WE HESITATED last week to make any allusion to the statement, contained in the Western Mail report of the enthronement ceremonies at St Asaph, that Mr and Mrs Lloyd George were present at an early morning celebration of the Holy Communion and “partook at the hands of an archbishop in the quietude of the morning hour”. We have since received assurance of the truth of the report that Mr Lloyd George, a Particular Baptist, and Mrs Lloyd George, a Calvinistic Methodist, were admitted to Holy Communion. The measure of the distress and bewilderment occasioned by this open disregard of Church discipline on the part of the assembled Primates is indicated by the letters we have received from Churchmen and women both in Wales and England. No blame, of course, attaches to the Prime Minister, for he cannot be held, as would an unknown person, to have deceived the authorities by presenting himself as a communicant. Responsibility rests upon the Archbishop of Wales, and though we look for an explanation of this astonishing action we have not much hope of it satisfying loyal Churchmen. The old argument about membership of the National Church is clearly no longer available. Celtic impulsiveness cannot account for such action at eight o’clock in the morning. What remains but to suppose that this is one of those “special occasions” that have been darkly hinted at in the talk of reunion?

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