AN ANNUAL UNITED COMMUNION SERVICE.
[To TIIII EDITOR OF Tag "SPECTATOR."]
Sin,—When the Archbishops of the Mother-Church in England joined with the heads of the daughter-Churches in appealing to the Christian people of England for united prayer on Whit-Sunday, with a view to more visible fellow- ship between Christians, we all had our different ways of responding to the appeal. One that commended itself to us here in Eccles was to hold on Sunday, June 24th, a united Communion Service at the parish church at 8 /MIL and a united prayer meeting at the Wesleyan schoolroom at 8 p.m., followed up by a united friendly gathering of an informal character on the following Saturday afternoon in the open air.
Those who were interested in our hopes will like to hear that they were fulfilled. The 8 a.m. service was attended (as was the evening gathering) by more than two hundred persons, of whom by far the greater number were Nonconformists ; the chapels in our borough, to the number of nearly a dozen, being represented by their ministers and a band of communicants. The service was characterised by such gladness and singleness of heart as recalled the description of the Breaking of Bread and the prayers in the infancy of the Church (when the Christians of the locality were "all with one accord in one place"), and will not soon be forgotten. My reason for writing again is to express the hope that our object in choosing Midsummer Day—a day that lends itself naturally to association with light and warmth—may be attained ; and that the day may become in many parishes a sort of anniversary of peace, unity, and concord among Christians of all denominations,—a kind of mothering Sunday !
Since I last wrote to you the unanimity of the Report of the
Ritual Commission, followed up by the clear, strong lead of the Archbishop calling for prompt action, has breathed new hope into the country at large. We feel that our Liturgy and its rubrics are at any rate in some measure to be adapted to the religious needs of the living Church of our own day.
I may perhaps be forgiven for referring once more to Con- firmation. May we not hope that those who have the rule over us in Church and State will recognise that an entirely new state of things has arisen since the promulgation of our Confirmation Service ? I refer, of course, to the coming of age of daughter- Churches who have he right to claim respectful recognition from the Mother-Church. No service in tho least suitable is at present provided for the admission of adult communicants from such Churches to share the full privileges of communion in the parent
Church, whether by Confirmation or otherwise. .
A glance at the opening paragraph in our Confirmation Service proves beyond doubt or question that it was intended only for young people growing up under Prayer-book rules, for whom sponsors have made vicarious promises ; and oddly enough, the same is also taken for granted in the service provided for the baptism of adults. I repeat that where conditions of life are quite new and unlike any contemplated by the compilers of the Liturgy, the minister seems to be thrown back (as I tried to show in my former letters) on the general spirit of the Church's teaching, as shown in all the exhortations and rubrics of the office for Holy Communion and the answers at the end of the Catechism.
That members of the Christian Church should realise their unity in Christ and forget all their differences in the Feast of Love is beyond a doubt in accordance with the wishes of the Founder of the Feast. Nothing can take its place as a pledge to assure us of spiritual unity in Him or as a means whereby we may receive the same.
Eccles Vicarage.
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