Religion: Protestants

Ostensibly to call “upon the [British] archbishops now considering proposals for the prayer book revision to maintain the Protestant reformed religion, as by law established,” really to attempt to throttle the yearnings of many Episcopalians towards Roman Catholicism, 8,000 representatives of the Anglican and Free Churches of England recently gathered in London. The Archbishop of Canterbury and the Bishop of London did not attend. But Home Secretary Sir William Joynson-Hicks was there, presided, deprecated as usual all divergence from established customs, cried: “We have just passed through anxious times [the general strike; TIME, May 10 et seq.] . . . defeated industrial Bolshevism. . . . Let us defeat ecclesiastical Bolshevism.” The gathering was merely an expression of opinion.*

*Episcopalians have remained above the Fundamentalist-Modernistrows, especially in Britain. Their chief unrest concerns merging the national Church of England with some older communion—Roman Catholicism or Eastern Orthodoxy. Suggestions that they merge with some one of the re¬formed sects have been coldly received.