Mountsfield, Rye

‘Missionary Festival At Rye. The old town and church of Rye will make a suitable setting for the annual Diocesan Missionary Festival next Saturday [4 July 1931. An attempt will made to make the subject attractive and truly “live.” The preacher at 11.30 a.m. service at the Parish Church will be the Rev. Canon A. W. Davies, secretary of the Missionary Council of the Church of England. In the afternoon an open-air meeting will be held in the grounds of Mountsfield. under the chairmanship of the Bishop of Chichester, when the Rev. F. C. Arnold will give first-hand evidence of work in the Diocese of Bombay, where he has spent 23 years. A missionary play will be presented at 3.15 by the Lewes Players, under the title, “Sacrifice.” The author of this play is Rabindranath Tagore, and it is arranged by Mr. E. Martin-Browne, director of religious drama for the diocese. It is hoped that large numbers of people from all over East Sussex will assemble for the festival. Tea will be served in the Monastery 4.15, followed by festal evensong 5 o’clock’ (Sussex Agricultural Express, Friday 26 June 1931). ‘A tribute to the Brede Players, whose performance at the recent Mothers’ Union drama won widespread admiration, are [sic] paid by Mr. E. Martin Browne, the director of religious drama for the Diocese of Chichester, in the Diocesan Gazette for August … Mr. Browne also refers to the performance at the Rye Mission Festival of “Sacrifice,” the play by Rabindranath Tagore, the Indian philosopher. “The experiment of producing an important play by an Indian writer in place of a missionary play of the usual type seems to have pleased its audience at Rye,” he remarks. “One is grateful to the Lewes Players for entering with such zest into the preparation of Sacrifice. May not the Church in this way be instrumental in encouraging the growth of literature in her outpost countries, and so of sealing another bond between herself and the non- Christian civilisations? Sir Francis Younghusband, that humblest of great seers, declared last month that ‘the great days of religion are just dawning, and the prospects of religious drama are unimaginably magnificent’”’ (Sussex Agricultural Express, 14 August 1931; also the Hastings and St Leonards Observer, 15 August 1931).