a text which may allowably be interpreted as a text for the departed." Dr. Crossle.v referred to the passage in the Second Epistle to Timothy in which Paul sprain twico of tho household of Onesiphorous and adds words which he said suggest that Onesiphorits was dead, and that Paul was praying for him. Ho quoted tho text: "The Lord grant unto him that ho may find mercy of the Lord in that Day." He did not press tho point, but ho thought it an allowable thought, not the most natural interpretation of the text. "The privilege and the joy of praying for the dead," Dr. Crosslcy continued, "was the .subject of a trial in tho Arches Court of Canterbury on November II), 1838. The Judge was Sir Herbert .Tenner. First, the question for tTio Judge was whether the Church of England re- • garded praying for the dead as an illegal ' i practice, that is, contrary to tho doctrine ' 'of tho Church, and tho pica urged was the. 1 authority of the Homilies, which had been | quoted against the practice. The decision of the official court of my Church was that it seemed clearly to be the intention of the composer of tho Homily to discourage the practice of praying for the dead, but it does not appear that in any jiart of the Homily he declares tho 1 practice to be an unlawful one," the ' r Judge added: "But supposing that the writer of the Homily had been of the opinj ion_ (that such prayers were unlawful), t it is not to be necessarily inferred that the Church of England adopted every particular of tho doctrine contained in the Homilies."

The next question discussed by the Bishop was whether prayers were to bo restricted In those who died with (lie sign of faith. There was 110 doubt that the prayers mid liturgies were only for tho-e who died in tho faith, but who was there could make a spiritual analysis of the process of death, and determine tho presence or the absence of faith ? In his sermon upon, tho Titanic disaster tho Archbishop of Melbourne, referring to those who were lost, said, "May tlie Tx>r<l have mercy upon their souls." 'Dr. Crossley said he had daily nrayed that prayer 6inee the disaster. If it was wrong to pray for tho dead, tlie error had been perpetuated for 1500 years, and continued by Martin I'utlicr and John Wesley, by Bishons Andrews. Cousin, and Kenn, and by the author of tho "Christian Year." During tho war in Smith Africa, Archbishop Temple, that strong, rugged hero, issued a series of prayers, one of tliem a prayer for those who had fallen. It did not escape criticism, and in March, WW), he was Recused in the House of Lords of disloyalty to the Church, but he made answer that such pravevs were not outside the limits of the law. Archbishop Willsliam lmd_ declared that he always prayed for light and peace, and n blessed resurrection for dear departed ones. "We may believe." said the Bishop, in conclusion, "that there is nothing wrong in praying for such blessings. Even the forgiveness of sins, I think, may be prayed for for the departed. In this matter of remembering our dear ones, there is no .compulsion, but there is prohibition; there is nothing illegal or contrary to the teaching of our Church, nor anything that in any moral sense can be termed wrong. On the contrary, it brings new* joy and comfort, and it even keeps green in our hearts the memory of our dear ones, and helps more than anything else to keep the life eternal before us. It breaks down tho partition wall that separates lifo from so-called death. We realise that our loved ones who have passed from tho human side aro living in that land which lies beyond tho grave, and we realise that, tlicv belong to us, and that we belong to them. They have climbed tho hill of lifo and passed dawn on tho other side, and we are still hero in the struggle in the mist of tho valley. Yot lovo is stronger than death, and whether here or there, whether in the Church Militant or the Church which rests, all are conscious and are in the great Church of God."