"Grave Scandal"

Last week the staid old Church of England buzzed over the exciting possibility of its first Episcopal trial in 46 years.* Under fire from the Church's Anglo-Catholic wing was Rt. Rev. Albert Augustus David, Lord Bishop of Liverpool, a lean, wavy-haired divine whose fame as a low-churchman is exceeded in England only by that of lean little Dr. Ernest William Barnes, Lord Bishop of Birmingham. Before he became Bishop Dr. David was for twelve years headmaster of Rugby School. Bishop David has not only startled Anglicans by leading his congregation in vigorous hymn-singing and joining with other prelates in urging that Christ be depicted as "strong and muscular" (TIME, March 6), but he has also scandalized them by habitually inviting Non-Conformists to preach from his pulpit. When lately Bishop David announced he was bringing in, of all people, a Unitarian, it was too much for the Anglo-Catholics, who resolved to stir up a trial on the grounds that Bishop David's actions were a "grave scandal to Christian people."

Their leader last week was Lord Hugh Cecil, member of a famed Anglo-Catholic family, brother of Robert Cecil, Viscount Cecil and of the grey-bearded Bishop of Exeter. Lord Hugh announced he would promote a suit against Bishop David before the Archbishop of York, if someone would supply legal evidence of the Bishop's misdeeds. Exclaimed Lord Hugh: "If a Unitarian may preach under a Bishop's authority, who can reasonably complain about departures from the text of the prayerbook? We shall hardly be able to resist the polemics of the Roman Catholics when they tell us our church is a sect born of schism collapsing in anarchy."

The Church of Rome, always strong among working people, is now building a mighty cathedral in industrial Liverpool.

U. S. Episcopalians engage in much the same sort of intramural wars as their brothers in England. But because the Anglican Church is an arm of the State, its affairs cause wider repercussions. Only in England could laymen become as excited as they did last week over a second church quarrel, one which involved the English Church Union. A venerable body, long considered high church, the Union has been headed by 94-year-old Charles Lindley Wood, 2nd Viscount Halifax, a stout Anglo-Catholic who from 1863 to 1877 was Groom of the Bedchamber to the Prince of Wales. Last week Viscount Halifax resigned his post largely because in its official publication the Church Union had made what he called a "vicious attack" on the Anglo-Catholic Congress.

*In 1887 the Bishop of Lincoln was charged with and cited for improper ceremonial acts before the Archbishop of Canterbury, Most Rev. Edward White Benson (father of Author Edward Frederic Benson). The Bishop was vindicated.

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