After Seventy Years

Sun (Auckland), Volume II, Issue 398, 5 July 1928, Page 8

After Seventy Years

Constitution of the Church

Anglican Bill for Parliament

(THE SUE’S Parliamentary Reporter) WELLINGTON, To-day. OP primary importance among the private Bills to be put before Parliament this session is a Bill giving the C hui e i of England in this country power to adopt a revised prayer book if it feels the need of doing so. , . ~ Unlike the Church in England, the Church m Zealand is not a State Church; but the fundamentals ot its constitution will not permit the adoption of a new prayer book unless they are first altered by Parliament an sanction.

T IKE the Church of England in Canada, Ireland and South Africa, the Church in New Zealand may—and, indeed, does—feel the need for a prayer book which, while not necessarily evincing any trend toward -the High Church principles repugnant to many of its members, will discard archaic forms of expression and endow ancient methods of worship with a new clarity suited to the special needs of its own time and country. Not being a State church, tied to Parliament as the Church in England is by bonds forged in the days of the Reformation, it could of itself have adopted revisions according to its requirements, but the fundamental clauses of its constitution, adopted at a conference held in Auckland in 1557, are such that this would have produced knotty legal tangles, even re-

suiting in the alienation of much valuable property bequeathed to the Church as an institution maintaining, and continuing to maintain, the forms and doctrines observed when the bequests were made. PROPERTY SACRIFICED How ecclesiastical trusts may be so violated, even with" the best intentions, was illustrated when the Free Church of Scotland united with the Presbyterian Church in 1901. A small minority of Free Church members refused to join the union, and, claiming that the amalgamation did not preserve all the Free Church points of doctrine, they claimed all the valuable property of the

Free Church, and after protracted litigation won their case in the House of Lords. - To prevent the occurrence or anything of the kind in the Dominion, the Church of England in New Zealand is seeking to free itself to adopt a revised prayer book, but without risking its property. As an off-shoot of the Church in England it would, but for curious circumstances that have arisen. Leen free to wait for the adoption of the new prayer book in England, and to have then followed suit. This course, however, is prevented by the fact that the Church in New Zealand linked itself, in 1557, with the “United Church of England and Ireland.” But since the Irish Church was disestablish?d. or separated from the Church in England, in ISG9, the Church in New Zealand lias been ever since linked to something that does not actually exist. Hence lawyers declare that, even if New Zealand churchmen wished to do so. they could not adopt the English revised prayer book. There are thus two contingencies disposed of. The Church in New Zealand cannot wait to accept the revised English prayer book, and it cannot of its own power adopt a new book of its own, because its hold on thousands of pounds worth of property, which supports it in many of its works, would at once be jeopardised. To clear away the difficulties the Church first proposed to ask Parliament for power to alter all the fundamental clauses, but strong objection to this came from the Dunedin Synod, which pointed out that these sweeping adjustments, if carried to an extreme conclusion, might even make possible the abolition of the bishops, or other cataclysmic changes within the Church. To meet this objection the Church is now going to Parliament, in a Bill to be introduced first in the Legislative Council, where Sir James Allen will sponsor it, with the object of asking only for such alterations to its constitution as are necessary to permit the changes it thinks necessary for its spiritual growth. That this will not involve the danger of the introduction of an extreme prayer book distasteful to some of the believers is made clear by provisions to be embodied in the Hill. These provisions declare that a revised prayer book must first be proposed at a session of General Synod, then accepted by a majority of diocesan synods, and next passed by a newly-elected General Synod. It would thus be made an election issue on which all Church members could express their views. Even after this, the new book would not come into use for a year, and provision for elaborate right of appeal is made in the Bill. These precautions, in view of the churchmen, who will watch the progress of the measure with deep interest, remove the danger of a popular agitation, based on the fear that an extreme spirit is obtruding itself, which might induce Parliament to reject the Bill. Accordingly, its easy passage through both Houses is anticipated.