NEW CHURCH IN THE MAKING

Dominion, Volume 12, Issue 238, 2 July 1919, Page 3

NEW CHURCH IN THE MAKING

-WHAT IS PASSING. (By RiVr. D. W. Duthie, author of "A Bishop in the Rough," in the "Daily Mail.") Tho new Church of England is within sight! .The spirit of the times is upon her, and she must set her house in order or prove faithless to her mission and lose once and for all tho good will of the ."common people" who in tho first centuries heard her Master "gladly." First and foremost she- will regain her spiritual liberty and self-tsspect by a supreme act of renunciation demanding her disestablishment and partial disendowment. No longer will he* • laws be made or dclaved for her by members of a. very secular Parliament; the anomaly of a Baptist Prime Minister appointing her chief officers and many of her incumbents will come to an tnd. . Her bishops will cease to he princes. Ruling over smaller dioceses ana fri-1 from the v eproacb _of "fatal opulence," they will no longer live in palaces. Cathedrals will reform themselves; the ghovel hats of deans will disappear from their nretincts; their canons will find their labours no longer bdunded by a thirteen weeks' residence in 'lie year, but will justify fine houses and desirable salaries by at least nine months' work for the good of the Ch'urch generally. Small.parishes will he groupc-d together to the economy of time and effort..Young clergy will not be appointed to tiny parishes to devote to golf ,md gardening those energies which should ,bo expended in the great field of tho world's unrest and sorrow.

Tho rank aid file of ihe < lergy vill for tho first time receive a living ;age._ The Reverend Dives, with a population of four hundred souls. and an - income, of, a thousand pounds, will find that income largely reduced, while .Father Lazarua, in some slum parish with many soul's and little pay, will.be; given at least enough stipend to live upon. Ineumhsnts will be able to retire at .severity or earlier if necessary and on -a sufficient pension. The parson will lose his freehold and will be more under control.

The sale of advoivsons will cease. Never again shall we read in advertisement columns of "a desirable living to be sold, >318 pop., JC7CO a year net, incumbent 78, in delicate health." Private patronage Will come to an aid.

The services of the Church will be altered to meet the needs of the day, 'being rendered more elastic and accommodating; the Prayer Boole will be revised and freed from archaic expressions and obsolete theology. The Athaiuvsian Creed, stumbling block to so many, will be relegated to obscurity or recited pub. licly but once in the-year, on the day f-acied to the Divine Mysteries, the If east of the Holy Trinity. The great spiritual resources that are stored up in her laity will be :;sed as never before; lay readers and ether workers will be multiplied and the crder of perpetual deacon, restored. Women ■will .bring all- the powers 'of their attainments and character to hear rprin the affairs of the Church. They rill stand in the pulpit and may even minister at the altar.

In the more ilexiblo services there n ay be a, return to the liberty of extemporaneous prayer to meet the needs of special. occasions and circumstances , l'or which there is no provision in the Prayer Book. Such orisons, it is to be hoped, will be short and in the true nature of prayer, not florid rhetoric liko the utterances printed, with the sermons of Dr. Packer .of the City Temple. Nor will they merit' the eulogy of the American critic who described ail outpouring of the late -Dr. De Witt Talmage as fane of the very finest petitions ever addressed to a Boston audience."

Still less will they partako of the prayer 'by a Methodist minister which wounded soldiers then in a certain hospital recall! with lively delight: "0 Lord, Thou hast -just heard Thy servants singing, 'Pack Up Your Troubles in Your Old lvit-bag. 5 We all want to get Hid of our troubles, but teach us, 0 Lord, to pack them up'in Thy kit-bag." Other changes thero will he, and all making' for efficiency and usefulness. Is it too much to expect that this new Church, animated with fresh devotion and zeal, will make an appeal to rany thousands of her children who have forsaken ■ her communion or are in. danger of 'doing so?