OXFORD MOVEMENT

Hokitika Guardian, 17 July 1933, Page 6

OXFORD MOVEMENT

TERMINATION OF CELEBRATIONS

ENDING IN TORRENTIAL RAIN

(United Press Association— By Electric Telegraph—OOfyright.)

(Received thi s day at 12.25 p.m.) LONDON, July 16.

England's .Anglo-Cathoiics prayed last night lor fine weather for to-days high mass at "White City stadium, terminating the centenary celebrations oi the Oxrord Movement. Fifty thousand .attended the largest service held in England, beginning at 11.30 o’clock, dug racers having vacated the stadium twelve hours previously. Hymn numbers instead of betting figures were, displayed on the totalisat(,r board. The sunlight, glittered on the gold, crimson, black and white robes of the Bishop of St. Albans, who presided. Loud speakers amplified the prayers and chants.' A huge kite, bearing yellow streamers inscribed ‘‘Protestant Alliance Declares High Mass Illegal,” floated over the stadium until the wind dropped. The police kept the Alliance counter-demonstration constantly moving outside. _ Pain fell in torrents at 11.50, and the priests in drenched surplices stood bareheaded, only one opening an umbrella. ‘The roar of thunder accompanied the. Bishop of Colombo’s final blessing. After,, the celebration of Mass, in which four trumpeters hera’ded the “Elevation of (the .Hofjt,’. seven macintoshed laymen besides tlie priests wopeithe,;only ,communjgahts. Mr J. Kens it, of the Protestant Truth ' Society, presided over five hundred congregants at Spurgeons Tabernacle, repudiating the Oxford Movement as the “return, to the cave of mediaeval; superstition.”