CHURCH CLOSED

Evening Star, Issue 19799, 24 February 1928, Page 4

CHURCH CLOSED

THE ST. GUTHBERT’S CONTROVERSY

VICAR GRANTED LEAVE OF ABSENCE.

LONDON, February 23. (Received February 2-1, at 1.30 a.m.)

The vicar of St. Cuthbort’s has been granted three months’ leave of absence following a conference of the parties to the controversy, convened by tho Bishop of Blackburn. Pending a temporary appointment the church is closed.

[A previous message stated: A strong police Force with difficulty coped with a mob of thousands at St. Cuthbert’s on February 10. The scenes were the most disgraceful yet witnessed. Twelve hundred protesters inside the church, some standing on the seats, demonstrated against the sung Eucharist, singing the thirtyeighth hymn loudly, and coughing and talking. The voices of sixty of the vicar’s supporters who endeavored to follow the curate (the Roy. Norman Crawshaw) in the celebration of the services were drowned, although they persevered from 9.30 until noon. The vicar mounted the pulpit and tried for two hours to preach. He eventually briefly delivered a, message to his followers amid a volume of hostile psalmody, concluding with the National Anthem. He proceeded home between lines of police, whom the hooting crowd of 8,000 charged, knocking the vicar and several constables into the shrubbery. Mounted police rescued the vicar. A skirmish near the vicarage followed, tho crowd dispersing half an hour later. 1