VESTURES OF MINISTERS MEASURE

HL Deb 13 July 1964 vol 260 cc9-24

2.49 p.m.

THE LORD BISHOP OF LONDON

My Lords, I beg to move the Motion which stands in my name on the Order Paper: "That this House do direct that, in accordance with the Church of England Assembly (Powers) Act 1919, the Vestures of Ministers Measure be presented to Her Majesty for the Royal Assent." This Measure represents a further contribution to the process of revising the Canon Law of the Church of England, on which the Convocations and the Church Assembly have been engaged, with varying degrees of urgency, for almost the whole of the present century. In 1904 there was appointed a Royal Commission on Ecclesiastical Discipline, and that reported two years later that the law of public worship was too narrow for the present generation, and that the machinery for discipline had broken down. The Commission went on to recommend that Letters of Business should be issued to the Convocations with instructions (a) to consider the preparation of a new rubric regulating the ornaments (that is to say the vesture) of the ministers of the Church at the time of their ministrations, with a view to their enactment by Parliament, and (b) to frame, with a view to their enactment by Parliament, such modifications in the existing law relating to the conduct of Divine Worship and the ornaments and fittings of Churches as may tend to secure the greater elasticity which a reasonable recognition of the comprehensiveness of the Church of England and of its present needs seems to demand. I have quoted this recommendation because it indicates both the origin of the present Measure and the spirit in which it has been drafted. Its purpose is to secure that "greater elasticity" and "recognition of the comprehensiveness of the Church of England", which is even more necessary now than it was in 1906, without in any way departing from the general doctrinal position of the Church of England.

The process of revision of Canon Law has been long and difficult because the Convocations have sought all through to gain the greatest possible degree of support and agreement within the Church. It has been thought right to proceed not by a single comprehensive Measure, but by making each separate issue the sub- ject of a separate Measure, so that the issue concerned can be fully and dispassionately considered. Thus, the recommendations of the Royal Commission of 1906 have been dealt with in part in the Holy Table Measure, which has now received the Royal Assent; in the Ecclesiastical Jurisdiction Measure, which has likewise become law; in the Prayer Book (Alternative and other Services) Measure, which was passed by overwhelming majorities in all three Houses of the Church Assembly last week and will in due course be brought to Parliament; and also in the present Vestures of Ministers Measure.

Thus, every Canon in the process of revision, if I may remind your Lordships, has to go through three stages in both Houses of the two Convocations, of Canterbury and York; and, in addition, it goes through two, and sometimes three stages in the House of Laity. Then, if a Measure is required because the proposed alteration in a Canon would involve an alteration in Statute Law it has again to go through various stages in the Church Assembly, and no changes can come forward in a Measure without a two-thirds majority in all three Houses of the Church Assembly. This is sometimes criticised as being a very cumbrous procedure—as it undoubtedly is. Yet at the same time it ensures that every proposed change has been most carefully discussed over a period of years. If the Measures such as the Prayer Book (Alternative and other Services) Measure may seem to be a very conservative result for a very long period of discussion, that is in present circumstances wise and prudent, for it ensures that nothing contrary to the doctrine of the Church of England has possibly been brought forward for the Royal Assent.

The existing law on the vestures of ministers is contained in Section 13 of the Act of 1558, which is quoted in the Report of the Ecclesiastical Committee. These provisions are repeated in what is commonly known as the Ornaments Rubric, which precedes the Order for Morning Prayer in the Book of Common Prayer. May I remind your Lordships of what it says: Such Ornaments of the Church of the Ministers thereof, at all times of their Ministration, shall be retained and be in use as were in this Church of England by the Authority of Parliament in the Second Year of the Reign of King Edward the Sixth. It is to be noted that the Act of Uniformity of 1662 repeated the exact words of the Statute of 1558. Although it is probable that chasubles and tunicles and albs were not in general use in the Church of England in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, they were brought back into use in many churches in the nineteenth century, in the full belief that they were legal and even, in the opinion of at least some people, mandatory. In 1877, however, the Judicial Committee of the Privy Council held that the Ornaments Rubric must be read along with Parker's Advertisements of 1566. The effect of this judgment is to make the only legal vesture of Ministers during their time of ministrations a cassock and a surplice, except that a cope should be used at the administration of Holy Communion in cathedrals and collegiate churches.

The judgment of the Privy Council was based on historical arguments which have been challenged by a number of modern historians. The late Dean of Winchester, Dr. Norman Sykes, for instance, in a speech to the Convocation of Canterbury in 1958, argued forcibly that the Canon, which is basically the same as the present Measure before your Lordships' House, does not seek to legalise practices which were abandoned at the Reformation. But whatever be the proper interpretation of the Ornaments Rubric in the Acts of Uniformity of 1558 and 1662, there is no doubt that the present practice of the vast majority of the clergy of the Church of England is at one point or another at variance with the Privy Council judgment. In particular, the wearing of a stole, which is not authorised by any interpretation of the Ornaments Rubric, is the practice in the great majority of parish churches—probably in something like 90 per cent. of them. The alb and chasuble, commonly described as the "customary vestments", are in use in many churches which would assert their complete adherence to the doctrine and practice of the Church of England, and it cannot be too strongly stated that a very large number—in fact I would say all—of those who wear stoles and the customary vestments do not believe themselves to be departing from the doctrine of the Church of England and, indeed, believe that these vestments are part of the inheritance of the Church. It has been estimated that something like 25 per cent. of parish churches use the customary vestments at one time or another.

This variance between the practice of so many of the clergy and the existing interpretation of the law is obviously undesirable, and the clergy who desire to be law-abiding feel it a great strain upon their conscience when the interpretation of the law seems to make them law-breakers. It has been suggested that since no legal actions to enforce the ruling of the Judicial Committee of the Privy Council have been taken since 1881, there is no need to have a Measure now, because no-one to-day would proceed on the basis of that ruling. But simply to rely on this would be to evade an issue which is a matter of conscience. For until the existing law is changed, or redefined, clergy who wish to wear stoles or other vestments will continue to be held by some to be breaking the law. As I have said, such clergy do not wish to have this on their conscience.

The Measure now before your Lordships' House is designed to be unifying and not divisive. All it does is to make permissive the varieties of vesture which are in common use in the Church of England at the present time. In this connection the Preamble to the Measure is of vital importance, and I believe that it means precisely what it says: that the Church of England as a Church attaches no doctrinal significance to any particular garment worn by a minister during divine service. Individual members of the Church may feel in one direction or another that a doctrinal significance attaches, for instance, to the wearing of a black Geneva gown in order to preach a sermon, just as much as others may feel that some doctrinal significance attaches to the wearing of a chasuble. But the Church of England does not attach any significance to these varieties of vesture.

In Clause 1 of the Measure are set out the varieties of use which it is hoped will be permissive. But if the Measure becomes law no clergyman will be compelled to wear what he would in conscience object to wearing. For morning and evening prayer a cassock, surplice and stole are prescribed. I have yet to meet a clergyman who would object to this. For occasional offices the Measure says that a cassock and surplice, with either a scarf or a stole, shall be worn; and here again there is no difficulty. At Holy Communion and at public baptism the Measure provides that a cassock with a surplice and scarf or stole, or a surplice with stole and cope, or an alb with stole and cope, or an alb with the customary vestments—that is, a chasuble for the celebrant and a tunicle for the assistant—may be permissive. It is impossible to conceive of any other permutation or combination of ecclesiastical garments which could be included in the Measure or which any clergyman would not be able to wear. But I would emphasise again, my Lords, that the Measure is so worded that the alternatives are permissive and not compulsive, and that no clergyman could possibly be placed in a position where he would be forced to wear vestments to which he objected.

But just as the Measure seeks to protect the consciences of the clergy, so it seeks to safeguard the rights of the laity. Clause 2 introduces what is, in effect, a new principle: that the parochial church council will have the right to be consulted before any change in the vesture in use in the parish church or chapel is made, and will have virtually a right of veto, subject to the direction of the Bishop, in the event of a disagreement between the minister and the parochial church council. To this provision we attach great importance because it makes impossible any sudden or unwelcome changes just at the whim of a particular incumbent.

My Lords, the Royal Commission of 1906 asked for the greater elasticity which a reasonable recognition of the comprehensiveness of the Church of England would seem to require. That is part of the purpose of this Measure. It is comprehensive and it ensures that varieties of use are possible without departing from the doctrine of the Church of England. It ensures, too, that in mutual charity and toleration those varieties can be held together. The comprehensiveness of the Church of England was one of its greatest contributions to the ethos of Anglicanism throughout the world. In those other parts of the Anglican Communion, the sister provin- ces with the Church of England which are not by law established or subject to the control of any body other than their own legislative body of the Church, that comprehensiveness which they have learned from the Church of England has been retained. And within Anglicanism as a whole comprehensiveness may well be one of our greatest contributions to the whole forward movement of the cause of (Ecumenical good will and ultimately to the unity of Christendom.

In the long process of Canon Law revision, we in the Church Assembly and in Convocations, in long discussions, sometimes very heated, but conducted with increasing charity and understanding, have been learning much of what that toleration and mutual charity can mean. The Convocations and the Church Assembly have realised that it is both necessary and possible to have elasticity and comprehensiveness without endangering the general doctrinal position of the Church to which we are devoted. On this particular Measure the mind of the Convocations and the Church Assembly has been made clear. The Bishops support it unanimously; the House of Clergy passed it by 214 votes to 30; the House of Laity by 182 votes to 68.

We seek in this Measure to carry that mutual toleration and charity which have marked those discussions and the conclusions into the life of the Church, in order that there may be no hurt of conscience on either side on the part of those who, for reasons of conscience, do not see entirely eye to eye on this relatively minor question of what a clergyman should wear during the time of his ministrations. We ask that this Measure may be presented to Her Majesty for the Royal Assent in the same spirit of toleration, comprehensiveness and charity which the Church needs if it is to carry on its task for the nation. I beg to move.

Moved, That this House do direct that, in accordance with the Church of England Assembly (Powers) Act 1919, the Vestures of Ministers Measure be presented to Her Majesty for the Royal Assent.—(The Lord Bishop of London.)

3.7 p.m.

EARL ALEXANDER OF HILLS-BOROUGH

My Lords, we have listened to a calm and moderate speech from the right reverend Prelate the Lord Bishop of London, and I would not comment in detail on what he has said because I do not think he has said very much more than has been included in the actual official circulation of documents with regard to the Report which was presented to the Church Assembly and the actual terms of the Measure itself. But I do want to say to your Lordships that what is involved in the passing of this Measure is really of much greater importance than that which the right reverend Prelate has attached to it or which is likely to arise in your Lordships' minds from the Preamble to the Measure itself.

This Preamble has been almost completely repeated, and I do not want to keep on repeating it, but really it says that there is nothing of particular importance or significance in regard to the doctrine of the Church of England in what is provided in this Measure. I find it exceedingly hard to accept that, and so do thousands upon thousands of the rest of the people of the country—those who have still not forgotten that we are by law at the moment a Protestant nation; that under the Act of Succession, 1689, we require our gracious Monarch, when she takes the Throne, to declare (in terms which I put in detail in my speech of May 10, 1961) that she is a faithful Protestant; and that that law itself provides that the Monarch must make such a Declaration before going upon the Throne and that the Monarch must not stay upon the Throne if he or she ceases to be able to repeat and live that Declaration on the Throne. That is the importance of this question which arises at once upon the Preamble to this Measure.

The opinion has been expressed by the right reverend Prelate that there is nothing really of a doctrinal character in this Measure. He quoted a reference from the Royal Commission of 1906, but I do not think the quotation was complete. I have not got the Royal Commission Report with me at the present time; but certainly the last issue of the English Churchman, that great family Protestant newspaper of the Church of England, which has been in existence for certainly over 125 years, replies to Sir John Guillum Scott on this particular issue. I would refer the right reverend Prelate to that issue. One thing is quite certain, and that is that the Royal Commission of 1906 not only asked for steps to be taken to look into all these matters but drew special attention to such matters as Holy Communion and vestments and things of that kind. I hope, therefore, that may be borne in mind.

THE LORD ARCHBISHOP OF CANTERBURY

My Lords, I am sorry to interrupt the noble Earl, but this is a matter of fact, and it is important that the facts should not be obscured at the outset. Is it not correct that the Royal Commission on Ecclesiastical Discipline, while naming certain things as contrary to the doctrine of our Church and requiring them to be brought to an end, did not name the use of vestments among such things?

EARL ALEXANDER OF HILLS-BOROUGH

My Lords, I will look it up when I have finished. It is not easy, because of the state of my eyesight, for me to quote closely printed documents. I will look it up and see that somebody raises the matter again in the debate. I am referring to the quotation I saw in the English Churchman, a very loyal Church of England paper, loyal to the real history and tenets of the Church of England. I can say, as the President of the United Protestant Council in this country, that I find within our ranks great numbers of very loyal churchmen who still want to see Protestant succession to the Throne, and a Protestant exercise of the great truths which are to be found in the Prayer Book of the Church of England.

I should like to put one or two questions about this to those on the Bishops' Bench, or of course to anyone else who is interested in the matter. If this Measure is not doctrinal, why does it refer to only two matters? There are in fact three matters, but I do not bring in the one about consultation between the new incumbent and his parochial church council. The first is to establish what was the position in the reign of Edward VI, except that in regard to Holy Communion these things that are now in this Church Measure shall apply. That is an amendment, first of all, entirely in respect of the use of what are here called vestures. The right reverend Prelate the Lord Bishop of London did on just one occasion note that it was vestments; the whole of this paper now is in regard to vestures.

Vestments are very important. What a lot of Protestants, clergymen and laymen, are concerned about is that there ought to be some Biblical authority for these changes. I have looked at my Bible and I have also checked my facts upon this point with a Cruden's Concordance, which I won in an elementary board school in 1898 and which has been my constant companion ever since. Only once in the whole of the Scriptures is there reference to vestments, and that is in the 10th chapter of the Second Book of Kings, where Jehu was searching out the worshippers of Baal in Israel. Before he went on to break down the altars and buildings and destroy the worshippers of Baal he said to the one in charge of the vestry, "Bring out the vestments of the worshippers of Baal". There is no other reference to vestments in the whole of the Scriptures. If the right reverend Prelate the Lord Bishop of Chester, a good friend of mine, is rather more amused about that than others, I would say I have also looked up the whole of the scriptural references with regard to vestures, and I can find nothing in those references which could be used as a Biblical basis for the institution of the use of vestments for a particular service mentioned here, although I agree with the right reverend Prelate it does not prevent ministers within the same Communion from not using the vestures. But it is a direct departure from the original Protestant Prayer Book.

There is another question I want to ask. What is the true title of our Church of England in this country? We call it the Church of England, but in my upbringing in the Church of England from my first 23 years of life I have always understood it to be the Protestant Church of England. I remember in my early youth in Bristol rather derisive instances between a few churches, but certainly the great majority of the churches were evangelical, and there was never once in the church I attended—although it was very musical and very nice to go to—the use of vestures or vestments. I look back to those days with sorrow, to think we are not getting quite the same sort of service on the principles of the Prayer Book that we got then. I went to school in a district which was completely working class. The houses in Mitchell Street, Barton Hill, in which I was brought up in Bristol are now being pulled down as slums. Christ Church, Barton Hill, which I attended, had Ministers who would come out, with people like my own working-class, labouring grandfather, to preach the Gospel twice a day on Sunday, in the open air before our neighbours.

It is not surprising, considering what a state religion is in, to find the President of the Methodist Conference suggesting to the Conference the other day that the religious life of this country to-day is such that we should treat the home field here as if it were a mission field, just as though we were taking the Gospel abroad, so necessary is it to have the Gospel preached to millions of people who are apparently completely ignorant, either of the Bible itself or of the great truths which are to be found in the Church of England Prayer Book, such as the exhortation before the General Confession, the General Confession itself, the General Thanksgiving—the most magnificent language! I think of things like that which I have always loved in the Prayer Book. When I think that we have slipped away to such a situation in the religious life of the country—and we are mostly concerned now in Church Measures to talk about what we shall see worn in a particular service of the Church.

I come now to the question of what is the real basis of the claim made by the right reverend Prelate the Lord Bishop of London, that there is nothing really important doctrinally in this amendment. Is that accepted through all the area, say, of the section of the Church which is regarded as Anglo-Catholic? If I remember rightly, the booklets issued by the Church Union, which is one of the great Anglo-Catholic organisations, teach exactly the opposite: that they do attach values to their use. Is it not true that, speaking at an Anglo-Catholic Congress, the former Lord Halifax made a statement on these lines: that they place great values upon the vestments? He said that, all else apart, they valued them because they proved that the Holy Communion of the Church of England was merely the Mass in English. Your Lordships can look up that statement for yourselves. I have not the original of it, but it was passed on to me.

That brings me to the next point, whether there is some special reason why the Church of England at this time must, through its Assembly, pass a Measure of this kind. Is it essential that it should pass it? And why is it essential? Is it essential because the members of the Church of England priesthood in the Anglo-Catholic section wish to be free to go on without breaking the law? Is that the reason? Perhaps we shall get an answer on that presently. It is a fact that hardly ever is any disciplinary action taken at present, although I remember that in the early part of his ministry the Lord Bishop of Southwark did take disciplinary action somewhere in the South-West of London. But, of course, there are numbers of people in parishes who to-day either go a long way to church because they feel they cannot worship in their own parish church, since they do not agree with what is going on there—that may apply either way—or have dropped away altogether. I confess that I was glad to see in a recent report that the numbers of communicants last Easter showed an increase of about 160,000 compared with the previous year. I like to think that that is a good sign.

But when I come to look at what is behind this Measure, I cannot get away from the fact that these vestments that we are talking about—practically all of them, though there may be exceptions—are the vestments of the Mass. They are the vestments of the Mass; that is what they are used for. So I ought to ask the right reverend Prelate—or the most reverend Primate and Metropolitan, if he likes—to tell us in the course of the debate whether, if these are to be legalised for Holy Communion because of their former connection with, as well as their present use at, the Mass, it is intended to take disciplinary action to prevent services of the Mass from taking place in the Church of England; if the wearing of these garments has no doctrinal significance, to declaim that they are the vestments of the Mass. If they are used for the Mass, are you going to rule them out by discipline, or do you intend, in fact, to alter (I speak from memory on this) Article 31, that Mass is a blasphemous fable and a dangerous deceit? Is this only a first step to further and drastic alterations in the offices and practices of the Church of England?

This is a vastly important Measure which is before your Lordships. It is one in which you have to make up your mind as to whether or not a particular case has been made out. I am bound to say that within this country and our freedom of religion there is nothing against a man's either administering or receiving Mass—nothing at all—if he does it in the right place. There is nothing to stop a man, if he wants to be a priest dealing with the Mass, to be in a Church which accepts it or lays it down as a fundamental in its rubric. But there are your Articles of Religion; there is your commitment to the Protestant Succession. There is that which is a rule in this way, so far as legalities are concerned, from the date of the Reformation in the Church in this country. So what comes next? I think that the House ought really to be informed about that.

Then I would say that there is no objection to any of the priests who want to do this joining the Church of Rome. If you are not going to be different from the Church of Rome then, of course, somebody may say, "What is the use of having the Protestant Church?" I should like to ask the Bishops—almost, if I could, to interrogate them individually—"Are you a Protestant?". I remember the debate on May 10, 1961. I had been to see the most reverend Primate who is now Lord Fisher of Lambeth, who gave us a most charming interview at Lambeth Palace before he made his visit to the Pope. He assured us—and I stated this to the House—that he was a Protestant; that he had always been a Protestant, and that he had defended Protestantism. But when, in the debate on May 10, 1961, it came down to an examination of what he really believed, I was not able to get satisfactory answers.

I did not get any satisfactory answer when I raised, as I have raised to-day, the question of the Protestant Succession, and the Oath or Declaration which Her Majesty must make. What are the relationship and the opinions of the Church in regard to that matter? I quoted the actual terms of the Declaration. Her Majesty the Queen herself made it, in her own gracious way, from the Throne. When I read out the words the most reverend Primate, said to me: "There are a hundred qualifications to that." Is that the attitude of the Church as led by the Bishops to-day? I could not get from Lord Fisher of Lambeth any of the qualifications from that legal position of the Act of 1689. Could we have those qualifications to-day, and on what legal grounds they rest? The real position of the Protestant Succession and the question of the Monarch as the Head of the Church are so important that I think we ought to know.

In regard to anything I have received from parochial councils, from clergymen in the Church of England and from other Protestants in the country at large, I do not think I have ever been more moved than by a letter that I received only late to-day from a clergyman of the Church of England whom I have known for 35 years, both in Northampton and in his present rectory in Crow-borough. He was exceedingly kind to my late friend Lord Winster, and to Lord Winster's widow in the months that followed his death. He says in the last line of his letter: There is only one thing that matters: that Christ is our only High Priest. When I read the life of the Lord Jesus Christ, I cannot see any Biblical grounds for the rituals of the kind with which we are dealing to-day. Nor can I understand those in the Church ministry who will accept, say, certain statements in the New Testament, but so often pour contempt on things which are stated in the Old Testament. I find, as I read my Bible, that all the way through there is a continuity of the purpose of God; there is a continuity in the statement of God's law. What a sight it is in the Moses Room in this House to see the picture, covering the whole wall, depicting Moses coming down from the mountain with the Tables of the Law! There is the Covenant repeated, stage by stage, of what shall take place through the Old Testament, proving the facts of what Jesus said for himself. He said, I come not to destroy the Law, but to fulfil it. When you come to deal with solemn services like the sacrifice of the Mass—for that is what the Mass is, a sacrifice—you go against the teaching of ritualism, as I see it, in the first chapter of Isaiah. Read the first chapter of Isaiah and his condemnation of the ritualism! Hear his declaration about the new moons, the Sabbath, and the special appointed days that "he cannot away with". "Incense is an abomination unto me", says Isaiah to his Church. Then even in that early part of it Isaiah, forecasting Gospel message, said: Come now, and let us reason together. Though your sins be as scarlet, they shall be as white as snow: though they be red like crimson, they shall be as wool. If you want to attach the sacrificial nature of the Mass, or to bring in vestments to salve what is referred to as the conscience of priests who want to wear these things in the service of the Holy Communion, ought we not to read once more the chapters in the Epistle to the Hebrews, starting at Chapter IX and reading from verse 24 to the end of Chapter X? What is one taught there? That Christ is not entered into the holy places made with hands, but into the presence of God for us, and that he has made the sacrifice not to be offered often lest he would have continually suffered from the beginning of the world. Then, at the end of verse 10 of the tenth chapter of Hebrews, the reference is made to the sacrifice once for all. Yet it seems to me that what the Church is trying to do is to enhance the purpose of those priests of its Church in the Anglican Communion, as it was called by the right reverend Prelate the Lord Bishop of London, although it is truly the Church of England, according to this measure—the Anglican Communion, the Anglo-Catholic Communion.

There it is. It is always difficult to compare certain passages of Scripture, and the most reverend Primate and Metropolitan knows full well that those of us who are laymen but who try to understand our Scripture know well his scholarship—he is one of the great scholars among modern theologians in the whole world. But when I come to read my Hebrews IX and X, when I come to see the Covenants that were made right the way through as to what was going to happen in the coming of the Messiah, then I think that in the end scholarship will have to come second to faith. There is no chapter in the whole of the Scripture so wonderful as Hebrews XI on the healers by faith. "By faith" appears in almost every paragraph. I believe in the whole Bible. If I cannot believe in the whole Bible, what part of it can I retain as being the only part or one of the parts to be believed?

I beg of the Church of England to take two things into consideration. There is the use of the service of Holy Communion in the sense in which the late Lord Halifax referred to it. The Mass in English is not justified by Hebrews IX and X. I should like to know what the most reverend Primate and Metropolitan thinks of that. And yet we find Bishops of the Church of England will go to services of High Mass and preach a sermon there. Is that one of the reasons for the passage of this Measure? These things have to be more settled in the mind of Parliament.

The Sunday Express of yesterday, at the end of their forecast of this debate, refer to a statement which they say was made by the most reverend Primate on his enthronement in Canterbury in June, 1961. It quoted him as saying that if he could not get from Parliament the freedom that the Church desired, then it would have to be got some other way, and that we, the people who take my view, were the people who drive them out of the position of being the State Church. Does that mean that he leads those whom we think, according to the original Prayer Book, are revolters against the factors laid down in the Church of England Prayer Book and that there is no limit at present set upon the further reforms which are made from their point of view? If the statement were made, such as the Sunday Express reported yesterday, then I think the most reverend Primate ought to explain to us how he proposes, in the circumstances, if he were to go to Disestablishment, to maintain the Protestant succession in this country.

When I talk about the Protestant succession, I remember how great our country has been since that day; what wonderful things it has done for itself and for people all over the world in its mission field and everywhere concerned. I should be glad not to be here to see the state of affairs when that passed away. I should like to be in Heaven, if I am accepted there; I should not like to be here to see it. The great days of this country and the Common- wealth which it has built up have occurred because of the acceptance by the people of the principles of the Reformation. God grant that it may continue!