IS IT TO BE APPROVED?

Evening Post, Volume CIV, Issue 143, 14 December 1927, Page 11

IS IT TO BE APPROVED?

HOUSE . OF LORDS DEBATE

PROS AND CONS ARGUED

(A.P.A. and "Sun.") LONDON, 13 th December. I Continuing the debate'in the House' of Lords initiated by the. Archbishop of Canterbury with an impassioned plea for the acceptance of the measure legalising the adoption of the Bevised Prayer Book, Lord Han worth said that ho j hoped the House would unequivocally reject the motion. He said that opponents of the measure desired the rubric to include a permanent safeguard binding the episcopal bench for generations to come. They particularly objected to an alternative Communion service, in which they contended it was vital to have unity. Discipline could ndt'be enforced when there was an alternative. Earl Beauchamp said that it was extremists on both sides who opposed the measure. They ought to give way on personal points for" the good of tho Book, which abolished nothing but enriched everything. STANDING BY OLD FAITH. The Marquess of Lincolnshire, in opt posing the motion, declared that 'the Church was at war with itself.' They saw the use of vestments, confession, Mass, and reservation of tjjie Sacrament (which could not be dissocitaed from adoration) being practised in the Church of England. "I think we have the right to demand," declared the Marquess, "that in matters ecclesiastical as well as temporal, every Englishman should be made to obey the law. We who. are conscientiously opposed to the measure are standing shoulder to shoulder by the old faith and English traditions for which our forefathers fought and John Hampdcn died." The Earl of Denbigh said that none of the Boman Catholic peers intended to take part either in the debate or in the division. He could not imagine a more incongruous body than the modern Parliament, comprising men of : varying religions, agnostics, and freeI thinkers, being asked practically to lay down the doctrines and rubrics of the Church o£ England. Lprd Phillimore supported the measure as leading to order through liberty, without a change of doctrine. It was only at njost a change in emphasis. Tho debate was adjourned.