Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1928-11-02
Presbyterian Lauds
Episcopal Decision
To tn. Editor Of The star:


Church OF the United States Of America
the House of Bishops, by q vote of So to
81. decided TO enrich the American Book
of Common Prayer by adding a special
service for the Fourth OF July for the
obvious purpose Of enabling that great
church to fulfill more perfectly It's func-
lions as a truly national church.
The writer Of this letter Is a Presby-
terrain, but he believes that the average
American, no matter to what denomi-
nation he may belong, would feel that
those SO bishops took much larger and
far wiser view of the matter In question
than did the minority.
The bishops of Southern Ohio, New
York and Tennessee in the course of
their strenuous protests against the pro-
posed special service for Independence
day went so far (strenge to sayD as to
express the fear that their brethren in
the Anglican Church might be offended
by such an annual, oficial reminder of
our break with the mother country"
in the eighteenth century!
Tennyson's splendid poem, entitled
England and America in 1882" antici-
pated and should allay the timid fears
expressed by the protesting bishops. It
shows the sympathetic and statesman
like attitude of the great poet laureate
of the Victorian Age toward our War
of independence, and 1t Is interesting
to recall the statement in Sheppard'S
photography Of Tennyson" that the
poem was contributed by Tennyson to
an American newspaper in 1872:
Strong Mother of a Lion-line,
Be proud of those strong sons Of thine
Who wrench'd their rights from thee.
What wonder If in noble heat
Those men thine arms withstood
Retaught the lesson thou hadSt taught
And in thy spirit with thee fought
Who sprang from English blood!
But thou rejoice with liberal joy,
Lift up thy rocky face,
And shatter, when the storms are black,
In many a streaming torrent back,
The seas that shock thy base!
Whatever harmonies Of law
The growing world assume,
Thy work Is thine-the single note
From that deep chord which Hampden
smote
VIII vibrate to the doom!
1t is also pertinent to recall the fact
that the first stanza OF Tennysons
liberal" and prophetic poem Is the
the American Revolution" as the key
note of that scholarly work. It shows
that the twentieth century Englishman
takes an intelligent and sympathetic
view of our War of independence, as
being simply the long delayed evolution
of the embryonic principles that were
established by Magma Charta in 1918
and were fought for in the sixteenth
century by John Hampden.
Today, in obedience to TennySon'S
exhortation, all ,clear-thinking English
men rejoice with liberal Joy" in the
independence won by the American
colonies. They now look upon the
American Revolution as a blessing in
di.guise to the mother country"
British statesmen, unconSciouSly APP
plying the lessons learned from the
American Revolution, gradually aban-
doned the colonial system inherited
from the Roman Empire, In which the
colonies" we're exploited for the profit
of England, and they have learned to
treat their colonies" as infants that
were in time to become self-governing
"dominionS'' and co-eQual members of
the great commonwealth of nations,
now called the British Empire. English
historians have at last added George
Washington, along with oliver Crom-
well, to the roll of the pioneers of
"Anglo-Saxon" liberty.
Nothing could be more felicitous and
less Objectionable than the Collect and
the "Epistle" in the proposed special
service for the Fourth of July. When
the Bishop of Mississippi spoke Of that
"Epistle" as being most unfortunate"
he overlooked the fact that in that very
"Epistle" the Divine Lawgiver reviseS
the Old Testament Injunction Thou
shalt love thy neighbor and hate thine
enemy" by commanding us to "love
our enemies" That fact is exactly in
line with the hope expressed by Bishop
Manning that there may be prepared
"a service of love and fellowship for cur
English-speaking brethren throughout
the whole world"
That hope Is shared by all sensible
Americans who appreciate the essential
unity Of the two great English-Speaking
nations But there is no real antago-
nism between reasonable, Self-respect-
ing and unboastful American national
ism" and any sane and practicable
"internationalism."
RICHARD D. HARLAN.