will continue to intrigue and conspire, changing their fronts as deftly and as frequently as they have been doing. And what of the Cantonese Nationalists? They, too, are not free from factional feuds among themselves. Their military leader, Chang Kai-shek, is yet a problem. His patriotism and sincerity have not been tested. If his aspirations and intentions do not rise above the level of those of his fellows, there is little hope for China's regeneration under his leadership. Eugene Chen and Wellington Koo might write all the vigorous notes they are capable of writing to London or Tokyo or Washington, but that would contribute little towards the saving of China herself. The Bolshevist propaganda now so conspicuous among the Nationalists might succeed in destroying foreign influence, but that would make little difference to China's own internal conditions. How to reform or do away with the intriguing, self-seeking militarists and their corrupt political puppets is a problem to the solution of which China must first of all address herself in earnest. The Chinese must learn to agree among themselves before they can effectively ask the Powers to agree to any proposal they may advance. Meanwhile, what should be the attitude of the Powers? Should they sit with folded arms and follow a policy of non-interference ? Or should they launch concerted measures for the protection of their nationals and their legitimate interests in China even at the risk of incurring further enmity on the part of the Chinese ?

To such questions only far-seeing, wise statesmanship is capable of offering safe and sound answers.

K. K. KAWAKAMI

PRAYER BOOK REVISION

THE AVERAGE LAYMAN

It is a singular position with which the average Churchman is confronted to-day. He is asked to decide whether he will support some thirty-five bishops who present him with a new Prayer Book as the only hope of restoring peace and order in the Church, or four bishops who are equally confident that it will do nothing of the kind. If the average Churchman were a theologian, his natural course would be to examine the book and form his own opinion. But he is nothing of the kind. In matters of worship two instincts dominate his outlook, conservatism and moderation. He is conservative because changes disturb his devotion. He finds concentration of prayer difficult enough without the interruption which sudden changes impose. He loves moderation because in his mind it is associated with sincerity. He does not wear his religion on his sleeve. If he is forced to speak about it his words are few, his tones are grave. He loves the sentence in the Sermon on the Mount which direct his prayers to his "Father, which seeth in secret." But, since prayer must be public as well as secret, he desires that public worship should be grave, and simple, and that it should not be cumbered with dark and dumb ceremonies.

But the average Churchman is beginning to find that in worship, as in many other matters, he is out of date, mid-Victorian in fact. He may easily find himself in a Church where all the surroundings are unfamiliar, where a priest at a High Altar is rapidly mumbling words which the worshippers cannot hear, bowing, kissing the altar, genuflecting, prostrating himself: where clouds of incense offend his nostrils, and resonant gongs his ears. It may

be even that this ceremonial is thrust on him in his own parish church, and he determines to write to the Bishop, who will very probably reply that "Anglican worship has undergone a rapid change during the last few years, and that he will do his best by way of remonstrance with the vicar"-and that is too often the end of the matter.

Now the advocates of the new Prayer Book, called the Deposited Book, offer our average Churchman the assurance that they have produced a book which is up-to-date in its ordering of Divine services, Anglican and not Roman in

its doctrine, and as conservative as the nature of the times admits. It is true, so he is told, that it contains some alterations which alarm a few Protestant extremists, but Protestants are a decadent and negligible force in the Church. Conditions of life are not what they were when Cranmer produced his Prayer Book. He will be told that the world has moved on with extraordinary rapidity, and will perhaps be a little puzzled by the further inference that it is time, therefore, that we went back to Cranmer's first attempt at Prayer Book compilation. "Because we live in 1927, we must adopt the Communion Service of 1549 or something very like it." But in his bewilderment the average Churchman is assured that the path of moderation has been chosen, as is plain from the fact that the extremists on both sides are up in arms. What is now imperative is that the layman should trust the majority of the Bishops, and support them in their effort to restore peace and order in the Church. If he does not do so, not only will the labours of twenty years be thrown away, but such discredit will fall upon Episcopacy that the Church must be rent in twain. There is one way, and only one way, in which the Church can be saved, and that is by supporting the Deposited Book. This slogan, "Trust the Bishops and save the Church," is proving so effective that such opposition as is being offered seems almost contemptible. Yet there was a day in which the "old contemptibles" saved the world.

I do not propose in this article to follow Lord Hugh Cecil in the constitutional and theological intricacies which he raised in the National Review last month. They will be exposed, beyond doubt, in the Church Assembly, where he will find that some of the strongest arguments against him will be drawn from the Report on Church and State, which he signed when advocating the Enabling Act, and from Cranmer on the Lord's Supper, of which work he seems to possess a highly expurgated copy. I shall not attempt to do more than to advance some reasons why trust in the Bishops will not save the Church, but rather through the Deposited Book will increase its confusion. Prophecy is, of course, a dangerous trade, but the facts to be adduced are such as can leave no reasonable doubt as to their necessary consequences. They will show that the Bishops have not approached the most difficult of all the questions before them, the rock of division, which must come to light as soon as they attempt to adminster the book. That rock of division is the question of ceremonial. Words

can easily be manipulated so as to conceal differences. Each party can put his own construction upon them. But ceremonial acts are a commentary upon words, and give a definite meaning to ambiguous phraseology. The Privy Council in the case of Sheppard v. Bennett rightly laid down this principle: "If the Minister be allowed to introduce at his own will variations in the rites and ceremonies that seem to him to interpret the doctrine of the service in a particular direction, the service ceases to be what it was meant to be-common ground on which all Church people may meet, though they differ about some doctrines." The average layman may not be at home in a dispute about words; of actions he can form some conception.

It is important to dwell on this distinction, because it seriously affects the value of the Deposited Book at its central point-that is, at the service of Holy Communion. It is here that the Bishops claim to have achieved their most satisfactory work, and the average layman who wishes to form a sound judgment on the proposals of the Bishops must prepare himself for something more than superficial examination. Nor do we question that he will be ready to make the effort.

Our Lord's simple command to take part in a solemn meal in remembrance of Him presents no difficulty. The primary truths are those of communion with Him and with one another. That communion He Himself based on the

Sacrifice of Himself on our behalf. "This is My Body which is given for you. This My Blood which is outpoured for you.' Apart from that Sacrifice there could be no Communion. But the Church had travelled a long way from our Lord's command when, to use Dr. Hort's words, the fictitious and constructive offering of a phantom body and phantom blood degraded the Holy Communion to the unreal mimicry of a sacrifice, which, if real, would now be heathenish." There is no doubt that in popular belief the Sacrifice of the Mass did degenerate into a magical cult, in which, by recitation of certain words, the Priest performed a miracle, and offered a sacrifice which compelled God to be gracious to those on whose behalf it was offered. Dr. Burkitt has pointed out that the actual words of the Canon of the Mass were free from this magical significance, and Luther himself owned that he could put an Evangelical interpretation on those words of the Mass. Whence, then, was this superstitious belief imported It was largely due to speculation as to the exact moment when the Bread and Wine became Body and Blood of Christ, and to the

desire of pagan converts to have a real sacrifice. The ceremonial of the Mass made no small contribution to effecting this purpose. The priest's robes, used only in this service, became the magician's dress. His actions, his stooping, his genuflexions, moments of solemn silence, the sound of the gong at the critical instant, all helped to transform the sacred memorial into a propitiatory sacrifice directing Divine action. In course of time the combined result of superstitious practices and philosophical speculations was to create what our Reformers regarded as a magical and purely idolatrous celebration.

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The Bishops, being aware that some clergy had woven the service of our Church into the Roman Mass, into this propitiatory sacrifice, set themselves to construct for the Deposited Book a Prayer of Consecration which could not be used in this way. For this purpose they introduced an Invocation of the Holy Spirit upon the elements and on the worshippers after the words of the Institution, This is My Body," "This is My Blood." Thus the Bishop of Gloucester writes: "The Consecration Prayer of the old Communion Office is quite compatible with modern Roman theology, although some might think it rather meagre. But the new Consecration Prayer definitely forbids it, for, following the tradition of the Eastern Liturgies, and probably also the earlier form of Western, it first recites the words of Institution, and then afterwards recites the Invocation of the Holy Spirit."

It has been necessary to submit these rather technical details to do justice to the desire of the Bishops to construct a prayer which should make the old associations impossible. But unfortunately there clings to this Eastern form the belief of its efficacy to produce precisely the same results as those achieved by the Western, the conversion of Bread and Wine by consecration into the Body and Blood of Christ, the same compelling force of the sacrifice offered; and a judge so competent as Dr. Burkitt detects in one of the most ancient and dignified of these Eastern forms a certain ambiguity which lends itself to a magical interpretation." In any case, the Bishops have put too much trust in words. They have not forbidden the ceremonial which lends to the service its magical suggestions. The priest may wear the magician's robes. The incense, which is the accompaniment of sacrifice, is not forbidden. In the cathedral of the Bishop, who has been the great liturgiologist of the Bench, incense is to be introduced forthwith. All the ceremonial of the Mass has free course.

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