[Transcriber's Note: The footnotes have been numbered and moved tothe end of the document. ]

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A SHORT HISTORY OF THE BOOK OF COMMON PRAYER

TOGETHER WITH

CERTAIN PAPERS ILLUSTRATIVE OF LITURGICAL REVISION 1878-1892

BY

WILLIAM REED HUNTINGTON D. D. D. C. L. 

_Rector of Grace Church New York_

NEW YORK THOMAS WHITTAKER

2 and 3 Bible House

Copyright, 1893, by

THOMAS WHITTAKER, THE MERSHON COMPANY PRESS, RAHWAY, N. J. 

CONTENTS

I. A Short History of the Book of Common Prayer:

I. Origins, II. Vicissitudes, II. Revision of the American Common Prayer, III. _The Book Annexed_: Its Critics and its Prospects, Appendix:

I. Permanent and Variable Characteristics of the Prayer Book--ASermon Before Revision, 1878

II. The Outcome of Revision, 1892

III. Tabular View of Additions Made at the Successive Revisions, 1552-1892

INTRODUCTORY NOTE. 

The opening paper of this collection was originally read as alecture before a liturgical class, and is now published for thefirst time. The others have appeared in print from time to timeduring the movement for revision. If they have any permanentvalue, it is because of their showing, so far as the writer's partin the matter is concerned, what things were attempted and whatthings failed of accomplishment. Should they serve as contributoryto some future narrative of the revision, the object of theirpublication will have been accomplished. So much has been said asto the poverty of our gains on the side of "enrichment, " ascompared with what has been secured in the line of "flexibility, "that it has seemed proper to append to the volume a ComparativeTable detailing the additions of liturgical matter made to theCommon Prayer at the successive revisions. 

W. R. H. New York, Christmas, 1892. 

A SHORT HISTORY OF THE BOOK OF COMMON PRAYER. 

A SHORT HISTORY OF THE BOOK OF COMMON PRAYER. 

I. ORIGINS. 

Liturgical worship, understood in the largest sense the phrase canbear, means divine service rendered in accordance with an establishedform. Of late years there has been an attempt made among purists toconfine the word "liturgy" to the office entitled in the PrayerBook, _The Order for the Administration of the Lord's Supper orHoly Communion_. 

This restricted and specialized interpretation of a familiar wordmay serve the purposes of technical scholarship, for undoubtedlythere is much to be said in favor of the narrowed signification aswe shall see; but unless English literature can be rewritten, plainpeople who draw their vocabulary from standard authors will go oncalling service-books "liturgies" regardless of the fact that theycontain many things other than that one office which is entitledto be named by eminence _the_ Liturgy. "This Convention, " write thefathers of the American Episcopal Church in the Ratification printedon the fourth page of the Prayer Book, "having in their presentsession set forth a Book of Common Prayer and other rites andceremonies of the Church, do hereby establish the said book; andthey declare it to be the _Liturgy_ of this Church. "

For the origin of liturgy thus broadly defined we have to go a longway back; beyond the Prayer Book, beyond the Mass-book, beyond theancient Sacramentaries, yes, beyond the synagogue worship, beyondthe temple worship, beyond the tabernacle worship; in fact I amdisposed to think that, logically, we should be unable to stopshort until we had reached the very heart of man itself, thatdimly discerned groundwork we call human nature, and had discoveredthere those two instincts, the one of worship and the other ofgregariousness, from whence all forms of common prayer have sprung. Where three or two assemble for the purposes of supplication, someform must necessarily be accepted if they are to pray in unison. When the disciples came to Jesus begging him that he would teachthem how to pray, he gave them, not twelve several forms, thoughdoubtless James's special needs differed from John's and Simon'sfrom Jude's--he gave them, not twelve, but one. "When ye pray, "was his answer, "say Our Father. " That was the beginning ofChristian Common Prayer. Because we are men we worship, becausewe are fellow-men our worship must have form. 

But waiving this last analysis of all which carries us across thewhole field of history at a leap, it becomes necessary to seekfor liturgical beginnings by a more plodding process. 

If we take that manual of worship with which as English-speakingChristians we are ourselves the most familiar, the Book of CommonPrayer, and allow it to fall naturally apart, as a bunch offlowers would do if the string were cut, we discover that inpoint of fact we have, as in the case of the Bible, many booksin one. We have scarcely turned the title-page, for instance, before we come upon a ritual of daily worship, an order forMorning Prayer and an order for Evening Prayer, consisting inthe main of Psalms, Scripture Lessons, Antiphonal Versicles, and Collects. Appended to this we find a Litany or GeneralSupplication and a collection of special prayers. 

Mark an interval here, and note that we have completed the firstvolume of our liturgical library. Next, we have a sacramentalritual, entitled, _The Order for the Administration of the Lord'sSupper or Holy Communion_, ingeniously interwoven by a system ofappropriate prayers and New Testament readings with the Sundaysand holydays of the year. This gives us our second volume. Then follow numerous offices which we shall find it convenientto classify under two heads, namely: those which may be said bya bishop or by a presbyter, and those that may be said by abishop only. Under the former head come the baptismal offices, the Order for the Burial of the Dead, and the like; under thelatter, the services of Ordination and Confirmation and the Formof Consecration of a Church or Chapel. 

In the Church of England as it existed before the Reformation, these four volumes, as I have called them, were distinct andrecognized realities. Each had its title and each its separateuse. The name of the book of daily services was _The Breviary_. The name of the book used in the celebration of the Holy Communionwas _The Missal_. The name of the book of Special Offices was_The Ritual_. The name of the book of such offices as could beused by a bishop only was _The Pontifical_. It was one of thegreatest of the achievements of the English reformers that theysucceeded in condensing, after a practical fashion, these fourbooks, or, to speak more accurately, the first three of them, Breviary, Missal, and Ritual, into one. The Pontifical, orOrdinal, they continued as a separate book, although it soon forthe sake of convenience became customary in England, as it hasalways been customary here, for Prayer Book and Ordinal to bestitched together by the binders into a single volume. Popularlyspeaking the Prayer Book is the entire volume one purchases underthat name from the bookseller, but accurately speaking the Bookof Common Prayer ends where _The Form and Manner of Making, Ordaining, and Consecrating Bishops, Priests, and Deacons_begins. "Finis" should be written after the Psalter, as indeedfrom the Prayer Book's Table of Contents plainly appears. 

Setting aside now, for the present, that portion of the formularieswhich corresponds to the Ritual and Pontifical of the mediaevalChurch, I proceed to speak rapidly of the antecedents of Breviaryand Missal. Whence came they? And how are we to account fortheir being sundered so distinctly as they are?

They came, so some of the most thoughtful of liturgical studentsare agreed, from a source no less remote than the Temple ofSolomon, and they are severed, to speak figuratively, by a valleynot unlike that which in our thoughts divides the Mount ofBeatitudes from the Hill of Calvary. 

In that memorable building to which reference was just made, influential over the destinies of our race as no other house ofman's making ever was, there went on from day to day these twothings, psalmody and sacrifice. Peace-offering, burnt-offering, sin-offering, the morning oblation, and the evening oblation--thesewith other ceremonies of a like character went to make what weknow as the sacrificial ritual of the temple. 

But this was not all. It would appear that there were otherservices in the temple over and above those that could strictlybe called sacrificial. The Hebrew Psalter, the hymn-book of thatearly day, contains much that was evidently intended by thewriters for temple use, and even more that could be easilyadapted to such use. And although there is no direct evidencethat in Solomon's time forms of prayer other than those associatedwith sacrificial rites were in use, yet when we find mention inthe New Testament of people going up to the temple of those laterdays "at the hour of prayer, " it seems reasonable to infer thatthe custom was an ancient one, and that from the beginning of thetemple's history forms of worship not strictly speaking sacrificialhad been a stated feature of the ritual. But whether in the templeor not, certainly in the synagogues, which after the return fromthe captivity sprang up all over the Jewish world, servicescomposed of prayers, of psalms, and of readings from the law andthe prophets were of continual occurrence. Therefore we may safelysay that with these two forms of divine service, the sacrificialand the simply devotional and didactic, the apostles, the foundersof the Christian Church, had been familiar from their childhood. They were at home in both synagogue and temple. They knew by sightthe ritual of the altar, and by ear the ritual of the choir. Theywere accustomed to the spectacle of the priest offering the victim;they were used to hearing the singers chant the psalms. 

We see thus why it is that the public worship of the Church shouldhave come down to us in two great lines, why there should be atradition of eucharistic worship and, parallel to this, a traditionof daily prayer; for as the one usage links itself, in a sense, to the sacrificial system of God's ancient people and has in it asuggestion of the temple worship, so the other seems to show acontinuity with what went on in those less pretentious sanctuarieswhich had place in all the cities and villages of Judea, and indeedwherever, throughout the Roman world, Jewish colonists were to befound. The earliest Christian disciples having been themselvesHebrews, nothing could have been more natural than their mouldingthe worship of the new Church in general accordance with themodels that had stood before their eyes from childhood in theold. The Psalms were sung in the synagogues according to a settledprinciple. We cannot wonder, then, that the Psalter should havecontinued to be what in fact it had always been, the hymn-book ofthe Church. Moreover, they had in the synagogue besides theirpsalmody a system of Bible readings, confined, of course, to theOld Testament Scriptures. This is noted in the observation thatfell from Simon Peter, at the first Council of the Church, "Mosesof old time hath in every city them that preach him, being read inthe synagogue every Sabbath day. " Scripture lessons, therefore, would be no novelty. 

We gather also from the New Testament, not to speak of otherauthorities, that in the apostolic days people were familiar withwhat were known as "hours of prayer. " There were particular timesin the day, that is to say, which were held to be especiallyappropriate for worship. "Peter and John went up together intothe temple at the hour of prayer, being the ninth hour. " Again, at Joppa, we find the former of these two apostles going up uponthe house-top to pray at "the sixth hour. " Long before this Davidhad mentioned morning and evening and noon as fitting hours ofprayer, and one psalmist, in his enthusiasm, had even gone so faras to declare seven times a day to be not too often for givingGod thanks. There was also the precedent of Daniel opening hiswindows toward Jerusalem three times a day. As the love for orderand system grew year by year stronger in the Christian Church, the laws that govern ritual would be likely to become morestringent, and so very probably it came to pass. For aught weknow to the contrary, the observance of fixed hours of prayerwas a matter of voluntary action with the Christians of the firstage. There was, as we say, no "shall" about it. But when thefounders of the monastic orders came upon the scene a fixed ruletook the place of simple custom, and what had been optionalbecame mandatory. By the time we reach the mediaeval periodevolution has had its perfect work, and we find in existencea scheme of daily service curiously and painfully elaborate. The mediaeval theologians were very fond of classifying thingsby sevens. In the symbolism of Holy Scripture seven appears asthe number of perfection, it being the aggregate of three, thenumber of Deity, and four, the number of the earth. Accordinglywe find in the theology of those times seven sacraments, sevendeadly sins, seven contrary virtues, seven works of mercy, andalso seven hours of prayer. These seven hours were known asMatins, Prime, Tierce, Sext, Nones, Vespers, and Complene. Thetheory of the hours of prayer was that at each one of them aspecial office of devotion was to be said. Beginning beforesunrise with matins there was to be daily a round of services atstated intervals culminating at bedtime in that which, as itsname indicated, filled out the series, Complene. To what extentthis ideal scheme of devotion was ever carried out in practice itis difficult positively to say. 

Probably in the monastic and conventual life of the severer ordersthere was an approximation to a punctual observance of the hoursas they successively arrived. Possibly the modern mind fails todo full justice to the conception of worship on which this systemwas based. Those principles of devotion of which the rosary is thevisible symbol do not easily commend themselves to us. They haveabout them a suggestion of mechanism. They remind us of theBuddhist praying wheel, and seem to put the Church in the attitudeof expecting to be heard for her "much speaking. "

Doubtless many a pure, courageous spirit fought the good fightof faith successfully in spite of all this weight of outwardobservances; but in the judgment of the wiser heads among Englishchurchmen, the time had come, by the middle of the sixteenthcentury, when this complicated armor must either be greatlylightened or else run the risk of being cast aside altogether. Let Cranmer tell his own story. This is what he says in thePreface to the First Book of Edward VI. As to the ritual grievancesof the times. The passage is worth listening to if only for thequaintness of its strong and wholesome English:

"There was never anything by the wit of man so well devised or sosurely established which, in continuance of time, hath not beencorrupted, as, among other things, it may plainly appear by thecommon prayer, in the Church, commonly called divine service. Thefirst original and ground whereof, if a man would search out bythe ancient fathers, he shall find that the same was not ordainedbut of a good purpose, and for a great advancement of godliness, forthey so ordered the matter that all the whole Bible, or the greatestpart thereof, should be read over once in the year . . . But thesemany years past this godly and decent order of the ancient fathershath been so altered, broken, and neglected by planting inuncertain stories, legends, responds, verses, vain repetitions, commemorations, and synodals that commonly, when any book of theBible was begun, before three or four chapters were read out allthe rest were unread. And in this sort the Book of Esaie was begunin Advent, and the Book of Genesis in Septuagesima, but they wereonly begun and never read through . . . And moreover, whereas St. Paul would have such language spoken to the people in the Churchas they might understand and have profit by hearing the same, theservice in this Church of England (these many years) hath beenread in Latin to the people, which they understood not, so thatthey have heard with their ears only, and their hearts, spirit, and mind have not been edified thereby . . . Moreover, the numberand hardness of the rules called the Pie, and the manifoldchangings of the service was the cause that to turn the Bookonly was so hard and intricate a matter that many times there wasmore business to find out what should be read than it was to readit when it was found out. These inconveniences therefore considered, here is set forth such an order whereby the same shall beredressed. "

As an illustration of what Cranmer meant by his curious phrase, "planting in uncertain stories, " take the following Lessons quotedby Dr. Neale in his _Essays on Liturgiology_:

"Besides the commemoration of saints, " writes this distinguishedantiquarian, "there are in certain local calenders notices ofnational events connected with the well-being of the Church. Thus, in the _Parisian Breviary_, we have on the eighteenth of August acommemoration of the victory of Philip the Fair in Flanders, A. D. 1304. " Here is the fourth of the appointed lessons: "Philip theFair, King of the French, in the year 1304, about the feast of St. Mary Magdalene, having set forth with his brothers Charles andLouis and a large army into Flanders, pitched his tent near Mons, where was a camp of the rebel Flemings. But when, on the eighteenthof August, which was the Tuesday after the Assumption of St. Mary, the French had from morning till evening stood on the defence, andwere resting themselves at nightfall, the enemy, by a suddenattack, rushed on the camp with such fury that the body-guard hadscarce time to defend him. 

"_Response_. Come from Lebanon, my spouse; come, and thou shalt becrowned, The odor of thy sweet ointments is above all perfumes. _Versicle_. The righteous judge shall give a crown of righteousness. "

Then, after this short interlude of snatches from Holy Scripture, there follows the Fifth Lesson: "At the beginning of the fight thelife of the king was in great danger, but shortly after, histroops crowding together from all quarters to his tent, where thebattle was sharpest, obtained an illustrious victory over theenemy"--and more of this sort until all of a sudden we come uponthe Song of Solomon again. "_V_. Thou art all fair, my love; comefrom Lebanon. _R_. They that have not defiled their garments, they shall walk with me in white, for they are worthy. "

Is not Cranmer's contemptuous mention of these uncertain legendsand vain repetitions amply justified? And can we be too thankfulto the sturdy champions of the Reformation, who in the face of nolittle opposition and by efforts scarcely appreciated to-day, cutus loose from all responsibility for such solemn nonsense?

There are some who feel aggrieved that chapters from the Apocryphashould have found admission to our new lectionary, and there areeven those who think that of the canonical Scriptures, passagesmore edifying than certain of those appointed to be read mighthave been chosen, but what would they think if they were compelledto hear the minister at the lecturn say: "Here beginneth the firstchapter of the Adventures of Philip the Fair"?

But the reformers, happily, were not discouraged by the portentousfront of wood, hay, and stubble which the liturgical edifice oftheir day presented to the eye. They felt convinced that therewere also to be found mixed in with the building material gold, silver, and precious stones, and for these they determined to makediligent search, resolved most of all that the foundation laidshould be Jesus Christ. This system of canonical hours, theyargued, this seven-fold office of daily prayer is all verybeautiful in theory, but it never can be made what in fact itnever in the past has been, a practicable thing. Let us be contentif we can do so much as win people to their devotions at morningand at night. With this object in view Cranmer and his associatessubjected the services of the hours to a process of combinationand condensation. The Offices for the first three hours theycompressed into _An Order for Daily Morning Prayer_, or, as it wascalled in Edward's first Book, _An Order for Matins_, and theOffices for the last two hours, namely, Vespers and Complene, they made over into _An Order for Daily Evening Prayer_, or, asit was named in Edward's first Book, _An Order for Evensong_. 

These two formularies, the _Order for Matins_ and the _Order forEvensong_, make the core and substance of our present dailyoffices. But the tradition of daily prayer is only one of thetwo great devotional heritages of the Church. With the destructionof the temple by the Roman soldiery, the sacrificial ritual ofthe Jewish Church came to a sudden end; but it was not God'spurpose that the memory of sacrifice should fade out of men'sminds or that the thought of sacrifice should be banished fromthe field of worship. Years before the day when the legionariesof Titus marched amid flame and smoke, into the falling sanctuaryof an out-worn faith, one who was presently to die upon a crosshad taken bread, had blessed it and broken it, and giving it tocertain followers gathered about him, had said, "Take, eat; thisis my body, which is given for you: this do in remembrance of me. "Likewise also he had taken the cup after supper, saying, "This cupis the New Testament in my blood which is shed for you. "

Certainly there must be a relation of cause and effect between thisscene and the fact, which is a fact, that the most ancientfragments of primitive Christian worship now discoverable areforms for the due commemoration of the sacrifice of the death ofChrist. 

These venerable monuments seem to exclaim as we decipher them:"Even so, Lord, it is done as thou didst say. " "Thy name, O Lord, endureth forever and so doth thy memorial from generation togeneration. " Of the references to Christian worship discoverablein documents later than the New Testament Scriptures there arethree that stand out with peculiar prominence, namely, the latelydiscovered _Teaching of the Twelve Apostles_, placed by someauthorities as early as the first half of the second century;the famous letter of Pliny to the Emperor Trajan, a writing ofthe same period; and the Apology or Defence addressed by JustinMartyr to Antoninus Pius about the year 140 after Christ. Thenoteworthy fact in connection with these passages is that of thethree, two certainly, and probably the third also, refer directlyto the Holy Communion. In the _Teaching_ we have a distinct sketchof a eucharistic service with three of the prescribed prayersapparently given in full. In Justin Martyr's account, the evidenceof a definitely established liturgical form is perhaps less plain, but nothing that he says would appear to be irreconcilable withthe existence of a more or less elastic ritual order. Whether hedoes or does not intend to describe extemporaneous prayer asforming one feature of the eucharistic worship of the Christiansof his time depends upon the translation we give to a single wordin his narrative. Later on in the life of the Church, though byjust how much later is a difficult point of scholarship, we arebrought in contact with a number of formularies, all of themframed for the uses of eucharistical worship, all of them, thatis to say, designed to perpetuate the commandment, "This do inremembrance of me, " and all of them preserving, no matter in whatpart of the world they may be found, a certain structuraluniformity. These are the primitive liturgies, as they arecalled, the study of which has in late years attained almost tothe dignity of a science. As to the exact measure of antiquitythat ought to be accorded to these venerable documents theauthorities differ and probably will always differ. Dr. Neale'senthusiasm carried him so far that he was persuaded and soughtto persuade others of the existence of liturgical quotations inthe writings of St. Paul. This hypothesis is at the present timegenerally rejected by sober-minded scholars. Perhaps "the personalequation" enters equally into the conclusions of those who assigna very late origin to the liturgies, pushing them along as far asthe sixth or seventh century. If one happens to have a rooteddislike for prescribed forms of worship, and believes them in hisheart to be both unscriptural and unspiritual, it will be themost natural thing in the world for him to disparage whateverevidence makes in favor of the early origin of liturgies. Hammondis sensible when he says in the Preface to his valuable workentitled _Liturgies Eastern and Western_, "I have assumed anintermediate position between the views of those on the one handwho hold that the liturgies had assumed a recognized and fixedform so early as to be quoted in the Epistles to the Corinthiansand Hebrews . . . And of those, on the other, who because there aresome palpable interpolations and marks of comparatively late datein some of the texts, assert broadly that they are all untrustworthyand valueless as evidence. This view I venture to think, " he adds, "equally uncritical and groundless with the former. "

To sum up, the argument in behalf of an apostolic origin for theChristian Liturgy may be compactly stated thus: The very earliestmonuments of Christian worship that we possess are rituals ofthanksgiving, having direct reference to the sacrifice of thedeath of Christ. Going back from these to the New Testament wefind there the narrative of the institution of the Holy Communionby Christ himself, and in connection with it the command, "Thisdo in remembrance of me. " It is, I submit, a reasonable inferencethat the liturgies in the main fairly represent what it was inthe mind of the apostle to recognize and establish as properChristian worship. I do not call it demonstration, I call itreasonable inference. There is a striking parallelism between theargument for liturgical worship and the argument for episcopacy. In both cases we take the ground that continuity existed betweenthe life of the Church as we find it a hundred years after thelast of the apostles had gone to his rest and the life of theChurch as it is pictured in the New Testament. 

That there were many changes during the interval must no doubt begranted, but we say that if those changes were serious onesaffecting great principles of belief or order, those who maintainthat such a hidden revolution took place are bound to bringpositive evidence to the fact. This history of the Church duringthe second century has been likened with more of ingenuity thanof poetical beauty to the passing of a train through a railwaytunnel. 

We see the train enter, we see it emerge, but its movement whileinside the tunnel is concealed from us. Similarly we may say thatwe see with comparative distinctness the Christian Church of theApostolic Age, and we see with comparative distinctness the Churchof the Age of Cyprian and Origen, but with respect to the intervalseparating the two periods we are not indeed wholly, but, we are, it must be confessed, very largely ignorant. And yet as in thecase of the tunnel we confidently affirm an identity between whatwe saw go in and what we see coming out, so with the doctrine, discipline, and worship of the Church, the usages of the thirdcentury, we argue, are probably in their leading features what theusages of the first century were. If reason to the contrary canbe given, well and good; but in the absence of countervailingtestimony we abide by our inference, holding it to be sound. 

I am far from wishing to maintain that these considerations bindliturgical worship upon the Christian Church as a matter ofobligation for all time. It might be argued, and I think withgreat force, that liturgical worship having been universalthroughout the ancient world, heathen as well as Jewish, theapostles and fathers of the Christian Church judged it unwiseto make any departure at the outset from a custom so invariable, trusting it to the spirit of the new religion to work out freer andless formal methods of approaching God through Christ in the timesto come. This, I confess, strikes me as a perfectly legitimate lineof reasoning and one which is strengthened rather than weakened bywhat we have seen happen in Christendom since the sixteenthcentury. Great bodies of Christians have for a period of somethree hundred years been worshipping Almighty God in non-liturgicalways, and have not been left without witness that their servicewas acceptable to the Divine Majesty. Moreover, the fact thatabsolute rigidity in liturgical use never was insisted upon inany age of the Church until the English passed their Act ofUniformity, makes in the same direction. And yet even after theseallowances have been made, there remains a considerable amountof solid satisfaction for those who do adhere to the liturgicalmethod, in the thought that they are in the line which is apparentlythe line of continuity, and that their interpretation of theapostolic purpose with respect to worship is the interpretationthat has been generally received in Christendom as far back as wecan go. 

II. 

VICISSITUDES. 

Certain of the necromancers of the far East are said to have thepower of causing a tree to spring up, spread its branches, blossom, and bear fruit before the eyes of the lookers-on within the spaceof a few moments. 

Modern liturgies have sometimes been brought into being by a processas extemporaneous as this, but not such was the genesis of theBook of Common Prayer. 

There are at least eight forms under which the Prayer Book hasbeen from time to time authoritatively set forth--five English, one Scottish, one Irish, and one American; so that, if we wouldbe accurate, we are bound to specify, when we speak of "The PrayerBook, " which of several Prayer Books we have in mind. 

The truth is, there exists in connection with everything that grows, whether it be plant, animal, or building, a certain mystery likethat which attaches to what, in the case of a man, we call personalidentity. Which is the true, the actual Napoleon? Is it theNapoleon of the Directory, or the Napoleon of the Consulate, or theNapoleon of the Empire? At each epoch we discern a different phaseof the man's character, and yet we are compelled to acknowledge, in the face of all the variations, that we have to do with one andthe same man. 

But just as a ship acquires, as we may say, her personal identitywhen she is launched and named, even though there may be a greatdeal yet to be done in the way of finishing and furnishing beforeshe can be pronounced seaworthy, so it is with a book that isdestined to undergo repeated revision and reconstruction, it doesacquire, on the day when it is first published, and first given adistinctive title, a certain character the losing of which would bethe loss of personal identity. There is many an old cathedral thatmight properly enough be called a re-edited book in stone. Normanarchitecture, Early English, Decorated, and Perpendicular, all arethere, and yet one dominant thought pervades the building. Notwithstanding the many times it has been retouched, the fabricstill expresses to the eye the original creative purpose of thedesigner; there is no possibility of our mistaking Salisbury forYork or Peterborough for London. 

The first Book of Common Prayer was built up of blocks that for themost part had been previously used in other buildings, but theresulting structure exhibited, from the very moment it received aname, such distinct and unmistakable characteristics as haveguaranteed it personal identity through more than three hundredyears. Hence, while it is in one sense true that there are nofewer than eight Books of Common Prayer, it is in another senseequally true that the Book of Common Prayer is one. 

An identity of purpose, of scope, and of spirit shows itselfin all its various forms under which the book exists, so thatwhether we are speaking of the First Prayer Book of King Edwardthe Sixth, or of the book adopted by the Church of Ireland afterits disestablishment, or of the American Book of Common Prayer, what we have in mind is, in a very real and deep sense, one andthe same thing. 

Let us proceed now to a rapid survey of the facts connected withthe first issue of the Common Prayer. 

For a period long anterior to the Reformation there had been inuse among the English brief books of devotion known as "primers, "written in the language of the people. The fact that the publicservices of the Church were invariably conducted in the Latintongue made a resort to such expedients as this necessary, unlessreligion was to be reserved as the private property of ecclesiastics. 

By a curious process of evolution the primer, from having beenin mediaeval times a book wholly religious and devotional, hascome to be in our day a book wholly secular and educational. Weassociate it with Noah Webster and the Harper Brothers. The NewEngland Primer of the Puritans, with its odd jumble of piety andthe three R's, marks a point of transition from the ancient to themodern type. 

But this by the way. The primer we are now concerned with is thedevotional primer of the times just previous to the Reformation. This, as a rule, contained prayers, the Belief, the Ave Maria, alitany of some sort, the Ten Commandments, and whatever else theremight be that in the mind of the compiler came under the head of"things which a Christian ought to know. " There were three ofthese primers set forth during the reign of Henry the Eighth, onein 1535, one in 1539, and one in 1545. During the space thatintervened between the publication of the second and that of thethird of these primers, appeared "The Litany and Suffrages, " aformulary compiled, as is generally believed, by Cranmer, the thenArchbishop of Canterbury, and in substance identical with the Litanywe use to-day. This Litany of 1544 has been properly described as"the precursor and first instalment of the English Book of CommonPrayer. " It was the nucleus or centre of crystallization aboutwhich the other constituent portions of our manual of worshipwere destined to be grouped. A quaint exhortation was prefixed tothis Litany, in which it was said to have been set forth "becausethe not understanding the prayers and suffrages formerly usedcaused that the people came but slackly to the processions. "Besides the primers and the Litany, there were printed in Henry'sreign various editions of a book of Epistles and Gospels in English. There was also published a Psalter in Latin and English. 

All this looked rather to the edification of individual Christiansin their private devotional life than to the public worship of theChurch, but we are not to suppose that meanwhile the largerinterests of the whole body were forgotten. So early as in theyear 1542, Convocation, which according to the Anglican theorystands toward the Church in the same attitude that Parliament holdsto the State, appointed a Committee of Eight to review and correctthe existing service-books. We know very little as to the proceedingsof this committee, but that something was done, and a real impulsegiven to liturgical revision, is evidenced by the fact that at ameeting of Convocation held soon after King Henry's death aresolution prevailed "That the books of the Bishops and others whoby the command of the Convocation have labored in examining, reforming, and publishing the divine service, may be producedand laid before the examination of this house. "

The next important step in the process we are studying was thepublication by authority in the early spring of 1548, of an Orderof the Communion, as it was called, a formulary prepared by Cranmerto enable the priest, after having consecrated the elements inthe usual manner, to distribute them to the people with thesentences of delivery spoken in English. The priest, that is tosay, was to proceed with the service of the Mass as usual in theLatin tongue, but after he had himself received the bread andthe wine, he was to proceed to a service of Communion for thepeople in a speech they could understand. 

Almost everything in this tentative document, as we may call it, was subsequently incorporated in the Office of the Holy Communionas we are using it to-day. 

We have, then, as an abiding result of the liturgical experimentsmade in anticipation of the actual setting forth of an authoritativePrayer Book, the Litany and this Order of the Communion. 

The time was now ripe for something better and more complete; anew king was upon the throne, and one whose counsellors werebetter disposed toward change than ever Henry had been. The greatmovement we know under the name of the Reformation touched thelife of the Christian Church in every one of its three greatdepartments--doctrine, discipline, and worship. In Henry's mind, however, the question appears to have been almost exclusively oneof discipline or polity. His quarrel was not with the acceptedtheological errors of his day, for as Defender of the Faith hecovered some of the worst of them with his shield. Neither washe ill-disposed toward the methods and usages of public worshipso far as we can judge. His quarrel first, last, and always waswith a certain rival claimant of power, whose pretended authorityhe was determined to drive out of the realm, to wit, the Pope. But while it was thus with Henry, it was far otherwise with manyof the more thoughtful and devout among his theologians, andwhen the restraint that had been laid on them was removed bythe king's death, they welcomed the opportunity to apply todoctrine and worship the same reforming touch that had alreadyremoulded polity. 

An enlarged Committee of Convocation sat at Windsor in the summerof 1548, and as a result there was finally set forth, and orderedto be put into use on Whitsunday, 1549, what has become known inhistory as the "First Prayer Book of Edward VI. "

To dwell on those features of the First Book that have remainedunaltered to the present day would be superfluous; I shalltherefore, in speaking of it, confine myself to the distinctiveand characteristic points in which it differs from the PrayerBooks that have succeeded it. 

It is worthy of note that in the title page of the First Bookthere is a clear distinction drawn between the Church Universal, or what we call in the _Te Deum_ "the holy Church throughout allthe world, " and that particular Church to which King Edward'ssubjects, in virtue of their being Englishmen, belonged. The bookis said to be "the Book of the Common Prayer and administration ofthe Sacraments and other Rites and Ceremonies of _The Church_, after the use of the Church of England. " "_The Church_" isrecognized as being a larger and, perhaps, older thing than the_Church of England_, while at the same time it is intimated thatonly through such use of these same prayers and sacraments as theEnglish Church ordains and authorizes can English folk come intocommunion with the great family of believers spread over the wholeearth. 

The Preface is a singularly racy piece of English, in which withthe utmost plainness of speech the compilers give their reasonsfor having dealt with the old services as they have done. Thisreappears in the English Prayer Book of the present day under thetitle "Concerning the Service of The Church, " and so described isplaced after the Preface written in 1662 by the Revisers of theRestoration. 

The Order for Daily Morning Prayer, as we name it, is called inEdward's First Book "An Order for Matins daily through the year. "Similarly, what we call the Order for Daily Evening Prayer wasstyled "An Order for Evensong. " These beautiful names, "Matins"and "Evensong, " which it is a great pity to have lost, for surelythere is nothing superstitious about them, disappeared from thebook as subsequently revised, and save in the Lectionary of theChurch of England have no present recognition. One of them, however, Evensong, seems to be coming very generally into colloquialuse. The Order for Matins began with the Lord's Prayer. Then, afterthe familiar versicles still in use, including two that have noplace in our American book, "O God, make speed to save me. O Lord, make haste to help me, " there followed in full the 95th Psalm, aportion of which is known to us as the _Venite_. From this pointthe service proceeded, as in the English Prayer Book of to-day, through the Collect for Grace, where it came to an end. Thestructure of Evensong was similar, beginning with the Lord'sPrayer and ending, as our shortened Evening Prayer now does, withthe Collect for Aid against Perils. Then followed the AthanasianCreed, and immediately afterward came the Introits, Collects, Epistles, and Gospels. 

These Introits, so-called, were psalms appointed to be sung whenthe priest was about to begin the Holy Communion. They had beenan ancient feature of divine service, but were dropped from thesubsequent books as a required feature of the Church's worship. 

The title of the Communion Service in Edward's First Book is asfollows: "The Supper of the Lord and the Holy Communion commonlycalled the Mass. " Immediately after the Prayer for Purity--_i_. _e_. , in the place where we have the Ten Commandments, comes the_Gloria in Excelsis_. The service then proceeds very much as withus, except that the Prayer for the Church Militant and theConsecration Prayer are welded into one, and the Prayer of HumbleAccess given a place immediately before the reception of theelements. I note, in passing, certain phrases and sentences thatare peculiar to the Communion Office of the First Book, as, forinstance, this from the Prayer for the whole state of Christ'sChurch: "And here we do give unto thee most high praise and heartythanks for the wonderful grace and virtue declared in all thysaints from the beginning of the world, and chiefly in the mostglorious and blessed Virgin Mary, Mother of thy Son Jesus Christour Lord and God, and in the holy patriarchs, prophets, apostles, and martyrs, whose examples, O Lord, and steadfastness in thyfaith and keeping thy holy commandments grant us to follow. Wecommend unto thy mercy, O Lord, all other thy servants which aredeparted hence from us with the sign of faith and do now rest inthe sleep of peace. Grant unto them, we beseech thee, thy mercy andeverlasting peace, and that at the day of the general resurrectionwe and all they which be of the mystical body of thy Son mayaltogether be set on his right hand. "

And this from the closing portion of the Consecration: "Yet webeseech thee to accept this our bounden duty and service, andcommand these our prayers and supplications by the ministry of thyholy angels to be brought up into thy holy tabernacle before thesight of thy divine majesty. "

Following close upon the Communion Service came the Litany, differingvery little from what we have to-day, save in the memorable petition, "From the tyranny of the Bishop of Rome and all his detestableenormities, good Lord deliver us. "

The Baptismal Offices of the First Book contain certain uniquefeatures. The sign of the cross is ordered to be made on the child'sbreast as well as on his forehead. There is a form of exorcism saidover the infant in which the unclean spirit is commanded to comeout and to depart. There is also the giving of the "Crisome" orwhite vesture as a symbol of innocence. "Take this white vesturefor a token of the innocency which by God's grace in this holysacrament of Baptism is given unto thee, and for a sign wherebythou art admonished, so long as thou livest, to give thyself toinnocency of living, that after this transitory life thou mayestbe partaker of the life everlasting. "

The Catechism in Edward VI. First Book, as in the subsequent booksdown to 1662, is made a part of the Confirmation Office, althoughit does not clearly appear that the children were expected to sayit as a preliminary to the service. 

The Office for the Visitation of the Sick contains provision forprivate confession and absolution, and also directs that the priestshall anoint the sick man with oil if he be desired to do so. 

The Office for the Communion of the Sick allows the practice of whatis called the reservation of the elements, but contains also, be itobserved, that rubric which has held its place through all thechanges the Prayer Book has undergone, where we are taught that ifthe sick man by any "just impediment fail to receive the sacramentof Christ's body and blood, the curate shall instruct him that ifhe do truly repent him of his sins and steadfastly believe thatJesus Christ hath suffered death upon the cross for him . . . Hedoth eat and drink the body and blood of our Saviour Christ, profitably to his soul's health although he do not receive thesacrament with his mouth. "

The Burial Office contains a recognition of prayer for the dead, but except in the matter of the arrangement of the parts differsbut little from the service still in use. A special Introit, Collect, Epistle, and Gospel are appointed "for the Celebration ofthe Holy Communion when there is a Burial of the Dead. "

A Commination Office for Ash-Wednesday, substantially identicalwith that still in use in the Church of England, concludes the book. 

The First Prayer Book of King Edward the Sixth, memorable as it wasdestined to become, proved, so far as actual use was concerned, butshort-lived. It became operative, as we have seen, on Whitsunday, 1549, but it was soon evident that while the new services went toofar in the direction of reform to please the friends of the ancientorder of things, they did not go far enough to meet the wishes ofthe reforming party. 

Before the year was out no fewer than three translations of theLiturgy into Latin had been undertaken with a view to informingthe Protestant divines of the Continent as to what their Englishcolleagues were doing. "There was already within the Church" (ofEngland), writes Cardwell, in his comparison of Edward's two books, "a party, though probably not numerous, which espoused the peculiarsentiments of Calvin; there were others, and Cranmer, it appears, had recently been one of them, adhering strictly to the opinionsof Luther; there were many, and those among the most active and themost learned, who adopted the views of Bullinger and the theologiansof Zurich; there was a still larger body anxious to combine allclasses of Protestants under one general confession, and all these, though with distinct objects and different degrees of impatience, looked forward to a revision of the Liturgy, to bring it morecompletely into accordance with their own sentiments. "

As a result of the agitation thus vividly pictured by Cardwell, there came forth in 1552 the book known as the Second Prayer Bookof King Edward VI. , a work of the very greatest interest, for thereason that it was destined to become the basis of all futurerevisions. Whitsunday, 1549, was the day when the First Book beganto be used. The Feast of All Saints, 1552, was the date officiallyappointed for the introduction of the Second Book. Presently KingEdward died, and by an act of Mary passed in October, 1553, the useof his Book became illegal on and after December 20th of that year. It thus appears that the First Book was in use for two years andabout four months, and the Second Book one year and about twomonths. A memorable three years and a half for the English-speakingpeoples of all time to come, for it is not too much to say thatwhile the language of Tyndale and of Cranmer continues to be heardon earth, the devotions then put into form will keep on mouldingthe religious thought and firing the spiritual imagination of thisrace. 

The points in which the second of King Edward's two books differsfrom the first are of such serious moment and the general complexionof the later work has in it such an access of Protestant coloring, that high Anglican writers have been in the habit of attributing themain features of the revision to the interference of the ContinentalReformers. "If it had not been for the impertinent meddling, " theyhave been accustomed to say, "of such foreigners as Bucer, PeterMartyr, and John a-Lasco, we might have been enjoying at the presentday the admirable and truly Catholic devotions set forth in thefresh morning of the Reformation, before the earth-born vapors oftheological controversy and ecclesiastical partisanship hadbeclouded an otherwise fair sky. " But it does not appear that thereis any solid foundation in fact for these complaints. 

The natural spread of the spirit of reform among the people of therealm, taken in connection with the changes of opinion which theswift movement of the times necessarily engendered in the minds ofthe leading divines, are of themselves quite sufficient to accountfor what took place. Certainly, if the English of that day were atall like their descendants in our time, it is in the highest degreeunlikely that they would have allowed a handful of learned refugeesto force upon them changes which their own sober judgment did notapprove. 

The truth is, very little is certainly known as to the details ofwhat was done in the making of Edward's Second Book. Even the namesof the members of the committee intrusted with the revision arematter of conjecture, and of the proceedings of that body noauthentic record survives. What we do possess and are in a positionto criticise is the book itself, and to a brief review of thepoints in which it differs from its predecessor we will now pass. 

Upon taking up the Second Book after laying down the First, one isstruck immediately with the changed look of Morning Prayer. Thisis no longer called Matins, and no longer begins as before with theLord's Prayer. An Introduction has been prefixed to the officeconsisting of a collection of sentences from Holy Scripture, all ofthem of a penitential character, and besides these of an Exhortation, a Confession, and an Absolution. There can be little doubt that thisopportunity for making public acknowledgment of sin and hearingthe declaration of God's willingness to forgive, was meant tocounterbalance the removal from the book of all reference, savein one instance, to private confession and absolution. The Churchof England has always retained in her Visitation Office a permissionto the priest to pronounce absolution privately to the sick man. This was a feature of the First Book that was not disturbed in theSecond. But wherever else they found anything that seemed to looktoward the continuance of the system familiarly known to us underthe name of "the Confessional, " they expunged it. Between theExhortation and the Confession there is, in point of literary merit, a noticeable contrast, and it is scarcely to be believed that bothformularies can have proceeded from one and the same pen. Anotherstep in the Protestant direction was the prohibition of certainvestments that in the First Book had been allowed, as the alb andcope. The Introit Psalms were taken away. The word "table" waseverywhere substituted for the word "altar. " The changes in theOffice of the Holy Communion were numerous and significant. TheTen Commandments, for instance, were inserted in the place wherewe now have them. The _Gloria in Excelsis_ was transferred fromthe beginning of the service to the end. The Exhortations werere-written. The supplication for the dead was taken out of thePrayer for the whole state of Christ's Church, and the words"militant here on earth" were added to the title with a view toconfining the scope of the intercession to the circle of peoplestill alive. The Confession, Absolution, Comfortable Words, andPrayer of Humble Access were placed before the Consecration insteadof after it. Most important of all was the change of the wordsappointed to be said in delivering the elements to the communicants. In the First Book these had been, "The body of our Lord Jesus Christwhich was given for thee, preserve thy body and soul unto everlastinglife, " and in the case of the cup, "The blood of our Lord JesusChrist, which was shed for thee, preserve thy body and soul untoeverlasting life. " For these were now substituted in the oneinstance the words, "Take and eat this in remembrance that Christdied for thee, and feed on him in thy heart by faith, withthanksgiving, " and in the other, "Drink this in remembrance thatChrist's blood was shed for thee, and be thankful. "

From the Office for the Communion of the Sick the direction toreserve the elements was omitted, as was also the permission toanoint the sick man with oil. The Service of Baptism was no longersuffered to retain the exorcism of the evil spirit, or the whitevesture, or the unction; and there were other items of lessimportant change. Those mentioned reveal plainly enough what wasthe animus of the revisers. Most evidently the intention was toproduce a liturgy more thoroughly reformed, more in harmony withthe new tone and temper which the religious thought of the timeswas taking on. 

We come to the Third Book of Common Prayer. Bloody Mary was dead, and Elizabeth had succeeded to the throne. 

During the Roman reaction proclamation had been made that all theReformed service-books should be given up to the ecclesiasticalauthorities within fifteen days to be burned. This is doubtlessthe reason why copies of the liturgical books of Edward's reignare now so exceedingly rare. Reprints of them abound, but theoriginals exist only as costly curiosities. 

Soon after Elizabeth's accession a committee of divines assembledunder her authority for the purpose of again revising theformularies. 

The queen was personally a High-Churchwoman, and her own judgmentis said to have been favorable to taking the first of Edward's twobooks as the basis of the revision, but a contrary preferenceswayed the committee, and the lines followed were those of 1552and not those of 1549. 

The new features distinctive of the Prayer Book of Elizabeth, otherwise known as the Prayer Book of 1559, are not numerous. A table of Proper Lessons for Sundays was introduced. The oldvestments recognized in the earlier part of King Edward's reignwere again legalized. The petition for deliverance from the tyrannyof the Pope was struck out of the Litany, and by a compromisepeculiarly English in its character, and, as experience has shown, exceedingly well judged, the two forms of words that had been usedin the delivery of the elements in the Holy Communion were weldedtogether into the shape in which we have them still. 

Queen Elizabeth's Prayer Book continued in use for five-and-fortyyears. Nothing was more natural than that when she died there shouldcome with the accession of a new dynasty a demand for fresh revision. King James, who was not afflicted with any want of confidence inhis own judgment, invited certain representatives of the disaffectedparty to meet, under his presidency, the Churchmen in council witha view to the settlement of differences. The Puritans had beengaining in strength during Elizabeth's reign, and they felt thatthey were now in position to demand a larger measure of liturgicalreform than that monarch and her advisers had been willing toconcede to them. 

King James convened his conference at Hampton Court, near London, and he himself was good enough to preside. Very little came of thedebate. The Puritans had demanded the discontinuance of the sign ofthe cross in Baptism, of bowing at the name of Jesus, of the ringin marriage, and of the rite of confirmation. The words "priest"and "absolution" they sought to have expunged from the Prayer Book, and they desired that the wearing of the surplice should be madeoptional. 

Almost nothing was conceded to them. The words "or Remission ofSins" were added to the title of the Absolution, certain Prayersand Thanksgivings were introduced, and that portion of the Catechismwhich deals with the Sacraments was for the first time set forth. And thus the English Prayer Book started out upon its fourth leaseof life destined in this form to endure unchanged, though by nomeans unassailed, for more than half a century. 

A stirring half century it was. The Puritan defeat at Hampton Courtwas redressed at Naseby. With the coming in of the Long Parliamentthe Book of Common Prayer went out, and to all appearances thetriumph of the Commonwealth meant the final extinction of the usageof liturgical worship on English soil. The book, under its variousforms, had lasted just a hundred years when he who

 Nothing common did or mean Upon that memorable scene

suffered at Whitehall. 

They buried him in St. George's Chapel, Windsor, and no single wordof the Prayer Book he had loved and for which he had fought wassaid over his grave. 

On January 3, 1645, Parliament repealed the statutes of Edward VI. And of Elizabeth that had enjoined the use of the Book of CommonPrayer, and took order that thereafter only such divine serviceshould be lawful as accorded with what was called the _Directory_, a manual of suggestions with respect to public worship adopted bythe Presbyterian party as a substitute for the ancient liturgy. 

With the restoration of the Stuarts in 1660 came naturally therestoration of the Prayer Book, and with equal naturalness arevision of it. But of what sort should the revision be, and underwhose auspices conducted? This was an anxious question for theadvisers, civil and ecclesiastical, of the restored king. Shouldthe second Charles take up the book just as it had fallen from thehands of the first Charles, unchanged in line or letter, or shouldhe seek by judicious alterations and timely concessions to winback for the national Church the good-will and loyalty of thosewho, eighteen years before, had broken down her hedge? The situationmay be described as triangular. 

The king's secret and personal sympathies were probably all alongwith the Roman Church; his official allegiance was plainly due tothe Church of England; and yet, at the same time, he owed muchto the forbearance of the men who had been dominant under theCommonwealth. The mind of the nation had, indeed, reacted towardmonarchy, but not with such an absolute and hardy renunciation ofthe doctrines of popular sovereignty as to make it safe for thereturning king to do precisely as he chose. The glorious Revolutionthat was destined so soon to follow upon the heels of the graciousRestoration gave evidence, when it came, that there were somethings the people of England prized even more highly than anhereditary throne. Misgivings as to the amount there might stillbe of this sort of electricity in the atmosphere suggested to theking and his counsellors the expediency of holding a conference, at which the leaders on either side might bring forward their strongreasons in favor of this or that method of dealing with theecclesiastical question in general, and more especially with thevexed problem of worship. 

Accordingly, early in the spring of 1661 the King issued aroyal warrant summoning to meet at the Savoy Palace in theStrand an equal number of representatives of both parties--namely, one-and-twenty Churchmen and one-and-twenty Presbyterians. 

The Episcopal deputation consisted of twelve bishops and nine otherdivines called coadjutors. The Presbyterians had also their twelveprincipal men and their nine coadjutors. 

Conspicuous among the Episcopalians for weight of learning wereBishops Sanderson, Cosin, and Walton, and Doctors Pearson, Sparrow, and Heylin. Baxter, Reynolds, Calamy, and Lightfoot were the mostnotable of the Presbyterians. 

The conference, which has ever since been known from its place ofmeeting (an old palace of the Piedmontese Ambassadors) as the SavoyConference, convened on April 15, 1661. For various reasons, itwas evident from the outset that the Churchmen were in a positionof great advantage. In the first place, signs and tokens of arenewed confidence in monarchy and of a revived attachment to thereigning House were becoming daily more numerous. 

Before he had had a chance to test the strength of the existingpolitical parties and to know how things really stood, Charles hadborne himself very discreetly toward the Presbyterians, and hadheld out hopes to them which, as the event proved, were destinednever to be realized. In a declaration put forth in the autumn of1660, after he had been for some months on English soil, he had evengone so far as to say: "When we were in Holland we were attendedby many grave and learned ministers from hence, who were lookedupon as the most able and principal asserters of the Presbyterianopinions; with whom we had as much conference as the multitude ofaffairs which were then upon us would permit us to have, and toour great satisfaction and comfort found them persons full ofaffection to us, of zeal for the peace of the Church and State, andneither enemies, as they have been given out to be, to episcopacyor liturgy, but modestly to desire such alterations in either, as without shaking foundations might best allay the presentdistempers. "

By the time the conference met it had become evident, from votestaken in Parliament and otherwise, that the Churchmen could sustaintoward their opponents a somewhat stiffer attitude than this withoutimperilling their cause. Another great advantage enjoyed by theEpiscopalians grew out of the fact that they were the party inpossession. They had only to profess themselves satisfied with thePrayer Book as it stood, in order to throw the Presbyterians intothe position of assailants, and defense is always easier thanattack. Sheldon, the Bishop of London, was not slow to perceivethis. At the very first meeting of the conference, he is reportedto have said that "as the Non-conformists, and not the bishops, hadsought for the conference, nothing could be done till the formerhad delivered their exceptions in writing, together with theadditional forms and alterations which they desired. " Upon whichBishop Burnet in his _History of his own Times_ remarks: "Sheldonsaw well what the effect would be of putting them to make all theirdemands at once. The number of them raised a mighty outcry againstthem, as people that could never be satisfied. "

The Presbyterians, however, took up the challenge, set to work atformulating their objections, and appointed Richard Baxter, the mostfamous of their number, to show what could be done in the way ofmaking a better manual of worship than the Book of Common Prayer. 

Baxter, a truly great man and wise in a way, though scarcely in theliturgical way, was guilty of the incredible folly of undertakingto construct a Prayer Book within a fortnight. 

Of this liturgy it is probably safe to say that no denomination ofChristians, however anti-prelatical or eccentric, would for amoment dream of adopting it, if, indeed, there be a single localcongregation anywhere that could be persuaded to employ it. Thecharacteristic of the devotions is lengthiness. The opening sentenceof the prayer with which the book begins contains by actual counteighty-three words. It is probable that Baxter by his rash act didmore to injure the cause of intelligent and reverential liturgicalrevision than any ten men have done before or since. In everydiscussion of the subject he is almost sure to be brought forwardas "the awful example. "

A document much more to the point than Baxter's Liturgy was theformal catalogue of faults and blemishes alleged against the PrayerBook, which the Puritan members of the conference in due timebrought in. This indictment, for it may fairly be called such, since it was drawn up in separate counts, is very interestingreading. Of the "exceptions against the Book of Common Prayer, "as the Puritans named their list of liturgical grievances, somemust strike almost any reader of the present day as trivial andunworthy. Others again there are that draw a sympathetic Amen frommany quarters to-day. To an American Episcopalian the catalogueis chiefly interesting as showing how ready and even eager wereour colonial ancestors of a hundred years ago to remove out of theway such known rocks of offence as they could. An attentive studentof the American Prayer Book cannot fail to be struck with the numberof instances in which the text gives evidence of the influenceexerted over the minds of our revisers by what had been urged, morethan a hundred years before, by the Puritan members of the SavoyConference. The defeat of 1661 was, in a measure at least, avengedin 1789. It is encouraging to those who cast their bread uponliturgical waters to notice after how many days the return may come. But the conference, to all outward seeming, was a failure. Baxter'sunhappy Prayer Book was its own sufficient refutation, and as forthe list of special grievances it was met by the bishops with an"Answer" that was full of hard raps and conceded almost nothing. 

A few detached paragraphs may serve to illustrate the general toneof this reply. Here, for instance, is the comment of the bishopsupon the request of the Puritans to be allowed occasionally tosubstitute extemporaneous for liturgical devotions. "The gift orrather spirit of prayer consists in the inward graces of the spirit, not in extempore expressions which any man of natural parts havinga voluble tongue and audacity may attain to without any specialgift. " Nothing very conciliatory in that. To the complaint thatthe Collects are too short, the bishops reply that they cannotfor that reason be accounted faulty, being like those "short butprevalent prayers in Scripture, Lord, be merciful to me a sinner. Lord, increase our faith. " The Puritans had objected to theantiphonal element in the Prayer-Book services, and desired tohave nothing of a responsive character allowed beyond the singleword Amen. "But, " rejoin the bishops, "they directly practise thecontrary in one of their principal parts of worship, singing ofpsalms, where the people bear as great a part as the minister. Ifthis way be done in Hopkin's why not in David's Psalms; if in metre, why not in prose; if in a psalm, why not in a litany?" Sharp, butnot winning. 

The Puritans had objected to the people's kneeling while theCommandments were read on the score that ignorant worshippersmight mistake the Decalogue for a form of prayer. With some asperitythe bishops reply that "why Christian people should not upon theirknees ask their pardon for their life forfeited for the breach ofevery commandment and pray for grace to keep them for the time tocome they must be more than 'ignorant' that can scruple. "

The time during which the conference at the Savoy should continueits sessions had been limited to four months. This period expiredon July 24, 1661, and the apparently fruitless disputation was atan end. Meanwhile, however, Convocation, the recognized legislatureof the Church of England, had begun to sit, and the bishops hadundertaken a revision of the Prayer Book after their own mind, andwith slight regard to what they had been hearing from their criticsat the Savoy. The bulk of their work, which included, it is said, more than six hundred alterations, most of them of a verbalcharacter and of no great importance, was accomplished within thecompass of a single month. It is consoling to those who within ourown memory have been charged with indecent haste for seeking toeffect a revision of the American Book of Common Prayer within aperiod of nine years, to find this precedent in ecclesiasticalhistory for their so great rashness. 

Since Charles the Second's day there has been no formal revision ofthe Prayer Book of the Church of England by the Church of England. 

Some slight relaxations of liturgical use on Sundays have been madelegal by Act of Parliament, but in all important respects the PrayerBook of Victoria is identical with the book set forth by Convocationand sanctioned by Parliament shortly after the collapse of the SavoyConference. Under no previous lease of life did the book enjoyanything like so long a period of continued existence. Elizabeth'sbook was the longest lived of all that preceded the Restoration, but that only continued in use five-and-forty years. But the PrayerBook of 1661 has now held its own in England for two centuries anda quarter. When, therefore, we are asked to accept the firstEdwardian Book as the only just exponent of the religious mind ofEngland, it is open to us to reply, "Why should we, seeing thatthe Caroline Book has served as the vehicle of English devotion fora period seventy-five times as long?" The most voluminous of theadditions made to the Prayer Book, in 1661, were the Office for theBaptism of Adults and the Forms of Prayer to be used at Sea. Thewide diffusion, under the Commonwealth, of what were then calledAnabaptist opinions, had brought it to pass that throughout thekingdom there were thousands of men and women who had grown upunbaptized. At the time of the Reformation such a thing as anunchristened Christendom seems not to have been thought possible. At any rate no provision was made for the contingency. But uponthe spread of liberty of religious thought there followed, logicallyenough, the spread of liberty of religious action, and it was notstrange that after a whole generation had spent its life incontroversy of the warmest sort over this very point of Baptism, there were found to be in England multitudes of the unbaptized. 

Another reason assigned in the Preface of the English Prayer Bookfor the addition of this office was that it might be used for thebaptizing of "natives in the plantations and other converts. " Thisis the first hint of any awakening of the conscience of the EnglishChurch to a sense of duty toward those strangers and foreigners whoin the "Greater Britain" of these later days fill so large a place. The composition of the office, which differs very little, perhapsscarcely enough, from that appointed for the Baptism of Infants, isattributed to Griffith, the Bishop of St. Asaph. The compiler ofthe Forms of Prayer to be used at Sea was Bishop Sanderson, famousamong English theologians as an authority on casuistry. He must havefound it rather a nice case of conscience to decide whether a Stuartdivine in preparing forms of prayer for a navy that had been thecreation of Oliver Cromwell ought wholly to omit an acknowledgmentof the nation's obligation to that stout-hearted, if non-EpiscopalChristian. Other additions of importance made at this revision werethe General Thanksgiving, in all probability the work of Reynolds, a conforming Presbyterian divine, the Collect, Epistle, and Gospelfor the Sixth Sunday after the Epiphany, the Prayer for Parliament, upon the lines of which our own Prayer for Congress was afterwardmodelled, and the Prayer for All Sorts and Conditions of Men. Inthe Litany the words "rebellion" and "schism" were introduced intoone of the suffrages, becoming tide-marks of the havoc wrought inChurch and State by what the revisers, doubtless, looked back uponas "the flood of the ungodly. " The words "Bishops, Priests, andDeacons" were substituted for "Bishops, Pastors, and Ministers ofthe Church. " New Collects were appointed for the Third Sunday inAdvent and for St. Stephen's Day. Both of these are distinct gains, albeit had the opinion then prevailed that to introduce into thePrayer Book anything from the pen of a living writer is an impiety, we should have gained neither of them. 

Another important change made in 1662 was the adoption for theSentences, Epistles and Gospels of the language of King James'sBible in place of that of earlier versions. This principle was notapplied to the Psalter, to the Decalogue, or, in fact, to any ofthe portions of Scripture contained in the Communion Service. 

It is also interesting to note that the Confession in the HolyCommunion, which the earlier rubric had directed should be saidby one of the congregation, or else by one of the ministers, orby the priest himself, "was now made general and enjoined upon allthe worshippers. "

Most suggestive of all, however, was the reinsertion at the end ofthe Communion Service of a certain Declaration about the significanceof the act of kneeling at the reception of the elements, which had, as some say, irregularly and without proper authority, found its wayinto the Second Book of Edward VI. , but had been omitted from allsubsequent books till now. This Declaration, which from its notbeing printed in red ink is known to those who dislike it under thename of "the black rubric, " was undoubtedly intended to ease theconsciences of those who scrupled to kneel at the altar-rail forfear of seeming to countenance that superstitious adoration of theelements known to and stigmatized by the Reformers as "host-worship. "The language of the black rubric as it stood in Edward's SecondBook was as follows: "Although no order can be so perfectly devisedbut it may be of some, either for their ignorance and infirmity, or else of malice and obstinacy, misconstrued, depraved, andinterpreted in a wrong part; and yet because brotherly charitywilleth that so much as conveniently may be offences should betaken away; therefore we willing to do the same: whereas, it isordained in the Book of Common Prayer, in the Administration ofthe Lord's Supper, that the communicants kneeling should receive theHoly Communion, which thing being well meant for a significationof the humble and grateful acknowledging of the benefits of Christgiven unto the worthy receiver, and to avoid the profanation anddisorder, which about the Holy Communion might else ensue, lestyet the same kneeling might be thought or taken otherwise; we dodeclare that it is not meant thereby, that any adoration is doneor ought to be done, either unto the sacramental bread or winethere bodily received or unto any real and essential presence therebeing of Christ's natural flesh and blood. For as concerning thesacramental bread and wine they remain still in their very naturalsubstances, and therefore may not be adored, for that were idolatryto be abhorred of all faithful Christians: and as concerning thenatural body and blood of our Saviour Christ, they are in heavenand not here, for it is against the truth of Christ's true naturalbody to be in more places than in one at one time. "

In restoring this significant Declaration, the revisers of 1662substituted the words "corporal presence" for the words "real andsubstantial presence, " but probably with no intention other thanthat of making the original meaning more plain. The fact that inthe teeth and eyes of the black rubric the practice known asEucharistical adoration has become widely prevalent in the Churchof England, only shows how little dependence can be placed on formsof words to keep even excellent and religious people from doingthe things they have a mind to do. 

In taking leave of the Caroline revision, it may be permitted todwell for a moment upon the serious character of the conclusionreached by the ecclesiastical leaders of that day. An opportunitywas given them to conciliate dissent. Without going all lengths, without in any measure imperilling the great foundation principlesof Anglican religion, they might, it would seem, have won back tothe national church thousands of those whom their sternness notonly repelled but permanently embittered. But it was the hour ofvictory with the Churchmen, and "Woe to the conquered" seems tohave been their cry. They set their faces as a flint againstconcession; they passed their iron-clad act of uniformity, andnow for more than two hundred years religion in Great Britain hasbeen a household divided against itself. Perhaps nothing that themen of the Restoration could have done would have made it otherwise. Perhaps the familiar question of the cynical Dean of St. Patrick's, "What imports it how large a gate you open, if there be always lefta number who place a pride and a merit in refusing to enter?" wasa fair question, and fatal to any dream of unity. And yet one maybe pardoned for believing that had a little of the oil of brotherlykindness been poured upon those troubled waters we whom the wavesstill buffet might to-day be sailing a smoother sea. 

As stated above, the Convocation of 1662 gave to the Prayer Book ofthe Church of England the form it has ever since retained. But itmust not be supposed that no efforts have been made meanwhile tobring changes to pass. The books written upon the subject form aliterature by themselves. 

The one really serious attempt to reconstruct the Liturgy inpost-Caroline times was that which grew naturally enough out of theRevolution of 1688. In every previous crisis of political change, the Prayer Book had felt the tremor along with the statute-book. 

Church and State, like heart and brain, are sympatheticallyresponsive to one another; revisions of rubrics go naturallyalong with revisions of codes. It was only what might have beenanticipated, therefore, that when William and Mary came to thethrone a Commission should issue for a new review. If Elizabethhad found it necessary to revise the book, if James had found itnecessary, if Charles had found it necessary, why should not thestrong hand of William of Orange be laid upon the pages? But thistime the rule was destined to find its exception. The work of reviewwas, indeed, undertaken by a Royal Commission, including among itsmembers the great names of Stillingfleet, Tillotson, and Beveridge, but nothing came of their work. Convocation again showed itselfunfriendly to anything like concessive measures, and so completewas the obscurity into which the doings of the Commission fell, that even as late as 1849, Cardwell, in the third edition ofhis _History of Conferences_, speaks as if he knew nothing ofthe whereabouts of the record. In 1854 the manuscript minutesof the Commission's proceedings were discovered in the Libraryof Lambeth Palace, and by order of Parliament printed as aBlue-book. The same document has also been published in a morereadable form by Bagster. One rises from the perusal of this BroadChurch Prayer Book--for such, perhaps, Tillotson's attempt may notunfairly be called--profoundly thankful that the promoters of itwere not suffered to succeed. The Preface to our American Book ofCommon Prayer refers to this attempted review of 1689 "as a greatand good work. " But the greatness and the goodness must have lainin the motive, for one fails to discern them either in the matteror in the manner of what was recommended. 

Even Macaulay, Whig that he is, fails not to put on record hiscondemnation of the literary violence which the Prayer Book sonarrowly escaped at the hands of the Royal Commission of 1689. Terseness was not the special excellency of Macaulay's own style, yet even he resented Bishop Patrick's notion that the Collectscould be improved by amplification. One of the few really goodsuggestions made by the Commissioners was that of using theBeatitudes in the Office of the Holy Communion as an alternatefor the Decalogue. There are certain festivals of the Christianyear when such a substitution would be most timely and refreshing. 

We make a leap now of just a hundred years. From 1689 we pass to1789, and find ourselves in the city of Philadelphia, at aconvention assembled for the purpose of framing a constitutionand setting forth a liturgy for a body of Christians destined tobe known as the Protestant Episcopal Church in the United Statesof America. During the interval between the issue of the Declarationof Independence and the Ratification of the Constitution of theUnited States, the people in this country who had been broughtup in the communion of the Church of England found themselvesecclesiastically in a very delicate position indeed. As coloniststhey had been canonically under the spiritual jurisdiction of theBishop of London, a somewhat remote diocesan. But with thisEpiscopal bond broken and no new one formed, they seemed to bein a peculiar sense adrift. It does not fall to me to narratethe steps that led to the final establishment of the episcopacyupon a sure foundation, nor yet to trace the process through whichthe Church's legislative system came gradually to its completion. Our interest is a liturgical one, and our subject matter theevolution of the Prayer Book. I say nothing, therefore, of othermatters that were debated in the Convention of 1789, but shallpropose instead that we confine ourselves to what was said anddone about the Prayer Book. In order, however, fully to appreciatethe situation we must go back a little. In a half-formal andhalf-informal fashion there had come into existence, four yearsbefore this Convention of 1789 assembled, an American Liturgy nowknown by the name of _The Proposed Book_. It had been compiled onthe basis of the English Prayer Book by a Committee of threeeminent clergymen, Dr. White of Pennsylvania, Dr. William Smithof Maryland, and Dr. Wharton of Delaware. Precisely what measureof acceptance this book enjoyed, or to what extent it came actuallyinto use, are difficult, perhaps hopeless questions. 

What we know for certain is that the public opinion of the greaternumber of Churchmen rejected it as inadequate and unsatisfactory. In the Convention of 1789 The Proposed Book does not seem to havebeen seriously considered in open debate at all, though doubtlessthere was much talk about it, much controversy over its merits anddemerits at Philadelphia dinner-tables and elsewhere while thesession was in progress. 

The truth is, the changes set forth in _The Proposed Book_ weretoo sweeping to commend themselves to the sober second-thought ofmen whose blood still showed the tincture of English conservatism. Possibly also some old flames of Tory resentment were rekindled, here and there, by the prominence given in the book to a form ofpublic thanksgiving for the Fourth of July. There were Churchmendoubtless at that day who failed duly to appreciate what were calledin the title of the office, "the inestimable blessings of Religiousand Civil Liberty. " Others again may have been offended by thetreatment measured out to the Psalter, which was portioned intothirty selections of two parts each, with the _Benedicite_ addedat the end, to be used, if desired, on the thirty-first day of anymonth. Another somewhat crude and unliturgical device was therunning together without break of the Morning Prayer and theLitany. 

I speak of blemishes, but _The Proposed Book_ had its excellencesalso. Just at present it is the fashion in Anglican circles to heapridicule and contempt on _The Proposed Book_ out of all proportionto its real demerits. Somehow it is thought to compromise us withthe English by showing up our ecclesiastical ancestors in anunfavorable light as unlearned and ignorant men. It is treatedas people will sometimes treat an old family portrait of a forebear, who in his day was under a cloud, mismanaged trust funds, or mademoney in the slave trade. Thus a grave historiographer by way ofspeaking comfortably on this score, assures us that the volume"speedily sunk into obscurity, " becoming one of the rarest of thebooks illustrative of our ecclesiastical annals. 

And yet, curiously enough, _The Proposed Book_ was in some pointsmore "churchly, " using the word in a sense expressive of liturgicalaccuracy, than the book finally adopted. In the Morning Prayer ithas the _Venite_ in full and not abridged. The _Benedictus_ it alsogives entire. A single form of Absolution is supplied. The versiclesfollowing upon the Creed are more numerous than ours. In the EveningPrayer the great Gospel Hymns, _the Magnificat_ and the _Nuncdimittis_, stand in the places to which we with tardy justice haveonly just restored them. 

Again, if we consider those features of _The Proposed Book_ thatwere retained and made part of the Liturgy in 1789, we shall havefurther reason to refrain from wholesale condemnation of thistentative work. For example, we owe the two opening sentences ofMorning Prayer, "The Lord is in his holy temple" and "From therising of the sun, " to _The Proposed Book_, and also the specialform for Thanksgiving Day. And yet, on the whole, the Conventionof 1789 acted most wisely in determining that it would make thePrayer Book of the Church of England, rather than _The ProposedBook_, the real basis of revision. It did so, and as a result wehave what has served us so well during the first century of ournational life--the _Book of Common Prayer and Administration ofthe Sacraments and other rites and ceremonies of the Churchaccording to the use of the Protestant Episcopal Church in theUnited States of America_. The points wherein the American PrayerBook differs from the Prayer Book of the Church of England are toonumerous to be catalogued in full. "They will appear, " says thePreface (a composition borrowed, by the way, almost wholly from_The Proposed Book_), "and, it is to be hoped, the reasons of themalso, upon a comparison of this with the Book of Common Prayer ofthe Church of England. "

The most important differences are the following: The permissiveuse of "Selections of Psalms in place of the Psalms appointed forthe day of the month. " This was doubtless suggested by the wholesaletransformation of the Psalter in _The Proposed Book_ into a seriesof selections. 

The permitted shortening of the Litany is an American feature. 

A number of the special prayers, as, for example, the prayer for asick person, that for persons going to sea, the thanksgivings for arecovery and for a safe return, all these are peculiar to theAmerican use. Extensive alterations were made in the MarriageService and certain greatly needed ones in the Burial Office. The two most noteworthy differences, however, are the omissionfrom our Prayer Book of the so-called Athanasian Creed, and theinsertion in it of that part of the Consecration Prayer in theCommunion Office known as the Invocation. The engrafting of thislatter feature we owe to the influence of Bishop Seabury, who bythis addition not only assimilated the language of our liturgy moreclosely to that of the ancient formularies of the Oriental Church, but also insured our being kept reminded of the truly spiritualcharacter of Holy Communion. "It is the spirit that quickeneth, "this Invocation seems to say; "the flesh profiteth nothing. " Quitein line with this was the alteration made at the same time in thelanguage of the Catechism. "The Body and Blood of Christ, " says theEnglish Book, "which are verily and indeed taken and received bythe faithful in the Lord's Supper. "

"The Body and Blood of Christ, " says the American Book, "which arespiritually taken and received by the faithful in the Lord'sSupper. "

Many verbal changes are to be found scattered here and therethrough the book, some of them for the better, some, perhaps, for the worse. The prevailing purpose seems to have been toexpunge all obsolete words and phrases while dealing tenderlywith obsolescent ones. In this course, however, the reviserswere by no means always and everywhere consistent. 

"Prevent, " in the sense of "anticipate, " is altered in some placesbut left unchanged in others. In the _Visitation of Prisoners_, anoffice borrowed from the Irish Prayer Book, the thoroughly obsoleteexpression, "As you tender, " in the sense of "as you value, " thesalvation of your soul, is retained. 

From the Psalter has disappeared in the American Book "Thou tellestmy Sittings, " although why this particular archaism should havebeen selected for banishment and a hundred others spared, it isnot easy to understand. 

Perhaps some sudden impatience seized the reviser, like that whichmoved Bishop Wren, while annotating his Prayer Book, to write onthe margin of the calendar for August, "Out with 'dog days' fromamong the saints. "

Considering what a bond of unity the Lord's Prayer appears to bebecoming among all English-speaking worshippers, it is, perhaps, to be regretted that our revisers changed the wording of it in twoor three places. The excision of "Lighten our darkness" mustprobably be attributed to the prosaic matter-of-fact temper whichhad possession of everybody and everything during the last quarterof the eighteenth century. 

The Ordinal, the Articles, the Consecration of Churches, and theInstitution of Ministers made no part of the Prayer Book as it wasset forth in 1789; nor do they, even now, strictly speaking, makea part of it, although in the matter of binding force and legalauthority they are on the same footing. 

The Ordinal and Articles are substantially identical with theEnglish Ordinal and Articles, save in the matter of a referenceto the Athanasian Creed and several references to the connection ofChurch and State. The Consecration of Churches and the Institutionof Ministers are offices distinctively American. If I add that theAmerican Book drops out of the Visitation of the Sick a formof private absolution, and greatly modifies the service forAsh-Wednesday, we shall have made our survey of differencestolerably, though by no means exhaustively complete. 

And now what is the lesson taught us by the history of the PrayerBook? Homiletical as the question sounds, it is worth asking. 

We have reviewed rapidly, but not carelessly, the vicissitudes ofthe book's wonderful career, and we ought to be in a position todraw some sort of instructive inference from it all. Well, onething taught us is this, the singular power of survival that livesin gracious words. They wondered at the "gracious words whichproceeded out of His mouth, " and because they wondered at themthey treasured them up. 

Kind words, says the child's hymn, can never die; neither cankindly words, and kindly in the deepest sense are many, many ofthe words of the Common Prayer; they touch that which is mostcatholic in us, that which strongly links us to our kind. Thereis that in some of the Collects which as it has lasted since thedays when Roman emperors were sitting on their thrones, so willit last while man continues what he is, a praying creature. 

Another thing taught us by the Prayer Book's history is the dutyof being forever on our guard in the religious life against "thefalsehood of extremes. "

The emancipated thinkers who account all standards of belief tobe no better than dungeon walls, scoff at this feature of theAnglican character with much bitterness. "Your Church is a Churchof compromises, " they say, "and your boasted _Via media_ only acoward's path, the poor refuge of the man who dares not walk inthe open. " But when we see this Prayer Book condemned for beingwhat it is by Bloody Mary, and then again condemned for being whatit is by the Long Parliament, the thought occurs to us thatpossibly there is enshrined in this much-persecuted volume a truthlarger than the Romanist is willing to tolerate, or the Puritangenerous enough to apprehend. 

A third important lesson is that we are not to confound revisionwith ruin, or to suppose that because a book is marvellously goodit cannot conceivably be bettered. Each accomplished revision ofthe Book of Common Prayer has been a distinct step in advance. IfGod in his wise providence suffered an excellent growth of devotionto spring up out of the soil of England in the days of Edwardthe Sixth, and, after many years, determined that like a vineout of Egypt it should be brought across the sea and given rooton these shores, we need not fear that we are about to loseutterly our pleasant plant if we notice that the twigs and leavesare adapting themselves to the climate and the atmosphere of thenew dwelling-place. The life within the vine remains what it alwayswas. The growth means health. The power of adaptation is theguarantee of a perpetual youth. 

REVISION OF THE AMERICAN COMMON PRAYER. 

II. REVISION OF THE AMERICAN COMMON PRAYER. [1]

The revision of long established formularies of public worship is, as it ought to be, a matter compassed about with obstacles many andgreat. A wise doubtfulness prompts conservative minds to throw everymover for change upon the defensive, when liturgical interestsare at stake. So many men are born into the world with a nativedisposition to tamper with and tinker all settled things, and somany more become persuaded, as time goes on, of a personal "mission"to pull down and remake whatever has been once built up, esteeminglife a failure unless they have contrived to build each his ownmonument upon a clearing, that lovers of the old ways are sometimescompelled in sheer self-defence to put on the appearance of beingmore obstinately set against change than they really are. It oughtnot to be absolutely impossible to alter a national hand-book ofworship (which is what any manual calling itself a Common Prayermust aspire to become), but it is well that it should be all butimpossible to do so. Logically it might seem as if the possessionof a power to make involved a continuance of power to remake; andso it does, to a certain extent, but only to a certain extent. Living organisms cannot be remodelled with the same freedom as deadmatter. A solemnity hangs about the moment of birth that attachesto no other crisis in a man's life until death comes. Similarlythere are certain features which the founders of institutions, thefirst makers of organic law, imprint lastingly upon their work. Wemay destroy the living thing so brought to birth; to kill is alwayspossible; but only by very gradual and plastic methods can we hopein any measure to reconstruct the actual embodiment of life onceachieved. The men of 1789 had us in their power, even as the menof 1549 had had both them and us. In every creative epoch manythings are settled by which unborn generations will be bound. [2]

It may be urged that this is an argument against adopting liturgiesin the first instance as vehicles of worship; and such undoubtedlyit is in so far forth as immobility ought in such matters to bereckoned a disadvantage. But we are bound to take into account thegain which comes with immobility as well as the drawbacks. We mustconsider how large a proportion of the reverence which the greatinstitutes of human life exact from us is due to the fixity of thethings themselves. Mont Blanc loses nothing of its hold upon ouradmiration because we always find it in the same place. 

Men like to feel that there is something in the world strongerthan the individual will, stronger simply because it expressesthe settled common-sense of many as to what is fitting and rightin contrast with the whim of one. Lawyers, as a class, are almostas conservative as ecclesiastics, and for the very reason thatthey also are charged with the custody of established forms whichit is important that men should reverence. Laws affecting the tenureof property, the binding force of contracts, the stability of themarriage relation, not only cannot be lightly altered, the veryphraseology in which they are couched must be carefully handled, for fear lest with the passing away of the form something of thesubstance go also. 

Moreover, the affections of men fasten themselves very tenaciouslyto such a trellis as a liturgy affords. The love for "the old wordsand the old tunes" against which all innovators in hymnody, howeverdeserving, have to do battle, asserts itself under the form oflove for the old prayers with ten-fold vehemence. An immense fundof latent heat smoulders beneath the maxim, "Let the ancient customsprevail"; and few of the victories achieved by the papacy are sostartling as those that have resulted in the displacement of theliturgical uses of local Churches, that of Paris, for example, bythe Roman rite. 

But true principles, as we are often reminded, become falsehoodswhen shoved across the line of proper measure. The very cycles ofthe astronomers have an end, and the clock-work of the most ancientheavens, or at least our reading of it, calls, from time to time, for readjustment. So long as man continues fallible his bestintended workmanship will occasionally demand such alteration forthe better as, within the limits already pointed out, may bepossible. 

Many signs of the times suggest that the hour for a fresh reviewof the Anglican formularies of worship is nigh at hand. Some ofthese tokens are written on a sky broad enough to cover the wholeEnglish-speaking race, others of them are visible chiefly withinour own national horizon. With respect to the English book, Cardwell[3] writing in 1840 and Freeman[4] in 1855, considered revision, however desirable in the abstract, to be a thing utterly out ofreach, not within the circle, as the parliamentary phrase now runs, of "practical politics. "

But it may be fairly questioned whether these high authorities, were they living to-day, would not concur in the judgment of a morerecent writer when he says--in language which, _mutatis mutandis_, applies to our own case: "The most weighty plea in favor of timelyinquiry into the subject is that the process of revision is actuallygoing on piecemeal, and with no very intelligent survey of thebearings as a preliminary to any one instalment. The New Lectionaryof 1871, the Shortened Services Act, the debates in the Convocationof Canterbury on rubrical amendments, none of them marked by anysufficient care or knowledge, and all fraught with at least thepossibility of serious consequence, are examples of formal andrecognized inroads on the Act of Uniformity; while such practicalthough unauthorized additions to the scanty group of Anglicanformularies as the Three Hours' Devotion, Harvest Thanksgivings, Public Institution of Incumbents, Ordination of Readers andDeaconesses, and Children's Services prove incontestably thatthe narrow limits of the Common Prayer Book are no longer adequatefor the spiritual needs of the Church of England . . . 

"It is evident, then, that contented acquiescence with the old stateof things already belongs to the past, and that a return to it isimpossible. We must perforce advance, for good or ill, in the pathof revision, and cannot even materially slacken the pace nor deferthe crisis. One choice, however, is left in our power, and that isthe most important of all, namely, the direction which revisionshall take--that of conservative and recuperative addition, or thatof further evisceration, ceremonial or devotional. " [5]

A measure looking in the direction towards which this reviewerpoints was actually passed by the General Convention of our ownChurch at its late session in October, 1880. 

The wording of the Resolution referred to was as follows:

"_Resolved_: That a Joint Committee, to consist of seven bishops, seven presbyters, and seven laymen be appointed to consider andreport to the next General Convention whether, in view of the factthat this Church is soon to enter upon the second century of itsorganized existence in this country, the changed conditions of thenational life do not demand certain alterations in the Book ofCommon Prayer in the direction of liturgical enrichment andincreased flexibility of use. "[6]

In the present article the writer proposes to inquire, in connectionwith this measure:

(1) What motives may fairly be supposed to have actuated theConvention in allowing so important an initiatory step to be taken?

(2) What measure of authority was conferred on and what scope givento the Joint Committee then constituted?

(3) What reasons exist for considering the present a happy momentto attempt liturgical revision, within certain limits, should sucha thing be determined upon?

(4) What serious difficulties and obstacles are likely to beencountered in Committee, in Convention, and in the Church at large?

(5) What particular improvements and adjustments of our existingsystem would be, in point of fact, best worth the effort necessaryto secure them?

I. The interpretation of motives, difficult enough in the case ofindividuals, becomes mere guess-work when the action under analysisis that of a large body of men. Which one of many considerationsurged upon the Convention carried with it the supreme weight ofpersuasion in this particular instance it is impossible to say. Two or three arguments, however, from their frequent reappearancein the debate may fairly be judged to have exercised a controllinginfluence. One of these was hinted at in the language of theresolution itself, namely, the call for revision that has grownout of "the changed conditions of the national life. " Shrewd andfar-seeing as were William White and his coadjutors in theirforecast of nineteenth century needs made from the standpoint ofthe Peace of Versailles, they would have been more than human hadthey succeeded in anticipating all the civil and ecclesiasticalconsequences destined to flow from that memorable event. Certainlyit ought not to be held strange that this "new America" of ours, with its enormously multiplied territory, its conglomerate of races, its novel forms of association, its multiplicity of industries notdreamed of a generation ago, should have demands to make in respectto a better adaptation of ancient formularies to present wants, suchas thoughtful people count both reasonable and cogent. That a PrayerBook revised primarily for the use of a half-proscribed Churchplanted here and there along a sparsely inhabited sea-coast, shouldserve as amply as it does the purposes of a population now swollenfrom four millions to fifty, and covering the whole breadth of thecontinent, is marvel enough; to assert for the book entire adequacyto meet these altered circumstances is a mistake. "New time, newfavors, and new joys, " so a familiar hymn affirms, "do a new songrequire. " We have conceded the principle so far as psalmody isconcerned, why not apply it to the service of prayer as well asto that of praise, and in addition to our new hymns secure also suchnew intercessions and new thanksgivings as the needs of to-daysuggest? The reference in the resolution to the approachingcompletion of the century has since been playfully characterizedas a bit of "sentimentalism. "[7] The criticism would be entirelyjust if the mere recurrence of the centennial anniversary were thepoint chiefly emphasized. But when a century closes as this one ofours has done with a great social revolution whereby "all estatesof men" have been more or less affected, the proposal to signalizeentrance upon a fresh stretch of national life by making devotionalpreparation for it is something better than a pretty conceit; thereis a serious reasonableness in it. [8]

Every revision of the Common Prayer of the Church of England, andthere have been four of them since Edward's First Book was put inprint, has taken place at some important era of transition in thenational life: and conversely it may be said that every civilcrisis, with a single exception, has left its mark upon theformularies. 

To one who argues that because we in this country are evidentlyentering upon a new phase of the national life we ought similarlyto re-enforce and readjust our service-book, it is no sufficientreply to urge the severance effected here between Church and State. The fact that ours is a non-established Church does not make herwholly unresponsive to the shocks of change that touch the civilfabric. In so far as a political renewal alters the social gradingof society, bringing in education, for instance, where before itwas not, or suddenly developing new forms of industrial activity, the Church, whether established or not, is in duty bound to takecognizance of the fresh field of duty thus suddenly thrust upon her, and to prepare herself accordingly. 

In the Preface added to the English Prayer Book at the Restoration, and commonly attributed to Sanderson, "that staid and well weighedman, " as Hammond called him, there occurs a sentence which, bothon account of its embodying in a few words the whole philosophy ofliturgical revision and because of a certain practical bearingpresently to be pointed out, it is worth while, in spite of itsfamiliarity, to quote:

"The particular forms of Divine worship, and the rites and ceremoniesappointed to be used therein, being things in their own natureindifferent and alterable and so acknowledged, it is but reasonable, that upon weighty and important considerations, according to thevarious exigency of times and occasions, such changes and alterationsshould be made therein, as to those that are in place of authorityshould from time to time seem either necessary or expedient. "

Contemporaneously with this utterance there came into the PrayerBook, as a direct consequence of the enormous enlargement of thenaval and commercial marine that had taken place under theCommonwealth, the "Forms of Prayer to be used at Sea. " Here was awise and right-minded recognition of a new want that had sprung upwith a new time, a want which jealousy of the Puritans who had builtup the naval supremacy did not prevent the Caroline bishops frommeeting. But the change that passed on England during five years ofCromwell was as nothing compared with the transformation of Americaunder ninety-five years of the federal constitution. Take a singleillustration. The year 1789, the date of the Ratification of theAmerican Prayer Book, saw sea-island cotton first planted in theUnited States, and it was about that time that upland cotton alsobegan to be cultivated for home and foreign use. As the effect ofthis scarcely noticed experiment there straightway sprang up anindustry, North and South, which has been to our country almostwhat her shipping interest is to Great Britain. Bishop White andhis associates were not to blame for failure to provide bread thatall this unanticipated multitude of toilers should eat. And yet afailure there has been. No one who has not labored at the task oftrying to commend the Church of the Prayer Book to the workingclass, as it is represented in our large manufacturing towns, canknow how lamentable that failure is. We gather in the rich and thepoor, but the great middle class that makes the staple and thestrength of American society stands aloof. 

Nowhere in this country, for instance, has the Church had a betteropportunity to show what it could do for American people than inthe city of Lowell, where cotton spinning had its first largedevelopment. It was a virgin soil: the Episcopal Church, as rarelyhappens, was earliest on the ground: and not only so, but it enjoyedfor some years the friendly protection of the proprietors of thenew settlement, almost a religious monopoly--was, in fact, anecclesiastical preserve. Moreover, this beginning antedated theIrish occupation by many years, at least so far as skilled laborwas concerned, for during a considerable period the operatives inthe mills were of native New England stock, the best possiblematerial to be made over into churchmen and churchwomen. And yetnotwithstanding all this, and notwithstanding the patient andunintermitted toil through more than fifty years of perhaps themost laborious parish priest on the American clergy list, theEpiscopal Church has to-day but a comparatively slender hold uponthe affections and loyalty of the people of this largest of themanufacturing cities of New England. 

A similar failure to "reach the masses" betrays itself in Worcesterand Fall River, the two cities of like character that come next inorder of population, for in the former of these last named placesonly about two per cent, of the inhabitants have affiliations ofany sort with the Episcopal Church. 

It was considerations of this sort, backed perhaps by memories ofthe ringing appeal sounded three years before at Boston by theBishop of Connecticut, that moved the Convention to interpret assomething better than a bit of sentimentalism the invitation tolook the times in the face, and give the new century its infantbaptism. 

But besides all this there pressed upon the mind of bishops anddeputies a cumulative argument of a wholly different sort. Thedemand for revision seemed to be closing in upon the Church onconverging lines. It was plain that, before long, hands of changemust necessarily be laid upon certain semi-detached portions ofthe Prayer Book. There was the New Lectionary, for example, thatwould presently be knocking for hospitable reception within thecovers, and the old Easter Tables, as they now stand, could not, itwas observed, last very much longer. A new book, in the publisher'ssense of that term, would soon have to be made. The sanctity ofstereotype plates must be disturbed. Moreover, here was an admirableopportunity to settle the wrangle, now of nine years' standing, overthe best way of bringing to pass shortened services for week-dayuse. Add to this the fact that the intrinsic weakness of the dribletmethod of revision[9] had been made so abundantly plain that evenits former friends wisely refrained from all attempt to urge it, and our summing up of probable motives becomes approximatelycomplete. 

II. As to the measure of authority conferred on, and scope allowedto the Committee of Twenty-one, it is possible to speak with moredefiniteness. 

A precisian might of course, were he so disposed, take up the groundthat the report of the Committee when made ought to be monosyllabic, "Yes" or "No. " The wording of the resolution admits of such aconstruction beyond a doubt; the Joint Committee was requested toconsider and report whether, etc. , etc. But no one who listened tothe debate on the resolution could have been left in uncertaintyas to the real _animus_ of the measure. The thing intended to beauthorized was an experimental review, with implied reference to alimited revision at some time future, in case the fruits of thereview should commend themselves to the mind of the Church. 

A distinction must be drawn between revision and review. Revisionimplies review as an antecedent step, but review is by no meansnecessarily followed by revision. The English book was reviewed andrevised in 1662; it was reviewed but not revised in 1689. Review istentative and advisory; revision is authoritative and final. In thepresent instance not an atom of power to effect binding change hasbeen conveyed. No authority has been given to anybody to touch aline or a letter of the Prayer Book save in the way of suggestionand recommendation. Responsible action has been held wholly inreserve. 

Moreover, even the pathway of review was most scrupulously hedged. Applying to the resolution the legal maxim, _expressio unius estexclusio alterius_, one sees at a glance that doctrinal change is amatter left wholly on one side. The two points to which theCommittee is instructed to bend all its studies are "liturgicalenrichment" and "increased flexibility of use. " Whatsoever ismore than these is irrelevant. Accurate distinguishment betweensuch "enrichments" as have and such as have not a doctrinal bearingis, no doubt, a delicate point, and must be set down among thedifficulties to be encountered. As such it will be consideredfurther on. For the present the fact to be noted is that theauthorized reviewers are both in honor and in duty bound to keepthemselves absolutely clear of controversial bias. The movementis not a movement to alter in any slightest respect the dogmaticteaching of the Church, not a movement to unsettle foundations, not a movement toward disowning or repudiating our past, but simplyand only an endeavor to make the Common Prayer, if possible (andwe are far from being sure, as yet, that it is possible), a betterthing of its kind, more comprehensive, more elastic, more readilyresponsive to the demands of all occasions and the needs of "allsorts and conditions of men. " Some who are deeply persuaded thatonly by doctrinal revision in one direction or another can thePrayer Book be made thoroughly to commend itself to the heart andmind of the American people will esteem the measure of changeabove indicated not worth the effort indispensable to the attainmentof it. Be it so; other some there are who do think the attemptwell advised and who are willing to waive their own pet notionsas to possible doctrinal improvements of the book for the sake ofsecuring a _consensus_ upon certain great practical improvementswhich come within the range of things attainable. 

Certain it is that any attempt of a body of reviewers like this todisturb, even by "shadowed hint, " the existing doctrinal settlementunder which we are living together, would be resented by the wholeChurch. 

There are divines among us who in the interest of a more sharplydefined orthodoxy are conscientiously bent upon securing thereintroduction among our formularies of the so-called AthanasianCreed. 

There are others who consider that a more damaging blow at thecatholicity of our dogmatic position as a Church could scarcelybe dealt. 

Again, there are theologians who account the Prayer Book to beso thoroughly saturated in all its parts with the sacramentalidea, that they would account it not only a piece of far-seeingstatesmanship, but also a perfectly safe procedure to allow thosewho chose to do so to thank God after a child's baptism for thesimple fact that he had thereby been "grafted into the body ofChrist's Church. "

But over against these stand a much larger number who thinknothing of the sort, and who would put up with the liturgicalshortcomings of the Prayer Book, go without "enrichments" fora thousand years, rather than see the single word "regenerate"dropped out of the post-baptismal office. 

Sensible men not a few are to be found who hold that the incomingtide of host-worship with which, as they conceive, our reformedChurch is threatened can never be stayed unless some carefullycontrived definition inserted in the Prayer Book shall makeimpossible this subtile and refined species of idolatry. Butmen no whit less sensible laugh them in the face, pointing tothe "black rubric" and its history as evidence that between theadmitted doctrine of the real presence and the disallowed tenetof transubstantiation no impervious barrier of words can possiblybe run. 

These illustrations of probable divergence in opinion, in casethe field of doctrine were once entered, might be multiplied. Theretranslation of the Nicene Creed and the more accurate punctuationof its sentences; the rendering of the word Sabbath in the FourthCommandment into its English equivalent of Rest; the abolition ofthe curious misnomer under which we go on calling XXXVIII ArticlesXXXIX; the removal from the Catechism, or else the conversion intomother English of that sad _crux infantum_, the answer to thequestion, "What desirest thou of God in this prayer?" are a fewexamples of less importance than those previously cited; and yet, in the case of the least of them, it is most unlikely that theadvocates of change would have the show of hands in their favor, so sensitive is the mind of the Church to anything that looks inthe least degree like tampering with the standards of weight andmeasure, the shekels of the sanctuary. 

On the other hand, there are certain manifest and palpable instancesof inaccuracy and, more rarely, infelicity of diction which thereviewers might very properly take occasion to amend even thoughsuch alterations could not be classified by a strict constructionistunder either of the two heads "enrichment" and "flexibility. " In themasterly Report of the Rev. Dr. T. W. Coit to the Joint Committeeappointed by the Convention of 1841 to prepare a Standard PrayerBook, [10] a document of classical rank, there is more than oneintimation of the hope that future reviewers would be given a largerliberty in this direction than he had himself enjoyed. He chafed, and naturally enough, under the necessity of reprinting in a"standard" book, evident and acknowledged solecisms and blunders. "We wanted, " he says, "to correct one ungrammatical clause in theConsecration Prayer of the Communion Service. It is in the lastsentence but one, at its close. It should be, not that he may dwellin them and they in him; but, that he may dwell in us and we in him. The prayer is made up out of two or three others; and anyone whowill examine the parts put together will easily see how the thingwas overlooked. A much greater error was overlooked elsewhere, showing that our American compilers were not sufficiently aware ofthe necessity which requires that the Prayer Book should always beconsistent with itself. I allude to something in the office for thePrivate Baptism of Children. Suppose a clergyman to avail himself ofthe license given in the Rubric after the certification. He will thenbe made to talk thus: 'As the Holy Gospel doth witness to ourcomfort, on this wise--Dost thou in the name of this child, '" etc. [11]

Other cases of evident inaccuracy, besides those referred to bythis eminent critic, might be cited, even from the latest StandardPrayer Book, that of 1871. It is hard, for instance, to imagine eventhe veriest martinet in such matters objecting to the redress of agreat wrong done on page 36 of the volume mentioned, where theprayer "to be used at the meetings of Convention" is entered underthe general heading, "For malefactors after condemnation. " Ourecclesiastical legislators have doubtless, like the rest of us, "erred and strayed" more than once, but to deal out to them suchharsh measure as this is cruel. 

A strange uncertainty would seem from the Rubric to exist withreference to the limits of the Litany. On page 554 of the StandardPrayer Book, the words, "Here endeth the Litany, " occur immediatelyafter the prayer, "We humbly beseech thee, O Father, " while on page31 the same statement is placed immediately after the minorbenediction. 

These are not faults for which it could ever be worth while torevise a Prayer Book, but they are blemishes of which the revisersof a Prayer Book ought to take note. 

It is a graver matter to speak of infelicities of diction in a bookso justly famous as the Prayer Book for its pure and wholesomeEnglish. Wordsworth's curse on

 One who would peep and botanize Upon his mother's grave

seems, in the judgment of many, fairly earned by the critic, whoeverhe may be, who ventures to suggest that in any slightest instancethe language of the formularies might have been more happilyphrased. But there are spots on the sun. In the prayer alreadyreferred to, that for use "at the meetings of Convention, " thepetition, "We beseech thee to be _present_ with the council of thyChurch here assembled in thy name and _presence_" does seem opento the charge of tautology if nothing worse. 

It would be well if wherever the word occurs in the Prayer Bookin connection with Deity the anthropomorphic plural "ears" couldbe replaced by the symbolic singular "ear. "

Considering also the great evil of having in a formulary of worshiptoo many things that have to be laboriously explained, it might bewell if in the Litany the adjective "sudden, " which ever sinceHooker's day has given perpetual occasion for cavil, were to yieldto "untimely, " or some like word more suggestive than "sudden" ofthe thought clumsily expressed in the "Chapel Liturgy" by theawkward phrase, "death unprepared for. "[12]

It must be again remarked that these are not points for the sakeof which word-fanciers would be justified in disturbing an existingorder of things; they are simply instances of lesser improvementsthat might very properly accompany larger ones, should larger onesever be seriously undertaken. 

With so many pegs upon which controversies might be hung staringus in the face, can we think of it as at all likely that anyconsiderable number of Churchmen assembled in committee (to saynothing of Convention) will be able to agree upon a common lineof action with reference to an amendment of the formularies?

That is the very point at issue, and how it is to be decided onlythe event can show. Certainly in the roll of the victories ofcharity, a favorable result, were it achieved, would stand exceedinghigh. 

This reflection naturally leads up to the inquiry whether there isany special reason to consider the present a happy moment toattempt within the limits already defined a revision of the PrayerBook. 

III. The argument for timeliness has been, in part, already stated. A revision will be timely, if the times imperatively demand it;and the main reasons for thinking that they do are before thereader. Something, however, is still left to be said in evidencethat the movement now begun is opportune--not rudely thrust uponthe Church. "To everything, " saith the preacher, "there is a season, and a time to every purpose under heaven, " and among the categoriesthat follow this statement we find reckoned what answers toliturgical enrichment, for "there is, " he observes, "a time tobuild up. "

Fifty years ago a persuasive argument against attempting to amendthe Prayer Book, either in text or rubrics, might have been basedupon the lack of hands competent to undertake so delicate a task. Raw material, well adapted to edification, was lying about inblocks, but skilled workmen were scarce. This can hardly be saidto-day. Simultaneously with the beginning of the Oxford movement, there naturally sprang up a fresh interest in liturgical studies, an interest which has gone on deepening and widening until in volumeand momentum the stream has now probably reached its outer limit. The convincing citation, "There were giants in those days, " withwhich a late bishop of one of the New England dioceses used toenforce his major premise that wisdom died with Cranmer and hiscolleagues, no longer satisfies. Probably no period of correspondinglength in the whole range of English Church history has shown itselfso rich in the fruits of liturgical study as the fifty years thathave elapsed since the introduction into the English Parliament ofthe first Reform Bill. [13] This particular historical landmark ismentioned on account of the close connection of cause and effectbetween it and the remarkable movement set on foot by Newman, Pusey, Keble, and Froude. To be sure, one of the earliest utterances inthe Tracts ran in these words: "Attempts are making to get theLiturgy altered. My dear brethren, I beseech you consider with mewhether you ought not resist the alteration of even one jot ortittle of it. "[14]

And yet, notwithstanding this disclaimer, one of the main impulsesthat lay behind the whole movement represented by the Tracts was anearnest desire to quicken the life of the Church of England in theregion of worship. In the _Table of the Tracts, showing theirarrangement according to Subjects_, the "Liturgical" section comesfirst. 

The present writer acknowledges but a very limited sympathy withthe doctrinal motives and aims of either the earlier or the laterTractarians. But let us, above all things, be fair. With whateverprepossessions one looks back upon it, the ground traversed by theChurch of England during the past fifty years cannot be otherwiseregarded than as a field sown with mingled tares and wheat. Individuals will differ in judgment as to the proportion in whichthese two products of a common soil have coexisted, but even thosewho have most stoutly opposed themselves to the Oxford movement, as a whole, are fain to credit it with, at least, this one goodresult, the rescue of the usages of worship from slovenliness andtorpor, and the establishment of a better standard of what isseemly, reverent, and beautiful in the public service of AlmightyGod. Not that there have not been, even in this respect, graveerrors in the direction of excess; the statement ventured is simplythis, that, up to a certain point, all Churchmen agree in admittinga genuine and wholesome improvement in the popular estimate of whatpublic worship, as such, ought to be. An immense amount of devoutstudy has been given, during the period mentioned, by many able mento liturgical subjects, and it would be strange indeed if fiftyyears of searching criticism had not resulted in the detection ofsome few points in which formularies originally compiled to meetthe needs of the sixteenth century might be better adapted to therequirements of the twentieth. Or, to put the same point in anotherway, has not all this searching into the mines of buried treasure, all this getting together of quarried stone (with possibly a certainsurplusage of stubble) been so much labor lost, if there is never tocome the recognition of a ripe moment for the Church to avail itselfof the results achieved? Are the studious toils of a Palmer, aMaskell, a Neale, a Scudamore, and a Bright to go for nothingexcept in so far as they have been contributory to our fund ofecclesiological lore? If so, the contempt often expressed for ritualand liturgical studies by students busy with other lines of researchwould seem to be not wholly undeserved. 

A good opportunity is now before the Church to give answer as towhether this form of investigation is or is not anything betterthan a species of sacred antiquarianism. Liturgiology as an aspirantfor recognition among the useful sciences may be said at the presentmoment to be waiting for the verdict. To be sure, it can be assertedfor liturgiology that to those who love it it is a study that provesitself, like poetry, "its own exceeding great reward. " It is notworth while to dispute this point. Liturgiology pursued for its ownsake may not be the loftiest of studies, but this, at least, can besaid for it, that it is a not less respectable object of pursuitthan many another specialty the devotees of which look down upon theliturgiologist with self-complacent scorn as a mere chiffonier. Theforms which Christian worship has taken on in successive generationsand among peoples of various blood are certainly as well worthy ofanalysis and classification as are the flora and fauna of Patagoniaor New Zealand. But while the Patagonian naturalist securesrecognition and is decorated, every jaunty man of letters feelsat liberty to scoff at the liturgiologist as a laborious trifler. 

Moreover, remembering that in favorite studies, as in crops, thererules a principle of rotation, fashion affecting even staid divineswith its subtle influence, we may look to see presently a declineof interest in this particular department of inquiry. Especiallymay serious men be expected to turn their attention in otherdirections, should it be found that a _Non possumus_ awaits everyeffort to make the fruits of their labor available for thenourishment of the Church's daily life. So then, instead ofdeferring action until liturgical knowledge shall have becomemore widely spread, and available liturgical material more abundant, we shall, if we are wise, perceive that only by moving promptlywill it be possible in this case to take the tide at the full. Never again will opportunity be more ripe. 

Another evidence of timeliness is supplied by the present pacificcondition of the Church. Previous movements toward liturgicalrevision have been of a more or less partisan and acrimonioustemper. Now for the first time we seem to be taking up this subjectwithout the expression of a fear from any quarter that if changesare made this or that party will get the advantage of some other. The peculiar conditions that ensure this unwonted truce of God arenot likely to last forever, nor is it perhaps wholly desirable thatthey should do so; what is desirable, and very desirable, is thatwe should avail ourselves of the lull to accomplish certain changesfor the better, which in ordinary times the prevalent heat offriction makes impossible. The Joint Committee of Twenty-one isconfidently believed to contain within itself every shade of colorknown to belong to the Anglican spectrum; if white light should befound to emerge, three years hence, as a result of the Committee'slabors, it will be said, and truly, that never before in our historycould such a blending of the rays possibly have taken place. 

Still another consideration properly included under the generalhead of timeliness is said to have been urged with much force inthe House of Bishops when the "enrichment" resolution was underdiscussion. 

Up to the present time the Episcopal Church of this country hasstood easily at the head in the matter of providing for the peoplea dignified and beautiful order of divine service. In fact, therehas been, until lately, no one to compete. But all this is changing. Ours are no longer the only congregations in which common prayer isto be found. It is true that thus far the attempts at imitationhave been rather grotesque than formidable, but such, untilrecently, have also been, in the judgment of foreign critics, all of our American endeavors after art. We are to consider whatapt learners our quick-witted countrymen have shown themselves tobe, in so much that even Christmas Day, once the _bete noire_ ofPuritan legislators, has come to be accounted almost a nationalfestival, and we shall be convinced that our primacy in the fieldof liturgies is not an absolutely assured position. This argumentis open to the criticism that it seems to lower and cheapen thewhole subject by representing Anglican religion in a mendicantattitude bidding for the favor of the great American public, and vexed that others, fellow-suppliants, have stolen a goodformula of appeal. Nevertheless there is a certain amount ofreasonableness in this way of putting the thing. Certainly withthose who reckon the liturgical mode of worship among the notesof the Church, the argument is one that ought to have markedinfluence; while with those who, not so persuaded, neverthelessview with pleased interest the general spread of a liturgicaltaste among the people of this country, seeing in it a tokenof better things to come, a harbinger of larger agreementsthan we have yet attained to, and of an approaching "consolationof Israel" once not thought possible--even with such the argumentought not to be wholly powerless. [15]

The fact that the Convocations of Canterbury and York have takenin hand and carried through a revision of the rubrics of the PrayerBook will seem to those who hold that our Church ought to advance_pari passu_ with the Church of England, and no faster, anotherevidence of the timeliness of the American movement. Under thetitle of _The Convocation Prayer Book_ there has lately appearedin England an edition of the Prayer Book so printed as to show howthe book would read were the recommendations of York and Canterburyto go into effect. It is true that the consent of Parliament mustbe secured before the altered rubrics can have the force of law;but whatever may come of the rubrics recommended, the existence ofthe book containing them is evidence enough of a wide-spreadconviction among the English clergy that change is needed. 

Indeed never has this point been more powerfully put in the fewestpossible words than by the brilliant, and no less logical thanbrilliant Bishop of Peterborough in a recent speech in the UpperHouse of Convocation. [16] "If the Church of England wants absolutepeace, she should have definite rubrics. "

It is true he goes on to say that in his judgment the dangers ofcarrying the question of rubrical revision into Parliamentare greater than the evil of letting it alone, but it is to beremembered that we in this country are hampered with no Parliamentaryentanglements and are free to do of our own motion, and in a quiet, orderly way, that which the Church of England can only do at therisk of something very like revolution. 

But this matter of the rubrics and their susceptibility ofimprovement will come up later on. It seemed proper to referto it, if no more, under the head of timeliness. If nothing elsein the way of change be opportune at the present moment, it is aneasy task to show that the rubrics, as they stand, cry aloud fora revision. 

IV. The obstacles to be encountered by any Committee undertakingso to carry forward a review of the Prayer Book that revision mayeventually result, are of two sorts; there are the inherentdifficulties of the work itself, such, for instance, as that ofmatching the literary style of the sixteenth century writers, andthere is the wholesome dread of a change for the worse whichis sure to assert itself in many quarters the moment definitepropositions shall have reached a point at which the "yeas andnays" are likely to be called. 

Beginning, then, with the inherent difficulties, and taking themin the inverse order of arduousness, we see at once how hard itmust be to secure unity and self-consistency in the revision of abook so complicated as the Common Prayer. It is like remodellingan old house. We think it a very easy matter, something that canbe done in one's head, but the mistake is discovered when the newdoor designed to give symmetry to this room is found to have spoiledthe looks of that, when the enlargement of the library turns outto have overtaxed the heating energy of the fireplace, and theingenious staircase, instead of ending where it was expected toend, brings up against an intractable brick wall. Just such perilsas these will beset anybody who ventures to disturb the adjustmentsof the "Prayer Book as it is" and to introduce desirable additions. But domestic architecture is not given up on account of the patientcarefulness the practice of it demands, neither need LiturgicalRevision be despaired of because it requires of the men whoundertake it a like wisdom in looking before and after. 

The really formidable barrier to revision, so far as what have beencalled the "inherent difficulties" are concerned, is reached whenwe touch style. How to handle without harming the sentences in whichEnglish religion phrased itself when English language was fresherand more fluent than it can ever be again is a serious question. The hands that seek to "enrich" may well be cautioned to take heedlest they despoil. It is to be remembered, however, in the way ofreassurance that the alterations most likely to find favor with thereviewers are such as will enrich by restoring lost excellencies, rather than by introducing forms fashioned on a modern anvil. 

The most sensitive critic could not, on the score of taste, findfault with the replacement in the Evening Prayer of the _Magnificat_and the _Nunc dimittis_, nor of bringing back a few of the Versiclesthat in the English book follow the Lord's Prayer, nor yet of ourbeing allowed to say, "Lighten our darkness, we beseech thee, Lord, "rather than "O Lord, our Heavenly Father, by whose Almighty powerwe have been preserved this day. " Objections to these alterationsmay be readily imagined, but it would be necessary to base them onother grounds than those of literary fastidiousness. In the case ofenrichments like these no one could raise the cry that the faultlessEnglish of the Prayer Book had been marred. 

But what shall be said of the composition of entirely new servicesand offices, if it should be judged expedient to give admission toany such? How can we be sure that such modern additions to theedifice would be sufficiently in keeping with the general tone ofthe elder architecture? It might be held to be an adequate answerto these questions to reply that if the living Church cannot nowtrust herself to speak out through her formularies in her naturalvoice as she did venture to do in the seventeenth century and theeighteenth, it must be that she has fallen into that stage ofdecrepitude where the natural voice is uncertain. 

But, really, what ought to be said is this--that if the same canonsof style that ruled the sixteenth century writers are studied andobeyed, there is no reason in the world why a result equallysatisfactory with the one then attained should not be reached now. There is nothing supernatural about the English of the Prayer Book. Cranmer and his associates were not inspired. The prose style ofthe nineteenth century may not be as good as that of the sixteenth, but, at its best, it is vastly superior to eighteenth century style, and of this last there are already no inconsiderable specimens inthe American Book of Common Prayer. The Office for the Visitation ofPrisoners, for example, is so redolent of the times of the Georges, when it was composed, that it might be appropriately enoughinterleaved with prints out of Hogarth. A bit of Palladianarchitecture in a Gothic church is not more easily recognized. Many worse things might happen to the Prayer Book than that thenineteenth century should leave its impress upon the pages. 

In fact, it is just as possible, if men will only think so, to useour language with effect for any good purpose to-day as it wasthree hundred years ago. All that is necessary is a willingnessto submit to the same restrictions, and those mostly moral, thatcontrolled the old writers; and our work, though not identicalwith theirs, will have the proper similarity. True, a modern authormay not be able to reproduce, without a palpable betrayal ofaffectation and mannerism, the precise characteristics of a bygonestyle. Chattertons are not numerous. It is easier to secure forthe brass andirons and mahogany dining chairs of our own manufacturethe look of those that belonged to our grandfathers than it is tocatch the tones of voices long dead; and just as good judgmentdictates the wisdom of repeating the honest and thorough workmanshipof the old cabinet-makers in place of slavishly imitating theirpatterns, so it will be well if the compilers of devotional formsfor modern use seek to say what they have to say with sixteenthcentury simplicity rather than in sixteenth century speech. Inletters, as in conduct, the supreme charm of style is the absenceof self-consciousness. "Say in plain words the thing you mean, andsay it as if you meant it, " is good advice to any seeker afterrhetorical excellence, be he young or old. The Reformers, that isto say, the men who Englished the Prayer Book, in seeking to meetthe devotional needs of the people of their own time do not seemto have been at pains to tie themselves to the diction of a previousgeneration. They dared to "call a spade a spade" whenever andwherever the tool came into use, and they have their reward in thepermanence of their work. Sweetnesses and prettinesses they banishedaltogether. Indeed, in those days it seems not to have occurredto people that such things had anything to do with religion. Itwas not that they did not know how to talk in the sweet way--neverhas sentimentalism been more rife in general literature than then, but they would not talk in that way; the stern traditions of HolyChurch throughout all the world forbade. Religion was a mostserious thing to their minds, and they would speak of it mostseriously or not at all. 

Never since language began to be used have severity and tendernessbeen more marvellously blended than in the older portions of theEnglish Prayer Book. 

This effect is largely due to an almost entire abstention on thepart of the writers from figurative language, or at least from allimagery that is not readily recognized as Scriptural. Bread andbeef are what men demand for a steady diet. Sweetmeats are wellenough, now and then, but only now and then. 

It is the failure to observe this plain canon of style that hasmade shipwreck of many an attempt to construct liturgies _de novo_. Ambitious framers of forms of worship seem almost invariably toforget that there may be such a thing as a too exquisite prayer, an altogether too "eloquent address to the throne of grace. " Thelongest and fullest supplicatory portion of the Prayer Book, theLitany, does not contain, from the first sentence to the last, [17]one single figurative expression, it is literally plain Englishfrom beginning to end; but could language be framed more intense, more satisfying, more likely to endure?

Scriptural metaphor, whether because it comes to us with the stampof authority or on account of some subtle intrinsic excellence, itmay be difficult to say, does not pall upon the taste. And yet eventhis is used sparingly in the Prayer Book, some of the most strikingexceptions to the general rule being afforded by the collects forthe first and third Sundays in Advent, the collects for the Epiphanyand Easter Even, and the opening prayer in the Baptismal Office. Allthese are instances of strictly Scriptural metaphor, and moreoverit is to be kept in mind that they are designed for occasional, notconstant use. In the orders for daily Morning and Evening Prayer, the "lost sheep" of the General Confession and the "dew" of God'sblessing in the Collect for Clergy and People are almost the sole, if not the sole cases of evident metaphor, and these again areScriptural. When in Jeremy Taylor's prayer, introduced by theAmerican revisers into the Order for the Visitation of the Sick, we come upon the comparison of human life to a "vale of misery" wefeel that somehow we have struck a new current in the atmosphere;for the moment it is the rhetorician who speaks, and no longer theearnest seeker after God. 

Besides this freedom from figures of speech, we notice in thestyle of Prayer Book English a careful avoidance of whatever lookslike a metaphysical abstraction. The aim is ever to present Godand divine things as realities rather than as mere concepts ornotions of the mind. So far as the writer remembers, not a singleprayer in the whole book begins with that formula so dear to themakers of extemporary forms of devotion, "O Thou. " On the contrary, the approach to the Divine Majesty is almost always made with areference to some attribute or characteristic that links Deity toman and man's affairs; it is "O God, the Protector of all thattrust in thee, " or "Almighty and everlasting God who of thy tenderlove toward mankind, " or "Lord of all power and might who art theauthor and giver of all good things. "

Cardinal Newman in one of his theological works written beforehis departure from the Church of England, has a powerful passagebearing upon this point. He is criticising the evangelicals fortheir one-sided way of setting forth what it must mean to "preachthe Gospel. " No less a person than Legh Richmond is the object ofhis strictures. 

"A remarkable contrast between our Church's and this false view ofreligion, " he says, "is afforded in the respective modes of treatinga death-bed in the Visitation of the Sick, and a popular modernwork, the Dairyman's Daughter. The latter runs thus: My dear friend, do you not FEEL _that you are supported_? The Lord deals very gentlywith me, she replied. Are not his promises _very precious to you?_They are all yea and amen in Christ Jesus.. . Do you experience any_doubts or temptations_ on the subject of your eternal safety? No, sir; the Lord deals very gently with me and gives me peace. Whatare your _views_ of the dark valley of death now that you arepassing through it? _It is not dark_. Now, if it be said thatsuch questions and answers are not only in their place innocentbut natural and beautiful, I answer that this is not the point, but this, viz. , they are evidently intended, whatever their merits, as a pattern of what _death-bed examinations should be_. Such isthe Visitation of the Sick in the nineteenth century. Now let uslisten to the nervous and stern tone of the sixteenth. In the PrayerBook the minister is instructed to say to the person visited:Forasmuch as after this life there is an account to be given tothe _Righteous Judge_ . . . I require you to examine yourself andyour estate both toward God and man. Therefore I shall rehearse toyou the _Articles of our Faith_, that you may know whether you dobelieve as a Christian man should or no . . . 'Then shall theminister examine whether he repent him truly of his sins, and bein _charity_ with all the world: exhorting him to forgive from thebottom of his heart all persons who have offended him, and if hehath offended any other to _ask their forgiveness_, and where hehath done injury or wrong to any man that he _make amends_ to theutmost of his power. ' . . . Such is the contrast between the dreamytalk of modern Protestantism, and 'holy fear's stern glow' in theChurch Catholic. "[18]

In this striking, though perhaps somewhat unnecessarily harsh way, Newman brings out a point which is unquestionably true, namely, that the language of the Prayer Book is of the sort which it isjust now the fashion to call realistic, that is, a languageconversant with great facts rather than with phases of feelingand moods of mind; which after all is only another way of sayingthat it is a Book of Common Prayer and not a manual for thefurtherance of spiritual introspection. 

These, then, are the characteristics of the Prayer Book style:it is simple, straightforward, unmetaphorical, realistic. Seriouslyit looks almost like a studied insult alike to the scholarship andto the religion of our day, to say that these are excellenciesattainable no longer. That revisers venturing upon additions tothe Prayer Book would be bound to set the face as a flint againstany slightest approach to sentimentality is true. But why assumethat the men do not exist who are capable of such a measure ofself-control? Grant that there are whole volumes of devotionalmatter, original and compiled, which one may ransack withoutfinding a single form that is not either prolix, wishy-washy, orsuperstitious--it does not follow that if the Prayer Book is tobe enriched, the enrichments must necessarily come from suchsources. Moreover it is to be remembered that there is anothervice of style to be shunned in liturgical composition quite ascarefully as sentimentality, namely, jejuneness. We cannot escapebeing sentimental simply by being dull. Feeling must not be deniedits place in prayer for fear that it may not prove itself a dulychastened feeling. There ought to be a heart of fire underneaththe calm surface of every formulary of worship. Flame and smokeare out of place; but a liturgy should glow throughout. Coldness, pure and simple, has no place in devotion. 

Over and above the intrinsic difficulties in the way of revisiongrowing out of the delicate nature of the work itself, obstaclesof a different sort are certain to be encountered. In so large abody of men as the Joint Committee of the two Houses, entire andcordial agreement is almost too much to be expected; and then evensupposing a unanimous report submitted, what is likely to follow?Why this--if the changes proposed are few, the cry will be raised, It surely is not worth while to alter the Prayer Book for the sakeof so insignificant a gain; whereas if the changes proposed areconsiderable, the counter cry will be sounded, This is revolution. 

Then there is the anxious question, How will it look to the English?What will be the effect on the _Concordat_ if we touch the PrayerBook? To be sure, the Concordat does not seem to weigh very heavilyon the shoulders of the other party, as indeed there is no reasonwhy it should. Convocation does not much disturb itself as to theview General Convention is likely to take of its sayings and doings, and even disestablishment might proceed without our being calledinto consultation. And yet the Concordat difficulty will have tobe reckoned with; and the dire spectre of a possible disowning ofus by our mother the Church of England will have to be laid, beforeany alterations in the Book of Common Prayer will be accounted bysome among us perfectly safe. 

But it is scarcely worth while to go on gratuitously suggestingopposition arguments. They will be sure to present themselvesunsolicited in due time. For the present it is enough to add thatif the movement for liturgical revision has not in it enoughtoughness of fibre to enable it to survive vigorous attack, itdoes not deserve success. 

V. Under the head of liturgical enrichment ought to be classedwhatever alteration would really serve to enhance the beauty, majesty, or fitness, of accepted formularies of worship. Excisionmay, under conceivable circumstances, be enrichment. James Wyattundoubtedly imagined that he was improving the English cathedralswhen he whitewashed their interiors, added composition pinnaclesto the west towers of Durham, and rearranged the ancient monumentsof Salisbury; but an important part of the enrichment accomplishedby our nineteenth century restorers has lain simply in the undoingof what Wyatt did. 

Again, substitution may be enrichment, as in the case where awooden spire built upon a stone tower is taken down to be replacedby honest work. It would be an enrichment if in St. George's Chapel, the central shrine of British royalty, the sham insignia nowoverhanging the stalls of the knights of the garter were to giveroom to genuine armor. Not merely then by addition, but possibly, in some instances, by both subtraction and substitution, we mayfind the "Prayer-book as it is" open to improvement. 

Before, however, entering upon any criticism of the formulariesin detail, it is important to draw a distinction between two verydifferent things, namely, the structure of a liturgical office andthe contents of it. By structure should be understood the skeletonor frame that makes the groundwork of any given office, by contentsthe actual liturgical material employed in filling out the officeto its proper contour. 

The offices of the Roman Breviary, for example, continue, for themost part, identical in structure from day to day, the year through;but they vary in contents. For an illustration nearer home takeour own _Order for Daily Morning Prayer_. The structure of itis as follows: 1. Sentences, 2. Exhortation, 3. Confession, 4. Absolution, 5. Lord's Prayer, 6. Versicles, 7. Invitatory Psalm, 8. The Psalms for the day, 9. Lection, 10. Anthem or Canticle, 11. Lection, 12. Anthem or Canticle, 13. Creed, 14. Versicles, 15. Collect for the day, 16. Stated Collects and Prayers, 17. Benediction. 

Now it is evident that without departing by a hair's breadth fromthe lines of this framework, an indefinite number of services mightby a process of substitution be put together, each one of whichwould in outward appearance differ widely from every other one. The identical skeleton, that is to say, might be so variouslyclothed upon that no two of its embodiments would be alike. Butis it desirable to run very much after variety of such a sort in abook of prayer designed for common use? Most assuredly, No. Tojeopard the supreme _desideratum_ in a people's manual of worship, simplicity: to make it any harder than it now is for the average"stranger in the Church" to find the places, would be on the partof revisionists an unpardonable blunder. 

There are, however, a few points at which the Morning Prayermight advantageously be enriched, and no risk run. It wouldsurely add nothing to the difficulty of finding the places iffor one-half of the present opening sentences there were to besubstituted sentences appropriate to special days and seasons ofthe ecclesiastical year. We should in this way be enabled togive the key-note of the morning's worship at the very outset. Having once departed, as in the case of our first two sentences, from the English precedent of putting only penitential verses ofScripture to this use, there is no reason why we should notcarry out still more fully in our selection the principle ofappropriateness. The sentences displaced need not be lost, forthey might still stand, as now, at the opening of the EveningPrayer. 

Passing on to the declarations of absolution there is an opportunityto simplify the arrangement by omitting the alternate form borrowedfrom the Order for the Administration of the Lord's Supper, whereonly it properly belongs. This, however, is a change likely to beresisted on doctrinal grounds, and need not be urged. 

Coming to the _Venite_, we find another opportunity to accentuatethe Christian Year. It may be said that the rubric, as it is alreadywritten, allows for the substitution of special anthems on thegreater festivals and fasts. This is true; but by giving the anthemfor Easter a place of honor, while relegating anthems for the othergreat days to an unnoticed spot between the Selections and thePsalter, the American compilers did practically discriminate infavor of Easter and against the rest. The real needs of the casewould be more wisely met if the permission to omit _Venite_ nowattached to "the nineteenth day of the month" were to be extendedto Ash-Wednesday and Good Friday, and special New Testament anthemsanalagous to the Easter one were to be inserted along with therespective Collects, Epistles, and Gospels, for Christmas-day andWhitsunday. 

By this change we should put each of the three great festivals ofthe year into possession of an invitatory anthem of its own; and weshould obviate on the fasting days, by the simple expedient ofomission, the futile efforts of choir-master and organist totransform _Venite_ from a cry of joy into a moan of grief. 

This brings us to the Psalter. Here we have an opportunity tocorrect the palpable blunder by which it has come about that thegreatest of the penitential psalms, the fifty-first, has no placeassigned it among the proper psalms either for Ash-Wednesday orfor Good Friday. [19] It would also be well to make optional, ifnot obligatory, the use of "proper psalms" on days other than thosealready provided with them; _e_. _g_. , Advent Sunday, the Epiphany, Easter Even, Trinity Sunday, and All Saints' Day. [20] There wouldbe a still larger gain in the direction of "flexibility of use, "as well as a great economy of valuable space, if instead ofreprinting some thirty of the Psalms of David under the name ofSelections, we were to provide for allowing "select" psalms to beannounced by number in the same manner that "proper" psalms arenow announced. Instead of only the ten selections we now have, there might then be made available twenty or thirty groups ofpsalms at absolutely no sacrifice of room. It has been objectedto this proposal that the same difficulty which now attaches tothe finding of the "proper psalms" on great days would embarrasscongregations whenever "select psalms" were given out; but thisis fairly met by the counter consideration that if our people wereto be educated by the use of select psalms into a more facilehandling of the Psalter it would be just so much gained for dayswhen the "proper psalms" must of necessity be found and read. Theservices, that is to say, would run all the more smoothly on thegreat days, after congregations had become habituated, on ordinarydays, to picking out the psalms by number. 

Another step in the line of simplification, and one which it isin order to mention here, would be the removal from the MorningPrayer of _Gloria in Excelsis_, seeing that it is never, or almostnever, sung at the end of the psalms unless at Evening Prayer. Asto the expediency of restoring what has been lost of _Benedictus_after the second lesson, the present writer offers no opinion. There are some who warmly advocate the replacement, and there is, unquestionably, much to be said in favor of it. It is unlikelythat any doctrinal motive dictated the abbreviation. 

Pausing a moment at the Creeds for the insertion of a better titlethan "_Or this_" before the confession of Nicaea, we pass to theversicles that follow. 

Here again it would be enrichment to restore the words of theEnglish book, although the task of finding an equally melodiousequivalent for _O Lord, save the Queen_ might not be easy. 

Happily the other versicles are such as no civil revolution canmake obsolete. It will never be amiss to pray, _Endue thy ministers with righteousness_. 

Answer. _And make thy chosen people joyful_. 

These are all the alterations for which the present Morning Prayerconsidered as a form of Divine Service for Sundays would seem tocall. It will be observed that they are far from being of a radicalcharacter, that they affect the structure of the office not atall, and touch the contents of it but slightly. 

The case is altered when we come to the Order for Evening Prayer. Here there is a demand, not indeed for any structural change, butfor very decided enrichment by substitution. The wording of theoffice is altogether too exact an echo of what has been said onlya few hours before in Morning Prayer. It betokens a poverty ofresources that does not really exist, when we allow ourselves thusto exhort, confess, absolve, intercede, and give thanks in thevery same phrases at three in the afternoon that were on our lipsat eleven in the morning. 

Doubtless liturgical worship owes a good measure of its charm tothe subtle power of repetition; but the principle is one that mustbe handled and applied with the most delicate tact, or virtue goesout of it. We must distinguish between similarity and sameness. The ordered recurrence of accents is what makes the rhythm ofverse; but for all that, there is a difference between poetry andsing-song, just as there is a difference between melody and monotony. Moreover, the taste of mankind undergoes change as to the sorts ofrepetition which it is disposed to tolerate. No modern poet ofstanding would venture, for instance, to employ identical epithetsto the extent that Homer does, making Aurora "rosy-fingered"every time she appears upon the scene, and Juno as invariably"ox-eyed. " People were pleased with it then, they would not bepleased with it now. It is possible in liturgies so to employthe principle of repetition that no wearying sense of samenesswill be conveyed, and again it is possible so to mismanage itas to transform worship into something little better than a"slow mechanic exercise. " Mere iteration, as such, is barrenof spiritual power; witness the endless sayings over of _KyrieEleison_ in the Oriental service-books, a species of vain repetitionwhich a liturgical writer of high intelligence rightly characterizesas "unmeaning, if not profane. "[21] Now the common popularcriticism upon the Evening Prayer of the Church is that it repeatstoo slavishly the wording of the Morning Prayer. If this is anunjust criticism we ought not to let ourselves be troubled by it. On the other hand, if it is a just criticism it will be much wiserof us to heed than to stifle the voice that tells us the truth. It might seem to be straining a point were one to venture to explainthe present very noticeable disinclination of Churchmen to attenda second service on Sunday, by connecting it with the particularinfelicity in question; but that the excuse, We have said all thisonce to-day; why say it again? may possibly have something, evenif not much, to do with the staying at home is certainly a fairconjecture. 

Without altering at all the structure of the Evening Prayer, itwould be perfectly possible so to refill or reclothe that formularyas to give it the one thing needful which now it lacks--freshness. In such a process the _Magnificat_ and the _Nunc dimittis_ wouldplay an important part; as would also certain "ancient collects"of which we have heard much of late. Failing this, the next bestthing (and the thing, it may be added, much more likely to be done, considering what a tough resistant is old usage) would be theprovision of an alternate and optional form of Evening Prayer, tobe used either in lieu of, or as supplementary to the existingoffice. In the framing of such a _Later Evensong_ a larger freedomwould be possible than in the refilling of a form the main linesof which were already fixed. Still, the first plan would be better, if only it could be brought within the range of things possible. 

Next to Evening Prayer in the order of the Table of Contents comesthe Litany. Here there is no call for enrichment, [22] thoughincreased flexibility of use might be secured for this venerableform of intercessory prayer by prefixing to it the following rubricabridged from a similar one proposed in The Convocation PrayerBook:

"_A General Supplication, to be sung or said on Sundays, Wednesdays, and Fridays, and on the Rogation Days, after the third collect atMorning or Evening Prayer, or before the Administration of the HolyCommunion; or as a separate Service_. 

"_NOTE. --The Litany may be omitted altogether on Christmas Day, Easter Day, and Whitsunday_"

In connection with the Morning and Evening Service there is anotherimportant question that imperatively demands discussion, namely, aweek-day worship. The movement for "shortened services, " so-called, has shared the usual fate of all efforts at bettering the life ofthe Church, in being at the outset of its course widely and seriouslymisunderstood. The impression has gone abroad, and to-day holdspossession of many otherwise well-informed people, that a largeand growing party in the Episcopal Church has openly declareditself wearied out with overmuch prayer and praise. Were suchindeed the fact, the scandal would be grave; but the real truthabout the matter is that the promoters of shortened services, instead of seeking to diminish, are really eager to see multipliedthe amount of worship rendered in our churches. "Shortened services"is a phrase of English, not American origin, and has won its wayhere by dint of euphony rather than of fitness. Readjusted services, though a more clumsy, would be a less misdirecting term. In thematter of Sunday worship, the liberty now generally conceded ofusing separately the Morning Prayer, the Litany, and the HolyCommunion is all that need be asked. Whether these services, orat least two of them, do not in themselves admit of a certainmeasure of improvement is a point that has already been considered, but there certainly is no need of shortening them, whatever elseit may be thought well to do. When what a Boston worthy once termed"a holy alacrity" is observed, on the part of both minister andsingers, even the aggregated services of Morning Prayer, Litany, and "Ante-Communion, " together with a sermon five-and-twenty minuteslong, can easily be brought within the compass of an hour and ahalf--a measure of time not unreasonably large to be given to theprincipal occasion of worship on the Lord's Day. As for the EveningPrayer--there certainty ought to be no call for the shortening ofthat on Sundays; for it would be scarcely decent or proper to devoteto such a service anything less than the half hour the existingoffice demands. 

What the advocates of shortened services really desire to seefurthered is an increase in the frequency of opportunities forworship during the week, their conviction being that if the Churchwere to authorize brief services for morning and evening use, suchas would not occupy much more time than family prayers ordinarilydo, the attendance might be secured of many who, at present, putaside the whole question of going to church on week-days asimpracticable. Supposing it could be proved that such a provisionwould work to the discouragement of family prayer, it would plainlybe wrong to advocate it; no priesthood is more sacred than thatwhich comes with fatherhood. But we must face the fact that in ourmodern American life family prayer, like sundry other wholesomehabits, has fallen largely into disuse. If the Church can, in anymeasure, supplement the deficiencies of the household, and helpto supply to individuals a blessing they would gladly enjoy attheir own homes, if they might, it is her plain duty to do so. Moreover, many a minister who single-handed cannot now prudentlyundertake a daily service, as that is commonly understood, wouldacknowledge himself equal to the less extended requirement. 

Not a few careful and friendly observers of the practical workingof Anglican religion have been reluctantly led to consider the dailyservice, as an institution, only meagrely successful. Looking atthe matter historically we find no reason to wonder at such aconclusion. 

Our existing usage (or more correctly, perhaps, _non-user_) datesfrom the Reformation period. The English Church and nation of thatday had grown up familiar with the spectacle of a very large bodyof clerics, secular and regular, whose daily occupation may be saidto have been the pursuit of religion. [23] The religion pursuedconsisted chiefly in the saying of prayers, and very thoroughly, so far at least as the consumption of time was concerned, were theprayers said. What more natural than that, under such circumstances, and with such associations, the compilers of a common Prayer Bookfor the people should have failed to see any good reason fordiscriminating between the amount of service proper to the Lord'sDay and the amount that might be reasonably expected on other days?Theoretically they were right, all time belongs to God and he isas appropriately worshipped on Tuesdays and Thursdays as on Sundays. And yet as a result of their making no such discrimination, we havethe daily service on our hands--a comparative, even if not an utterfailure. We may lament the fact, but a fact it is, that In spiteof all its improved appliances for securing leisure, the world isbusier than ever it was; and there will always be those who willinsist that the command to labor on six days is as imperative asthe injunction to rest upon the seventh. As a consequence of allthis accelerated business, and of the diminution in the number ofpersons officially set apart for prayer, the unabridged service ofthe Church fails to command a week-day attendance. We have no"clerks" nowadays to fill the choir. The only clerks known to moderntimes are busy at their desks. 

It may be urged in reply to this that the practical working of thedaily service ought to be kept a secondary consideration, and thatits main purpose is symbolical, or representative; the priestkneeling in his place, day by day, as a witness that the people, though unable personally to be present, do, in heart and mind, approve of a daily morning and evening sacrifice of prayer. Thisconception of the daily service as a vicarious thing has a certainmystical beauty about it, but if it is to be adopted as the Church'sown let us, at least, clear ourselves of inconsistency by strikingout the word "common" from before the word "prayer" in characterizingour book. 

What is really needed for daily use in our parishes is a short formof worship specially framed for the purpose. If they could beemployed without offence to the Protestant ear (and they are goodEnglish Reformation words) _Week-Day Matins_ and _Week-Day Evensong_would not be ill chosen names for such services. The framework ofthese Lesser Orders for Morning and Evening Prayer, as they mightalso be called, were the other titles found obnoxious, ought to bemodelled upon the lines of the existing daily offices, though witha careful avoidance of identity in contents. There should be, forinstance, as unvarying elements, the reading of the lessons for theday, the use of the collect for the day, and the saying or singingof the psalms for the day. Another constant would be the Lord'sPrayer; but aside from these the _Lesser Order_ need have nothingin common with the Order as we have it now. There might be, forexample, after the manner of the old service-books, an invitatoryopening with versicles and responses, or if the present mode ofopening by sentences were preferred, specially chosen sentences, different from those with which the Sunday worship has made usfamiliar, could be employed. Moreover, the anthems or canticlesand the prayers, with the exception of the two just mentioned, ought also to be distinctive, and, in the technical sense of theword, _proper_ to the week-day use. 

Again, it would serve very powerfully and appropriately to emphasizethe pivot points in the ritual year if this same principle were tobe applied to saints' days, and we were to have special _HolydayMatins_ and _Holy-day Evensong_, there still being required, on thegreater festivals and fasts, the normal Morning and Evening Prayerproper to the Lord's Day. [24]

The argument in favor of thus specializing the services for week-daysand holydays, in preference to following the only method heretoforethought possible, namely, that of shortening the Lord's Day Order, rests on two grounds. In the first place permissions to skip andomit are of themselves objectionable in a book of devotions. Theyhave an uncomely look. Our American Common Prayer boasts too manydisfigurements of this sort already. 

Such a rubric as _The minister may, at his discretion, omit allthat follows to, etc. _, puts one in mind of the finger-postpointing out a short cut to weary travellers. It is inopportunethus to hint at exhaustion as the probable concomitant of worship. That each form should have an integrity of its own, should as aseparate whole be either said complete or left unsaid, is betterliturgical philosophy than any "shortened services act" can show. 

In the second place, a certain amount of variety would be securedby the proposed method which under the existing system we miss. There is, of course, such a danger as that of providing too muchliturgical variety. Amateur makers of Prayer Books almost invariablyfall into this slough. Hymn-books, as is well known, often destroytheir own usefulness by including too many hymns; and Prayer Booksmay do the same by having too many prayers. [25]

To transgress in the compiling of formularies the line of averagememory, to provide more material than the mind of an habitualworshipper is likely to assimilate, is to misread human nature. But here, as elsewhere, there is a just mean. Cranmer and hiscolleagues in the work of revision jumped at one bound from ascheme which provided a distinctive set of services for every dayin the year to a scheme that assigned one stereotyped form to alldays. 

Now nothing could be more unwise than any attempt to restore themethods of the Breviary, with its complicated and artificial formsof devotion; but so far to imitate the Breviary as to provide withinlimits for a recognition of man's innate love of change would bewisdom. By having a distinctive service for week-days, and adistinctive service for holydays, Ave might add just that littleincrement to the Church's power of traction that in many instanceswould avail to change "I cannot go to church this morning" into "Icannot stay away. "

It will be urged as a counter-argument to these considerations thatthe thing is impossible, that such a measure of enrichment isentirely in excess of anything the Church has expressed a wishto have, and that for reviewers to propose a plan so sweeping wouldbe suicide. Doubtless this might be a sufficient answer to anybodywho imagined that by a bare majority vote of two successive GeneralConventions new formularies of daily worship could be forced uponthe Church. But suppose such formularies were to be made _optional_;suppose there were to be given to parishes the choice between thesethree things, viz. : (_a_) the normal Morning Prayer; (_b_) ashortened form of the normal Morning Prayer; and (_c_) such aspecial order as has been sketched--what then? Would the Church'sliberty be impaired! On the contrary, would not the borders of thatliberty have been most wisely and safely widened by the steady handof law?

This is perhaps the right point at which to call attention to thepresent state of the "shortened services" controversy, for wearisomeas the story has become by frequent repetition, the nexus betweenit and the subject in hand is too important to be left out of sight. 

In the General Convention of 1877, where the topic under itsAmerican aspects was for the first time thoroughly discussed, the two Houses came to a deadlock. The deputies on the one hand, almost to a man, voted in favor of giving the desired relief byrubric, thus postponing for three years' time the fruition oftheir wish; while the bishops with a unanimity understood to havebeen equally striking insisted that a simple canon, such as couldbe passed at once, would suffice. And so the subject dropped. 

At the late Convention of 1880 an eirenicon was discovered. Thequick eye of one of the legal members of the House of Deputiesdetected on the fourth page of the Prayer Book, just opposite thePreface, a loophole of escape, to wit, _The Ratification of theBook of Common Prayer_. Here was the very _tertium quid_ wherebythe common wish of both parties to the dispute might be effectedwithout injury to the sensibilities of either. 

The _Ratification_ certainly did not look like a canon; neithercould anybody with his eyes open call it a rubric--why not amendthat, and say no more about it? The suggestion prevailed, and by avote of both Houses, the following extraordinary document ishereafter to stand (the next General Convention consenting) inthe very fore-front of the Prayer Book:

 THE RATIFICATION OF THE BOOK OF COMMON PRAYER. _By the Bishops, the Clergy, and the Laity of the Protestant Episcopal Church inGeneral Convention assembled_. 

The General Convention of the Church having heretofore, to wit:on the sixteenth day of October in the year A. D. 1789, set fortha _Book of Common Prayer and Administration of the Sacraments andother Rites and Ceremonies of the Church_, and thereby establishedthe said book, and declared it to be the Liturgy of said Church, and required that it be received as such by all the members of thesame and be in use from and after the first day of October in theyear of our Lord 1790; the same book is hereby ratified andconfirmed, and ordered to be the use of this Church from thistime forth. 

"But note, however, that on days other than Sundays, Christmas-day, the Epiphany, Ash-Wednesday, Good Friday, and Ascension Day, itshall suffice if the Minister begins Morning or Evening Prayer atthe General Confession or the Lord's Prayer preceded by one or moreof the Sentences appointed at the beginning of Morning and EveningPrayer, and end after the Collect for Grace or the Collect for Aidagainst Perils, with 2 Cor. Xiii. 14, using so much of the Lessonsappointed for the day and so much of the Psalter as he shall judgeto be for edification. 

"And note also that on any day when Morning and Evening Prayer shallhave been duly said or are to be said, and on days other than thosefirst aforementioned, it shall suffice, when need may require, ifa sermon or lecture be preceded by at least the Lord's Prayer andone or more Collects found in this book, provided that no prayersnot set forth in said book, or otherwise authorized by this Church, shall be used before or after such sermon or lecture. [26]

"And note further also that on any day the Morning Prayer, theLitany, or the Order for the Administration of the Lord's Suppermay be used as a separate and independent service, provided thatno one of these services shall be disused habitually. "

It may seem harsh to characterize this act as the mutilation of amonument; but really it does seem to be little else. The oldRatification of 1789 is an historic landmark; it is the sign-manualof the Church of White's and Seabury's day, and ought never to bedisturbed or tampered with while the Prayer Book stands. The year1889 might very properly see a supplemental Ratification writtenunder it; and testifying to the fact of Revision; but to write intothat venerable text special directions as to what may be done ondays other than Ash-Wednesday, and what must not be done without2 Cor. Xiii. 14, is very much as if the City Government of Cambridgeshould cause to be cut upon the stone under the Washington elm whichnow records the fact that there the commander of the American armiesfirst drew his sword, divers and sundry additional items ofinformation, such as the distance to Watertown, the shortest pathacross the common, etc. , etc. 

Why the Convention after having entrusted to a Joint Committee, by a decisive vote, the task of devising means for securing forthe Prayer Book "increased flexibility of use, " should have thoughtit necessary subsequently to take up with this compromise of acompromise (for such the proposal to amend the Ratification reallyis) it is difficult to say. Perhaps it was with the determinationto have, at any rate, something to fall back upon in case the largerand more comprehensive measure should come to naught. 

The rubric is confessedly the proper place for directions as tohow to use the services, and but for the very natural and defensibleobjection on the part of some to touching the Prayer Book at all, there never would have been any question about it. [27] Thisobjection having been at last waived, a straight path is now opento the end desired, and it ought to be followed even at the costof three years more of delay. 

Returning to the general subject, and still following the order ofthe Table of Contents, we come to Prayers and Thanksgivings uponseveral Occasions. 

Here it would be well to note more intelligibly than is done bythe present rubric the proper places for the introduction of thePrayers and the Thanksgivings, providing for the use of the formerbefore, and of the latter after the General Thanksgiving. 

As to the deficiencies in this department let the late Dr. Muhlenbergspeak. 

"The Prayer Book, " he says, "is not undervalued as to its treasuresin asserting its wants. The latter cannot be denied. Witness themeagre amount of New Testament prayer and praise for the round offestivals and fasts; the absence of any forms suited to the peculiarcircumstances of our own Church and country and to the times welive in; or for our benevolent and educational institutions. Thereare no prayers for the increase of Ministers, for Missions, orMissionaries, for the Christian teaching of the young; for sponsorson occasions of Baptism; for persons setting out on long journeysby land, quite as perilous as voyages by sea; for the sick desiringthe prayers of the Church when there is no prospect of or desirefor recovery; for the bereaved at funerals, and many other occasionsfor which there might as well be provision as for those few forwhich we already have the occasional prayers. "[28]

After the _Prayers and Thanksgivings_ come _The Collects, Epistles, and Gospels _. Here again there is some room for enrichment. Distinctive collects for the first four days of Holy Week, forMonday and Tuesday in Easter Week, and for Monday and Tuesday inWhitsun Week, would add very materially to our liturgical wealth, while there would seem to be no reason whatever why they shouldnot be had. It would also serve to enhance the symmetry of theChristian Year if the old feast of the Transfiguration[29] (August6) were to be restored to its place among the recognized holy daysof the Church and given its proper collect, epistle, and gospel. 

There are some liturgists who desire the restoration of the introitsof the First Book of Edward VI. The introit (so called from beingthe psalm sung when the priest goes within the altar-rails) hasbeen in modern usage replaced by a metrical hymn. A sufficientreason for not printing the introit for each day in full, justbefore the collect, as was the mode in Edward's Book, is that todo so would involve a costly sacrifice of room. A compromise coursewould be to insert between the title of each Sunday or holyday andthe collect proper to it, a simple numerical reference statingwhereabouts in the Psalter the introit for the day is to be found, and adding perhaps the Latin catchwords. Any attempt to make theuse of the introit obligatory in our times would meet with deservedfailure; the metrical hymn has gained too firm a hold upon theaffections of the Church at large ever to be willingly surrendered. 

Coming, next, to the orders for the administration of the twosacraments, we find ourselves on delicate ground, where seriouschange of any sort is out of the question. Permission, under certaincircumstances, still further to abbreviate the Office of theCommunion of the Sick might, however, be sought without givingreasonable cause of alarm to any, and general consent might perhapsalso be had for a provision with respect to the Exhortation, "Dearlybeloved in the Lord, " that in "Churches where there is frequentCommunion it shall suffice to read the Exhortation above writtenonce in a month on the Lord's Day. "[30]

There are three liturgical features of the Scottish CommunionOffice which some have thought might be advantageously transferredto our own service. They are (_a_) the inserting after Christ'ssummary of the Law a response, _Lord, have mercy upon us and writethese thy laws in our hearts, we beseech thee_; (_b_) the repeatingby the people, after the reading of the Gospel, of a formula ofthanks corresponding to the _Glory be to thee, O Lord_, thatprecedes it; and (_c_) the saying or singing of an Offertorysentence at the presentation of the alms. Upon these suggestedenrichments the present writer offers no opinion. 

In the Order of Confirmation a substitution for the presentpreface[31] of a responsive opening, in which the bishop shouldcharge the minister to present none but such as he has found bypersonal inquiry "apt and meet" for the reception of the rite wouldbe a marked improvement. 

The remaining Occasional Offices would seem to demand no changeeither in structure or contents, although in some, perhaps in allof them, additional rubrics would be helpful to worshippers. 

Some addition to the number of Occasional Offices would be areal gain. We need, for instance, a short Office for the Burial ofInfants and Young Children; a Daybreak Office for Great Festivals;an Office for Midday Prayer; an Office of Prayer in behalf ofMissions and Missionaries; an Office for the Setting apart of aLayman as a Reader, or as a Missionary; a Form of Prayer atthe Laying of a Corner-stone; and possibly some others. It isevident that these new formularies might give opportunity forthe introduction of hitherto unused collects, anthems, andbenedictions of a sort that would greatly enhance the generalusefulness of the Prayer Book. 

This completes the survey of the field of "liturgical enrichment. "A full discussion of the allied topic, "flexibility of use, " wouldinvolve the examination in detail of all the rubrics of the PrayerBook, and for this there is no room. It is enough to say thatunless the rubrics, the hinges and joints of a service-book, arekept well oiled, much creaking is a necessary result. There areturning-points in our public worship where congregations almostinvariably betray an awkward embarrassment, simply because thereis nothing to tell them whether they are expected to stand or tosit or to kneel. It is easy to sneer at such points as trifles andto make sport of those who call attention to them; but if itis worth our while to have ritual worship at all it is also worthour while to make the directions as to how people are to behaveadequate, explicit, plain. A lofty contempt for detail is not thetoken of good administration either in Church or State. To the listof defective rubrics add those that are confessedly obsolete andsuch as are palpably contradictory and we have a bill of particularsthat would amply justify a rubrical revision of the Prayer Book evenif nothing more were to be attempted. 

There is another reason. Far more rapidly than many peopleimagine, we are drifting away from the position of a Church thatworships by liturgy to that of a Church worshipping by directory. The multiplicity of "uses" that vexed the Anglican Reformers isin our day multiplied four-fold. To those who honestly consider adirectory a better thing than a liturgy this process of relaxationis most welcome, but for others who hold that, until the bindingclauses of a Book of Common Prayer have been formally rescinded, they ought to be observed, the spectacle is the reverse of edifying. They would much prefer seeing the channels of liberty opened at thetouch of law, and this is one of their chief reasons for advocatingrevision. 

Two questions remain untouched, both of them of great practicalimportance. Could the Prayer Book be enriched to the extentsuggested in this paper without a serious and most undesirableincrease in its bulk as a volume?

Even supposing this were possible, is it at all likely that theChurch could be persuaded to accept the amended book?

Unless the first of these two eminently proper questions can bemet, there is, or ought to be, an end to all talk about revision. The advantage to a Church of being able to keep all its authoritativeformularies of worship within the compass of a single volume isinestimable. Even the present enforced severance of the Hymnalfrom the Prayer Book is a misfortune. [32]

Those were good days when "Bible and Prayer Book" was the Churchman'sall sufficient formula so far as volumes were concerned. 

Rome boasts a much larger ritual variety than ours, but she securesit by multiplying books. The Missal is in one volume, the Breviaryin four, the Pontifical, the Ritual, and the Ceremonial in one each, making eight in all. [33] This is an evil, and one from which weAnglicans have had a happy escape. It was evidently with a greatgroan of relief that the Church of England shook herself free fromthe whole host of service-books, and established her one onlyvolume. It behooves us to be watchful how we take a single steptowards becoming entangled in the old meshes. [34]

But need the enrichment of the Prayer Book--such enrichment as hasbeen described, necessarily involve an unwieldiness in the volume, or, what would be still worse, an overflow into a supplement?Certainly not; for by judicious management every change advocatedin this paper, and more besides, might be accomplished withouttransgressing by so much as a page or a paragraph the limits ofthe present standard book. All the space needed could be securedby the simple expedient of omitting matter that has been found byactual experience to be superfluous. Redundancy and unnecessaryrepetition are to the discredit of a book that enjoys such anunrivalled reputation as the Common Prayer. They are blemishesupon the face of its literary perfectness. Who has not marvelledat the strange duplication of the Litany and the Office of the HolyCommunion in the Ordinal, when the special petitions proper tothose services when used in that connection might easily have beenprinted by themselves with a direction that they be inserted inthe appointed place?

Scholars, of course, know perfectly well how this came about. TheOrdinal does not belong to the Prayer Book proper, but has aseparate identity of its own. When printed as a book by itselfit is all very well that it should include the Litany and the HolyCommunion in full, but why allow these superfluous pages to crowdout others that are really needed?[35]

It has already been explained how the room now occupied by the"Selections" might be economized, and by the same simple devicethe space engrossed by divers psalms here and there in the OccasionalOffices, _e_. _g_. , Psalm li in the Visitation of Prisoners, andPsalm cxxx in the Visitation of the Sick could be made availablefor other use. 

Again, why continue to devote a quarter of a page of preciousspace to the "Prayer for imprisoned debtors, " seeing that now, for a long time past, there has been no such thing in the UnitedStates as imprisonment for debt? By availing ourselves of only aportion of these possible methods of garnering space, all that isdesired might be accomplished, without making the Prayer Bookbulkier by a single leaf than it is to-day. 

But would a Prayer Book thus enriched be accepted by the Churchat large? Is there any reason to think that the inertia whichinheres in all large bodies, and to a singularly marked degreein our own Communion, could be overcome? The General Conventioncan give an approximate answer to these questions; it cannot settlethem decisively, for it is a body which mirrors only to a certainextent the real mind and temper of the constituencies representedin it. One thing is certain, that only by allowing fullest possibleplay to the principle of "local option" could any wholly new pieceof work on the part of revisionists, however excellent it might bein itself considered, find acceptance. To allow features introducedinto the body of an existing service to be accounted optional, would indeed be impossible, without gendering the very wildestconfusion. Upon such points the Church would have to decideoutright, for or against, and stand by her decisions. But asrespects every additional and novel Office proposed, the greatestcare ought to be taken to have the indefinite An rather than thedefinite _The_ prefixed to it. Before such new uses are made bindingon all, they must have met and endured the test of thorough trialby some. This is only fair. 

But there is a limit, it must be remembered, in the Church's caseto the binding power of precedent and prescription. The socialorder changes, and of these tides that ebb and flow it is ourbounden duty to take note. Had mere aversion to change, doggedunwillingness to venture an experiment always carried the day, instead of having the "Prayer Book as it is, " we should still bedrearily debating the rival merits of Hereford and Sarum. The greatquestion to be settled is, Does an emergency exist serious enoughto warrant an attempt on our part to make better what we knowalready to be good? Is the Republic expecting of us, and reasonablyexpecting of us, greater things than with our present equipment weare quite able to accomplish? There are eyes that think they see agreat future before this Church--are they right, or is it onlymirage? At any rate ours is no return trip--we are outward bound. The ship is cutting new and untried waters with her keel at everymoment. There is no occasion to question the sufficiency of eithercompass or helm, but in certain matters of a practical sort thereis a demand upon us to use judgment, we are bound to give a placein our seamanship to present common-sense as well as to respect forancient usage, and along with it all to feel some confidence thatif the ship is what we think her to be, "the winds of God" may betrusted to bring her safely into port. 

THE BOOK ANNEXED: ITS CRITICS AND ITS PROSPECTS. 

THE BOOK ANNEXED: ITS CRITICS AND ITS PROSPECTS. [36]

First, last, and always this is to be said with respect tothe revision of the American Common Prayer, that unless we canaccomplish it with hearty good feeling the attempt at improvementought to be abandoned altogether. 

The day has gone by when new formularies of worship could beimposed on an unwilling Church by edict, and although under ourcarefully guarded system of ecclesiastical legislation there islittle danger of either haste or unfairness, we must bear it wellin mind that something more than "a constitutional majority of bothhouses" is needful if we would see liturgical revision crowned withreal success. Of course, absolute unanimity is not to be expected. Every improvement that the world has seen was greeted at its birthby a chorus of select voices sounding the familiar anthem, "The oldis better"; and the generation of those, who, in the sturdy phraseof King James's revisers, "give liking unto nothing but what isframed by themselves, and hammered on their anvil, " will be alwayswith us. But substantial unanimity may exist, even when absoluteunanimity is impossible, and if anything like as general a consentcan be secured for revision in 1886 as was given to it in 1883, thefriends of the movement will have good reason to be satisfied. 

That there has been, since the publication of _The Book Annexed asModified_, a certain measure of reaction against the spirit ofchange must be evident to all who watch carefully the pulse ofpublic opinion in the Church. Whether this reaction be as seriousas some imagine, whether it have good reasons to allege, and whetherit be not already giving tokens of spent force, are points whichin the present paper will be touched only incidentally, for thewriter's purpose is rather irenic than polemical, and he is moreconcerned to remove misapprehensions and allay fears than to seekthe fading leaf of a controversial victory. 

LIMITATIONS. 

No estimate of the merits and demerits of _The Book Annexed_ canbe a just one that leaves out of account the limitations underwhich the framers of it did their work. These limitations were notunreasonable ones. It was right and proper that they should beimposed. There is no good ground for a belief that the time willever come when a "blank cheque, " to borrow Mr. Goschen's mercantilefigure, will be given to any company of liturgical revisers to fillout as they may see fit. But the moulders of forms, in whateverdepartment of plastic art their specialty lies, when challenged toshow cause why their work is deficient in symmetry or completeness, have an undoubted right to plead in reply the character of theconditions under which they labored. The present instance offersno exception to the general rule. In the first place, a distinctpledge was given in the House of Deputies, in 1880, before consentto the appointment of the Joint Committee was secured, that in casesuch permission to launch a movement in favor of revision as wasasked for were to be granted, no attempt would be made seriouslyto change the Liturgy proper, namely, the Office of the HolyCommunion. 

The question was distinctly asked by a clerical deputy from thediocese of Maryland, [37] Do you desire to modify the Office ofthe Holy Communion? and it was as distinctly answered by the moverof the resolution under which the Joint Committee was finallyappointed, No, we do not. It is true that such a pledge, made bya single member of one House, could only measurably control theaction of a Joint Committee in which both Houses were to berepresented; but it is equally plain that the maker of the pledgewas in honor bound to do all in his power to secure the observanceof its terms. 

Let this historical fact be noted by those who are disposed tocomplain that the Joint Committee did not pull to pieces andentirely rearrange the Anglo-Scoto-American Office, which nowfor a long time, and until quite recently, we have been taughtto esteem the nearest possible approach to liturgical perfection. 

Under this same head of "limitations" must be set down the followingresolutions passed by the Joint Committee itself, at its firstregular meeting:

_Resolved_, That this Committee asserts, at the outset, itsconviction that no alteration should be made touching eitherstatements or standards of doctrine in the Book of Common Prayer. 

_Resolved_, That this Committee, in all its suggestions and acts, be guided by those principles of liturgical construction and ritualuse which have guided the compilation and amendments of the Bookof Common Prayer, and have made it what it is. 

It was manifestly impossible, under resolutions like these, todepart very widely from established precedent, or in any seriousmeasure to disturb the foundations of things. 

The first of them shut out wholly the consideration of suchquestions as the reinstatement of the Athanasian Creed or theproposal to make optional the use of the word "regenerate" inthe Baptismal Offices; while the other forbade the introductionof such sentimental and grotesque conceits as "An Office for theBlessing of Candles, " "An Office for the Benediction of a Lifeboat, "and "An Office for the Reconciliation of a Lapsed Cleric. "[38]

Still another very serious limitation, and one especially unfriendlyto that perfectness of contour which we naturally look to seein a liturgical formulary, grew out of the tender solicitudeof the Committee for what may be called the vested rights ofcongregations. There was a strong reluctance to the cuttingaway even of what might seem to be dead wood, lest there shouldensue, or be thought to ensue, the loss of something reallyvaluable. 

It was only as the result of much painstaking effort, and only atsome sacrifice of literary fastidiousness, that the Committee wasenabled to report a book of which it could be said that, while itadded much of possible enrichment, it took away almost nothing thathad been in actual possession. [39] There could be no betterillustration of this point than is afforded by certain of thealterations proposed to be made in the Order for Evening Prayer. 

The Committee felt assured that upon no point was the judgment ofthe Church likely to be more unanimous than in approving therestoration to their time-honored home in the Evening Office of_Magnificat_ and _Nunc dimittis_, and yet so unwilling were theyto displace _Bonum est confiteri_ and _Benedic anima mea_ frompositions they have only occupied since 1789 that they authorizedthe unquestionably clumsy expedient of printing three responds toeach Lesson. 

Probably a large majority of the Committee would have preferred todrop _Bonum est confiteri_ and _Benedic anima mea_ altogether, retaining _Cantate Domino_ and _Deus miser eatur_ as the solealternates to the two Gospel canticles, as in the English Book, but rather than have a thousand voices cry out, as it was believedthey would cry out, "You have robbed us, " the device of a secondalternate was adopted, to the sad defacement of the printed page. In may be charged that, in thus choosing, the Committee betrayedtimidity, and that a wise boldness would have been the bettercourse; but if account be taken of the attitude consistentlymaintained by General Convention towards any proposition for thechange of so much as a comma in the Prayer Book, during a periodof fifty years prior to the introduction of _The Book Annexed_, itwill perhaps be concluded that for the characterization of theCommittee's policy timidity is scarcely so proper a word as caution. 

SPECIAL CRITICISMS. 

(_a_) _Foreign_. 

As there is reason to believe that opinion at home has been veryconsiderably affected by foreign criticism of _The Book Annexed_, it will be well at this point to give some attention to what hasbeen said in English journals in review of the work thus faraccomplished. The more noteworthy of the foreign criticisms arethose contained in _The Church Quarterly Review_, _The ChurchTimes_, and _The Guardian_. [40]

The Church Quarterly reviewer opens with an expression of deepregret at "the failure to take advantage of the opportunity forreinstating the Athanasian Creed. " As already observed, no suchopportunity existed. By formal vote the Joint Committee debarreditself from any proceeding of this sort, and the Convention, whichsat in judgment on its work, was manifestly of opinion that in soacting the Committee had rightly interpreted its charter. 

The reviewer, who is in full sympathy with the movement forenrichment as such, goes on to recommend, as a more excellentway than that followed in _The Book Annexed_, the compilation of

 An Appendix to the Book of Common Prayer to contain the much needed _Additional Services_ for both Sunday and other use in churches, in mission chapels, and in religious communities, as well as a full supply of _Occasional Prayers and Thanksgivings_ for objects and purposes, missionary and otherwise, which are as yet entirely unrepresented in our Offices. 

There are obvious reasons why this device should commend itself toan English Churchman, for it is unlikely that anything better thanthis, or, indeed, anything one half so satisfactory, could besecured by Act of Parliament. 

For something very much better than this, however, a self-governedChurch, like our own, has a right to look, and, in all probability, will continue to look until the thing is found. _An Appendix_ to amanual of worship, whether the manual be Prayer Book or Hymnal, [41]is and cannot but be, from the very nature of things, a blemish tothe eye, an embarrassment to the hand, and a vexation to the spirit. Such _addenda_ carry on their face the suggestion that they aremakeshifts, postscripts, after-thoughts; and in their lack ofdignity, as well as of convenience, pronounce their own condemnation. 

Moreover, in our particular case, no "Appendix, " "Prymer, " or"Authorized Vade-mecum" could accomplish the ends that are mostof all desired. Fancy putting the _Magnificat_, the _Nunc dimittis_, the Versicles that follow the Creed, and the "Lighten our darkness"into an "Appendix. " It would be the defeat of our main object. 

Then, too, this is to be remembered, that in order to secure a"fully authorized Appendix, " we, in this country, should be obligedto follow precisely the same legal process we follow in alteringthe Prayer Book. If an Occasional Office cannot pass the ordeal ofthe criticism of two successive Conventions, it ought not to be setforth at all; if it can and does stand that test, then it ought tobe inserted in the Prayer Book in the particular place where it mostappropriately belongs and may most readily be found. 

Moreover, it should be remembered that one, and by no means theleast efficient, of the causes that brought the Common Prayer intoexistence in the sixteenth century was disgust at the multiplicationof service-books. We American Churchmen have two already; let usbeware of adding a third. 

The critic of _The Quarterly_ was probably unacquainted with thefact that in the American Episcopal Church the experimental settingforth of Offices "for optional and discretional use" is not possibleunder the terms of the Constitution. We either must adopt outrightand for permanent use, or else peremptorily reject whatever is urgedupon us in the name of liturgical improvement. 

Entering next upon a detailed criticism of the contents of The _BookAnnexed_ the writer proceeds to offer a number of suggestions, someof them of great value. He pleads earnestly and with real force forthe restoration of the Lord's Prayer to its "place of honor" betweenthe Creed and the Preces, showing, in a passage of singular beauty, how the whole daily office "may be said to have grown out of, orradiated from, or been crystallized round the central _Paternoster_" even as "from the Words of Institution has grown theChristian Liturgy. "

The critic has only praise for the amendments in the Officefor Thanksgiving Day; approves the selection of Proper Sentencesfor the opening of Morning and Evening Prayer; avers, certainlywith truth, that the Office of the Beatitudes might be improved;welcomes "the very full repertory of special prayers"; thinksthat the _Short Office of Prayer for Sundry Occasions_ "certainlysupplies a want"; rejoices in the recognition of the Feast of theTransfiguration; and closes what is by far the most considerable, and, both as respects praise and blame, the most valuable of allthe reviews that have been made of _The Book Annexed_ whether athome or abroad, with these words:

On the whole, we very heartily congratulate our Transatlanticbrothers on the labors of their Joint Committee. We hope theirrecommendations may be adopted, and more in the same direction;and that the two or three serious blemishes which we have feltconstrained to point out and to lament may be removed from thebook in the form finally adopted. 

And further, we very earnestly trust that this work, which hasbeen very evidently so carefully and conscientiously done, mayspeedily, by way of example and precedent, bear fruit in a likeprocess of enrichment among ourselves. 

Commending these last words to the consideration of those whotake alarm at the suggestion of touching the Prayer Book lestwe may hurt the susceptibilities of our "kin beyond sea, " andunduly anticipate that "joint action of both Churches, " which, at least until disestablishment comes, must always remain a sheerimpossibility, we pass to a consideration of the six articlescontributed to the _Church Times_ in July and August last, underthe title, _The Revised American Prayer Book_. Here we come upona writer who, if not always edifying, has the undoubted merit ofbeing never dull. In fact, so deliciously are logical inconsequenceand accidental humor mingled throughout his fifteen columns ofdiscursive criticism that a suspicion arises as to the writer'snationality. It is doubtful whether anyone born on the English sideof the Irish Sea could possibly have suggested the establishmentof a Saint's Day in honor of the late respected Warden of RacineCollege, or seriously have proposed that Messrs. Oliver WendellHolmes, Russell Lowell, Henry James, and W. D. Howells be appointeda jury of "literary arbitrament" to sit in judgment on the liturgicallanguage of _The Book Annexed_; and this out of respect to ourproper national pride. Doubtless it would add perceptibly to theamused sense of the unfitness of things with which these eminentliberals must have seen themselves thus named, if permission couldbe given to the jury, when empanelled, to "co-opt" into its numberMr. Samuel Clemens and Mr. Dudley Warner. [42]

The general tenor of the writer in _The Church Times_ may fairlybe inferred from the following extract from the first article ofthe series:

The judgment that must be pronounced on the work as a whole isprecisely that which has been passed on the Revised New Testament, that there are doubtless some few changes for the better, so obviousand so demanded beforehand by all educated opinion that to haveneglected them would at once have stamped the revisers as blockheadsand dunces; but that the set-off in the way of petty and meddlesomechanges for the worse, neglect of really desirable improvements, bad English, failure in the very matter of pure scholarship justwhere it was least to be expected, and general departure fromthe terms of the Commission assigned to them (notably by theirintroduction of confusion instead of flexibility into the services, so that the congregation can seldom know what is going to happen)has so entirely outweighed the merits of the work that it cannotpossibly be adopted by the Church, and must be dismissed as a dismalfiasco, to be dealt with anew in some more adequate fashion. 

This paragraph is not reproduced for the purpose of discreditingthe writer of it as a judge of English prose, for there are variouspassages in the course of the six articles that would more readilylend themselves to such a use. The object in quoting it is simplyto put the reader into possession, in a compact form, of the mostangry, even if not the most formidable, of the various indictmentsyet brought against _The Book Annexed_. 

Moreover, the last words of the extract supply a good text forcertain didactic remarks that ought to be made, with respect towhat is possible and what is not possible in the line of liturgicalrevision in America. 

Worthless as the result of the Joint Committee's labors has turnedout to be, their motive, we are assured, was a good one. Thecritic's contention is not that the work they undertook is a workthat ought not to be done, but rather that when done it should bebetter done. The revision as presented must be "dismissed as adismal fiasco, " but only dismissed "in order to be dealt with anewin some more adequate fashion. " But on what ground can we rest thissanguine expectation of better things to come? Whence is tooriginate and how is to be appointed the commission of "experts"which is to give us at last the "Ideal Liturgy"?

Cardinal Newman in one of his lesser controversial tracts remarks:

If the English people lodge power in the many, not in the few, whatwonder that its operation is roundabout, clumsy, slow, intermittent, and disappointing? You cannot eat your cake and have it; you cannotbe at once a self-governing nation and have a strong government. [43]

Similarly it may be said that, however great the difficulties thatbeset liturgical revision by legislative process at the hands ofsome five hundred men, nevertheless the fact remains that the bodyknown in law as The Protestant Episcopal Church in the United Statesof America has provided in its Constitution that change in itsformularies shall be so effected and not otherwise. It may turnout that we must give up in despair the whole movement for a betteradaptation of our manual of worship to the needs of our land andof our time; it may be found that the obstacles in the way areabsolutely insuperable; but let us dream no dreams of seeing thisthing handed over, "with power, " to a "commission of experts, " forthat is something which will never come to pass. 

Whether "experts" in liturgies are any more likely to furnish uswith good prayers than "experts" in prosody are likely to give usthe best poetry is a tempting question, but one that must be left, for the present, on one side. Perhaps, if the inquiry were to bepushed, we might find ourselves shut up to the curious conclusionthat the framers of the very earliest liturgies, the authors ofthe old sacramentaries, were either verbally inspired or else werelacking in the qualifications which alone could fit them to doworthily the work they worthily did, for clearly "experts" theywere not. 

But the question that immediately concerns us is one of simplefact. Assuming the present laborious effort at betterment to havebeen proved a "fiasco, " how is the General Convention to set inmotion any more promising enginery of revision? "Summon in, " sayour English advisers, "competent scholars, and give them _carteblanche_ to do what they will. " But the Convention, which is bylaw the final arbiter, has no power to invite to a share in itscouncils men who have no constitutional right to a seat upon itsfloor. How thankfully should we welcome as participants in ourdebates and as allies in our legislation the eminent liturgicalscholars who give lustre to the clergy list of the Church ofEngland; but we are as powerless to make them members of theGeneral Convention as we should be to force them into the Houseof Commons. The same holds true at home. If the several diocesesfail to discover their own "inglorious Miltons, " and will not sendthem up to General Convention, General Convention may, and doubtlessdoes, lament the blindness of the constituencies, but it cannotcorrect their blunder. The dioceses in which the "experts"canonically reside had had full warning that important liturgicalinterests were to be discussed and acted upon in the GeneralConvention of 1883; why were the "experts" left at home? And ifthey were not returned in 1883, is there sufficient reason tobelieve that they will ever be returned in any coming year ofgrace? It must be either that the American Church is bereft of"experts, " or else that the constituencies, influenced possiblyby the hard sense of the laity, have learned hopelessly to confoundthe "expert" with the doctrinaire. 

Of "expert testimony, " in the shape of the liturgical materialgathered, mainly by English writers, during the last fifty years, the Joint Committee had no lack. That this material was carefullysifted and conscientiously used, _The Book Annexed_ will itself oneday be acknowledged to be the sufficient evidence. 

There is still another point that must be taken into account inthis connection, to wit, the attitude which the Episcopate has aright to take with respect to any proposed work of liturgicalrevision. Bishops have probably become inured to the hard measurehabitually dealt out to them in the columns of the _Church Times_, and are unlikely to allow charges of ignorance and incompetency sofar to disturb their composure as to make them afraid to prosecutea work which, from time immemorial, has been held to lie peculiarlywithin their province. It may be affirmed, with some confidence, that no revision of the American Offices will ever be ratified, inthe conduct of which the Bishops of the Church have not been allowedthe leadership which belongs to them of right. Then it is for theGeneral Convention carefully to consider whether any House ofBishops destined to be convened in our time is likely to have onits roll the names of any prelates more competent, whether on thescore of learning or of practical experience, to deal with a workof liturgical revision than were the seven prelates elected by thefree voice of their brethren to represent the Episcopal Order onthe Joint Committee of Twenty-one. 

Coming to details the reviewer of the _Church Times_ regrets, firstof all, the failure of the Convention to change the name of theChurch. He goes on to express a disapproval, more or less qualified, of the discretionary power given to bishops to set forth forms ofprayer for special occasions, and of the continued permission touse Selections of Psalms instead of the psalms for the day. It isnot quite clear whether he approves the expansion of the Table ofProper Psalms or not, though he thinks it "abstractedly desirable"that provision be made in this connection for "Corpus Christi andAll Souls. "

He condemns the latitude allowed in the choice of lessons underthe rules of the new lectionary, fearing that a clergyman whohappens to dislike any given chapter because of its contents maybe tempted habitually to suppress it by substituting another, butin the very next paragraph he gravely questions the expediency oflimiting congregations to such hymns as have been "duly set forthand allowed by authority. " Yet most observers, at least on thisside of the water, are of opinion that liberty of choice withinthe limits of the Bible is a far safer freedom, so far as thebreeding of heresy goes, than liberty of choice beyond the limitsof the Hymnal has proved itself to be. The reviewer is pleased withthe addition of the Feast of the Transfiguration to the Calendar, but "desiderates more, " and would gladly welcome the introductioninto the Prayer Book of commemorations of eminent saints, fromIgnatius down, [44] but of this, mention has already been made, and it is unnecessary to revert to it. 

There follows next a protest against the selection of properSentences prefixed to Morning and Evening Prayer. 

The revisers seem to have a glimmering of what was the rightthing to do . . . But they should have swept away the undevotionaland unliturgical plan of beginning with certain detached texts, which has no fitness whatever, and has never even seemed to answerany useful end. 

This is stronger language than most of us are likely to approve. AChurch that directly takes issue with Rome, as ours does, withrespect to the true source of authority in religion has an excellentreason for letting the voice of Holy Scripture sound the key-noteof her daily worship, whether there be ancient precedent for sucha use or not. At the same time, the reviewer's averment that "theonly proper opening is the Invocation of the Holy Trinity" isentitled to attention; and it is worth considering whether thelatter portion of the nineteenth verse of the twenty-eighth chapterof St. Matthew's Gospel might not be advantageously added to thelist of opening Sentences, for optional use. 

In speaking of the new alternate to the Declaration of Absolution, the reviewer suggests most happily that it would be well to revivethe form of mutual confession of priest and people found in the oldservice-books. [45] This proposal would probably not be entertainedin connection with the regular Orders for Morning and EveningPrayer, but room for such a feature might perhaps be found insome optional office. 

After a grudging commendation of the steps taken in _The BookAnnexed_ to restore the Gospel Canticles, the reviewer next putsin a strong plea for a larger allowance of versicles and responsesafter the Creed, contending that this is "just one of the placeswhere enrichment, much beyond that of replacing the English versiclesand responses now missing, is feasible and easy, " to which theanswer is that we, who love these missing versicles, shall thinkourselves fortunate if we succeed in regaining only so much as wehave lost. Even this will be accomplished with difficulty. It ismost interesting, however, to notice that this stout defender ofall that is English acknowledges the coupling together of theversicle, "Give peace in our time, O Lord, " and the response, "Because there is none other that fighteth for us, but only thou, O God, " to be "a very infelicitous _non-sequitur_. " For correctingthis palpable incongruity, the authors of _The Book Annexed_ havebeen sharply criticised here at home. What were they that theyshould have presumed to disturb ancient Anglican precedent in sucha point? If we could not understand why the God of battles, asthe God of battles, should be implored to "give peace in our time, "so much the worse for our intelligence. But here comes the mostacrid of all our critics, and shows how the collocation of sentencesin the English Book has, from the beginning, been due to a palpableblunder in condensing an office of the Sarum Breviary. Of theAmerican substitute for this "unhappy response" the best he cansay, however, is that it is "well intentioned. "

Of the "Office of the Beatitudes" the reviewer declares that it"needs thorough recasting before it can stand, " and in this weagree with him, as will hereafter appear, though wholly unableto concur in his sweeping condemnation, in this connection, ofone of the most beautiful of Canon Bright's liturgical compositions, the Collect beginning, "O God, by whom the meek are guided injudgment and light riseth up in darkness for the godly. " Of thisexquisite piece of idiomatic English, the reviewer allows himselfto speak as being "a very poor composition, defective in rhythm. "

The criticism of the eucharistic portions of _The Book Annexed_ ismainly in the line of complaint that more has not been added in theway of new collects and proper prefaces, but upon this point it isunnecessary to dwell, the reasons having been already given whythe Joint Committee and the Convention left the liturgy properalmost untouched. Neither is there anything that specially callsfor notice or serious reply in what is said about the OccasionalOffices. 

The Office for the Burial of Children is acknowledged to be a neededaddition, but as it stands "is pitched in an entirely wrong key. Thecognate offices in the _Rituale Romanun_ and the _Priest's PrayerBook_ ought to have shown the Committee, were it not for theirpeculiar unteachableness, a better way. " To one who can read betweenthe lines, this arraignment of the Americans for their lack ofdocility to the teachings of the Priest's Prayer Book is not devoidof drollery. 

It will happily illustrate the peculiar difficulties that besetliturgical revision to close this resume of the censures of_The Church Times_ by printing, side by side, the reviewer'sestimate of the changes proposed in the Confirmation Office andthe independent judgment of a learned evangelical divine of ourown Church upon the same point. 

The Confirmation Service, as one of the very poorest in the Anglicanrites, stood particularly in need of amendment and enrichment, especially by the removal of the ambiguous word "confirm" appliedto the acts of the candidates, whereby the erroneous opinion thatthey came merely to confirm and ratify their baptismal promises, and not to be confirmed and strengthened in virtue of somethingbestowed upon them, has gained currency. 

Thus far the English Ritualist. Here follows the AmericanEvangelical:

I still hope you will see your way clear to modify the presentdraft of the proposed Confirmation Office, as it gives a muchhigher Sacramentarian idea of it than the present, a concessionwhich will greatly please the Sacerdotalists, to which they areby no means entitled. 

The critic of _The Guardian_ is a writer of different make, and entitled every way to the most respectful attention. Hisfault-finding, which is invariably courteous, is mainly confinedto the deficiencies of _The Book Annexed_. 

He would have had more done rather than less; but at the sametime clearly points out that under the restrictions which controlledthe Committee more could not fairly have been expected. He regretsthat in restoring the lost portions of _Venite_ and _Benedictus_the Convention did not make the use of the complete form in everycase obligatory; and of the eight concluding verses of the lattercanticle, which under the rubric of _The Book Annexed_ are onlyobligatory during Advent, he says, "Imagine their omission onChristmas Day!"

To this criticism there are several answers, any one of which maybe held to be sufficient. In the first place, it should be rememberedthat into the Committee's plan of enrichment there entered theelement of differentiation. The closing portion of the _Venite_has a special appropriateness to Lent; the closing portion of the_Benedictus_ a special appropriateness to Advent. Moreover, if anycongregations desire the whole of these two canticles throughoutthe year, there is nothing in the rubrics of _The Book Annexed_ toforbid such an enjoyment of them. They may be sung in full always;but only in Lent in the one case, and in Advent in the other, mastthey be so sung. The revision Committee was informed, on what wasconsidered the highest authority, that in the Church of Englandthe _Benedictus_, on account of its length, had been very generallydisused. But, however this may be, there can be little doubt thatthe effort after restoration would have failed completely in thelate Convention had the use of these two canticles in full beeninsisted upon by the promoters of revision. 

There is less of verbal criticism in _The Guardian's_ review thancould have been wished, for any suggestions with respect toinaccuracies of style or rhythmical shortcomings would havebeen most welcome from the pen of so competent a censor. Attentionis called to the unmusical flow of language in the alternateConfession provided for the Evening Office; the figurative featuresof the proposed Collect for Maundy-Thursday are characterized asinfelicitous; and the Collect provided for the Feast of theTransfiguration is declared to be inferior to the correspondingone in the Sarum Breviary. 

Of this sort of criticism, at the hands of men who know theircraft, _The Book Annexed_ cannot have too much. In fact, of suchimmeasurable importance is good English in this connection, thatit would be no hardship were every separate clause of whateverformulary it may be proposed to engraft upon the Prayer Book tobe subjected to the most searching tests. 

Let an epoch be agreed upon, if necessary, that shall serve asthe criterion of admissibility for words and phrases. Let itbe decided, for instance, that no word that cannot prove anElizabethan parentage, or, if this be too severe a standard, then no word of post-Caroline origin, shall be admitted withinthe sacred precincts. Probably there are words in _The BookAnnexed_ which such a canon would eject; but let us have thempointed out, and their merits and demerits discussed. Suchcriticism would be of infinitely more value to the real interestsof revision than those vague and general charges of "crudeness"and "want of finish" which it is always so easy to make andsometimes so difficult to illustrate. 

The writer in _The Guardian_ closes an only too brief commentaryupon what the Convention has laid before the Church with thefollowing words:

Many of the proposals now in question are excellent; but otherswill be improved by reconsideration in the light of fuller ritualstudy, such as will be seen to produce a more exact and culturedritual _aesthesis_, perhaps we may, without offence, add, a moredelicate appreciation of rhythm. What _The Book Annexed_ presentsto us in the way of emendation is, on the whole, good; but, ifsubjected to a deliberate recension, it would, we predict, becomestill better. If thus improved by the Convention of 1886, it mightbe finally adopted by the Convention of 1889. 

This conspectus of English critical opinion would be incompletewere no account to be made of the utterances of the various writersand speakers who dealt with the general subject of liturgicalrevision at the recent Church Congress at Portsmouth. 

_The Book Annexed_ could scarcely ask a more complete justificationthan is supplied by these testimonies of men who at least may besupposed to be acquainted with the needs of the Church of England. 

The following catena, made up from three of the four Papers[46]read upon the Prayer Book, gives a fair notion of the general toneof the discussion. It will be worth anyone's while to collate itwith the thirty Resolutions that make up the "Notification to theDioceses. "

Can it be seriously doubted that there are requirements of thisage which are not satisfied by the provision for public worshipmade in the sixteenth century? Can any really suppose that thecompilers of that brief manual, the Prayer Book, however proudwe may rightly be of their work, were so gifted with inspiredforesight as to save the Church of future ages the responsibilitiesof considering and supplying the devotional wants of successivegenerations?

Who has not felt the scantiness of holy association in our Sundayand week-day worship? . . . Much, I know, has been supplied by ourhymnology, which has progressed nobly in proportion as the meagrenessof our liturgical provision has been realized. But beyond hymns weneed actual forms of service, which shall strike the ear and touchthe heart by fresh and vivid adaptations of God's Word to the greatmysteries of the Gospel faith . . . After-services on Sunday eveningshave of late grown common; for them we need also the aid of regularand elastic forms. 

Most deplorably have we felt the need of intercessory servicesfor Home and Foreign Missions; and, though there are beautifulmetrical litanies which bear directly on these and other objects, yet these are not sufficient, and of course are limited to timeswhen a good and strong choir can be secured; . . . And further wewant very simple forms of prayer to accompany addresses given inhomes and mission rooms. [47]

I declare it as my conviction, after many years of (I hope) a notindolent ministry, and of many opportunities of observation andexperiment, that the Church stands in pressing and immediateneed of a few rearrangements and adaptations of some of herOffices; also of an enormous number of supplementary Offices orservices--some for frequent use, others for occasional purposeswithin the consecrated buildings; and that besides these there isneed of a supply of special Offices for the use of a recognizedlay agency outside of the church edifices. 

Why limit our introductory sentences to seven deprecatory texts? . . . Why can we not introduce the anthem used on Easter-day, insteadof the _Venite_, throughout the Octave; or at least on Easter Mondayand Tuesday? Would not spiritual life be deepened and intensified, and, best of all, be strengthened, by the use in the same manner ofa suitable anthem instead of the _Venite_ on Advent Sundays, onChristmas-day, at Epiphany, on Ash-Wednesday, on Good Friday, during Rogation days, at Ascension-tide, and on harvest festivalsand the special annual Church festival of the year?

I submit that an enrichment of the Book of Common Prayer is alsorequired. For although, as already suggested, this may be providedto some extent by a Collect for occasional use before the finalprayer of Morning Prayer or Evensong, the needs of the Church willnot be fully supplied without some complete additional offices. Certainly an additional service for Sunday afternoon and evening . . . The times are very solemn, and we must wait no longer . . . We havetalked for nearly twenty-five years--not vainly, I believe--butlet us "go and do" not a little in the next five years . . . Proveyourself to be of the Church of God by doing all the work of theChurch, and in the proper way. Proclaim before our God by youractions and your activities, and by providing all that is needed, not only for Churchmen, but for earnest Christians who are notChurchmen, and for the poor, weary sinners who are living as ifthere were neither Church nor Saviour, such services for the one, and such means for drawing the others to Christ, that they all maybecome one in him. And for all this you must have (as I think):

1. Possibly a small rearrangement of existing services. 

2. Variety and additions in some of these services. 

3. Enrichment by many services supplementary. 

4. Services for use by laymen. 

I wish to alarm none, but I wish we were all astir, for there isno time to wait. [48]

I should like to suggest, if it seems desirable, as it does to me, to make any further variation from the original arrangement ofMorning Prayer, that on such days as Easter-day, Whitsunday, andAscension-day we should begin in a little different fashion thanwe do now. 

Is it always needful to begin on such great days of rejoicing forChristians with the same sentences and the _same_ Exhortation andConfession, and have to wait, so to speak, to give vent to ourfeelings till we reach the special psalms for the day? Might wenot on such days accept the glorious facts, and begin with somespecial and appropriate psalm or anthem? . . . Thus we should atonce get the great doctrine of the day, and be let to rejoice init at the very outset, and then go on to the Lord's Prayer and therest as we have it now. Confession of sin and absolution are notleft out in the services of the day, as, of course, they occur inthe Holy Communion; but leaving them out in the ordinary services, and beginning in the way suggested, would at one and the same timemark the day more clearly, and give opportunity for Christiangladness to show itself . . . Only one other alteration would, Ithink, be needed, namely, that a good selection of psalms be made, and used, as in the American Church, at the discretion of theminister. I think all must feel that for one reason or another allthe psalms are not adapted for the ordinary worship of a mixedcongregation; and this plan would ease the minds of many clergyand laity. Also copying the American Church, it would be well toomit the Litany on Christmas-day, Easter-day, and Whitsunday. [49]

In the light of this summary of Anglican desiderata, compiled bywholly friendly hands, it is plain that whatever we may do in thiscountry in the line of liturgical revision, always supposing itto be gravely and carefully done, instead of harming, oughtmarvellously to help the real interests of the Church of England. Certain principles of polity adopted in our own Church a centuryago, and notably among them those affecting the legislative rightsof the laity in matters ecclesiastical, are beginning to find tardyrecognition in the England of the present. Possibly a hundred yearshence, or sooner, a like change of mind may bring English Churchmento the approval of liturgical methods which, even if not whollyconsonant to the temper of the Act of Uniformity, have neverthelessbeen found useful and effective in the work of bringing the truthand the power of God to bear upon the common life of a great nation. The Church of England is to-day moving on toward changes and chancesof which she sees enough already to alarm and not yet enough toreassure her. The dimness of uncertainty covers what may yet turnout to be the Mount of her Transfiguration, and she fears as sheenters into the cloud. How shall we best and most wisely show oursympathy? By passing resolutions of condolence? By childishcommiseration, the utterance of feigned lips, upon the approachingsorrows of disestablishment? Not thus at all, but rather by acourageous and well-considered pioneering work, which shall haveit for its purpose to feel the ground and blaze the path whichpresently she and we may find ourselves treading in company. Tiedas she is, for her an undertaking of this sort is impossible. Wecan show her no greater kindness than by entering upon it of ourown motion and alone. 

(_b_) American. 

Criticism at home has been abundant; much of it intelligent andhelpful, and by no means so much of it as might have been expectedcaptious. Of what may be called official reviews there have beenthree, one from the Diocese of Central New York, one from theDiocese of Wisconsin, and one from the Diocese of Easton. Thesubject has also been dealt with in carefully prepared essayspublished from time to time in _The Church Review_ and _The ChurchEclectic_, while in the case of the weekly journals the treatmentof the topic has been so frequent and so full that a mere catalogueof the editorial articles and contributed communications in Which, during the two years last past, liturgical revision has beendiscussed would overtax the limits of the present paper. 

The only practicable means of dealing with this mass of criticismis to adopt the inductive method, and to seek to draw out from theutterances of these many voices the four or five distinct conceptsthat severally lie behind them. 

_In limine_ however, let this be said, that the broadest generalizationof all is one to which the very discordance of the critics bearsthe best possible witness. Of a scheme of re vision against whichis pressed, in Virginia, [50] the charge of Mariolatry; in Ohio, [51]the charge of Latitudinarianism; and in Wisconsin[52] the charge ofPuritanic pravity, this much may at least be said, that it possessesthe note of fairness. From henceforth suggestions of partisan biasare clearly out of order. 

The Anglo-Catholic censures of _The Book Annexed_ are substantiallysummed up in the assertion that due regard is not had, in thechanges proposed, to the structural principles of liturgicalscience. In the exceedingly well written, if somewhat one-sideddocument, already referred to as the Wisconsin Report, this is, throughout, the burden of the complaint. The accomplished authorof the Report, than whom no one of the critics at home or abroadhas shown a keener or a better cultivated liturgical instinct, isafraid that a free use of all the liberties permitted by the newrubrics of the daily offices would so revolutionize Morning andEvening Prayer as practically to obliterate the line of theirdescent from the old monastic forms. If there were valid groundfor such an expectation the alarm might be justifiable; butis there? The practical effect of the rubrics that make forabbreviation will be to give us back, on weekdays almost exactly, and with measurable precision on Sundays also, the Matins andEvensong of the First Book of Edward VI. Surely this is not thedestruction of continuity with the pre-Reformation Church. 

In his dislike of the provision for grafting the Beatitudes uponthe Evening Prayer, the author of the Wisconsin Report will havemany sympathizers, the present writer among them; but in his fearthat in the introduction of the Proem to the Song of the ThreeChildren, as a possible respond to the First Lesson, [53] therelurks a covert design to dethrone the _Te Deum_, he is likely tofind few to agree with him. 

But after all, may not this scrupulous regard for the precedentsset us in the old service-books be carried too far? It is wholesome, but there is a limit to the wholesomeness of it. We remember whoit was that made war for the sake of "a scientific frontier. " Someof the scientific frontiers in the region of liturgies are asillusory as his was. For example, _The Book Annexed_ may be"unscientific" in drawing as largely as it does on the languageof the Apocalypse for versicles and responses. There has certainlybeen a departure from Anglican precedent in this regard. And yetit would scarcely seem that we could go far astray in borrowingfrom the liturgy of heaven, whether there be earthly precedent ornot. 

Cranmer and his associates made a far bolder break with the oldoffice-books than _The Book Annexed_ makes with the Standard CommonPrayer. The statement of the Wisconsin Report, that "The Reformersof the English Church did not venture to write new Offices ofPrayer, " must be taken with qualifications. They did not makeoffices absolutely _de novo_, but they did condense and combineold offices in a manner that practically made a new thing of them. They took the monastic services and courageously remoulded theminto a form suitable for the new era in which monasteries were toexist no longer. 

Happily they were so thorough in their work that comparativelylittle change is called for in adapting what they fitted to theneeds of the sixteenth century to the more varied requirements ofthe nineteenth. Still, when they are quoted as conservatives, andwe are referred for evidence of their dislike of change to thatparticular paragraph of the Preface to the English Prayer Bookentitled, _Concerning the Service of the Church_[54] it is worthour while to follow up the reference and see what is actuallythere said. The Wisconsin Committee use very soft words inspeaking of the mediaeval perversions and corruptions of DivineService. "It was in the monasteries chiefly, " they tell us, "that these services received the embellishments and wonderfulvariety which we find in the later centuries. " But the followingis the cruel manner in which, in the English Preface cited asauthority, the "embellishments" and "wonderful variety" arecharacterized:

But these many years past, this godly and ancient order of theancient fathers hath been so altered, broken, and neglected, by planting in uncertain stories and legends, with multitudesof responds, verses, vain repetitions, commemorations, andsynodals, that commonly when any book of the Bible was begun, after three or four chapters were read out, all the rest wereunread. 

. . . And furthermore, notwithstanding that the ancient fathershave divided the Psalms into seven portions, whereof every one wascalled a Nocturn, now of late time a few of them have been dailysaid and the rest utterly omitted . . . So that here you have anOrder for Prayer and for the Reading of the Holy Scripture muchagreeable to the mind and purposes of the old fathers, and a greatdeal more profitable and commodious than that which of late wasused. 

This is conservatism in the very best sense, for the object aimedat is plainly the conservation of purity, simplicity, and truth, but surely it is not the conservatism of men with whom inaction isthe only wisdom and immobility the sole beatitude. 

We change our sky completely in passing from Anglo-Catholic toBroad Church criticism of _The Book Annexed_. This last has, inthe main, addressed itself to the rubrical features of the proposedrevision. "You promised us 'flexibility, '" the accusation runs, "but what you are really giving us is simply rigidity under a newform. Let things stay as they are, and we will undertake tofind all the 'flexibility' we care to have, without help fromlegislation. "

This criticism has at least the merit of intelligibility, forit directly antagonizes what was, without doubt, one main purposewith the revisers, namely, that of reviving respect for therubrics by making compliance with their terms a more practicablething. 

Evidently what Broad Churchmen, or at least a section of them, would prefer is the prevalence of a general consent under whichit shall be taken for granted that rubrics are not literally bindingon the minister, but are to be stretched and adapted, at thediscretion of the officiant, as the exigencies of times and seasonsmay suggest. It is urged that such a common understanding alreadyin great measure exists; and that to enact new rubrics now, orto remodel old ones, would look like an attempt to revivify aprinciple of compliance which we have tacitly agreed to considerdead. 

The answer to this argument is not far to seek. If the Churchmeans to allow the Common Prayer, which hitherto has been regardedas a liturgy, to lapse into the status of a directory; if, in otherwords, she is content to see her manual of worship altered from abook of instructions as to how Divine Service _shall_ be performedinto a book of suggestions as to how it _may_ be rendered, thechange ought to be officially and definitely announced, and notleft to individual inference or uncertain conjecture. We arerapidly slipping into a position scarcely consistent with eitherthe dignity or the honor of a great Church--that of seemingto be what we are not. To give it out to the public that weare a law-respecting communion, and then to whisper it aboutamong ourselves that our laws bind only those who choose to bebound by them, may serve as a convenient device for tiding overa present difficulty, but is, oh the whole, a course of proceduremore likely to harden than to relieve tender consciences. 

Take, by way of illustration, the case of a city clergyman whowould gladly introduce into his parish the usage of daily service, but who is convinced, whether rightly or wrongly, that to secureeven a fair attendance of worshippers he ought to have the libertyof so far condensing the Morning or the Evening Office as to bringit within the limits of a quarter of an hour. He seeks reliefthrough the lawful channel of rubrical revision, and is onlylaughed at for his pains. In this busy nineteenth century it isnonsense, he is assured, to spend a dozen years in besieging soobdurate a fortress as the General Convention. The way to secure"shortened services" is to shorten services. This is easy logic, and applicable in more directions than one. Only see how smoothlyit runs: If you want hymns that are not in the Hymnal, print them. If you want a confessional-box, set it up. If you want a "reservedsacrament, " order the carpenter to make a tabernacle and thelocksmith to provide a bolt. [55] This is a far less troublesomemethod of securing the ends desired than the tedious and roundaboutprocess of proposing a change at one meeting of the GeneralConvention, having your proposal knocked about among some fortyor fifty dioceses, and brought up for final action three years later. 

And yet, superior as the former method may be to the latter inpoint of celerity and directness, the latter has certain advantagesover the former that ought to be evident to men who are notfrightened by having their scrupulousness called scrupulosity. 

Moreover, why should this whole matter be discussed, as so commonlyit is discussed, wholly from the clerical side? Have the laity norights in the liturgy which the clergy are bound to respect? Whenand where did the Protestant Episcopal Church confer on itsministers a general dispensing power over the ordinances ofworship which it withheld from the body of the faithful?

Heretofore it has been held that when a layman went to church hehad a right to expect certain things guaranteed him by the Church'slaw. If all this has been changed, then formal notice ought to beserved upon us by the General Convention that such is the fact. 

THE MOTIVE OF THE EFFORT AFTER REVISION. 

It is asked, and with no little show of plausibility, Why--inthe face of such manifold hostility and such persistent opposition, why press the movement for revision any further? Is it worth whileto divide public sentiment in the Church upon a question thatlooks to many to be scarcely more than a literary one? Why notdrop the whole thing, and let it fall into the limbo, where liealready the _Proposed Book_ and the _Memorial Papers_? For thisreason, and it is sufficient: There has arisen in America amovement toward Christian unity, the like of which has not beenseen since the country was settled. It is the confident beliefof many that the key to the situation lies with that Church whichmore truly than any other may be said to represent the historicalChristianity of the peoples of English stock. One of the elementsin this larger movement is the question of the form of worship. The chief significance of _The Book Annexed_ lies in the claim madefor it by its friends, that more adequately than the presentStandard it supplies what may fairly be demanded as their manualof worship by a people circumstanced like ours. While, in onesense, more English than the present book in that it restoresliturgical treasures lost at the Revolution, it is also morethoroughly American, in that it recognizes and allows for manyneeds which the newly enfranchised colonists of 1789 could nothave been expected to foresee. 

The question is, Shall we turn a cold shoulder on the movementchurchward of our non-Anglican brethren of the reformed faith, doing our best to chill their approaches with a hard _Non possumus_, or shall we go out to meet them with words of welcome on our lips?Union under "the Latin obedience" is impossible. For us, in the faceof the decrees of 1870, there can be "no peace with Rome. " TheGreeks are a good way off. Our true "solidarity, " if "solidarity"is to be achieved at all, is not with Celts, but with our own kithand kin, the children of the Reformation. Is it wise of us to sayto these fellow Christians of ours, adherents of the Catholic Faithas well as we, "Nay, but the nearer you draw to us the farther wemean to draw away from you; the more closely you approximate toAnglican religion, the more closely shall we, for the sake ofdifferencing ourselves from you, approximate to Vatican religion?"

In better harmony with the apostolic temper, in truer continuitywith the early churchmanship, should we be found, were we to joinvoices thus:

_V_. Come ye, and let us walk in the light of the Lord. 

_R_. And he will teach us of his ways, and we will walk in his paths. 

II. 

_The Book Annexed_ may be said to hold to the possible standardCommon Prayer of 1890 a relation not unlike that of a clay modelto the statue which is to be. The material is still in conditionto be moulded; the end is not yet. It was in anticipation of thisstate of things that the friends of revision in 1883 were anxiousto carry through the preliminary stage of acceptance as many oftheir propositions as possible. To revert to our parable, themodeller, in treating the face of his provisional image, mustbe careful to lay on clay enough, or he may find himself barredat the last moment from giving the features just that finishingtouch which is to make them ready for the marble. All the skill inthe world will not enable him to secure for the face precisely theexpression he would have it wear, if the _materia_ be insufficient. Looked at in this light, the suggestion made by the Joint Committeein the House of Deputies at an early stage of the session of 1883, that the entire Book Annexed, in precisely the form in which it hadbeen submitted, should be passed, and sent down to the diocesesfor consideration, instead of being the arbitrary and unreasonabledemand it was reckoned by those who lifted their eyebrows at thevery mention of such a thing, was really a sensible propositionwhich the Convention would have done well to heed. 

Few, if any, critics of _The Book Annexed as Modified_ havepronounced it an improvement to _The Book Annexed_ as presented. The Book came out of the Convention less admirable than it wentin. As a school of Liturgies, the long debate at Philadelphia wasdoubtless salutary and helpful, but whether the immediate results, as shown in the emendation of the Joint Committee's work, wereequally deserving of praise is another question. 

Nevertheless, as was argued in the paper of which this one is thecontinuation, we must take things as we find them, not as we wishthey were; and since there is no other method of liturgical revisionknown to our laws than revision by popular debate, to revision bypopular debate we must reconcile ourselves as best we may. Regrets are idle. Let us be thankful that the amicable struggleat Philadelphia had for its outcome so large rather than so smalla mass of workable material, and instead of accounting _The BookAnnexed_ to be what one of the signers of the Joint Committee'sReport has lately called it, "a melancholy production, " recognizein it the germ of something exceedingly to be desired. Fromthe first, there has never been any disposition on the part ofsober-minded friends of Revision to carry through their schemewith a rush; the delay that is likely to better things they willwelcome; the only delay they deprecate is the delay that kills. 

The changes enumerated in the "Notification to the Dioceses, " andillustrated to the eye in _The Book Annexed_ as Modified, may bebroadly classified under the following heads:

(_a_) Clearly desirable alterations, with respect to which thereis practically unanimous consent, and for which there is immediatedemand, _e_. _g_. , shortened offices of week-day prayer. 

(_b_) Alterations desirable in the main, but likely to be morecordially acquiesced in, could still further improvement besecured, _e_. _g_. , the new versicles introduced into EveningPrayer after the Creed. 

(_c_) Alterations generally accounted undesirable on any terms, e. G. , the permissive rubrics with respect to the reading ofcertain psalms during Lent, instead of the regular responds tothe First and Second Lessons of the Evening Prayer. 

The question arises, Is any course of action possible that willgive us without delay the changes which for some fifteen years thewhole Church has been laboring to secure; that will give us, witha reasonable delay of three years longer, the confessed improvementsa little more improved; while at the same time we are kept frombecoming involved in the wretched confusion sure to result fromputting into circulation, within a brief period, two authorizedbut diverse books of Common Prayer? This threefold question it isproposed to meet with a threefold affirmative. 

THE STANDARD PRAYER BOOK OF 1890. 

The end we ought to have in view is the publication, in the year1890, of a standard Book of Common Prayer, such as shall embodythe ripe results of what will then have been a period of ten yearsof continuous labor in the work of liturgical revision. To thisreckoning of ten years should properly be added the seventeen yearsthat intervened between the presentation of "The Memorial" in 1853and the passing of the "Enrichment Resolutions" in 1880: so thatreally our Revision would look back for its historical beginnings, not across a decade merely, but over almost the lifetime of ageneration. No single one of the various revisions of the EnglishBook has observed anything like so leisurely a movement. 

But by what methods of legislative procedure could such a resultas the one indicated be reached? The precedent of the last centurydoes not help us very much. The American Book of Common Prayer wasset forth on the sixteenth day of October in the year of our Lord1789; but with an express statutory provision that the "use" ofthe book, as so set forth, should not become obligatory till thefirst day of October, 1790. We cannot copy this line of procedure, for the simple reason that no such undertaking as that of 1789 isin hand. It is not now proposed to legislate into existence a newLiturgy. The task before us is the far humbler one of passingjudgment upon certain propositions of change, almost every oneof which admits of segregation, has an independent identity of itsown, and may be accepted or rejected wholly without reference towhat is likely to happen to the other propositions that accompanyit. 

_The Book Annexed as Modified_ is in no proper sense a _ProposedBook_, nor can it without misrepresentation be called such; it issimply a sample publication[56] illustrative of what the Book ofCommon Prayer would be, were all the Resolutions of Revision thatpassed their first stage of approval in 1883 carried into finaleffect; a result most unlikely to occur. 

THE MEANS TO THE END. 

The most expeditious and every way satisfactory means to the endthat has now been defined would be the appointment, at an earlystage of the session in October, of a Joint Committee of Conference. To this committee should be referred:

(_a_) The question: How many of the Resolutions of 1883, or ofthe "several recommendations therein contained, " is it eitherpracticable or desirable to approve at once?

(_b_) The question: How may such of the Resolutions of 1883 asare too good to be lost, but not in their present form good enoughto satisfy the Church, be so remoulded as to make their adoptionprobable in 1889?

(_c_) All new propositions of improvement that may from time totime during the session be brought to the notice of the Convention, either by individual members or by memorials from DiocesanConventions. Such a Committee of Conference, holding dailysessions of three or four hours each, would be able in duetime to report a carefully digested scheme which could then beintelligently discussed. By this method a flood of frivolous andaimless talk would be cut off without in the slightest degreeinfringing or limiting the real liberty of debate. 

But even if the Convention were to show itself reluctant to giveto a select committee so large a power as this of preparing an_agenda_ paper, it still would be possible to refer to such acommittee the subject-matter of so many of the resolutions asmight chance, when put upon their passage, to fail by a narrow vote. 

It is to be remembered that the various recommendations containedin the resolutions of 1883 are to be voted upon _in ipsissimisverbis_. There will be no opportunity for the familiar cry: "Mr. President, I rise to propose an amendment. " The resolution, or thesection of a resolution, as the case may be, will either be approvedjust as it stands or condemned just as it stands. In this respectthere will be an immense saving of time. Most of the tediousnessof debate grows out of the natural disposition of legislators totry each his own hand at bettering the thing proposed; hence"amendments, " "amendments to amendments, " and substitutes for theamendment to the amendment. Even the makers of parliamentary law(much enduring creatures) lose their patience at this point, andperemptorily lay it down that confusion shall no further go. 

But to return to the supposed case of a proposition lost becauseof some slight defect, which, if only our Medo-Persian law hadpermitted an amendment, could easily have been remedied. Surelythe sensible course in such a case as that would be to refer thesubject-matter of the lost resolution to the Committee of Conference, with instructions to report a new resolution to be finally actedupon three years hence. So then, whether there be given to theCommittee of Conference either the large power to recommend acarefully thought out way of dealing with all the material _enbloc_, or the lesser function of sitting in judgment on newpropositions, and of remoulding rejected ones, in either casethere could scarcely fail to result from the appointment of sucha committee large and substantial gains. 

IMPROVEMENTS. 

It follows, from what has been said, that if there are featuresthat admit of improvement in the proposals which the Conventionhas laid before the Church for scrutiny, now is emphatically thetime for suggesting the better thing that might be done. Even thebitterest opponents of _The Book Annexed_ can scarcely be sosanguine as to imagine that nothing at all is coming from thislabored movement for revision. A measure which was so far forthacceptable to the accredited representatives of the Church, incouncil assembled, as to pass its first stage three years agoalmost by acclamation, is not destined to experience total collapse. The law of probabilities forbids the supposition. The personalmake-up of the next General Convention will be to a great extentidentical with that of the last, and of the one before the last. Sober-minded men familiar with the work of legislation are notaccustomed to reverse their own well considered decisions withoutweighty cause. The strong probability is that something in theline of emendation, precisely how much or how little no one cansay, will, as a matter of fact, be done. In view of this likelihood, would not those who are dissatisfied with _The Book Annexed_ asit stands be taking the wiser course were they to substituteco-operative for vituperative criticism? So far as the presentwriter is in any sense authorized to speak for the friends ofrevision, he can assure the dissidents that such co-operationwould be most welcome. 

A. B. , a scholar thoroughly familiar, we will suppose, with thesources of liturgical material, is dissatisfied with the collectsproposed for the successive days of Holy Week. Very well, he hasa perfect right to his dissatisfaction and to the expression ofit in the strongest terms at his command. He does only his plainduty in seeking to exclude from the Prayer Book anything thatseems to him unworthy of a place in it. But seeing that he mustneeds, as a "liturgical expert, " acknowledge that the deficiencywhich the Joint Committee sought to make good is a real and nota merely fancied deficiency, would not A. B. Approve himself amore judicious counsellor if, instead of bending all his energyto the disparagement of the collects proposed, he should devote aportion of it to the discovery and suggestion of prayers morehappily worded?

And this remark holds good with reference to whatever new featureis to be found between the covers of The Book Annexed. Ifbetterment be possible, these six months now lying before usafford the time of all times in which to show how, with the leastof loss and most of gain, it may be brought about. 

The Diocese of Maryland is first in the field with an adequatecontribution of this sort. A thoroughly competent committee, appointed in October, 1884, has recently printed its Report, andwhether the Diocesan Convention adopt, amend, or reject what ispresented to it, there can be little doubt that the mind of theChurch at large will be perceptibly affected by what theserepresentative men of Maryland have said. [57] Apart from acertain aroma of omniscience pervading it (with which, by theway, sundry infelicities of language in the text of the Report, only indifferently consort), the document, is a forcible one, andof great practical value. 

The Committee have gone over the entire field covered by the"Notification to the Dioceses, " taking up the Resolutions oneby one, and not only noting in connection with each whatever isin itself objectionable, but also (a far more difficult task)suggesting in what respect this or that proposition might bebetter put. The _apparatus criticus_ thus provided, while notinfallible, is eminently helpful, sets a wholesome pattern, andif supplemented by others of like tenor and scope, will go farto lighten the labor of whatever committee may have the finalrecension of the whole work put into its hands. [58]

It would be a poor self-conceit in the framers of _The BookAnnexed_, that should prompt them to resent as intrusive anycriticism whatsoever. What we all have at heart is the bringingof our manual of worship as nearly as possible to such a pitchof perfectness as the nature of things human will allow. The thingwe seek is a Liturgy which shall draw to itself everything thatis best and most devout within our national borders, a CommonPrayer suited to the common wants of all Americans. Whatevertruly makes for this end, it will be our wisdom to welcome, whetherthose who bring it forward are popularly labelled as belongingto this, that, or the other school of Churchmanship. To allowparty jealousies to mar the symmetry and fulness of a work in whichall Churchmen ought to have an equal inheritance would be the worstof blunders. By all means let the raiment of needlework and theclothing of wrought gold be what they should be for such sacreduses as hers who is the daughter of the great King, but let us notfall to wrangling about the vats in which the thread was dyed orthe river bed from which the gold was gathered. 

In a later paper the present writer intends to venture upon a tasksimilar to that undertaken by the Maryland Committee. He will dothis largely in the hope of encouraging by example other and morecompetent critics to busy themselves in the same way. Meanwhile afew observations may not be amiss with respect to the sources ofliturgical material, and the methods by which they can be drawnupon to the best advantage. 

There has been, first and last, a deal of ill considered talkabout the boundlessness of the liturgical treasures lying unusedin the pre-Reformation formularies of the English Church, as wellas in the old sacramentaries and office-books of the East and theWest. Wonder is expressed that with such limitless wealth at itscommand, an "Enrichment Committee" should have brought in sopoverty-stricken a Report. Have we not Muratori and Mabillon? itis asked: Daniel and Assemani, Renaudot and Goar? Are there notMissals Roman, Ambrosian, and Mozarabic? Breviaries Anglican, Gallican, and Quignonian? Has Maskell delved and Neale translatedand Littledale compiled in vain? To all of which there are tworeplies, namely: first, It is inexpedient to overload a PrayerBook, even if the material be of the best; and secondly, This bestmaterial is by no means so abundant as the volume of our resourceswould seem to suggest. It was for the very purpose of escapingredundancy and getting rid of surplusage that the Anglican Reformerscondensed Missal, Breviary, and Rituale into the one small andhandy volume known as the First Prayer Book of Edward VI. It wasa bold stroke, doubtless denounced as perilously radical at thetime; but experience has justified Cranmer and his friends. In thewhole history of liturgies there is no record of a wiser step. Itis scarcely possible so grievously to sin against a people's PrayerBook as by making it more complicated in arrangement and more bulkyin volume than need actually requires. It was ground of justifiable pride with the "Enrichment Committee" that the Book which theybrought in, despite the many additions it contained, was no thickerby a single page than the Prayer Book as it is. To be sure, theGeneral Convention spoiled all this by insisting on retainingcertain duplicated formularies which the Committee had very properlydropped in order to find room for fresh material. But of the Bookas first presented, it was possible to say that in no degree wasit more cumbrous than that to which the people were alreadyaccustomed. Doubtless it would have been still more to theCommittee's credit could they have brought in an enriched Booksmaller by a third than the Book in use; but this their conservatismforbade. 

Of even greater moment is the other point, which concerns thequality of the available material. It is the greatest mistake inthe world to suppose that simply because a given prayer exists, say in an Oriental liturgy, and has been translated into Englishby an eminent scholar, it is therefore proper material to be workedinto our services. As a matter of fact, a great deal of devotionallanguage of which the Oriental liturgies is made up is prolix andtedious to a degree simply insufferable. Moreover in the case ofprayers in themselves admirable in the original tongue in whichthey were composed, all is often lost through lack of a verbalfelicity in the translation. If anyone questions this judgment, let him toil through Neale's and Littledale's _Translations ofthe Primitive Liturgies_ and see whether he can find six, nay, three, consecutive lines which he would be willing to see introducedinto our own Communion Office. Or, as respects translationsfrom the Latin office-books of the Church of England, let himscrupulously search the pages of the "Sarum Hours, " as doneinto the vernacular by the Recorder of Salisbury, and see howmany of the Collects strike him as good enough to be transplantedinto the Book of Common Prayer. The result of this latter voyageof discovery will be an increased wonder at the affluence of themediaeval devotions, combined with amazement at the poverty andunsatisfactoriness of the existing translations. It is with a Latincollect as with a Greek ode or an Italian sonnet: no matter howwonderful the diction, the charm of it is as a locked secret untilthe thing has been Englished by genius akin to his who first madeit out of his own heart. Of others besides the many brave men wholived before Agamemnon might it be written:

 sed omnes illacrumabiles Urgentur, ignotique larga Nocte, carent quia vate sacro. 

It was the peculiar felicity of Schiller that he had Coleridge fora translator, and the shades of Gregory and Leo owe it to a livingAnglican divine that we English-speaking Christians can think theirthoughts after them, and pray their prayers. 

Such being the facts in the case, it is evident that the range ofchoice open to American revisers is far narrower than half-informedpersons imagine it to be. 

The very best sources of liturgical material are the following:

(_a_) King James's Bible, including the Apocrypha, and supplementedby the Prayer Book version of the Psalms;

(_b_) The old Sacramentaries, Leonine, Gregorian, and Gelasian, chiefly as illustrated by the genius of Dr. Bright;

(_c_) The Breviary in its various forms;

(_d_) The Primers and other like _fragmenta_ of the era of theEnglish Reformation;[59]

(_e_) The devotional writings of the great Anglican divines of theschool of Andrews, Ken, and Taylor;[60] and last and least, (_f_) The various manuals of prayer, of which the past twenty yearshave shown themselves so prolific. [61]

Of the Anglican writers, Jeremy Taylor would be by far the mosthelpful, were it not for the efflorescence of his style. As it is, the best use that can be made of his exuberant devotions is to cullfrom them here and there a telling phrase or a musical cadence. The "General Intercession, " for example, on page 50 of _The BookAnnexed_, is a cento to which Taylor is the chief contributor. 

That the Enrichment Committee made the best possible use of thevarious quarries to which they had access is unlikely. Even if theycredited themselves with having done so, it would be immodest ofthem to say it. Better material than any that their researchesbrought to light may still be lying near the surface, somewhereclose at hand, waiting to be unearthed. Certainly this paper willnot have been written in vain if it serves the purpose of provokingto the good work of discovery some of those who on the score bothof quality and of quantity account what has been thus far done inthe line of revision inadequate and meagre. 

III. 

It is next proposed to take up the Philadelphia Resolutions ofRevision (1883) one by one, and to consider in what measure, ifin any, the subject-matter of each of them lies open to improvement. 

Should the method of procedure recommended in the previouspaper, or any method resembling it, find favor at the approachingConvention, and a Conference Committee of the two Houses beappointed to remould the work with reference to final actionthree years hence, criticism of this sort, even though inadequate, can scarcely fail of being in some measure helpful. 

RESOLUTION I. 

_The Title-page _. 

The proposals under this head are two in number: (_a _) that thewords, "together with the Psalter or Psalms of David, " be droppedfrom the title-page as superfluous, and (_b _) that a general title, "THE BOOK OF COMMON PRAYER, " be printed on the first page of theleaf preceding the title-page. 

Neither of these suggestions is of any great importance, and theinterest attaching to them is mainly bibliographical. Whenever anyaddition has been made to the Prayer Book of the Church of England, the rule has been to note it invariably in the Table of Contents, and sometimes also on the title-page. 

Until 1662 the Psalter formed no part of the Prayer Book; it wasa volume by itself, and was cited as such. In fact, it was a sortof "Hymnal Companion to the Book of Common Prayer. " In the revisionof 1662 the Psalter was incorporated, and immediately there appearedupon the title-page of the Common Prayer, in addition to what hadbeen there before, the words, "together with the Psalter or Psalmsof David printed as they are to be sung or read in the churches. "The present title-page of the English Book has a singularly crowdedand awkward look, contrasting most unfavorably in this regard withthose of 1559, 1552, and 1549. [62] But if the needless mention ofthe Psalter on our present title-page gives pleasure to anyconsiderable number of people, it would be foolish to press thesuggestion of a change. Let it pass. 

Of a more serious character would be the omission, which someurge, of the words "Protestant Episcopal" from the title-page. Should anything of this sort be done, which is most unlikely, Dr. Egar's suggestion to drop the words, "of the Protestant EpiscopalChurch, " leaving it to read, "according to the use in the UnitedStates of America, " would carry the better note of catholicity. 

But, after all, the remonstrants have only to turn the page tofind the obnoxious "Protestant Episcopal" so fast riveted intothe _Ratification_ that nothing short of an act of violence doneto history could accomplish the excision of it. [63]

RESOLUTION II. 

_The Introductory Portion_. 

(a) _Table of Contents_. --The suggestion[64] that all entriesafter "The Psalter" should be printed in italics, is a good one. 

(b) _Concerning the Service of the Church_. --This substitute forthe present "Order how the Psalter is appointed to be read" and"Order how the rest of the Holy Scripture is appointed to be read"is largely based on the provisions of the so-called "ShortenedServices Act" of 1872. The second paragraph relating to the useof the Litany appears to be superfluous. 

The enlarged Table of Proper Psalms and the Table of Selections ofPsalms, which come under this same general heading, would be a verygreat gain. Why the Maryland Committee should have pronounced thelatter Table "practically useless, since the psalms are not to beprinted, " it is hard, in the face of the existing usage withrespect to "Proper Psalms, " to understand; nor is there any specialfelicity in the proposal emanating from the same source that thenumber of the Selections be cut down to three, one for feasts andone for fasts and one for an extra service on Sunday nights. 

On the other hand, the Maryland Committee does well in recommendingthat permission be given to the minister to shorten the Lessons athis discretion, though the hard and fast condition, "provided heread not less than fifteen consecutive verses, " apart from thequestionable English in which it is phrased, smacks more of thedrill-room than of the sanctuary. Far better would it be (if thesuggestion may be ventured) to allow no liberty of abridgmentwhatever in the case of Proper Lessons, while giving entire freedomof choice on all occasions for which no proper lessons have beenappointed. So far as "ferial" days are concerned, it would be muchwiser to let the Table of Lessons be regarded as suggestive andnot mandatory. The half-way recognition of this principle in thenew Lectionary, in which such a freedom is allowed, _provided_ theLesson taken be one of those appointed for "some day in the sameweek, " seems open to a suspicion of childishness. 

The rubrical direction entitled "Hymns and Anthems" requiresverbal correction, but embodies a wholesome principle. 

Under this same general head of "The Introductory Portion" come thenew Lectionary and the new Tables for finding Easter. Of these, theformer is law already, except so far as respects the Lessonsappointed for the proposed Feast of the Transfiguration. The EasterTables are a monument to the erudition and accuracy of the lateDr. Francis Harison. The Tables in our present Standard run to theyear 1899. Perhaps a "wholesome conservatism" ought to discover atincture of impiety in any proposal to disturb them before thecentury has expired. 

RESOLUTION III. 

_The Morning Prayer_. 

(a) _The First Rubric_. --The Maryland Committee is quite rightin remarking that the language of this important rubric, as setforth by the Convention of 1883, is "inelegant and inaccurate, "but another diocese has called attention to the fact that thesubstitute which Maryland offers would, if adopted, enable anyrector who might be so minded to withhold entirely from thenon-communicating portion of his flock all opportunity for _public_confession and absolution from year's end to year's end. It is notfor a moment to be supposed that there was any covert intentionhere, but the incident illustrates the value to rubric-makers ofthe Horatian warning--_Brevis esse labor o, obscurus fio_. 

Passing by the Proper Sentences for special Days and Seasons, against which no serious complaint has been entered, [65] we cometo the proposed short alternative for the Declaration of Absolution. As it stood in the Sarum Use this Absolution ran as follows:

"The Almighty and Merciful Lord grant you Absolution and Remissionof all your sins, space for true penitence, amendment of life, andthe grace and consolation of the Holy Spirit. Amen. "[66]

With the single change of the word "penitence" to "repentance" thisis the form in which the Absolution stood in the original _BookAnnexed_. The Convention thought that it detected a "Romanizinggerm" in the place assigned to "penitence, " and an archaism in thetemporal sense assigned to "space, " and accordingly rearranged thewhole sentence. But in their effort to mend the language, ourlegislators assuredly marred the music. [67]

(e) _The Benedictus es, Domine_. --The insertion of this Canticleas an alternate to the _Te Deum_ was in the interest of shortenedservices for week-day use, as has been already explained. The samepurpose could be served equally well, and the always objectionableexpedient of a second alternate avoided, by spacing off the lastsix verses of the _Benedicite_, which have an integrity of theirown, and prefixing a rubric similar to those that stand before the_Venite_ and the _Benedictus_ in "_The Book Annexed_"; e. G. :

_On week-days, it shall suffice if only the latter portion ofthis Canticle be said or sung_. 

(n) _The Benedictus_. --With reference to the restoration of thelast portion of this Hymn, it has been very properly remarked byone of the critics of _The Book Annexed_, that the line of divisionbetween the required and the optional portions would more properlycome after the eighth than after the fourth verse. This would makethe portion reserved for Advent begin with the reference to Johnthe Baptist, as undoubtedly it ought to do: "And thou, child, shaltbe called the Prophet of the Highest. "

(o) _De Profundis_. --There will probably be general consent to theomission of this alternate, as being what the Maryland Committee_naively_ call it, "too mournful a psalm" for this purpose. [68]

RESOLUTION IV. 

_Daily Evening Prayer_. 

(c) The proposed words, "Let us humbly confess our sins untoAlmighty God, " are justly thought by many to be inferior bothin rhythm and in dignity to "Let us make humble confession toAlmighty God. "

(i)-(l) There seems to be absolute unanimity in the judgment that_Magnificat_ and _Nunc Dimittis_ ought, as Gospel Hymns, to havethe prior places after the Lessons which they follow. In theinterest of simplicity of arrangement a like general consent toomit altogether _Bonum est confiteri_ and _Benedic anima mea_ wouldbe most fortunate, but this point has been already enlarged uponin a previous paper. [69]

The "Notes, " permitting the use of Psalms xlii. And xliii. Afterthe Lessons during Lent, seem to have found no favor in any quarter, and ought undoubtedly to be dropped. 

(n) If the lost versicles are to be restored after the Creed, asall who have learned to love them in the service of the Church ofEngland must earnestly desire, some better substitute for "God savethe queen, " than "O Lord, save our rulers, " ought surely to befound. [70] Moreover, the order of the versicles, as Prof. Goldhas clearly pointed out, [71] is open to improvement. 

RESOLUTION V. 

_The Beatitudes of the Gospel_. 

This is the one feature of _The Book Annexed_ against which thefire of hostile criticism has been the most persistently directed. Whether the strictures passed upon the Office have been in allcases as intelligent as they have been severe, may be open toquestion, but there can be no doubt whatever that, in its presentform, Resolution V. Would, if put to the vote, be rejected. 

Passing by the more violent utterances of those whose languagealmost suggests that they find something objectionable in thevery BEATITUDES themselves, [72] it will suffice to considerand weigh what has been said in various quarters, first, aboutthe unprecedented character of the Office, and secondly, concerningthe infelicity of the appointed response, "Lord, have mercy uponus, and be it unto thy servants according to thy word. "

So far as concerns precedent, it ought to be enough to say thatthe words are our Lord's words, and that they were thrown by himinto a form which readily lends itself to antiphonal use. The verysame characteristics of parallelism and antithesis, that make thePsalms so amenable to the purposes of worship, are conspicuous inthe BEATITUDES. If the Church of England, for three hundred years, has been willing to give place in her devotions to the Curses ofthe Old Testament, [73] we of America need not to be afraid, precedent or no precedent, to make room among our formularies forthe Blessings of the New. 

Those who allow themselves to characterize the liturgical use ofthese memorable sayings of the Son of Man as "fancy ritual" and"sentimentalism" may well pause to ask themselves what manner ofspirit they are of. The BEATITUDES are the charter of the kingdomof heaven. If they are "sentimental, " the kingdom is "sentimental";but if, on the other hand, they constitute the organic law of thePeople of God, they have at least as fair a right as the TenCommandments to be published from the altar, and answered by thegreat congregation. 

But is the complaint of "no precedent" a valid one, even supposingconsiderations of intrinsic fitness to have been ruled out?

The Liturgy of St. Chrysostom provides that the Beatitudes shallbe sung on Sundays in room of the third antiphon. [74]

The learned Bishop of Haiti, in a paper warmly commending theliturgical use of the BEATITUDES, [75] calls attention to thefurther fact that the Eight Sayings have a place in some of theservice-books of the Eastern Church in the Office for the Sixth andNinth Hours, and notes the suggestive and touching circumstancesthat, as there used, they have for a response the words of thepenitent thief upon the cross. We might all of us well pray to be"remembered" in that kingdom to which these Blessings give the law. 

In _The Primer set forth by the King's Majesty and his Clergy_ in1545, a sort of stepping-stone to the later "Book of Common Prayer, "we find the BEATITUDES very ingeniously worked into the Office ofThe Hours, as anthems; beginning with Prime and ending withEvensong. Appropriate Collects are interwoven, some of them sobeautiful as to be well worth preserving. [76]

But the most interesting precedent of all remains still to bestudied. In the first year of the reign of William and Mary, aRoyal Commission was appointed to revise the Book of Common Prayer. The most eminent Anglican divines of the day, including Tillotson, Stillingfleet, Patrick, and Beveridge, were among the members. Toall outward appearance the movement came to naught; for the proposedrevision was not even put into print, until in 1854, the House ofCommons, in response to a motion of Mr. Heywood, ordered it to bepublished as a Blue-book. And yet in some way our American revisersof 1789 must have found access to the original volume as it layhidden in the archbishop's library at Lambeth; for not only doestheir work show probable evidence of such consultation, but in theirPreface they distinctly refer to the effort of King William'sCommission as a "great and good work, "[77] a thing they wouldscarcely have done had they possessed no real knowledge of thefacts. Macaulay's sneering reference to the work of the Commissionis well known, but, strangely enough, the justice which a Whigreviewer withholds, a high Anglican divine concedes, for no lessexacting a critic than Dr. Neale, while manifesting, as was to beexpected, a general dislike of the Commissioners of 1689, and oftheir work, does yet find something to praise in what theyrecommended. [78]

Among the real improvements suggested by the Commission was theliturgical use of the BEATITUDES, and this in two places, once in"The Order for the Administration of the Lord's Supper, " as analternate to the Ten Commandments; and again in the ComminationOffice as a proper balance to the Anathemas of the Law. 

But the Commission, like the late Joint Committee on the Book ofCommon Prayer, was unfortunate in its choice of a response; and nowonder, for the task of finding the proper one is difficult. [79]

A Beatitude differs from a Commandment in that while the latterenjoins the former only declares. The one therefore simply callsfor assent, or, at most, assent coupled with petition, while theother peremptorily demands a cry for mercy. The immemorial form ofthe cry for mercy in the devotions of Christendom is the "Kyrieeleison, " _Lord, have mercy upon us_; the immemorial form of assentthe word _Amen_. Can we do better, therefore, in adapting theBEATITUDES to liturgical use than to treat them precisely as theCurses are treated in the Commination Office of the Church ofEngland, namely, by inserting after each one of them a plain_Amen_. 

This recommendation has the great merit of simplicity. Two or threestrikingly ingenious schemes for supplying each of the Eight Sayingswith a proper response of its own have been suggested;[80] but theobjection to them is that, beautiful though they are, theircomplexity would embarrass and distress the kneeling worshipper. In these matters, practical drawbacks have to be taken into accountas well as abstract excellencies, and no matter how felicitous theantiphonal responses, they would be worse than useless were apuzzled congregation to refuse to join in them. 

There will be found appended to this Paper a plan for recastingthe Office of the BEATITUDES in such a way as to make it coincidestructurally, as far as it goes, with the introductory portionof the Holy Communion. [81] Were the Office to be thus set forth, it would be possible on week-days, and with singular appropriatenesson Saints' Days, to substitute the BEATITUDES for the Commandments, without encumbering the Communion Office with an alternate. Shouldthis suggestion find acceptance, the two Collects in the presentOffice of BEATITUDES, which are far too good to be lost, one ofthem being the modified form of a Leonine original, and the otherone of the very best of Canon Bright's own compositions, might betransferred to a place among the "Occasional Prayers. "

RESOLUTION VI. 

_The Litany_. 

The rubrics prefixed to the Litany are a gain, but except by theaddition of the two new suffrages, the one for the President andthe other for the increase of the ministry, it will probably bebest to leave the text of this formulary untouched. Even in thecase of the new petitions it would be well if they could begrafted upon suffrages already existing, a thing that might easilybe done. [82]

It would be a liturgical improvement if the Litany, in its shortenedform, were to end at the _Christe_, _audi_, and the ministerdirected to return, at this point, to the General Thanksgivingin the Morning Prayer. This would divide the Litany symmetrically, instead of arbitrarily, as is now done, and would remove the GeneralThanksgiving from a place to which it has little claim either byhistorical precedent or natural congruity. 

The greatest improvement of all would be the restoration of theaugust and massive words of invocation which of old stood at thebeginning of the Litany. The modern invocations have a dignity oftheir own, but they are not to be compared for devotional power andsimple majesty with the more ancient ones. But for an "enrichment"so good as this, it is too much to hope. 

RESOLUTION VII. 

_Prayers and Thanksgivings_. 

The Maryland Committee[83] have much to say in criticism of thissection, and offer many valuable suggestions, the best of them beinga recommendation to print the Prayer entitled, "For Grace to speakthe Truth in Love, " in Canon Bright's own words. Some of theircomments, on the other hand, suggest canons of criticism which, if applied to "The Prayer Book as it is, " would make havoc of itschoicest treasures. [84]

The Committee of Central New York[85] go much further in the lineof destructive criticism than their brethren of Maryland, and afterexcepting four of the proposed prayers, condemn all the rest todismissal. 

Possibly this is just judgment, but those who have searcheddiligently the storehouses of devotional English, will thinktwice before they consent to it. No doubt the phraseology of someof the proposed prayers might be improved. In view of the searchingcriticism to which for three years it has been exposed, it wouldbe strange indeed if such were not found to be the case. But thecollection as a whole, instead of suffering loss, ought to receiveincrement. At least three or four more prayers for the work ofmissions in its various aspects ought to be added, also a Prayerfor the furtherance of Christian Education in Schools and Colleges. As Br. Dowden shrewdly asks, in speaking of spiritual needs whichwe postpone expressing for lack of language sufficiently artisticin form, "What is the measure of our faith in the efficacy of unitedprayer, when we are content to go on, year after year, and nevercome together to ask God to supply those needs?"[86]

There is one consideration connected with this supply of specialprayers too frequently lost out of sight. While it is perfectlytrue that the Book of Common Prayer was never designed to be a_Treasury of Devotion_ for individuals, it is equally true thatfor thousands and hundreds of thousands of our fellow-countrymenwho live remote from "Church book-stores, " or lack the means ofpatronizing them, the Prayer Book is, as a matter of fact, theironly devotional help. In countless households, moreover, many ofthem beyond "Protestant Episcopal" borders altogether, the PrayerBook is doing a work only less beneficent than it might do, were weto concede a very little more to that outwardly illogical butspiritually self-consistent policy which, breaking away, a centuryago, from the chain of precedent, inserted in the American Book"The Forms of Prayer to be used in Families. "

RESOLUTION VIII. 

_Penitential Office for Ash-Wednesday_. 

This is the English Commination Office, with the introductoryportion omitted. It would add to the merit of the formulary, especially when used as a separate office, were it to be prefacedby the versicle and response, similarly employed in the HerefordBreviary:

_V_. Let us confess unto the Lord, for he is gracious. 

_R_. And his mercy endureth forever. 

In view of the great length of the Morning Service on Ash-Wednesday, and the close similarity between the closing portion of the Litanyand the intermediate portion of this Office, the following emendationof the first Rubric is suggested, a change which would carry withit the omission of the Rubric after psalm li. A little further on. 

_On the_ First Day of Lent, _at_ Morning Prayer, _the Officeensuing shall be read immediately after the words_, Have mercyupon us, _in the Litany, and in place of what there followeth_. 

In the third Rubric it might be well to add to "_shall be said_"the words, "_or sung_. "

The blessing at the end of the office should stand, as in theEnglish Book, in the precatory form; otherwise we might have theanomaly of a benediction pronounced before the end of the service. 

RESOLUTION IX. 

_Thanksgiving-day or Harvest-home_. 

The only alteration needed in this office is the restoration ofthe beautiful prayer for unity to its own proper wording as givenin the so-called "Accession Service" appended to the English PrayerBook. As it stands in _The Book Annexed_ the language of the prayeris possibly ungrammatical and certainly redundant. A critic, already more than once quoted, [87] protests against the prominencegiven to this office in _The Book Annexed_, ascribing it toinfluences born of the associations of New England. But althoughthe motive of the revisers might have had a worse origin than thatof which the reviewer complains, the actual fact is that theformulary was placed where it is purely in consideration of theliturgical fitness of things; it having been held that the properposition for an Office of Thanksgiving must be in immediate sequenceto an Office of Penitence. 

It is with sincere diffidence that the present writer differswith _The Seminarian_, on a point of historical precedent, buthe ventures to suggest that to find the prototype of Harvest-homewe must go back far beyond New England, and for that matter farbeyond Old England, nay, beyond the Christian era itself, evento the day when it was said, "Thou shalt observe the Feast ofTabernacles, seven days, after that thou hast gathered in thy cornand thy wine. " Doubtless there is a joy greater than the "joy ofharvest, " and to this we give expression in the Eucharist; butdoubtless also the joy of harvest is in itself a proper joy andone which finds fitting utterance in such forms of prayer andpraise as this. 

RESOLUTION XI. 

_Collects, Epistles, and Gospels_. 

No department of liturgical revision calls for a nicer touch thanthat which includes the Collects. That new collects for certainunsupplied feasts and fasts would be a genuine enrichment of TheBook of Common Prayer, has long been generally acknowledged amongAnglican scholars. The most weighty fault to be found with thecollects added by the revisers is that in too large proportionthey are addressed to the second and third Persons of the HolyTrinity. The Eucharist itself, as a whole, is properly conceivedof as addressed to the Eternal Father. The Collects, as formingpart of the Eucharistic Office, ought, strictly speaking, to bealso so addressed. It is true that there are exceptions to thisrule, and they are found, some of them, in the Prayer Book as itis. But the revisers ought not to have altered the proportion somarkedly as they have done, for whereas in our present Book thecollects addressed to the Father are as eighty-three to threecompared with those not so addressed, the ratio in _The BookAnnexed_ is that of eleven to three. 

Moreover, there would seem to be no good reason for reverting tothe usage of the First Book of Edward VI. , which provides a secondCollect, Epistle, and Gospel for the two great feasts of Christmasand Easter. A better way would be to take these additional collects, which are among the most beautiful in the language, and assign themrespectively to the Sunday after Christmas, and the Monday inEaster-week. 

RESOLUTION XII. 

_The Holy Communion_. 

To the few changes proposed in this Office, comparatively slightexception has been taken in any quarter. It will probably bewise to leave the language of the Prayer of Consecration whollyuntouched, notwithstanding the alleged grammatical error near theend of it. 

The Rubric which it has been proposed to append to the Office, touching the number of communicants without which it shall not belawful to administer the Sacrament, being of a disciplinary ratherthan of a liturgical character, ought not to be urged. The proposalto transfer the Prayer of Humble Access to a place immediatelybefore the Communion appears to be very generally acceptable. 

It would relieve many worshippers who scruple as Christians atresponding to the Fourth Commandment on the score of its Judaiccharacter, if the language of the rubric prefixed to the Decaloguecould contain, as did the corresponding rubric in Laud's Book forScotland, a clause indicative of the mystical and spiritual sensein which the Law should be interpreted by those who live under theGospel. But such a proposal would probably be accounted "ofdoctrine, " and so be self-condemned. 

Of the desirability of allowing a week-day use of the BEATITUDESin the room of the COMMANDMENTS enough has been already said. 

RESOLUTION XVI. 

_Confirmation_. 

The permission to use a form of presentation instead of, or inaddition to, the Preface is likely to be widely welcomed. Theother _addenda_ to this office, being apparently distasteful (forunlike reasons) to all the "schools of thoughts" in the Church, are likely to fail of acceptance; and on the whole may easily bespared. 

RESOLUTION XVIII. 

_Visitation of the Sick_. 

The proposed Commendatory Prayer, though in some of its featuresstrikingly felicitous, is open to formal improvement. The additionof a short _Litany of the Dying_ would be appreciated by thosewhose ministry is largely exercised among the sick. 

RESOLUTION XX. 

_Burial of the Dead_. 

By far the most important section of this Resolution is the oneproviding for the insertion of special features when the officeis used at the burial of children. The provision, or at least thesuggestion, of a more appropriate Lesson would be wise, but forthe rest, the office is almost all that could be wished. 

A recent critic[88] raises the question, "Why single out infantsalone for a special service? Why not forms for rich men and poormen--old men and maidens--widows and orphans?" And yet our LordJesus Christ did single out little children in a very striking andwonderful manner, and drew a distinction between them and us whichmay well justify our treating their obsequies with a peculiartenderness. Even Rome, _Mater dura infantum_ as she has beensometimes thought, is studious to consult in this point the naturalaffections of the bereaved, and appoints a funeral mass distinctfrom that appointed for the dead in general. 

Bishop Seabury felt the need of a rite of this sort and preparedone, but whether it was ever in actual use among the clergy ofConnecticut the writer is not informed. Many, very many, sinceSeabury's day, have felt the same need, and it is safe to say thatno one feature of _The Book Annexed_ has enjoyed so universal awelcome as this rightful concession to the demands of the parentalheart. 

CONCLUSION. 

The survey of corrigenda is now complete. The list looks like along one, but really the points noted are few compared with thosewhich have passed unchallenged. Here and there in the Resolutionsthat have not been considered are words or phrases that admit ofimprovement, and which in an actual and authorized re-review bya Committee of Conference would undoubtedly be improved. 

The bulk of the work has, for a period of three years, stood theincessant fire of a not always friendly criticism far better thancould have been anticipated by those who in the first instancegave it shape. The difficulties of the task have been immense. Thatthey have not all of them been successfully overcome is clearenough, but that they were faced with an honest purpose to bejust and fair, and that this purpose was clung to persistentlythroughout, is a credit which Churchmen of the next generationwill not withhold from those who sought to be of service to them. 

It remains to be seen whether the representatives of the Churchwill take up this work and perfect it; or _per contra_ in responseto the demand for a "Commission of Experts, " or the specious bututterly impracticable[89] proposal of concerted action with theChurch of England, will decide to postpone the whole affair to theGreek Kalends. One thing is certain, to wit, that the death of thismovement will mean inaction for at least a quarter of a century. The men do not live who will have the courage to embark on a freshenterprise of the like purport while the shipwreck of this one isbefore their eyes. There are many who, out of a conscientious fearof disturbing what they like to think of as permanently settled, would view such a conclusion of the whole matter with profoundgratitude to God. But there are many more to whom such a confessionof the Church's inability to appreciate and unwillingness to meetthe spiritual needs of a civilization wonderfully unlike anythingthat has preceded it would be most disheartening. Least of all isthere valid ground for hope in the case of those who fancy that ifthey can only annihilate this project, the day will speedilycome when they can revise the Prayer Book in a manner perfectlyconformable to their own conception of the "Ideal Liturgy, " andafter a fashion which the most ardent Anglo-Catholic must fainapprove. 

The American Book of Common Prayer bears the impress to-day oftwo controlling minds, the mind of Seabury and the mind of White. Doubtless it stood written in the councils of the Divine Providencethat so it should be. The two men represented respectively the twomodes of apprehending spiritual truth which have always been allowedcounterplay and interaction in the history of English religion, andwhich always will be allowed such counterplay and interaction whileEnglish religion remains the comprehensive thing it is. No schemeof liturgical revision, no matter how scientifically constructed, will ever find acceptance with the people of this Church which doesnot do even-handed justice to both of the great historic growthswhich find their common root in Anglican soil. 

When the spirit of Seabury shall have completely exorcised thespirit of White, or the spirit of White shall have completelyexorcised the spirit of Seabury from the Church and from the PrayerBook, logic will have triumphed, as sixteen years ago it triumphedunder the dome of St. Peter's--logical consistency will havetriumphed, but catholicity will have fled. 

NOTE. 

THE BEATITUDES OF THE GOSPEL. 

_On_ Christmas-day, Easter-day, _and_ Whitsunday, _and on anyweek-day save_ Ash-Wednesday _and_ Good Friday, _this Office maybe used in lieu of so much of_ The Order for the Administrationof the Lord's Supper _as precedeth the Epistle for the Day_. 

_This Office may also be used separately on occasions for whichno proper Order hath been provided_. 

_The Minister standing up shall say the Lord's Prayer and theCollect following, the People kneeling, but the Lord's Prayer maybe omitted if it hath been said immediately before_. 

Our Father, who art in heaven, Hallowed be thy Name. Thy kingdomcome. Thy will be done on earth, As it is in heaven. Give us thisday our daily bread. And forgive us our trespasses, As we forgivethose who trespass against us. And lead us not into temptation; Butdeliver us from evil. _Amen_. 

_The Collect_. 

Almighty God, unto whom all hearts are open, all desires known, andfrom whom no secrets are hid; Cleanse the thoughts of our hearts bythe inspiration of thy Holy Spirit, that we may perfectly love thee, and worthily magnify thy holy Name; through Christ our Lord. _Amen_. 

_Then shall the Minister, turning to the People, rehearse the EightSayings of our Lord commonly called_ THE BEATITUDES; _and thePeople, still kneeling, shall after every one of them reverentlysay_ Amen. 

_Minister_. 

Jesus went up into a mountain; and his disciples came unto him. Andhe opened his mouth and taught them, saying: Blessed are the poorin spirit; for theirs is the kingdom of heaven. 

_Answer_. Amen. 

_Minister_. Blessed are they that mourn; for they shall be comforted. 

_Answer_. Amen. 

_Minister_. Blessed are the meek; for they shall inherit the earth. 

_Answer_. Amen. 

_Minister_. Blessed are they which do hunger and thirst afterrighteousness; for they shall be filled. 

_Answer_. Amen. 

_Minister_. Blessed are the pure in heart; for they shall see God. 

_Answer_. Amen. 

_Minister_. Blessed are the peace-makers; for they shall be calledthe children of God. 

_Answer_. Amen. 

_Minister_. Blessed are they which are persecuted for righteousness'sake; for theirs is the kingdom of heaven. 

_Answer_. Amen. 

_Minister_. 

Hear also what the voice from heaven saith. Blessed are the deadwho die in the Lord. 

_Answer_. 

Even so, saith the Spirit, for they rest from their labors. 

_Minister_. 

Let us pray. 

Almighty and Eternal God, to whom is never any prayer made withouthope of mercy; Bow thine ear, we beseech thee, to our supplications, and in the country of peace and rest cause us to be made partnerswith thy holy servants; through Jesus Christ our Lord. _Amen_. [90]

_Then shall be said the Collect for the Day and, unless the HolyCommunion is immediately to follow, such other prayer or prayers, taken out of this Book, as the Minister shall think proper_. 

APPENDIX:

_SERMONS BEFORE AND AFTER_. 

APPENDIX. 

PERMANENT AND VARIABLE CHARACTERISTICS OP THE PRAYER BOOK. 

A SERMON PREACHED IN ST. STEPHEN'S CHURCH, PHILADELPHIA, ON THEANNIVERSARY OF THE BISHOP WHITE PRAYER BOOK SOCIETY, SUNDAY, NOVEMBER 24, 1878. 

One generation passeth away; and another generation cometh. --Eccles. I. 4. 

Against the background of this sombre fact of change, whateverthere is in life that is stable stands out with a sharpness thatcompels notice. Just because the world is so full of variableness, our hearts' affections fasten with the tighter grip upon anythingthat seems to have the guarantees of permanence. The Book of CommonPrayer appeals to us on this score, precisely as the Bible, in itslarger measure, does: it is the book of many generations, not ofone, and there is "the hiding of its power. " We have received thePrayer Book from the generations that are gone; we purpose handingit on when "another generation cometh"; we hold it for the use andblessing of the generation which now is. 

Our thoughts about the book, therefore, if we would have thethinking rightly done, must take hold upon the past, the present, and the future, a breadth of topic covered well enough perhaps bythis phrase, The Permanent and the Variable Characteristics of thePrayer Book. 

I make no apology for asking you to take up the subject in so gravea temper. Now, for more than three hundred years, the Common Prayerhas been the manual of worship in use with the greater number ofthe people of that race which, meanwhile, in the providence of God, has been growing up to be the leading power on earth. Everywherethe English language seems to be going forth conquering and toconquer, and whithersoever it penetrates it carries with it theletters and the social traditions of a people whose character hasbeen largely moulded by the influences of the Prayer Book. Africans, Indians, Hindoos are to-day, even in their heathenism, feeling theeffects of waves of movement which throb from this centre. Men inauthority, the world over, are living out, with more or less ofconsistency and thoroughness, those convictions about our dutytoward God, and our duty toward our neighbor, which were earlyinwrought into their consciences through the instrumentality ofthese venerable forms. Surely no one can afford to think or speakotherwise than most seriously and carefully with regard to a bookwhich has behind it a history so worthy, so rich, so pregnant withpromise for the future. 

Look first, then, at the power which the Prayer Book draws fromits affiliations with the past. It is a common remark, so commonas to be commonplace, that our liturgy owes its excellence to thefact of its not having been the composition or compilation of anyone man. So much is evident enough upon the face of it: for a formof worship devised off-hand by an individual, or even put togetherby a committee sitting around a table, could scarcely be whollysatisfactory to any save the maker or the makers of it. But it ismore to the purpose to observe that not only is the Prayer Booknot the result of any one man's or any one committee's labors; itis not the work even of any one generation, or of any one age. 

The men who gradually put the Prayer Book into what is substantiallyits present shape, in the days of Edward VI. And of Elizabeth, wereno more the makers of the Prayer Book than were the men who, in alater reign, set forth what we call "the authorized version" of theHoly Scriptures, the first translators of the Bible. In both casesthe work done was a work of review and revision. A much more severereview, a vastly more sweeping revision in the case of the PrayerBook than in the case of the Bible, I grant; but still, mainlya work of review and revision after all. "Continuity, " thatcharacteristic so precious in the eye of modern science, continuitymarked the whole process. 

The first Prayer Book of the Reformed Church of England was acondensed, simplified, and purified combination of formulariesof worship already in use in the National Church. A certainamount of new material, some of it home-made, some of it drawnfrom foreign sources, was added; but the great bulk of thenew service-book had been contained in one or other of theolder manuals. The Reformers did but clip and prune, with thatexquisite taste and judgment which belong by tradition to Englishgardeners, the overgrowth and rank luxuriance of a too longneglected, "careless-ordered" garden. But whence came the earlierformularies themselves, from which Cranmer and the rest quarriedthe stone for the new building?--to change the metaphor as Paul, you remember, does so suddenly from husbandry to architecture. [91]Whence came Missal, and Breviary, and Book of Offices--the bestportions of which were merged in the English Common Prayer?From the far past; the Missal from those primitive liturgies orcommunion services, some of which we trace back with certaintyto the later portion of the ante-Niceneage, and by not unreasonableconjecture to the edge of apostolic days; the Breviary or dailyprayers from the times when Christians first took up communitylife; the Offices from periods of uncertain date all along thetrack of previous Church history. But what advantage, asks someonefull of the modern spirit, what advantage has the Common Prayerin that it can trace a genealogy running up through ages of suchuncertain reputation? Have we not been accustomed to regard thosetimes as hopelessly corrupt, impenetrably dark, universallysuperstitious? Ought we not to be mortified, rather than gratified, to learn that from the pit of so mouldy a past our book of prayerwas digged? Would not a brand-new liturgy, modernized expresslyto meet the needs of nineteenth century culture, with all the oldEnglish idioms displaced, every rough corner smoothed and everycrooked place made straight--would not that be something farworthier our respect, better entitled to our allegiance, thanthis book full of far-away echoes, and faint bell-notes from ahalf-forgotten past?

Yes, if modern man were only modern man and nothing more, suchreasoning would be extremely cogent. But what if modern man bereally, not the mere creature of the century in which he lives, but the gathered sum and product of all that has preceded him inhistory? What if you and I, from the very fact that we are livingnow, have in the dim groundwork of our nature something that wouldnot have been there had we lived one, three, twelve hundred yearsago? What if there be such a thing as cumulative acquirement forthe race of men, so that a new generation starts with an availablecapital of associations and ideas of which the generation lastpreceding it owned but a part? Take such words as "feudalism, " "theCrusades, " "the Renaissance, " "the printing press, " consider howmuch they mean to us, and then remember that to a man of the thirdcentury they would have been empty sounds conveying absolutely nomeaning. What all this goes to show is that human nature is a mapwhich is continually unrolling. To say that the entirety of it liesbetween the two meridians that bound the particular tract in whichour own little life happens to be cast is stupid. The whole greatpast belongs to us--river and island, ocean, forest, continent, allare ours. You and the man in armor, you and the Venetian merchant, you and the cowled monk have something, be it ever so little, something in common. That which was in the foreground of their lifeis now in the background or in the middle distance of yours. It hasbecome a part of you. [92]

So, then, if we would have a liturgy that shall speak to our wholenature, and not to a mere fraction of it, it must be a liturgy fullof voices sounding out of the past. There must be reminders andsuggestions in it of all the great epochs of the Church's story. Yes, echoes even from those very ages which we call dark (perhapsas much because we are in the dark about them as on account of anyspecial blackness attaching to the times themselves), some echoeseven from them may have a rightful place in the worship which is tocall out responsively all that is in the heart of the most modernof modern men. 

As there were heroes before Agamemnon, so were there holy and humblemen of heart before Cranmer and Luther, yes, and before Jerome andAugustine. If any cry that ever went up from any one of them out ofthe depths of that nature which they share with us and we with them, if any breath of supplication, any moan of penitence, any shout ofvictory that issued from their lips has made out to survive thenoise and tumult of intervening times, it has earned by its verypersistency of tone a _prima facie_ title to be put into the PrayerBook of to-day. [93] And this is why a prayer book may survive thewreck of many systems of theology. A prayer book holds the utteranceof our needs; a theological system is the embodiment of our thoughts. 

Now our thoughts about things divine are painfully fallible andliable to change with change of times; but a want which is genuinelyand entirely human is a permanent fact; the great needs of the soulnever grow obsolete, and though the language in which the lips shallclothe the heart's desire may alter, as tastes alter, yet thesubstance of the prayer abides, and in some happy instances theform also abides. 

To an eye that looks wisely and lovingly on such sights, there isthe same keen sense of enjoyment in finding here and there in thePrayer Book suggestions of forgotten customs, reminders of famouspersons and events, that there is in detecting in the masonry ofan old castle or minster tell-tale stones which betray the differentages, the "sundry times and divers manners" which the fabricrepresents. Who, for instance, that has traced the history ofthat apostolic ordinance, "the kiss of peace, " down through theliturgical changes and revolutions of eighteen hundred years, canfail to be interested in finding in a single clause of one of theexhortations of our communion service that which corresponds tothe literal kiss of primitive times, as well as to the petrifiedsymbol of the original reality, the silver, ivory, or wooden"osculatory" of the mediaeval Church?[94] So with "Ash-Wednesday, "a single syllable opens a whole chapter of Church history. Again, the Latin headings to the psalms of the Psalter; with what animpatient gesture can we imagine a spruce reviser brushing theseaway as so much trash! They are not trash, they are way marks thattell of times when devout men loved those catchwords, as we lovethe first lines of our favorite hymns. A few of the headings, such as "_De Profundis_" and "_Miserere_, " still possess suchassociations for ourselves. There was a time when very many moreof them meant to men now dead and gone as much as "Rock of Ages, "or "Sun of my Soul, " or "Lead, kindly Light, " can mean to you orme. [95]

Then, too, the monuments of specially revered heroes of the faiththat dot the paths of the Common Prayer, how precious they are! Welike to think of Ambrose as speaking to us in the lofty sentencesof the _Te Deum_. It is pleasant to associate Chrysostom with theprayer that bears his name, and to know that he who swayed thecity's multitude still prized the Master's promise to the "two orthree gathered together" in his name. So also, in our American Book, Jeremy Taylor, the modern Chrysostom, meets us in the Office forthe Visitation of the Sick, in that solemn prayer addressed to Him"whose days are without end, and whose mercies cannot be numbered. "All these things help to make the Prayer Book the large-hearted, wide-minded book we all of us feel it to be, so like a friendwhom we revere because he is kindly in his tone, generous in hisjudgments, quick to understand us at every point. 

So much for the past of the Prayer Book. We have touched it in noimage-breaking mood, but with reverence. "One generation passethaway, another generation cometh, " and it has been the peculiarfelicity of this book to stand

 A link among the days, to knit The generations each to each. 

We pass on to consider the present usefulness of the Prayer Bookand the possibility of extending that usefulness in the future. And now I shall speak wholly as an American to Americans, notbecause the destinies of the Prayer Book in the New World arethe more important, though such may in the end turn out to bethe fact, but simply because we are at home here and know our ownwants and wishes, our own liabilities and opportunities, far betterthan we can possibly know those of other people. As a Church wehave always tied ourselves too slavishly to English precedent. Ourvine is greatly in danger of continuing merely a potted ivy, anindoor exotic. The past of the Common Prayer we cannot disconnectfrom England, but its present and its future belong in part atleast to us, and it is in this light that we are bound as AmericanChurchmen to study them. Let us agree, then, that the usefulnessof the book here and now lies largely in the moulding and formativeinfluence which it is quietly exerting, not only on the religionof those who use it, but also largely on the religion of the fargreater number who publicly use it not. It has interested me, asit would interest almost anyone, to learn how many prayer booksour booksellers supply to Christian people who are not Churchmen. Evidently the book is in use as a private manual with thousands, who own no open allegiance to the Protestant Episcopal Church. Theykeep it on the devotional shelf midway between Thomas a Kempis andthe Pilgrim's Progress, finding it a sort of interpreter of theone to the other, and possessed of a certain flavor differencingit from both. This is a happy augury for the future. Much latentheat is generating which shall yet warm up the dullness of the land. The seed-grain of the Common Prayer will not lie unproductive inthose forgotten furrows. The fitness of such a system of worshipas this to counteract some of the flagrant evils of our popularreligion can scarcely fail to commend it to the minds of those whothus unobserved and, "as it were in secret, " read and ponder. Much of our American piety, fervid as it is, shows confessedlya feverish, intermittent character which needs just such a tonicas the Prayer Book provides in what Keble happily called its "soberstandard of feeling in matters of practical religion. "

Then, too, there is the constantly increasing interest which itis such a pleasure to observe among Christians of all names inthe order of the ritual year, in Christmas and Easter, Lent andGood-Friday--who can tell how much of this may not be due to theleavening influence of the Prayer Book, over and above what iseffected by the public services of the Church? "I wonder, " saida famous revivalist to a friend, a clergyman of our Church, "Iwonder if you Episcopalians know what a good thing you have inthat year of yours. Why don't you use it more?"

And true enough, why do we not? That we might learn to do so was awish very near to the heart of that holy and true man who, ifanyone, deserves the title of the saint among our priests, thelate Dr. Muhlenberg, the man who twenty-five years ago headed thenot wholly abortive movement known as the "Memorial. "[96] Onefruit of that movement is perhaps to be seen in the earnest desirenow prevalent throughout the Church to see the scope of the PrayerBook's influence enlarged. In General Conventions and ChurchCongresses nowadays no topic excites greater interest than thequestion how better to adapt the services of the Church tothe present needs and special conditions of all classes of thepopulation. To be sure, the apparent impotence of the governingbody to find or furnish any lawful way of relief is a littlediscouraging, but it is something to see an almost universalassent given in terms, to the proposition that relief ought tobe had. What we have to fear is that during the long delaywhich puts off the only proper and regular method of giving moreelasticity to the services, there may spring up a generation ofChurchmen from whose minds the idea of obligation to law in mattersof ritual observance will have faded out altogether. 

There is a conservatism so conservative that it will stand by andsee a building tumble down rather than lay a sacrilegious hand ona single stone, will see dam and mill and village all swept awaysooner than lift the flash-boards that keep the superabundant waterfrom coming safely down. It is among the things possible, that forlack of readjustment and timely adaptation of the laws regulatingworship, just such a fate may befall our whole liturgical fabric. 

The plausible theory of "the rubric of common sense, " about whichwe have heard so much, a theory good within limitations, isthreatening, by the wholesale application it receives, presentlyto annul all other rubrics whatsoever. When, by this process, uniformity and even similarity shall have been utterly abolished, when it shall have become impossible for one to know beforehand ofa Sunday whether he is going to mass, or to meeting, or to church, the inquiry will be in order, What has conservatism of this sortreally conserved?

"The personal liberty of the officiating clergyman, " I fearwill be the only answer; certainly not, "The liberty of theworshipping congregation. " The straight and only honest way outof our embarrassment will, some day or other, be found, I dare notbelieve very soon, in a careful, loving, fair-minded revision ofthe formularies; a revision undertaken, not for the purpose ofgiving victory to one theological party rather than to another, orof changing in any degree the doctrinal teaching of the Church, but solely and wholly with a view to enriching, amplifying, andmaking more available the liturgical treasures of the book. 

"One generation passeth away, another generation cometh. " As wehave seen in these words an argument in favor of not breaking withthe past, so let them also speak to us of our plain duty to thepresent. True, the great needs are, as I have said, common aliketo all the generations, to those that pass and those that come; butthe lesser needs are variable, and unless we are prepared to takethe ground that because "lesser" they maybe disregarded altogether, we are bound, with the changed times, to provide for the new wantsnew satisfactions. Take, simply by way of illustration, the need westand in of an appropriate form of third service for use on Sundaysin city churches, when Morning and Evening Prayer have been alreadysaid according to the prescribed order. 

Why have we no such service?

Simply because no such need existed in our American cities when thePrayer Book, as we have it now, was taking shape, at the close ofthe last century. Just as no form for the administration of AdultBaptism was put into Queen Elizabeth's Prayer Book, simply becausethe usage of Infant Baptism was universal in that day, and therewere no unbaptized adults; but such service was inserted at theRestoration to meet the need that had sprung up under the Puritanregime; so was it unnecessary in Bishop White's day to provide fora form of service which has only become practicable and desirablesince modern discovery has enabled us to make the public streetsalmost as safe at night as in the daytime, and church-going as easyby gaslight as by sunlight. 

Now it is perfectly possible, of course, under the present order ofthings, and with no change in rubric or canon law, for any clergymanto provide an additional service, to provide it in the form of amosaic made up of bits of the liturgy wrenched out of their properplaces, and so irregularly put together that no stranger among theworshippers can possibly, with the book in hand, thread his wayamong its intricacies. 

But when we consider how many exquisite gems of devotional speechthere are still left outside the covers of the Prayer Book; when weconsider how delightful it would be to have back again the_Magnificat _, and the _Nunc Dimittis _, and some of the sweetversicles of the Evensong of the Church of England; when we considerthe lamentable mistake already made in our existing formularies ofintroducing into Morning and Evening Prayer identically the sameopening sentences, the same General Exhortation, the same GeneralConfession, the same Declaration of Absolution, the same Prayer forthe President, and the same General Thanksgiving--is it not evidentthat an additional, or, if you please, an alternative service, composed of material not elsewhere employed, would be for theworshippers a very great gain? The repetition which wearies isonly the repetition which we feel need not have been. We nevertire of the Collect for Peace any more than we tire of the sunset. It is in its place, and we always welcome it. In a perfect liturgyno form of words, except the Creed, the Doxology, and the Lord'sPrayer, would at any time reappear, but as in arabesque work everysquare inch of space differs from every other square, so each clauseand sentence of the manual of worship would have a distinctivebeauty of its own, to be looked for precisely there and nowhereelse. 

This is but one illustration of what may be called a possibleenrichment of our Book of Common Prayer. Impoverishment underthe name of revision may very justly be deprecated, but who shallfind any just fault with an enrichment that is really such?

We must remember that the men who gave us what we now have were, intheir day and generation, the innovators, advocates of what themore timid spirits accounted dangerous change. We cannot, I think, sufficiently admire the courageous foresight of those Reformerswho, at a time when public worship was mainly associated in men'sminds with what went on among a number of ecclesiastics gatheredtogether at one end of a church, dared to plant themselves firmlyon the principle of "common" prayer, and to say, Henceforth theworship of the National Church shall be the worship not of priestsalone, but of priests and people too. What a bold act it was! Theprinting-press, remember, although it had given the impulse to theReformation, was far from being at that time the omnipresent thingit is now; books were scarce; popular education, as we understandit, was unknown; there were no means of supplying service-books tothe poorer classes (no Prayer Book Societies, like this of yours), nor could the books have been used had they been furnished. And yetin the face of these seemingly insuperable obstacles, the leadersof religious thought in the England of that day had the sagacityto plan a system of worship which should involve participation bythe people in all the acts of divine service, including theadministration of the sacraments. 

Here was genuine statesmanship applied to the administration ofreligion. Those men discerned wisely the signs of their own times. They saw what the right principle was, they foresaw what the artof printing was destined in time to accomplish, and they did apiece of work which has bravely stood the wear and tear of fullthree hundred years. 

No Churchman questions the wisdom of their innovations now. Is ithopeless to expect a like quickness of discernment in the leadersof to-day? Surely they have eyes to see that a new world has beenborn, and that a thousand unexampled demands are pressing us onevery side. If the Prayer Book is not enriched with a view tomeeting those demands, it is not for lack of materials. A Saturdayreviewer has tried to fasten on the Church of England the stigmaof being the Church which for the space of two centuries has notbeen able to evolve a fresh prayer. 

If the reproach were just it would be stinging indeed; but it ismost cruelly unjust. In the devotional literature of the Anglicanismof the last fifty years, to go no further back, there may be foundprayers fully equal in compass of thought and depth of feeling toany of those that are already in public use. Not to single outtoo many instances, it may suffice to mention the prayers appendedto the book of Ancient Collects edited a few years since by adistinguished Oxford scholar. The clergy are acquainted with them, and know how beautiful they are. Why should not the whole Churchenjoy the happiness of using them?[97] Why is there not the samepropriety in our garnering the devotional harvest of the threehundred years last past that there was in the Reformers garneringthe harvest of five times three hundred years?

"One generation passeth away, another generation cometh. " I havespoken of the present and the past, what now of the future? Weknow that all things come to an end. What destiny awaits the bookto which our evening thoughts have been given? That is a path notopen to our tread. The cloudy curtain screens the threshold of it. Still we may listen and imagine that we hear sounds. What if sucha voice as this were to come to us from the distance of a hundredyears hence--a voice tinged with sadness, and carrying just theleast suggestion of reproach? "Our fathers, " the voice says, "in the last quarter of the last century, forfeited a goldenopportunity. It was a time of reconstruction in the State, sociallife was taking on the form it was destined long to retain, a greatwar had come to an end and its results were being registered, allthings were fluent. Moreover, there happened, just then, to be analmost unparalleled lull in the strife of religious parties; menwere more disposed than usual to agree; the interest in liturgicalresearch was at its greatest, and scholars knew and cared morethan they have ever done since about the history and the structureof forms of prayer. Nevertheless, timid councils prevailed; nothingwas done with a view to better adapting the system to the needs ofsociety, and the hope that the Church might cease to wear thedimensions of a sect, and might become the chosen home of a greatpeople, died unrealized. We struggle on, a half-hearted company, and try to live upon the high traditions, the sweet memories of ourpast. "

God forbid, my friends, that the dismal prophecy come true! We willnot believe it. But what, you ask, is the pathway to any suchbetterment as I have ventured roughly to sketch to-night? I willnot attempt to map it, but I feel very confident which way itdoes not run. I am sure it does not run through the region ofdisaffection, complaint, threatening, restlessness, petulance, or secession. Mere fretfulness never carries its points. No, thetrue way to better things is always to begin by holding on manfullyto that which we already are convinced is good. The best restorersof old fabrics are those who work with affectionate loyalty asnearly as possible on the lines of the first builders, averse toany change which is made merely for change's sake, not so anxiousto modernize as to restore, and yet always awake to the fact thatwhat they have been set to do is to make the building once more whatit was first meant to be, a practicable shelter. 

THE OUTCOME OF REVISION--A SERMON[98]

" . . . We are the servants of the God of heaven and earth, andbuild the house that was builded these many years ago. "--Ezra v. 11. 

This was the reply of the rebuilders of Jerusalem to certaincritical lookers-on who would fain be informed by what authoritya picturesque ruin was disturbed. It is a serviceable answer still. There are always those to whom the activity of the Christian Churchis a standing puzzle. Religion, or at any rate revealed religion, having, as they think, received its death-blow, the unmistakablesigns of life which, from time to time, it manifests take on almostthe character of a personal affront. They resent them. What righthave these Christians to be showing such a lively interest in theirvanquished faith? they ask. What business have they to be holdingcouncils, and laying plans, and acting as if they had some high andsplendid effort in hand? Are they such fools as to imagine thatthey can reconstruct what has so evidently tumbled into ruin?

But the wonderful thing about this great building enterprise knownas the kingdom of God is that, from the day when the corner-stonewas laid to this day, the workmen on the walls have never seemed toknow what it meant to be discouraged. In the face of taunt andrebuff and disappointment, they have kept on saying to theircritics: "We are the servants of the God of heaven and earth, andbuild the house that was builded these many years ago. " This isjust what the Church Council which has been holding its sessionsin Baltimore during the last three weeks has to say for itself. Its task has been an architectural task. According to its lights, it has been at work upon the walls of the city of God. Let me giveyou, as my habit has been under similar circumstances in the past, some account of its doings. 

The General Convention of 1892 will be memorable in our ecclesiasticalannals for having closed one question of grave moment only to opena kindred one of still larger reach. The question closed was thequestion of liturgical revision; the question opened is the questionof constitutional revision. I should like to speak to you thismorning retrospectively of the one, and prospectively of the other. 

It is now about twenty years since the question of modifying, tosome extent, the methods of our public worship began to be mooted. 

While it was acknowledged that the need was greater in the mothercountry than here, many of the repetitions and superfluities of theEnglish Church service having been set aside by Bishop White andhis compeers in the American Revision of 1789, it was felt thatfurther improvements were still possible, and that the time hadfully come for making them. Since the beginning of the so-called"tractarian movement" in the Church of England a great deal ofvaluable liturgical material had been accumulating, and it wasdiscerned that if ever the fruits of the scholarship of such menas Palmer and Neale and Maskell and Bright were to be garneredthe harvest-day had arrived. To the question often asked whyit would not have been wiser to wait until the Church of Englandhad led the way and set the pattern, the answer is that thehands of the Church of England were tied, as they have beentied these many years past, and as they may continue to be tied, for aught we know to the contrary, for many years to come. TheChurch of England cannot touch her own Prayer Book, whether tomend or to mar it, except with the consent of that very mixedbody, the House of Commons--a consent she is naturally and properlymost loth to ask. Immersed in a veritable ocean of accumulatedliturgical material, she is as helpless as Tantalus to moistenher lips with so much as a single drop. It was seen that thisfact laid upon us American Churchmen a responsibility as urgentas it was unique, viz. , the responsibility of doing what we couldto meet the devotional needs of present-day Christendom, not onlyfor our own advantage, but with a view to being ultimately ofservice to our Anglican brethren across the sea. An experimentof the greatest interest, which for them was a sheer impossibility, it lay open to us to try. After various abortive attempts hadcome to nought, a beginning was at length made in the GeneralConvention of 1880, a joint committee of bishops and deputiesbeing then appointed to consider whether, in view of the factthat this Church was soon to enter upon the second century ofits organized existence in America, the changed condition ofthe national life did not demand certain alterations in the Bookof Common Prayer in the direction of liturgical enrichment andincreased flexibility of use. 

Few were of the opinion at the time that anything definite wouldcome of the deliberations of this committee, and the fact, neverbefore publicly stated till this moment, that of the deputiesappointed to serve upon it the greater number were men who hadnot voted in favor of the measure, makes it all the more interestingto remember that the report, when brought in at Philadelphiathree years later, was signed by every member of the committeethen living. This Philadelphia report recommended very numerouschanges in the direction both of "flexibility" and "enrichment, "and by far the greater number of the recommendations met with theapproval of the convention. There is, however, a very wise provisionof our Church constitution, a provision strikingly characteristicof the Anglo-Saxon mind, which, by way of making allowance forsecond thought, requires that liturgical changes, before beingfinally adopted, shall run the gauntlet of two successive conventions. Much was accepted at Philadelphia; it remained to be seen how muchwould pass the ordeal of its second reading at Chicago three yearslater. 

Into the war of words waged over the subject during that intervalperiod, I have neither the time nor the disposition to carry you. The three years, while they gave opportunity for reaction, alsoallowed space for counter-reaction; so that when, at last, thequestion came once more before the Church in council assembledwhether the work done at Philadelphia should be approved ordisallowed, men's minds had sufficiently recovered balance topermit of their exercising discrimination. Accordingly in 1886some things were rejected, some adopted, and some remanded forfurther revision. But why should I confuse your minds by an attemptto tell in detail the whole story of the movement? No matter howclear I might make the narrative it would be difficult to followit, for in the progress of the work there have been surprises many, successes and reverses not a few; enough that, at last, the longlabor is ended and in this Columbian year the ship comes into port. 

As to results, their number and their quality, opinions will ofcourse differ. In connection with this, as with all similarundertakings, there are many to cry: "Who will show us any good?"Certainly nothing that could be called a radical change has beenbrought to pass; but then, is there any reason to suppose thatradical changes were either sought or desired by those who havebeen active in the movement? Certain distinct and indisputablegains may be counted up. The recovery of the great Gospel hymnscome under this head. There are some of us who think that only tohave succeeded in replacing the _Magnificat_ and the _Nunc Dimittis_in the Evening Prayer is of itself a sufficient reward for yearsof effort, but this is only a small part of our harvest. The newopening sentences for Morning and Evening Prayer, which have so"adorned and beautified" our observance of great festivals, theremodelling of the Ash-Wednesday service, the recovered Feast ofthe Transfiguration, the various provisions for adapting theChurch's worship to the exigencies of times and seasons, theincreased freedom in the use of the Psalter, all these go to makeup an aggregate of betterment the measure of which will be morefully understood as time goes on. "_Parturiunt montes_" is an easyverdict to pronounce; it remains to be proved whether in this caseit is a just one to render. If there are some (as doubtless somethere are) who hold that the sample book presented at Philadelphiain 1883, faulty as it confessedly was, is still, all thingsconsidered, a better book for American needs than the standardfinally adopted at Baltimore, week before last, if there are somewho deeply regret the failure to include among our special officesone for the burial of little children, and among our prayersintercessions for the country, for the families of the land, forschools of good learning, for employers and those whom they employ, together with many other forms of supplication gathered from thewide field of English liturgiology--if, I say, there arc some whoare of this mind they must comfort themselves with the reflectionthat, after all, they are a minority, that the greater number ofthose upon whom rested the responsibility of decision did not wishfor these additions, and that the things which finally foundacceptance were the things unanimously desired. For, when we thinkof it, this is perhaps the very best feature of the whole thing, looked at in its length and breadth, that there is no defeatedparty, no body of people who feel that they have a right to fretand sulk because unpalatable changes have been forced upon them bynarrow majorities. It is a remarkable fact, that of the many scoresof alterations effected, it can be truly said that, with rare, veryrare exceptions, they found, when it came to the decisive vote, what was practically a unanimous consent. They were things thateverybody wanted. 

As to the annoyance and vexation experienced by worshippersduring the years the revision has been in progress, perhaps thevery best thing that can be done, now that the end is so near athand, will be to forget all about it. In a few months, at thefurthest, the Prayer Book, in its complete form, will be availablefor purchase and use, and the hybrid copies which have been solong in circulation, to the scandal of people of fastidious taste, will quickly vanish away. Meanwhile, it is interesting to knowthat all through this stretch of years while the Prayer Book hasbeen "in solution, " as some have been fond of phrasing it, theEpiscopal Church has exhibited a rate of growth quite unparalleledin its history. 

Of course nobody can say with certainty what has caused theincrease. But it is at least conceivable that among the acceleratingforces has been this very work of liturgical revision. People atlarge have been made aware that this Church was honestly endeavoringto adapt its system of worship to the needs of our time and country;and the mere fact of their seeing this to be the case has served toallay prejudice and to foster a spirit of inquiry. Finding usdisposed to relax something of our rigidity, they, on their part, have been first attracted, then conciliated, and finally completelywon. 

I cannot leave this subject without paying a personal tributeto a prelate but for whose aid in the House of which he is adistinguished ornament, liturgical revision would, humanly speaking, have long ago come to nought. To the fearlessness, the patience, thekindly temper, and the resolute purpose of William Croswell Doane, Bishop of Albany, this Church for these results stands deeply andlastingly indebted. When others' courage failed them, he stood firm;when friends and colleagues were counselling retreat, and undertheir breath were whispering "Fiasco!" and "Collapse!" his spiritnever faltered. He has been true to a great purpose, at the cost ofobloquy sometimes, and to the detriment even of old friendships. Separated from him by a dozen shades of theological opinion and byas many degrees of ecclesiastical bias, I render him here and nowthat homage of grateful appreciation which every Churchman owes him. 

So much for the ship that has dropped anchor. I have left my selfbut a few moments in which to say God-speed to the other craft whichis even now sliding down the ways, ready for the great deep. Putperhaps it is just as well. History is always a safer line to enterupon than prophecy; and were I to say all that is in my mind andheart as to the possibilities of this new venture of faith on theChurch's part, constitutional revision, I might be betrayed intoexpressions of hopefulness which would strike most of you asoverwrought. 

Suffice it to say, that never since the Reformation of Religionin the sixteenth century has a fairer prospect been opened tothe Church of our affections than is opened to her to-day. Nointerpretation of the divine purpose with respect to this broadland we name America has one-half so much of likelihood as thatwhich makes our country the predestined building plot for theChurch of the Reconciliation. 

All signs point that way. To us, if we have but the eyes to see it, there falls, not through any merit of our own, but by the accident, if it be right to use that word, by the accident of historicalassociation, the opportunity of leadership. 

It is possible for us, at this crisis of our destiny, so to mouldour organic law that we shall be brought into sympathetic contactwith hundreds of thousands of our fellow-countrymen who worship thesame God, hold the same faith, love the same Christ. On the otherhand, it is possible for us so to fence ourselves off from thishuge family of our fellow-believers as to secure for our lastingheritage only the cold privileges of a proud and selfish isolation. There could be no real catholicity in such a choice as that. 

We have the opportunity of growing into a great and comprehensiveChurch. We have the opportunity of dwindling into a self-conscious, self-conceited, and unsympathetic sect. Which shall it be? Withthose to whom, under God, the remoulding of our organic law hasbeen intrusted it largely rests to say. 

COMPARATIVE TABLE OF ADDITIONS MADE TO THE BOOK OF COMMON PRAYER ATTHE SEVERAL REVISIONS SINCE 1549. 

 1552 1559 1604 1662 1789 1892Scripture Sentences 11 8 31Collects 3 1 3Epistles 2 1 3Gospels 1 1 3Offices 13 8 1 1Prayers 15 2 7 18 13 9Proper Psalms (days) 2 10Selections of Psalms 10 10Canticles 8 2Versicles 4 3 11Litany Suffrages 1 1Catechetical Questions 12Exhortations 3 2

NOTES

Notes for a Short History of the Book of Common Prayer

[1] First printed in the _American Church Review_, April, 1881. 

[2] Much confusion of thought and speech in connection with ourecclesiastical legislation grows out of not keeping in mind thefact that here in America the organic genetic law of the Church, as well as of the State, is in writing, and compacted into definitepropositions. We draw, that is to say, a far sharper distinctionthan it is possible to do in England between what is constitutionaland what is simply statutory. There is no function of our GeneralConvention that answers to the "omnipotence of Parliament. " Thiscreative faculty was vacated once for all at the adoption of theConstitution. 

[3] _Conferences_, p. 461. 

[4] _Principles of Divine Service_, vol. I. P. 390. 

[5] _Church Quarterly Review_, London, October, 1876. 

[6] The votes of the House of Bishops are not reported numerically. In the House of Clerical and Lay Deputies the vote stood asfollows: "Of the Clergy there were 43 Dioceses represented--Ayes, 33; nays, 9; divided, 1. Of the Laity there were 35 Diocesesrepresented--Ayes, 20; nays, 11; divided, 4. "--_Journal ofConvention of_ 1880, p. 152. 

[7] _Church Eclectic_ for November, 1880. 

[8] Remembering the deluge of "centennial" rhetoric let looseupon the country five years ago, another critic may well feeljustified in finding in the language of the resolution what heconsiders "an unnecessary _raison d'etre_. " But it is just possiblethat centennial changes rest on a basis of genuine cause and effectquite independent of the decimal system. A century covers the rangeof three generations, and the generation is a natural, not anarbitrary division of time. What the grandfather practises the soncriticises and the grandson amends. This at least ought to commenditself to the consideration of the lovers of mystical numbers and"periodic laws. "

[9] The real argument against the "driblet method" (by which ismeant the concession of improvement only as it is actually conqueredinch by inch) lies in what has been already said about theundesirability of frequent changes in widely used formularies ofworship. 

It may be true, as some allege, that a revision of the Prayer Bookwould shake the Church, but it is more likely that half a dozenpatchings at triennial intervals would shatter it. After twentyyears of this sort of piecemeal revision, a _variorum_ edition ofthe Prayer Book would be a requisite of every well furnished pew. 

The late Convention has been twitted with inconsistency on thescore of having negatived outright the proposal for a Commissionto overhaul the Constitution of the Church while consenting tosend the Prayer Book to a committee for review. Discernment wouldbe a better word than inconsistency, for although on grounds ofpure theory the Constitution and the Prayer Book seem to stand incorresponding attitudes as respects methods of amendment, inpractice the difference between the two is very wide. Triennialchanges in the letter of the Constitution (and these have oftenbeen made) involve no inconvenience to anybody, for the simplereason that that document must of necessity be reprinted with everyfresh issue of the Journal. Old copies do not continue in use, except as books of reference, but old Prayer Books do hold theirplace in parish churches, and the spectacle of congregations tryingto worship in unison with books some of which contained the readingof 1880, others that of 1883, and still others that of 1886 wouldscarcely edify. Theoretically, let it be freely granted, the"driblet method" of amendment is the proper one for both PrayerBook and Constitution, but the fact that the Convention had eyesto see that this was a case to which the maxims of pure mathematicsdid not apply should be set down to its credit, rather than itsdiscredit. 

[10] Reprinted together with a supplementary Letter in the Journalof the Convention of 1868. 

[11] Dr. Coit's Letter of 1868, also reprinted in Journal of thatyear. 

[12] See _Book of Common Prayer according to the use of King'sChapel, Boston_. Among the rhetorical crudities of this emasculatedPrayer Book (from the title-page of which, by the way, the definitearticle has been with praiseworthy truthfulness omitted) few thingsare worse than the following from the form for the Burial ofChildren, a piece of writing which in point of style would seemto savor more of the Lodge than of the Church: "My brethren, whatis our life? It is as the early dew of morning that glittereth fora short time, and then is exhaled to heaven. Where is the beautyof childhood? Where is [sic] the light of those eyes and the bloomof that countenance?" . . . "Who is young and who is old? Whitherare we going and what shall we become?" And yet the author ofthis mawkish verbiage probably fancied that he was improving uponthe stately English of the Common Prayer. It is a warning to allwould-be enrichers. 

[13] A list of the more noticeable Anglican works on Liturgiespublished during the period named, arranged in the order of theirappearance, will serve to illustrate the accuracy of the statementmade above, and may also be of value to the general reader forpurposes of reference. 

1832. Origines Liturgicae, William Palmer. 1833-41. Tracts forthe Times. 1840. Conferences on the Book of Common Prayer, EdwardCardwell. 1843. The Choral Service of the Churches of England andIreland, John Jebb. 1844. The Ancient Liturgy of the Church ofEngland, William Maskell. 1845. Pickering's Reprints of the PrayerBooks of 1549, 1552, 1559, 1603, and 1662. 1846. MonumentaRitualia, William Maskell. 1847. Reliquiae Liturgicae, PeterHall. 1848. Fragmenta Liturgica, Peter Hall. 1849. Book of CommonPrayer with Notes legal and historical, A. J. Stephens. ManuscriptBook of Common Prayer for Ireland, A. J. Stephens. TetralogiaLiturgica, John Mason Neale. 1853. Two Liturgies of Edward VI. , Edward Cardwell. 1855. Principles of Divine Service, PhilipFreeman. History of the Book of Common Prayer, F. Proctor. 1858. History of the Book of Common Prayer, T. Lathbury. 1859. Directorium Anglicanum, J. Purchas. 1861. Ancient Collects, William Bright. 1865. Liber Precum Publicarum, Bright and Medd. 1865. The Priest's Prayer Book. 1865. History of the Book of CommonPrayer, R. P. Blakeney. 1866. The Prayer Book Interleaved, Campionand Beaumont. 1866. The Annotated Book of Common Prayer, J. H. Blunt. 1870. The Liturgy of the Church of Sarum, Translated, Charles Walker. 1870. The First Prayer Book of Edward VI. Withthe Ordinal, Walton and Medd. 1872. Psalms and Litanies, RowlandWilliams. 1872. Notitia Eucharistica, W. E. Scudamore. 1875-80. Dictionary of Christian Antiquities, Smith and Cheetham. 1876. First Prayer Book of Edward VI. , compared with the successiveRevisions, James Parker. 1877. Introduction to the History of thesuccessive Revisions of the Book of Common Prayer, James Parker. 1878. Liturgies--Eastern and Western, C. E. Hammond. 1880. TheConvocation Prayer Book. 

[14] Tract No. 3. _Thoughts respectfully addressed to the Clergy onalterations in the Liturgy_. 

[15] One of the most curious illustrations of the spread ofAnglican ideas about worship now in progress is to be found inthe upspringing in the very bosom of Scottish Presbyterianism ofa CHURCH SERVICE SOCIETY. Two of the publications of this Societyhave lately fallen in the present writer's way. They bear theimprint of Wm. Blackwood & Sons, Edinburgh, and are entitledrespectively, _A Book of Common Order_, and _Home Prayer_. Withquestionable good taste the compilers have given to the formerwork a Greek and to the latter a Latin sub-title (_Evxolioyiov_and _Suspiria Domestica_). Both books have many admirable points, although, in view of the facts of history, there is a ludicrousside to this attempt to commend English viands to Northern palatesunder a thin garniture of Scottish herbs which probably has notwholly escaped the notice of the compilers themselves. 

[16] See _The Guardian_ (London), February 9, 1881. 

[17] Unless "finally to beat down Satan under our feet, " bereckoned an exception. 

[18] _Lectures on Justification_, p 380. 

[19] The rationale of this curious lapse is simple. The Americanrevisers, instead of transferring the Commination Office _in toto_to the new book, wisely decided to engraft certain features ofit upon the Morning Prayer for Ash-Wednesday. In the process, thefifty-first Psalm, which has a recognized place in the Commination, dropped out, instead of being transferred, as it should have been, to the proper psalms. 

[20] See the Convocation Prayer Book. 

[21] _Prayer Book Interleaved_, p. 65. 

[22] A curious illustration of the sensitiveness of the ProtestantEpiscopal mind to anything that can be supposed even remotely toendanger our doctrinal settlement was afforded at the late GeneralConvention, when the House of Deputies was thrown into somethingvery like a panic by a most harmless suggestion with reference tothe opening sentences of the Litany. A venerable and thoroughlyconservative deputy from South Carolina had ventured to say thatit would be doctrinally an improvement if the tenet of the doubleprocession of the Holy Ghost were to be removed from the third ofthe invocations, and a devotional improvement if the language ofthe fourth were to be phrased in words more literally Scripturaland less markedly theological than those at present in use. Eagerdefenders of the faith instantly leaped to their feet in variousparts of the House, persuaded that a deadly thrust had been aimedat the doctrine of the Trinity. Never was there a more gratuitousmisconception. The real intrenchment of the doctrine of theTrinity, so far as the Litany is concerned, lies in the fouropening words of the second and the five opening words of thethird of the invocations, and these it had not been proposed totouch. In confirmation of this view of the matter, it is pertinentto instance the _Book of Family Prayers_ lately put forth by aCommittee of the Upper House of the Convocation of Canterbury. This manual provides no fewer than six different Litanies, all ofthem opening with addresses to the three Persons of the adorableTrinity, and yet in no one instance is the principle advocated bythe deputy from South Carolina unrecognized. Every one of the sixLitanies begins with language similar to that which he recommended. [See also in witness of the mediaeval use, which partially bearsout Mr. McCrady's thought, the ancient Litany reprinted by Maskellfrom _The Prymer in English_. Mon. Hit. Ii. P. 95. ] If the UpperHouse of the Convocation of Canterbury, fondly supposed by usAnglicans to be the very citadel of sound doctrine, be thus taintedwith heresy, upon what can we depend?

Polemical considerations aside, probably even the most orthodoxwould allow that the invocations of the Litany might gain indevotional power, while losing nothing in august majesty, werethe third to run--_O God the Holy Ghost, Sanctifier of thefaithful, have mercy upon us miserable sinners_. And the fourthas in Bishop Heber's glorious hymn, _Holy, Holy, Holy, Lord GodAlmighty, have mercy upon us miserable sinners_. But all this isdoctrinal and plainly _ultra vires_. 

[23] A very natural explanation, by the way, of the fact, oftennoticed, that there is no petition in the Litany for an increaseof the ministry. 

[24] Here, _i_. _e. _, in connection with Saints' Day services, would be an admirable opportunity for the introduction intoliturgical use of the Beatitudes. What could possibly be moreappropriate? And yet these much loved words of Christ have seldombeen given the place in worship they deserve. 

They do find recognition as an antiphon in the _Liturgy of St. Chrysostom_. To reassert a usage associated in the history ofliturgies with the name of this Father of the Church and with hisname only, would be to pay him better honor than we now show bythree times inserting in our Prayer Book the collect conjecturallyhis--a thing the Golden-mouthed himself, when in the flesh, wouldnot have dreamed of doing. "Once, " he would have said, "is enough. "

[25] The Priest's Prayer Book has 688 (!!) mostly juiceless. 

[26] In connection with this clause there sprang up an animatedand interesting debate in the House of Deputies as to the wisdomof thus seeming to cut off every opportunity for extemporary prayerin our public services. Up to this time, it was alleged, a libertyhad existed of using _after_ sermon, if the preacher were disposed todo so, the "free prayer" which _before_ sermon it was confessedlynot permitted him to have--why thus cut off peremptorily anancient privilege? why thus sharply annul a traditional if not achartered right?

At first sight this distinction between before and after sermonlooks both arbitrary and artificial, but when examined there isfound to be a reason in it. The sermon, especially in the case ofemotional preachers, is a sort of bridge of transition from whatwe may call the liturgical to the spontaneous mood of mind, and ifthe speaker has carried his listeners with him they are acrossthe bridge at the same moment with himself. The thing that wouldhave been incongruous before, becomes natural after the ministerhas been for some time speaking less in his priestly than in hispersonal character. 

The notion that the points at issue between the advocates ofliturgical and the advocates of extemporaneous worship can besettled by a promiscuous jumbling together of the two modes, isa fond conceit, as the Reformed Episcopalians will doubtless confesswhen they shall have had time enough to make full trial of thefollowing rubrics in their Prayer-book:

_Then shall the Minister say the Collects and Prayers following inwhole or in part, or others at his discretion_. 

_Here may be used any of the occasional Prayers, or extemporaneousPrayer_. 

This is bad philosophy. It need not be said that such directionsare undevotional--for doubtless they were piously meant; but itmust be said that they are inartistic (if the word may be allowed), at variance with the fitness of things and counter to the instinctof purity. Formality and informality are two things that cannotbe mingled to advantage. There is place and time for each. Thesecret of the power of liturgical worship is wrapped up with theprinciple of order. A certain majesty lies in the movement whichis without break. On the other hand the charm of extemporaneousdevotion, and it is sometimes a very real charm, is traceable to ournatural interest in whatever is irregular, fresh, and spontaneous. 

To suppose that we can secure at any given time the good effects ofboth methods by some trick of combination is an error--as wellattempt to arrange on the same plot of ground a French and anEnglish garden. If indeed Christian people could bring themselvesto acknowledge frankly the legitimacy of both methods and provideamicably for their separate use, a great step forward in thedirection of Church unity would have been achieved; but for acatholicity so catholic as this, public opinion is not yet ripe, and perhaps may not be ripe for centuries to come. Those whobelieve in the excellency of liturgies, while not believing inthem as _jure divino_, would be well content in such a case towait the working of the principle of the survival of the fittest. 

[27] The able and fair-minded jurist who first hit upon thisingenious scheme for patching the Ratification has lately, withcharacteristic frankness, said substantially this under his ownsignature. 

"The proper place for the amendment, " he writes, "is at the endof the first rubric preceding the sentences of Scripture for bothMorning and Evening Prayer, after the word Scripture, as everyonecan see by looking. " He adds: "This, however, is only a questionof form, and ought not to interfere with the adoption of theamendment at the next Convention. It is to be hoped that theresolution for enrichment, so called, will present a variety ofadditions out of which an acceptable selection can be made; andwhen they are finally carried that the Book of Common Prayer willbe not only the standard book, but a sealed book, so to speak, foras many generations as have passed since the present book wasadopted. "--Letter of the Hon. J. B. Howe of Indiana in _TheChurchman_ for January 29, 1881. 

[28] See page 578 of _Evangelical Catholic Papers_. A collectionof Essays, Letters, and Tractates from "Writings of Rev. Wm. Augustus Muhlenberg, D. D. " during the last forty years. 

The failure of this devout and venerated man to secure sundrymuch desired liturgical improvements (although it yet remains tobe seen whether the failure has been total) was perhaps due to acertain vagueness inherent in his plans of reform. A clear visionof the very thing desired seems to have been lacking, or at leastthe gift of imparting it to others. But even as no man has deservedbetter of the American Episcopal Church than he, so it is no morethan right that his deeply cherished wishes should be had incareful remembrance. 

[29] Now a "black-letter day" in the English Calendar. 

[30] The Convocation Prayer Book, _in loc_. 

[31] Originally only an explanatory rubric. See Procter, p. 397. 

[32] Let us hope that before long there may be devised some betterway of providing relief for our Widows and Orphans than that ofthe indirect taxation of the singers of hymns. 

[33] The Greek Office Books, it is said, fill eighteen quartos. 

[34] In that naive and racy bit of English (omitted in ourAmerican book) entitled _Concerning the Service of the Church_, one of the very choicest morsels is the following: "Moreover, the number and hardness of the Rules called the Pie, and themanifold changings of the Service, was the cause, that to turnthe Book only was so hard and intricate a matter, that many timesthere was more business to find out what should be read than toread it when it was found out. "

[35] It may be wise to buttress the position taken with aquotation out of Dr. Coit. 

"We really, however, do not see any necessity for either ofthese Services in American Books, as with us the Ordinal always, now, makes a part of the Prayer Book in all editions. It wouldbe a saving to expunge them and no change would be necessary, except the introduction of such a litanical petition and suffragewith the Services for Deacons and Priests, as already exists inthe Service for Bishops. The Church of England retains the Litanyin her Ordinal, for that, until latterly, was printed in a separatebook, and was not to be had unless ordered expressly. And yet witheven such a practice she has but one Communion Service. We studycheapness and expedition in our day. They can both be consultedhere, _salvafide et salva ecclesia_. "--Report of 1844. 

[36] First printed in _The Church Review_, 1886. 

[37] The Rev. Dr. Orlando Hutton. 

[38] _Priest's Prayer Book_, Fifth edition, pp. 238, 243, 281. 

[39] The _Prayer for Imprisoned Debtors_ is believed to be theonly formulary actually dropped. 

[40] _The Church Quarterly Review_ for April, 1884, and July, 1884. _The Church Times_ for August 29, 1884; also July 31, August7, 14, 21, 28, September 4, 1885. _The Guardian_ for July 20, 1885. 

[41] Recall the "Additional Hymns" of 1868. 

[42] This proposal of arbitration has occasioned so much innocentmirth that, in justice to the maker of it, attention should becalled to the ambiguity of the language in which it is couched. The wording of the passage is vague. It is just possible that by"the question" which he would be content to submit to the judgmentof the four specified men of letters, he means, not, as he has beenunderstood to mean, the whole subject-matter of _The Book Annexed_, but only the abstract question whether verbal variations from theEnglish original of the Common Prayer be or be not, on grounds ofpurity of style, desirable. Even if this be all that he means thereis perhaps still room for a smile, but, at all events, he ought tohave the benefit of the doubt. 

[43] _Discussions and Arguments_, p. 341. 

[44] "The list might be brought down as late as the authoritiespleased to bring it, even to include, if they chose, such namesas John Keble, James De Koven, and Ferdinand Ewer. "--_The ChurchTimes_ for August 14, 1885. 

[45] This form of absolution suggested as an alternate in _TheBook Annexed_ is taken from the source mentioned. 

[46] The paper read by the Dean of Worcester dealt exclusivelywith the legal aspects of the question as it concerns the Churchof England. 

[47] The Rev. Edgar Morris Dumbleton (Rector of St. James's, Exeter). 

[48] The Rev. George Venables (Hon. Canon of Norwich and Vicarof Great Yarmouth). 

[49] The Rev. Arthur James Robinson (Rector of Whitechapel). 

[50] See letter of "J. L. W. " in _The Southern Churchman_ forAugust 6, 1885. 

[51] See letter of "Ritualist" in _The Standard of the Cross_for July 2, 1885. 

[52] See the "Report of the Committee of the Council of theDiocese of Wisconsin, " _passim_. 

[53] The evident intention of the Joint Committee in theintroduction of this Canticle was to make it possible to shortenthe Morning Prayer on week-days, without spoiling the structureof the office, as is now often done, by leaving out one of theLessons. It is certainly open to question whether a betteralternate might not have been provided, but it is surprising tofind so well furnished a scholar as the Wisconsin critic speakingof the _Benedictus es Domine_ as a liturgical novelty, "derivedneither from the Anglican or the more ancient service-hooks. " Asa matter of fact the _Benedictus es Domine_ was sung daily in theAmbrosian Rite at Matins, and is found also in the MozarabicBreviary. 

[54] See Wisconsin Report, p. 5. 

[55] See the precautions recommended in _The Living Church Annual_for 1886, p. 132, art. "Tabernacle. "

[56] In this respect _The Book Annexed_ may be compared to _TheConvocation Prayer Book_ published by Murray in 1880, for thepurpose of showing what the English Book would be like if "amendedin conformity with the recommendations of the Convocations ofCanterbury and York, contained in reports presented to her Majestythe Queen in the year 1879. "

[57] The Report was adopted. 

[58] In addition to the Maryland Report we have now a still moreadmirable one from Central New York. 

[59] Strangely enough the Elizabethan period, so rich in geniusof every other type, seems to have been almost wholly barren ofliturgical power. Men had not ceased to write prayers, as a stoutvolume in the Parker Society's Library abundantly evidences; butthey had ceased to write them with the terseness and melody thatgive to the style of the great Churchmen of the earlier reigns sosingular a charm. 

[60] The liturgical manuscripts of Sanderson and Wren, madepublic only recently by the late Bishop of Chester, ought to beincluded under this head. 

[61] Many of these "Treasuries, " "Golden Gates, " and the like, have here and there something good, but for the most part theyare disfigured by sins against that "sober standard of feeling, "than which, as a high authority assures us, nothing except "a soundrule of faith" is more important "in matters of practicalreligion. " Of all of them, Scudamore's unpretentious little"Manual" is, perhaps, the best. 

[62] For a _conspectus_ of the various title-pages, see Keeling's_Litugiae Britannicae_, London, 1842. 

[63] The question of a change in the name of the Church is aconstitutional, and in no sense a liturgical question. Let it beconsidered at the proper time, and in a proper way, but why thrustit precipitately into a discussion to which it is thoroughlyforeign?

[64] By the Maryland Committee. 

[65] This paragraph was written before the author had beenprivileged to read Prof. Gold's interesting paper in _TheSeminarian_. It is only proper to say that this accomplishedwriter and very competent critic does object emphatically tothe theory that the opening Sentences are designed to give thekey-note of the Service. But here he differs with Blunt, aselsewhere in the same paper he dissents from Freeman and fromLittledale, admirably illustrating by his proper assertion ofan independent judgment, the difficulty of applying the Vicentianrule in liturgical criticism. Such variations of opinion do, indeed, make against "science, " but they favor good sense. 

[66] Chambers's Translation. 

[67] This is not to be understood as an acknowledgment thatthe doctrinal and philological objections to the formulary asit originally stood were sound and sufficient. On the lips ofa Church which declares "repentance" to be an act whereby we"forsake sin, " a prayer for time does not seem wholly inappropriate, while as for this use of the word "space" of which complaint wasmade, it should be noticed that King James's Bible gives usnineteen precedents for it; and the Prayer Book itself one. 

[68] In _The Book Annexed_, as originally presented, therestood in this place the beautiful and appropriate psalm, _Levavioculos_. But the experts declared that this would never do, sincefrom time immemorial _Levavi oculos_ had been a Vesper Psalm, andit would be little less than sacrilege to insert it in a morningservice, however congruous to such a use the wording of it might, to an unscientific mind, appear. Accordingly the excision was made;but upon inquiry it turned out that the monks had possessed a largermeasure of good sense, as well as a better exegesis, than theConvention had attributed to them, for _Levavi oculos_, it appears, besides being a Vesper psalm, stood assigned, in the Sarum Breviary, to Prime as well; the fact being that the psalm is alike adapted tomorning and to evening use, and singularly appropriate both to the"going out" and the "coming in" of the daily life of man. 

[69] See p. 6. 

[70] "O Lord, bow thine ear, " has been suggested as a substitute. It is in the words of Holy Scripture, it is the precise metricalequivalent of "O Lord, save the queen, " and it is directlyantiphonal to the versicle which follows. 

There being no Established Church in the United States, it isdoubtful whether any prayers for "rulers" are desirable, over andabove those we already have. And if this point be conceded, theother considerations mentioned may be allowed to have weight infavor of "O Lord, bow thine ear. "

[71] _The Seminarian_, 1886, pp. 29, 30. 

[72] It may be well to throw, into a foot-note a single illustrationof what might otherwise be thought an extravagant statement. TheRev. W. C. Bishop, writing in _The Church Eclectic_ for February, 1884, says:

"The service of the Beatitudes proposed by the Committee is justone of 'fancy-liturgy making, ' which ought to be summarily rejected. We have more than enough of this sort of thing already; thecommandments, comfortable words, _et hoc genus omne_, are anythingbut 'unique glories' of our Liturgy. Anything of which we haveexclusive possession is nearly certain to be a 'unique _blunder_, 'instead of anything better, because the chances are a thousand toone that anything really beautiful or edifying would have beendiscovered by, and have commended itself to, some other Christiansin the last two thousand years. " If such is to be the nomenclatureof our new "science, " Devotion may well stand aghast in the faceof Liturgies. 

[73] See the Commination Office in the Prayer Book of the Churchof England. 

[74] Daniel's _Codex Liturgicus_, vol. Iv. P. 343. Quoted in_Dictionary of Christian Antiquities_. The translation of makapismoihas been doubted; but Dr. Neale and Prof. Cheetham agree that thereference is to the BEATITUDES of the Gospel. 

[75] _Church Eclectic_ for April, 1884. 

[76] The following will serve as an illustration:

_The Anthem_;

Blessed are the merciful, for they shall get mercy; blessed are theclean in the heart, for they shall see God. 

_The Versicle_:

Lord hear my prayer. 

_The Answer_:

And let my cry come to thee. 

_Let us pray_. 

Lord Jesu Christ, whose property is to be merciful, which art alwaypure and clean without spot of sin; Grant us the grace to followthee in mercifulness toward our neighbors, and always to bear apure heart and a clean conscience toward thee, that we may afterthis life see thee in thy everlasting glory, which livest andreignest God, world without end. _Amen_. 

[77] It is interesting and suggestive to observe with how muchless frequency our attention is called to this paragraph of thePreface than to the later one which asserts historical continuitywith the Church of England. 

[78] _Essays on Liturgiology_, p. 226. 

[79] The response proposed by the Commissioners ran, "Lord havemercy upon us, and make us partakers of this blessing, " a prayerunobjectionable for substance, but painfully pedestrian in style. 

[80] Notably one in which the responses are all taken from Psalm li. 

[81] See Note at the end of this Paper. 

[82] _E_. _g_. : "That it may please thee to send forth laborersinto thy harvest, and to have mercy upon all men. "

[83] See Report, pp. 6-9. 

[84] "Strike it out, " said the literalist of a certain committeeon hymnody, many years ago, as he and his colleagues were sittingin judgment on Watts's noble hymn, "There is a land of pure delight. ""Either strike out the whole hymn or alter that word, 'living. '

 "'Bright fields, beyond the swelling flood, Stand dressed in living green. '

What sense is there in '_living_' green? It is the grass thatlives, not the green. " Happily the suggestion failed to find aseconder. But revisers, whose work is to be passed upon by ballot, may well be shy of idiomatic English. Take such a phrase as, "Now for the comfortless trouble's sake of the needy"; LindleyMurray, were he consulted, would have no mercy on it: and yet amore beautiful and touching combination of words is not to befound anywhere in the Psalter. It is the utter lack of thisidiomatic characteristic that makes "Lambeth prayers" proverbiallyso insipid. 

[85] See Report, p. 12. 

[86] Quoted in _The Church Eclectic_ for August, 1886. 

[87] Prof. Gold in _The Seminarian_, p. 34. 

[88] The Rev. Dr. Robert in _The Churchman_ for July 17, 1886, [89] Specious, because our continuity with the Church life ofEngland is inestimably precious; impracticable, because there isno representative body of the English Church authorized to treatwith us. 

[90] This Prayer has been gathered from the _Dirige_ in _ThePrimer set forth by the King's Majesty and his Clergy_, 1545; thesame source (it is interesting to note) to which we trace theEnglish form of the _Collect for Purity_ at the beginning of theoffice. 

[91] 1 Cor. Iii. 9. 

[92] Born into life!--man grows Forth from his parents' stem, And blends their bloods, as those Of theirs are blent in them; So each new man strikes root into a far foretime. Born into life!--we bring

 A bias with us here, And, when here, each new thing Affects us we come near; To tunes we did not call our being must keep chime. _Empedocles on Etna_. 

[93] "Parliaments, prelates, convocations, synods may order formsof prayer. They may get speeches to be spoken upward by people ontheir knees. They may obtain a juxtaposition in space of curiouslytessellated pieces of Bible and Prayer Book. But when I speak ofthe rareness and preciousness of prayers, I mean such prayers ascontain three conditions--permanence, capability jot being reallyprayed, and universality. Such prayers primates and senates can nomore command than they can order a new Cologne Cathedral or anotherepic poem. "--_The Bishop of Berry's Hampton Lectures_, lect iv. 

[94] The following _catena_ is curious:

"Salute one another with an holy kiss. "--Rom. Xvi. 10. 

"Greet ye one another with a kiss of charity. "--1 Pet. V. 14. 

"_And let the bishop salute the church, and say_: Let the peace ofGod be with you all. 

"_And let the people answer_, And with thy spirit. 

"_And let the deacon say to all_, Salute one another with a holy kiss. 

"_And let the clergy kiss the bishop; and of the laity, the menthe men, and the women the women, and let the children stand bythe Bema. _"--_The Divine Liturgy of St. Clement_ (Bretts'sTranslation, corrected by Neale). 

"_At Solemn High Mass, the deacon kisses the altar at the sametime with the celebrating priest, by whom he is saluted with thekiss of peace, accompanied by these words_, PAX TECUM. "--Rubric ofthe Roman Missal. 

"PAX OR PAXBREDE. A small plate of gold, or silver, or copper-gilt, enamelled, or piece of carved ivory or wood overlaid with metal, carried round, having been kissed by the priest, after the AgnusDei in the Mass, to communicate the kiss of peace. "--_Pugin'sGlossary_. 

_St. George's Chapel, Windsor_. "Item, a fine PAX, silver and giltenamelled, with an image of the crucifixion, Mary and John, andhaving on the top three crosses, with two shields hanging on eitherside. Item, a ferial PAX, of plate of silver gilt, with the imageof the Blessed Virgin. "--_Dugdale's Monasticon_ quoted in aboveGlossary. 

"Ye who do truly and earnestly repent you of your sins, _and arein love and charity with your neighbors_, and intend to lead a newlife . . . Draw near with faith, and take this holy sacrament to yourcomfort. "--Shorter Exhortation in the Communion Office of the PrayerBook. 

[95] A friend who heard the sermon preached has kindly sent me thefollowing apt illustrations. They do not, indeed, come from historytechnically so-called, but they report the mind of one to whose eyethe whole life of the Middle Ages was as an open book. 

"There was now a pause, of which the abbot availed himself bycommanding the brotherhood to raise the solemn chant, _De profundisclamavi_"--_The Monastery_, chap, xxxvii. 

"'To be a guest in the house where I should command?' said theTemplar; 'Never! Chaplains, raise the psalm, _Quare fremueruntGentes_? Knights, squires, and followers of the Holy Temple, prepareto follow the banner of _Beau-seant_!'"--_Ivanhoe_, chap. Xliv. 

[96] So many good things are washed oat of men's memory by the lapseof even a quarter of a century that possibly some even of those whoknew all about the "Memorial" in 1852 may be willing to be remindedwhat its scope and purpose were. 

The petition was addressed to the bishops "in council, " andprayed for the appointment of a commission to report upon thepracticability of making this Church a central bond of unionamong the Christian people of America, by providing for as muchfreedom in opinion, discipline, and worship as might be held tobe compatible with the essential faith and order of the Gospel. 

The desired commission was appointed, Bishops Otey, Doane, A. Potter, Burgess, and Williams being the members of it. TheirReport, subsequently edited in book form by Bishop Potter, is oneof the most valuable documents of American Church history. Thefollowing extract from Bishop Burgess' portion of the Report willbe read with interest by all who ever learned to revere thattheologian for the largeness of his learning, the calmness of hisjudgment, and the goodness of his heart. He has been speaking ofliturgical changes as contemplated and allowed for by the framersof our ecclesiastical system. Then he says:

"There would seem to be five contingencies in which the changes, thus made possible and thus permitted, become also wise and salutary. 

"The first is simply when it is evident that in any respect theliturgy or its application may be rendered more perfect. To hazardfor this result the safety or unity of the Church may be inexcusable, and the utmost certainty may be demanded before a change ofthis kind shall be practically ventured. But should it be onceestablished, beyond the smallest doubt, that any addition oralteration would increase the excellence or the excellent influenceof the liturgy in any degree sufficient to compensate or more thancompensate for the inconveniences incident to all change, it seemsas difficult to say that it should not be adopted by the Church, as to excuse any Christian from adding to his virtues or hisusefulness. 

"The other 'contingencies' recognized are briefly these:

"(2) When in process of time words or regulations have becomeobsolete or unsuitable. 

"(3) When civil or social changes require ecclesiastical changes. 

"(4) When the earnest desire of any respectable number of themembers of the Church, or of persons who are without its communion, is urged in behalf of some not wholly unreasonable proposal ofalteration. 

"(5) When error or superstition has been introduced; when thatwhich was at first good and healthful has been perverted to thenourishment of falsehood or wickedness; or when that which wasalways evil has found utterance, and is now revealed in its truecharacter. "

The Memorial failed for the reason that the promoters of it had nota clearly defined notion in their own minds of what they wanted--thesecret of many failures. Out of its ashes there may yet rise, however, "some better thing" that God has kept in store. 

[97] _Ancient Collects and Other Prayers selected for DevotionalUse from Various Rituals_. By William Bright, M. A. J. H. & Jas. Parker, Oxford and London. 

From the Appendix I take the following illustrations of thestatement ventured above:

"_For Guidance_--O God, by whom the meek are guided in judgment, and light riseth up in darkness for the godly; grant us in all ourdoubts and uncertainties the grace to ask what thou wouldest haveus to do; that the Spirit of wisdom may save us from all falsechoices, and that in thy light we may see light, and in thy straightpath may not stumble: through Jesus Christ our Lord. 

"_For those who live in sin_. --Have mercy, O compassionate Father, on all who are hardened through the deceitfulness of sin; vouchsafethem grace to come to themselves, the will and power to return tothee, and the loving welcome of thy forgiveness through Jesus Christour Lord. 

"_For all who do the work of the Church_. --O Lord, without whomour labor is but lost, and with whom thy little ones go forth as themighty, be present to all works in thy Church which are undertakenaccording to thy will, and grant to thy laborers a pure intention, patient faith, sufficient success upon earth, and the bliss ofserving thee in heaven, through Jesus Christ our Lord. 

"_For grace to speak the Truth in love_. --O Lord and Saviour JesusChrist, who earnest not to strive nor cry, but to let thy wordsfall as the drops that water the earth: grant all who contendfor the faith once delivered, never to injure it by clamor andimpatience, but speaking thy precious truth in love, so to presentit that it may be loved, and that men may see in it thy goodnessand thy beauty: who livest and reignest with the Father and theHoly Ghost, one God, world without end. "

Both as regards devotional flavor and literary beauty these prayerswill, I feel sure, be judged worthy, by such as will read them morethan once, to stand by the side certainly of many of the collectsalready in the Prayer Book. 

[98] Preached in Grace Church, N. Y. , on the Twentieth Sunday afterTrinity, that being the Sunday next following the adjournment of theGeneral Convention of 1892.