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+*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 30136 ***
+
+[Transcriber's Note: The footnotes have been numbered and moved to
+the end of the document.]
+
+This file was produced from images generously made available by
+The Internet Archive/American Libraries.
+
+
+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--A
+Sermon 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 a
+lecture before a liturgical class, and is now published for the
+first time. The others have appeared in print from time to time
+during the movement for revision. If they have any permanent
+value, it is because of their showing, so far as the writer's part
+in the matter is concerned, what things were attempted and what
+things failed of accomplishment. Should they serve as contributory
+to some future narrative of the revision, the object of their
+publication will have been accomplished. So much has been said as
+to the poverty of our gains on the side of "enrichment," as
+compared with what has been secured in the line of "flexibility,"
+that it has seemed proper to append to the volume a Comparative
+Table detailing the additions of liturgical matter made to the
+Common 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 can
+bear, means divine service rendered in accordance with an established
+form. Of late years there has been an attempt made among purists to
+confine the word "liturgy" to the office entitled in the Prayer
+Book, _The Order for the Administration of the Lord's Supper or
+Holy Communion_.
+
+This restricted and specialized interpretation of a familiar word
+may serve the purposes of technical scholarship, for undoubtedly
+there is much to be said in favor of the narrowed signification as
+we shall see; but unless English literature can be rewritten, plain
+people who draw their vocabulary from standard authors will go on
+calling service-books "liturgies" regardless of the fact that they
+contain many things other than that one office which is entitled
+to be named by eminence _the_ Liturgy. "This Convention," write the
+fathers of the American Episcopal Church in the Ratification printed
+on the fourth page of the Prayer Book, "having in their present
+session set forth a Book of Common Prayer and other rites and
+ceremonies of the Church, do hereby establish the said book; and
+they declare it to be the _Liturgy_ of this Church."
+
+For the origin of liturgy thus broadly defined we have to go a long
+way back; beyond the Prayer Book, beyond the Mass-book, beyond the
+ancient Sacramentaries, yes, beyond the synagogue worship, beyond
+the temple worship, beyond the tabernacle worship; in fact I am
+disposed to think that, logically, we should be unable to stop
+short until we had reached the very heart of man itself, that
+dimly discerned groundwork we call human nature, and had discovered
+there those two instincts, the one of worship and the other of
+gregariousness, from whence all forms of common prayer have sprung.
+Where three or two assemble for the purposes of supplication, some
+form must necessarily be accepted if they are to pray in unison.
+When the disciples came to Jesus begging him that he would teach
+them how to pray, he gave them, not twelve several forms, though
+doubtless James's special needs differed from John's and Simon's
+from Jude's--he gave them, not twelve, but one. "When ye pray,"
+was his answer, "say Our Father." That was the beginning of
+Christian Common Prayer. Because we are men we worship, because
+we are fellow-men our worship must have form.
+
+But waiving this last analysis of all which carries us across the
+whole field of history at a leap, it becomes necessary to seek
+for liturgical beginnings by a more plodding process.
+
+If we take that manual of worship with which as English-speaking
+Christians we are ourselves the most familiar, the Book of Common
+Prayer, and allow it to fall naturally apart, as a bunch of
+flowers would do if the string were cut, we discover that in
+point of fact we have, as in the case of the Bible, many books
+in one. We have scarcely turned the title-page, for instance,
+before we come upon a ritual of daily worship, an order for
+Morning Prayer and an order for Evening Prayer, consisting in
+the main of Psalms, Scripture Lessons, Antiphonal Versicles,
+and Collects. Appended to this we find a Litany or General
+Supplication and a collection of special prayers.
+
+Mark an interval here, and note that we have completed the first
+volume of our liturgical library. Next, we have a sacramental
+ritual, entitled, _The Order for the Administration of the Lord's
+Supper or Holy Communion_, ingeniously interwoven by a system of
+appropriate prayers and New Testament readings with the Sundays
+and holydays of the year. This gives us our second volume.
+Then follow numerous offices which we shall find it convenient
+to classify under two heads, namely: those which may be said by
+a bishop or by a presbyter, and those that may be said by a
+bishop only. Under the former head come the baptismal offices,
+the Order for the Burial of the Dead, and the like; under the
+latter, the services of Ordination and Confirmation and the Form
+of 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 and
+recognized realities. Each had its title and each its separate
+use. The name of the book of daily services was _The Breviary_.
+The name of the book used in the celebration of the Holy Communion
+was _The Missal_. The name of the book of Special Offices was
+_The Ritual_. The name of the book of such offices as could be
+used by a bishop only was _The Pontifical_. It was one of the
+greatest of the achievements of the English reformers that they
+succeeded in condensing, after a practical fashion, these four
+books, or, to speak more accurately, the first three of them,
+Breviary, Missal, and Ritual, into one. The Pontifical, or
+Ordinal, they continued as a separate book, although it soon for
+the sake of convenience became customary in England, as it has
+always been customary here, for Prayer Book and Ordinal to be
+stitched together by the binders into a single volume. Popularly
+speaking the Prayer Book is the entire volume one purchases under
+that name from the bookseller, but accurately speaking the Book
+of 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 indeed
+from the Prayer Book's Table of Contents plainly appears.
+
+Setting aside now, for the present, that portion of the formularies
+which corresponds to the Ritual and Pontifical of the mediaeval
+Church, I proceed to speak rapidly of the antecedents of Breviary
+and Missal. Whence came they? And how are we to account for
+their being sundered so distinctly as they are?
+
+They came, so some of the most thoughtful of liturgical students
+are agreed, from a source no less remote than the Temple of
+Solomon, and they are severed, to speak figuratively, by a valley
+not unlike that which in our thoughts divides the Mount of
+Beatitudes 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 of
+man's making ever was, there went on from day to day these two
+things, psalmody and sacrifice. Peace-offering, burnt-offering,
+sin-offering, the morning oblation, and the evening oblation--these
+with other ceremonies of a like character went to make what we
+know as the sacrificial ritual of the temple.
+
+But this was not all. It would appear that there were other
+services in the temple over and above those that could strictly
+be called sacrificial. The Hebrew Psalter, the hymn-book of that
+early day, contains much that was evidently intended by the
+writers for temple use, and even more that could be easily
+adapted to such use. And although there is no direct evidence
+that in Solomon's time forms of prayer other than those associated
+with sacrificial rites were in use, yet when we find mention in
+the New Testament of people going up to the temple of those later
+days "at the hour of prayer," it seems reasonable to infer that
+the custom was an ancient one, and that from the beginning of the
+temple's history forms of worship not strictly speaking sacrificial
+had been a stated feature of the ritual. But whether in the temple
+or not, certainly in the synagogues, which after the return from
+the captivity sprang up all over the Jewish world, services
+composed of prayers, of psalms, and of readings from the law and
+the prophets were of continual occurrence. Therefore we may safely
+say that with these two forms of divine service, the sacrificial
+and the simply devotional and didactic, the apostles, the founders
+of the Christian Church, had been familiar from their childhood.
+They were at home in both synagogue and temple. They knew by sight
+the ritual of the altar, and by ear the ritual of the choir. They
+were 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 should
+have come down to us in two great lines, why there should be a
+tradition of eucharistic worship and, parallel to this, a tradition
+of 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 a
+suggestion of the temple worship, so the other seems to show a
+continuity with what went on in those less pretentious sanctuaries
+which had place in all the cities and villages of Judea, and indeed
+wherever, throughout the Roman world, Jewish colonists were to be
+found. The earliest Christian disciples having been themselves
+Hebrews, nothing could have been more natural than their moulding
+the worship of the new Church in general accordance with the
+models that had stood before their eyes from childhood in the
+old. The Psalms were sung in the synagogues according to a settled
+principle. We cannot wonder, then, that the Psalter should have
+continued to be what in fact it had always been, the hymn-book of
+the Church. Moreover, they had in the synagogue besides their
+psalmody a system of Bible readings, confined, of course, to the
+Old Testament Scriptures. This is noted in the observation that
+fell from Simon Peter, at the first Council of the Church, "Moses
+of old time hath in every city them that preach him, being read in
+the synagogue every Sabbath day." Scripture lessons, therefore,
+would be no novelty.
+
+We gather also from the New Testament, not to speak of other
+authorities, that in the apostolic days people were familiar with
+what were known as "hours of prayer." There were particular times
+in the day, that is to say, which were held to be especially
+appropriate for worship. "Peter and John went up together into
+the temple at the hour of prayer, being the ninth hour." Again,
+at Joppa, we find the former of these two apostles going up upon
+the house-top to pray at "the sixth hour." Long before this David
+had mentioned morning and evening and noon as fitting hours of
+prayer, and one psalmist, in his enthusiasm, had even gone so far
+as to declare seven times a day to be not too often for giving
+God thanks. There was also the precedent of Daniel opening his
+windows toward Jerusalem three times a day. As the love for order
+and system grew year by year stronger in the Christian Church,
+the laws that govern ritual would be likely to become more
+stringent, and so very probably it came to pass. For aught we
+know to the contrary, the observance of fixed hours of prayer
+was a matter of voluntary action with the Christians of the first
+age. There was, as we say, no "shall" about it. But when the
+founders of the monastic orders came upon the scene a fixed rule
+took the place of simple custom, and what had been optional
+became mandatory. By the time we reach the mediaeval period
+evolution has had its perfect work, and we find in existence
+a scheme of daily service curiously and painfully elaborate.
+The mediaeval theologians were very fond of classifying things
+by sevens. In the symbolism of Holy Scripture seven appears as
+the number of perfection, it being the aggregate of three, the
+number of Deity, and four, the number of the earth. Accordingly
+we find in the theology of those times seven sacraments, seven
+deadly sins, seven contrary virtues, seven works of mercy, and
+also seven hours of prayer. These seven hours were known as
+Matins, Prime, Tierce, Sext, Nones, Vespers, and Complene. The
+theory of the hours of prayer was that at each one of them a
+special office of devotion was to be said. Beginning before
+sunrise with matins there was to be daily a round of services at
+stated intervals culminating at bedtime in that which, as its
+name indicated, filled out the series, Complene. To what extent
+this ideal scheme of devotion was ever carried out in practice it
+is difficult positively to say.
+
+Probably in the monastic and conventual life of the severer orders
+there was an approximation to a punctual observance of the hours
+as they successively arrived. Possibly the modern mind fails to
+do full justice to the conception of worship on which this system
+was based. Those principles of devotion of which the rosary is the
+visible symbol do not easily commend themselves to us. They have
+about them a suggestion of mechanism. They remind us of the
+Buddhist praying wheel, and seem to put the Church in the attitude
+of expecting to be heard for her "much speaking."
+
+Doubtless many a pure, courageous spirit fought the good fight
+of faith successfully in spite of all this weight of outward
+observances; but in the judgment of the wiser heads among English
+churchmen, the time had come, by the middle of the sixteenth
+century, when this complicated armor must either be greatly
+lightened or else run the risk of being cast aside altogether.
+Let Cranmer tell his own story. This is what he says in the
+Preface to the First Book of Edward VI. as to the ritual grievances
+of the times. The passage is worth listening to if only for the
+quaintness of its strong and wholesome English:
+
+"There was never anything by the wit of man so well devised or so
+surely established which, in continuance of time, hath not been
+corrupted, as, among other things, it may plainly appear by the
+common prayer, in the Church, commonly called divine service. The
+first original and ground whereof, if a man would search out by
+the ancient fathers, he shall find that the same was not ordained
+but of a good purpose, and for a great advancement of godliness, for
+they so ordered the matter that all the whole Bible, or the greatest
+part thereof, should be read over once in the year . . . But these
+many years past this godly and decent order of the ancient fathers
+hath been so altered, broken, and neglected by planting in
+uncertain stories, legends, responds, verses, vain repetitions,
+commemorations, and synodals that commonly, when any book of the
+Bible was begun, before three or four chapters were read out all
+the rest were unread. And in this sort the Book of Esaie was begun
+in Advent, and the Book of Genesis in Septuagesima, but they were
+only begun and never read through . . . And moreover, whereas St.
+Paul would have such language spoken to the people in the Church
+as they might understand and have profit by hearing the same, the
+service in this Church of England (these many years) hath been
+read in Latin to the people, which they understood not, so that
+they have heard with their ears only, and their hearts, spirit,
+and mind have not been edified thereby . . . Moreover, the number
+and hardness of the rules called the Pie, and the manifold
+changings of the service was the cause that to turn the Book
+only was so hard and intricate a matter that many times there was
+more business to find out what should be read than it was to read
+it when it was found out. These inconveniences therefore considered,
+here is set forth such an order whereby the same shall be
+redressed."
+
+As an illustration of what Cranmer meant by his curious phrase,
+"planting in uncertain stories," take the following Lessons quoted
+by Dr. Neale in his _Essays on Liturgiology_:
+
+"Besides the commemoration of saints," writes this distinguished
+antiquarian, "there are in certain local calenders notices of
+national events connected with the well-being of the Church. Thus,
+in the _Parisian Breviary_, we have on the eighteenth of August a
+commemoration of the victory of Philip the Fair in Flanders, A.D.
+1304." Here is the fourth of the appointed lessons: "Philip the
+Fair, King of the French, in the year 1304, about the feast of St.
+Mary Magdalene, having set forth with his brothers Charles and
+Louis and a large army into Flanders, pitched his tent near Mons,
+where was a camp of the rebel Flemings. But when, on the eighteenth
+of August, which was the Tuesday after the Assumption of St. Mary,
+the French had from morning till evening stood on the defence, and
+were resting themselves at nightfall, the enemy, by a sudden
+attack, rushed on the camp with such fury that the body-guard had
+scarce time to defend him.
+
+"_Response_. Come from Lebanon, my spouse; come, and thou shalt be
+crowned, 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 the
+life of the king was in great danger, but shortly after, his
+troops crowding together from all quarters to his tent, where the
+battle was sharpest, obtained an illustrious victory over the
+enemy"--and more of this sort until all of a sudden we come upon
+the Song of Solomon again. "_V_. Thou art all fair, my love; come
+from 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 legends
+and vain repetitions amply justified? And can we be too thankful
+to the sturdy champions of the Reformation, who in the face of no
+little opposition and by efforts scarcely appreciated to-day, cut
+us loose from all responsibility for such solemn nonsense?
+
+There are some who feel aggrieved that chapters from the Apocrypha
+should have found admission to our new lectionary, and there are
+even those who think that of the canonical Scriptures, passages
+more edifying than certain of those appointed to be read might
+have been chosen, but what would they think if they were compelled
+to hear the minister at the lecturn say: "Here beginneth the first
+chapter of the Adventures of Philip the Fair"?
+
+But the reformers, happily, were not discouraged by the portentous
+front of wood, hay, and stubble which the liturgical edifice of
+their day presented to the eye. They felt convinced that there
+were also to be found mixed in with the building material gold,
+silver, and precious stones, and for these they determined to make
+diligent search, resolved most of all that the foundation laid
+should be Jesus Christ. This system of canonical hours, they
+argued, this seven-fold office of daily prayer is all very
+beautiful in theory, but it never can be made what in fact it
+never in the past has been, a practicable thing. Let us be content
+if we can do so much as win people to their devotions at morning
+and at night. With this object in view Cranmer and his associates
+subjected the services of the hours to a process of combination
+and condensation. The Offices for the first three hours they
+compressed into _An Order for Daily Morning Prayer_, or, as it was
+called in Edward's first Book, _An Order for Matins_, and the
+Offices for the last two hours, namely, Vespers and Complene,
+they made over into _An Order for Daily Evening Prayer_, or, as
+it was named in Edward's first Book, _An Order for Evensong_.
+
+These two formularies, the _Order for Matins_ and the _Order for
+Evensong_, make the core and substance of our present daily
+offices. But the tradition of daily prayer is only one of the
+two great devotional heritages of the Church. With the destruction
+of the temple by the Roman soldiery, the sacrificial ritual of
+the Jewish Church came to a sudden end; but it was not God's
+purpose that the memory of sacrifice should fade out of men's
+minds or that the thought of sacrifice should be banished from
+the field of worship. Years before the day when the legionaries
+of Titus marched amid flame and smoke, into the falling sanctuary
+of an out-worn faith, one who was presently to die upon a cross
+had taken bread, had blessed it and broken it, and giving it to
+certain followers gathered about him, had said, "Take, eat; this
+is my body, which is given for you: this do in remembrance of me."
+Likewise also he had taken the cup after supper, saying, "This cup
+is the New Testament in my blood which is shed for you."
+
+Certainly there must be a relation of cause and effect between this
+scene and the fact, which is a fact, that the most ancient
+fragments of primitive Christian worship now discoverable are
+forms for the due commemoration of the sacrifice of the death of
+Christ.
+
+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 to
+generation." Of the references to Christian worship discoverable
+in documents later than the New Testament Scriptures there are
+three that stand out with peculiar prominence, namely, the lately
+discovered _Teaching of the Twelve Apostles_, placed by some
+authorities as early as the first half of the second century;
+the famous letter of Pliny to the Emperor Trajan, a writing of
+the same period; and the Apology or Defence addressed by Justin
+Martyr to Antoninus Pius about the year 140 after Christ. The
+noteworthy fact in connection with these passages is that of the
+three, two certainly, and probably the third also, refer directly
+to the Holy Communion. In the _Teaching_ we have a distinct sketch
+of a eucharistic service with three of the prescribed prayers
+apparently given in full. In Justin Martyr's account, the evidence
+of a definitely established liturgical form is perhaps less plain,
+but nothing that he says would appear to be irreconcilable with
+the existence of a more or less elastic ritual order. Whether he
+does or does not intend to describe extemporaneous prayer as
+forming one feature of the eucharistic worship of the Christians
+of his time depends upon the translation we give to a single word
+in his narrative. Later on in the life of the Church, though by
+just how much later is a difficult point of scholarship, we are
+brought in contact with a number of formularies, all of them
+framed for the uses of eucharistical worship, all of them, that
+is to say, designed to perpetuate the commandment, "This do in
+remembrance of me," and all of them preserving, no matter in what
+part of the world they may be found, a certain structural
+uniformity. These are the primitive liturgies, as they are
+called, the study of which has in late years attained almost to
+the dignity of a science. As to the exact measure of antiquity
+that ought to be accorded to these venerable documents the
+authorities differ and probably will always differ. Dr. Neale's
+enthusiasm carried him so far that he was persuaded and sought
+to persuade others of the existence of liturgical quotations in
+the writings of St. Paul. This hypothesis is at the present time
+generally rejected by sober-minded scholars. Perhaps "the personal
+equation" enters equally into the conclusions of those who assign
+a very late origin to the liturgies, pushing them along as far as
+the sixth or seventh century. If one happens to have a rooted
+dislike for prescribed forms of worship, and believes them in his
+heart to be both unscriptural and unspiritual, it will be the
+most natural thing in the world for him to disparage whatever
+evidence makes in favor of the early origin of liturgies. Hammond
+is sensible when he says in the Preface to his valuable work
+entitled _Liturgies Eastern and Western_, "I have assumed an
+intermediate position between the views of those on the one hand
+who hold that the liturgies had assumed a recognized and fixed
+form so early as to be quoted in the Epistles to the Corinthians
+and Hebrews . . . and of those, on the other, who because there are
+some palpable interpolations and marks of comparatively late date
+in some of the texts, assert broadly that they are all untrustworthy
+and 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 the
+Christian Liturgy may be compactly stated thus: The very earliest
+monuments of Christian worship that we possess are rituals of
+thanksgiving, having direct reference to the sacrifice of the
+death of Christ. Going back from these to the New Testament we
+find there the narrative of the institution of the Holy Communion
+by Christ himself, and in connection with it the command, "This
+do in remembrance of me." It is, I submit, a reasonable inference
+that the liturgies in the main fairly represent what it was in
+the mind of the apostle to recognize and establish as proper
+Christian worship. I do not call it demonstration, I call it
+reasonable inference. There is a striking parallelism between the
+argument for liturgical worship and the argument for episcopacy.
+In both cases we take the ground that continuity existed between
+the life of the Church as we find it a hundred years after the
+last of the apostles had gone to his rest and the life of the
+Church as it is pictured in the New Testament.
+
+That there were many changes during the interval must no doubt be
+granted, but we say that if those changes were serious ones
+affecting great principles of belief or order, those who maintain
+that such a hidden revolution took place are bound to bring
+positive evidence to the fact. This history of the Church during
+the second century has been likened with more of ingenuity than
+of poetical beauty to the passing of a train through a railway
+tunnel.
+
+We see the train enter, we see it emerge, but its movement while
+inside the tunnel is concealed from us. Similarly we may say that
+we see with comparative distinctness the Christian Church of the
+Apostolic Age, and we see with comparative distinctness the Church
+of the Age of Cyprian and Origen, but with respect to the interval
+separating the two periods we are not indeed wholly, but, we are,
+it must be confessed, very largely ignorant. And yet as in the
+case of the tunnel we confidently affirm an identity between what
+we saw go in and what we see coming out, so with the doctrine,
+discipline, and worship of the Church, the usages of the third
+century, we argue, are probably in their leading features what the
+usages of the first century were. If reason to the contrary can
+be given, well and good; but in the absence of countervailing
+testimony we abide by our inference, holding it to be sound.
+
+I am far from wishing to maintain that these considerations bind
+liturgical worship upon the Christian Church as a matter of
+obligation for all time. It might be argued, and I think with
+great force, that liturgical worship having been universal
+throughout the ancient world, heathen as well as Jewish, the
+apostles and fathers of the Christian Church judged it unwise
+to make any departure at the outset from a custom so invariable,
+trusting it to the spirit of the new religion to work out freer and
+less formal methods of approaching God through Christ in the times
+to come. This, I confess, strikes me as a perfectly legitimate line
+of reasoning and one which is strengthened rather than weakened by
+what we have seen happen in Christendom since the sixteenth
+century. Great bodies of Christians have for a period of some
+three hundred years been worshipping Almighty God in non-liturgical
+ways, and have not been left without witness that their service
+was acceptable to the Divine Majesty. Moreover, the fact that
+absolute rigidity in liturgical use never was insisted upon in
+any age of the Church until the English passed their Act of
+Uniformity, makes in the same direction. And yet even after these
+allowances have been made, there remains a considerable amount
+of solid satisfaction for those who do adhere to the liturgical
+method, in the thought that they are in the line which is apparently
+the line of continuity, and that their interpretation of the
+apostolic purpose with respect to worship is the interpretation
+that has been generally received in Christendom as far back as we
+can go.
+
+
+
+
+II.
+
+VICISSITUDES.
+
+
+Certain of the necromancers of the far East are said to have the
+power of causing a tree to spring up, spread its branches, blossom,
+and bear fruit before the eyes of the lookers-on within the space
+of a few moments.
+
+Modern liturgies have sometimes been brought into being by a process
+as extemporaneous as this, but not such was the genesis of the
+Book of Common Prayer.
+
+There are at least eight forms under which the Prayer Book has
+been from time to time authoritatively set forth--five English,
+one Scottish, one Irish, and one American; so that, if we would
+be accurate, we are bound to specify, when we speak of "The Prayer
+Book," 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 like
+that which attaches to what, in the case of a man, we call personal
+identity. Which is the true, the actual Napoleon? Is it the
+Napoleon of the Directory, or the Napoleon of the Consulate, or the
+Napoleon of the Empire? At each epoch we discern a different phase
+of 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 and
+the same man.
+
+But just as a ship acquires, as we may say, her personal identity
+when she is launched and named, even though there may be a great
+deal yet to be done in the way of finishing and furnishing before
+she can be pronounced seaworthy, so it is with a book that is
+destined to undergo repeated revision and reconstruction, it does
+acquire, on the day when it is first published, and first given a
+distinctive title, a certain character the losing of which would be
+the loss of personal identity. There is many an old cathedral that
+might properly enough be called a re-edited book in stone. Norman
+architecture, Early English, Decorated, and Perpendicular, all are
+there, and yet one dominant thought pervades the building.
+Notwithstanding the many times it has been retouched, the fabric
+still expresses to the eye the original creative purpose of the
+designer; there is no possibility of our mistaking Salisbury for
+York or Peterborough for London.
+
+The first Book of Common Prayer was built up of blocks that for the
+most part had been previously used in other buildings, but the
+resulting structure exhibited, from the very moment it received a
+name, such distinct and unmistakable characteristics as have
+guaranteed it personal identity through more than three hundred
+years. Hence, while it is in one sense true that there are no
+fewer than eight Books of Common Prayer, it is in another sense
+equally true that the Book of Common Prayer is one.
+
+An identity of purpose, of scope, and of spirit shows itself
+in all its various forms under which the book exists, so that
+whether we are speaking of the First Prayer Book of King Edward
+the Sixth, or of the book adopted by the Church of Ireland after
+its disestablishment, or of the American Book of Common Prayer,
+what we have in mind is, in a very real and deep sense, one and
+the same thing.
+
+Let us proceed now to a rapid survey of the facts connected with
+the first issue of the Common Prayer.
+
+For a period long anterior to the Reformation there had been in
+use among the English brief books of devotion known as "primers,"
+written in the language of the people. The fact that the public
+services of the Church were invariably conducted in the Latin
+tongue made a resort to such expedients as this necessary, unless
+religion was to be reserved as the private property of ecclesiastics.
+
+By a curious process of evolution the primer, from having been
+in mediaeval times a book wholly religious and devotional, has
+come to be in our day a book wholly secular and educational. We
+associate it with Noah Webster and the Harper Brothers. The New
+England Primer of the Puritans, with its odd jumble of piety and
+the three R's, marks a point of transition from the ancient to the
+modern type.
+
+But this by the way. The primer we are now concerned with is the
+devotional primer of the times just previous to the Reformation.
+This, as a rule, contained prayers, the Belief, the Ave Maria, a
+litany of some sort, the Ten Commandments, and whatever else there
+might be that in the mind of the compiler came under the head of
+"things which a Christian ought to know." There were three of
+these primers set forth during the reign of Henry the Eighth, one
+in 1535, one in 1539, and one in 1545. During the space that
+intervened between the publication of the second and that of the
+third of these primers, appeared "The Litany and Suffrages," a
+formulary compiled, as is generally believed, by Cranmer, the then
+Archbishop of Canterbury, and in substance identical with the Litany
+we use to-day. This Litany of 1544 has been properly described as
+"the precursor and first instalment of the English Book of Common
+Prayer." It was the nucleus or centre of crystallization about
+which the other constituent portions of our manual of worship
+were destined to be grouped. A quaint exhortation was prefixed to
+this Litany, in which it was said to have been set forth "because
+the not understanding the prayers and suffrages formerly used
+caused that the people came but slackly to the processions."
+Besides the primers and the Litany, there were printed in Henry's
+reign 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 Christians
+in their private devotional life than to the public worship of the
+Church, but we are not to suppose that meanwhile the larger
+interests of the whole body were forgotten. So early as in the
+year 1542, Convocation, which according to the Anglican theory
+stands toward the Church in the same attitude that Parliament holds
+to the State, appointed a Committee of Eight to review and correct
+the existing service-books. We know very little as to the proceedings
+of this committee, but that something was done, and a real impulse
+given to liturgical revision, is evidenced by the fact that at a
+meeting of Convocation held soon after King Henry's death a
+resolution prevailed "That the books of the Bishops and others who
+by the command of the Convocation have labored in examining,
+reforming, and publishing the divine service, may be produced
+and laid before the examination of this house."
+
+The next important step in the process we are studying was the
+publication by authority in the early spring of 1548, of an Order
+of the Communion, as it was called, a formulary prepared by Cranmer
+to enable the priest, after having consecrated the elements in
+the usual manner, to distribute them to the people with the
+sentences of delivery spoken in English. The priest, that is to
+say, was to proceed with the service of the Mass as usual in the
+Latin tongue, but after he had himself received the bread and
+the wine, he was to proceed to a service of Communion for the
+people 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 Communion
+as we are using it to-day.
+
+We have, then, as an abiding result of the liturgical experiments
+made in anticipation of the actual setting forth of an authoritative
+Prayer Book, the Litany and this Order of the Communion.
+
+The time was now ripe for something better and more complete; a
+new king was upon the throne, and one whose counsellors were
+better disposed toward change than ever Henry had been. The great
+movement we know under the name of the Reformation touched the
+life of the Christian Church in every one of its three great
+departments--doctrine, discipline, and worship. In Henry's mind,
+however, the question appears to have been almost exclusively one
+of discipline or polity. His quarrel was not with the accepted
+theological errors of his day, for as Defender of the Faith he
+covered some of the worst of them with his shield. Neither was
+he ill-disposed toward the methods and usages of public worship
+so far as we can judge. His quarrel first, last, and always was
+with a certain rival claimant of power, whose pretended authority
+he was determined to drive out of the realm, to wit, the Pope.
+But while it was thus with Henry, it was far otherwise with many
+of the more thoughtful and devout among his theologians, and
+when the restraint that had been laid on them was removed by
+the king's death, they welcomed the opportunity to apply to
+doctrine and worship the same reforming touch that had already
+remoulded polity.
+
+An enlarged Committee of Convocation sat at Windsor in the summer
+of 1548, and as a result there was finally set forth, and ordered
+to be put into use on Whitsunday, 1549, what has become known in
+history as the "First Prayer Book of Edward VI."
+
+To dwell on those features of the First Book that have remained
+unaltered to the present day would be superfluous; I shall
+therefore, in speaking of it, confine myself to the distinctive
+and characteristic points in which it differs from the Prayer
+Books that have succeeded it.
+
+It is worthy of note that in the title page of the First Book
+there is a clear distinction drawn between the Church Universal,
+or what we call in the _Te Deum_ "the holy Church throughout all
+the world," and that particular Church to which King Edward's
+subjects, in virtue of their being Englishmen, belonged. The book
+is said to be "the Book of the Common Prayer and administration of
+the Sacraments and other Rites and Ceremonies of _The Church_,
+after the use of the Church of England." "_The Church_" is
+recognized as being a larger and, perhaps, older thing than the
+_Church of England_, while at the same time it is intimated that
+only through such use of these same prayers and sacraments as the
+English Church ordains and authorizes can English folk come into
+communion with the great family of believers spread over the whole
+earth.
+
+The Preface is a singularly racy piece of English, in which with
+the utmost plainness of speech the compilers give their reasons
+for having dealt with the old services as they have done. This
+reappears in the English Prayer Book of the present day under the
+title "Concerning the Service of The Church," and so described is
+placed after the Preface written in 1662 by the Revisers of the
+Restoration.
+
+The Order for Daily Morning Prayer, as we name it, is called in
+Edward's First Book "An Order for Matins daily through the year."
+Similarly, what we call the Order for Daily Evening Prayer was
+styled "An Order for Evensong." These beautiful names, "Matins"
+and "Evensong," which it is a great pity to have lost, for surely
+there is nothing superstitious about them, disappeared from the
+book as subsequently revised, and save in the Lectionary of the
+Church of England have no present recognition. One of them,
+however, Evensong, seems to be coming very generally into colloquial
+use. The Order for Matins began with the Lord's Prayer. Then, after
+the familiar versicles still in use, including two that have no
+place 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, a
+portion of which is known to us as the _Venite_. From this point
+the service proceeded, as in the English Prayer Book of to-day,
+through the Collect for Grace, where it came to an end. The
+structure of Evensong was similar, beginning with the Lord's
+Prayer and ending, as our shortened Evening Prayer now does, with
+the Collect for Aid against Perils. Then followed the Athanasian
+Creed, and immediately afterward came the Introits, Collects,
+Epistles, and Gospels.
+
+These Introits, so-called, were psalms appointed to be sung when
+the priest was about to begin the Holy Communion. They had been
+an ancient feature of divine service, but were dropped from the
+subsequent books as a required feature of the Church's worship.
+
+The title of the Communion Service in Edward's First Book is as
+follows: "The Supper of the Lord and the Holy Communion commonly
+called 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 with
+us, except that the Prayer for the Church Militant and the
+Consecration Prayer are welded into one, and the Prayer of Humble
+Access given a place immediately before the reception of the
+elements. I note, in passing, certain phrases and sentences that
+are peculiar to the Communion Office of the First Book, as, for
+instance, this from the Prayer for the whole state of Christ's
+Church: "And here we do give unto thee most high praise and hearty
+thanks for the wonderful grace and virtue declared in all thy
+saints from the beginning of the world, and chiefly in the most
+glorious and blessed Virgin Mary, Mother of thy Son Jesus Christ
+our Lord and God, and in the holy patriarchs, prophets, apostles,
+and martyrs, whose examples, O Lord, and steadfastness in thy
+faith and keeping thy holy commandments grant us to follow. We
+commend unto thy mercy, O Lord, all other thy servants which are
+departed hence from us with the sign of faith and do now rest in
+the sleep of peace. Grant unto them, we beseech thee, thy mercy and
+everlasting peace, and that at the day of the general resurrection
+we and all they which be of the mystical body of thy Son may
+altogether be set on his right hand."
+
+And this from the closing portion of the Consecration: "Yet we
+beseech thee to accept this our bounden duty and service, and
+command these our prayers and supplications by the ministry of thy
+holy angels to be brought up into thy holy tabernacle before the
+sight of thy divine majesty."
+
+Following close upon the Communion Service came the Litany, differing
+very little from what we have to-day, save in the memorable petition,
+"From the tyranny of the Bishop of Rome and all his detestable
+enormities, good Lord deliver us."
+
+The Baptismal Offices of the First Book contain certain unique
+features. The sign of the cross is ordered to be made on the child's
+breast as well as on his forehead. There is a form of exorcism said
+over the infant in which the unclean spirit is commanded to come
+out and to depart. There is also the giving of the "Crisome" or
+white vesture as a symbol of innocence. "Take this white vesture
+for a token of the innocency which by God's grace in this holy
+sacrament of Baptism is given unto thee, and for a sign whereby
+thou art admonished, so long as thou livest, to give thyself to
+innocency of living, that after this transitory life thou mayest
+be partaker of the life everlasting."
+
+The Catechism in Edward VI. First Book, as in the subsequent books
+down to 1662, is made a part of the Confirmation Office, although
+it does not clearly appear that the children were expected to say
+it as a preliminary to the service.
+
+The Office for the Visitation of the Sick contains provision for
+private confession and absolution, and also directs that the priest
+shall 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 what
+is called the reservation of the elements, but contains also, be it
+observed, that rubric which has held its place through all the
+changes the Prayer Book has undergone, where we are taught that if
+the sick man by any "just impediment fail to receive the sacrament
+of Christ's body and blood, the curate shall instruct him that if
+he do truly repent him of his sins and steadfastly believe that
+Jesus Christ hath suffered death upon the cross for him . . . he
+doth eat and drink the body and blood of our Saviour Christ,
+profitably to his soul's health although he do not receive the
+sacrament 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 differs
+but little from the service still in use. A special Introit,
+Collect, Epistle, and Gospel are appointed "for the Celebration of
+the Holy Communion when there is a Burial of the Dead."
+
+A Commination Office for Ash-Wednesday, substantially identical
+with that still in use in the Church of England, concludes the book.
+
+The First Prayer Book of King Edward the Sixth, memorable as it was
+destined to become, proved, so far as actual use was concerned, but
+short-lived. It became operative, as we have seen, on Whitsunday,
+1549, but it was soon evident that while the new services went too
+far in the direction of reform to please the friends of the ancient
+order of things, they did not go far enough to meet the wishes of
+the reforming party.
+
+Before the year was out no fewer than three translations of the
+Liturgy into Latin had been undertaken with a view to informing
+the Protestant divines of the Continent as to what their English
+colleagues were doing. "There was already within the Church" (of
+England), writes Cardwell, in his comparison of Edward's two books,
+"a party, though probably not numerous, which espoused the peculiar
+sentiments of Calvin; there were others, and Cranmer, it appears,
+had recently been one of them, adhering strictly to the opinions
+of Luther; there were many, and those among the most active and the
+most learned, who adopted the views of Bullinger and the theologians
+of Zurich; there was a still larger body anxious to combine all
+classes 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 more
+completely 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 Book
+of King Edward VI., a work of the very greatest interest, for the
+reason that it was destined to become the basis of all future
+revisions. Whitsunday, 1549, was the day when the First Book began
+to be used. The Feast of All Saints, 1552, was the date officially
+appointed for the introduction of the Second Book. Presently King
+Edward died, and by an act of Mary passed in October, 1553, the use
+of 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 and
+about four months, and the Second Book one year and about two
+months. A memorable three years and a half for the English-speaking
+peoples of all time to come, for it is not too much to say that
+while the language of Tyndale and of Cranmer continues to be heard
+on earth, the devotions then put into form will keep on moulding
+the religious thought and firing the spiritual imagination of this
+race.
+
+The points in which the second of King Edward's two books differs
+from the first are of such serious moment and the general complexion
+of the later work has in it such an access of Protestant coloring,
+that high Anglican writers have been in the habit of attributing the
+main features of the revision to the interference of the Continental
+Reformers. "If it had not been for the impertinent meddling," they
+have been accustomed to say, "of such foreigners as Bucer, Peter
+Martyr, and John a-Lasco, we might have been enjoying at the present
+day the admirable and truly Catholic devotions set forth in the
+fresh morning of the Reformation, before the earth-born vapors of
+theological controversy and ecclesiastical partisanship had
+beclouded an otherwise fair sky." But it does not appear that there
+is any solid foundation in fact for these complaints.
+
+The natural spread of the spirit of reform among the people of the
+realm, taken in connection with the changes of opinion which the
+swift movement of the times necessarily engendered in the minds of
+the leading divines, are of themselves quite sufficient to account
+for what took place. Certainly, if the English of that day were at
+all like their descendants in our time, it is in the highest degree
+unlikely that they would have allowed a handful of learned refugees
+to force upon them changes which their own sober judgment did not
+approve.
+
+The truth is, very little is certainly known as to the details of
+what was done in the making of Edward's Second Book. Even the names
+of the members of the committee intrusted with the revision are
+matter of conjecture, and of the proceedings of that body no
+authentic record survives. What we do possess and are in a position
+to criticise is the book itself, and to a brief review of the
+points in which it differs from its predecessor we will now pass.
+
+Upon taking up the Second Book after laying down the First, one is
+struck immediately with the changed look of Morning Prayer. This
+is no longer called Matins, and no longer begins as before with the
+Lord's Prayer. An Introduction has been prefixed to the office
+consisting of a collection of sentences from Holy Scripture, all of
+them of a penitential character, and besides these of an Exhortation,
+a Confession, and an Absolution. There can be little doubt that this
+opportunity for making public acknowledgment of sin and hearing
+the declaration of God's willingness to forgive, was meant to
+counterbalance the removal from the book of all reference, save
+in one instance, to private confession and absolution. The Church
+of England has always retained in her Visitation Office a permission
+to the priest to pronounce absolution privately to the sick man.
+This was a feature of the First Book that was not disturbed in the
+Second. But wherever else they found anything that seemed to look
+toward the continuance of the system familiarly known to us under
+the name of "the Confessional," they expunged it. Between the
+Exhortation and the Confession there is, in point of literary merit,
+a noticeable contrast, and it is scarcely to be believed that both
+formularies can have proceeded from one and the same pen. Another
+step in the Protestant direction was the prohibition of certain
+vestments that in the First Book had been allowed, as the alb and
+cope. The Introit Psalms were taken away. The word "table" was
+everywhere substituted for the word "altar." The changes in the
+Office of the Holy Communion were numerous and significant. The
+Ten Commandments, for instance, were inserted in the place where
+we now have them. The _Gloria in Excelsis_ was transferred from
+the beginning of the service to the end. The Exhortations were
+re-written. The supplication for the dead was taken out of the
+Prayer for the whole state of Christ's Church, and the words
+"militant here on earth" were added to the title with a view to
+confining the scope of the intercession to the circle of people
+still alive. The Confession, Absolution, Comfortable Words, and
+Prayer of Humble Access were placed before the Consecration instead
+of after it. Most important of all was the change of the words
+appointed to be said in delivering the elements to the communicants.
+In the First Book these had been, "The body of our Lord Jesus Christ
+which was given for thee, preserve thy body and soul unto everlasting
+life," and in the case of the cup, "The blood of our Lord Jesus
+Christ, which was shed for thee, preserve thy body and soul unto
+everlasting life." For these were now substituted in the one
+instance the words, "Take and eat this in remembrance that Christ
+died for thee, and feed on him in thy heart by faith, with
+thanksgiving," and in the other, "Drink this in remembrance that
+Christ's blood was shed for thee, and be thankful."
+
+From the Office for the Communion of the Sick the direction to
+reserve the elements was omitted, as was also the permission to
+anoint the sick man with oil. The Service of Baptism was no longer
+suffered to retain the exorcism of the evil spirit, or the white
+vesture, or the unction; and there were other items of less
+important change. Those mentioned reveal plainly enough what was
+the animus of the revisers. Most evidently the intention was to
+produce a liturgy more thoroughly reformed, more in harmony with
+the new tone and temper which the religious thought of the times
+was 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 the
+Reformed service-books should be given up to the ecclesiastical
+authorities within fifteen days to be burned. This is doubtless
+the reason why copies of the liturgical books of Edward's reign
+are now so exceedingly rare. Reprints of them abound, but the
+originals exist only as costly curiosities.
+
+Soon after Elizabeth's accession a committee of divines assembled
+under her authority for the purpose of again revising the
+formularies.
+
+The queen was personally a High-Churchwoman, and her own judgment
+is said to have been favorable to taking the first of Edward's two
+books as the basis of the revision, but a contrary preference
+swayed the committee, and the lines followed were those of 1552
+and 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 old
+vestments recognized in the earlier part of King Edward's reign
+were again legalized. The petition for deliverance from the tyranny
+of the Pope was struck out of the Litany, and by a compromise
+peculiarly English in its character, and, as experience has shown,
+exceedingly well judged, the two forms of words that had been used
+in the delivery of the elements in the Holy Communion were welded
+together into the shape in which we have them still.
+
+Queen Elizabeth's Prayer Book continued in use for five-and-forty
+years. Nothing was more natural than that when she died there should
+come with the accession of a new dynasty a demand for fresh revision.
+King James, who was not afflicted with any want of confidence in
+his own judgment, invited certain representatives of the disaffected
+party to meet, under his presidency, the Churchmen in council with
+a view to the settlement of differences. The Puritans had been
+gaining in strength during Elizabeth's reign, and they felt that
+they were now in position to demand a larger measure of liturgical
+reform than that monarch and her advisers had been willing to
+concede to them.
+
+King James convened his conference at Hampton Court, near London,
+and he himself was good enough to preside. Very little came of the
+debate. The Puritans had demanded the discontinuance of the sign of
+the cross in Baptism, of bowing at the name of Jesus, of the ring
+in 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 made
+optional.
+
+Almost nothing was conceded to them. The words "or Remission of
+Sins" were added to the title of the Absolution, certain Prayers
+and Thanksgivings were introduced, and that portion of the Catechism
+which deals with the Sacraments was for the first time set forth.
+And thus the English Prayer Book started out upon its fourth lease
+of life destined in this form to endure unchanged, though by no
+means unassailed, for more than half a century.
+
+A stirring half century it was. The Puritan defeat at Hampton Court
+was redressed at Naseby. With the coming in of the Long Parliament
+the Book of Common Prayer went out, and to all appearances the
+triumph of the Commonwealth meant the final extinction of the usage
+of liturgical worship on English soil. The book, under its various
+forms, 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 word
+of the Prayer Book he had loved and for which he had fought was
+said 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 Common
+Prayer, and took order that thereafter only such divine service
+should be lawful as accorded with what was called the _Directory_,
+a manual of suggestions with respect to public worship adopted by
+the Presbyterian party as a substitute for the ancient liturgy.
+
+With the restoration of the Stuarts in 1660 came naturally the
+restoration of the Prayer Book, and with equal naturalness a
+revision of it. But of what sort should the revision be, and under
+whose auspices conducted? This was an anxious question for the
+advisers, civil and ecclesiastical, of the restored king. Should
+the second Charles take up the book just as it had fallen from the
+hands of the first Charles, unchanged in line or letter, or should
+he seek by judicious alterations and timely concessions to win
+back for the national Church the good-will and loyalty of those
+who, eighteen years before, had broken down her hedge? The situation
+may be described as triangular.
+
+The king's secret and personal sympathies were probably all along
+with the Roman Church; his official allegiance was plainly due to
+the Church of England; and yet, at the same time, he owed much
+to the forbearance of the men who had been dominant under the
+Commonwealth. The mind of the nation had, indeed, reacted toward
+monarchy, but not with such an absolute and hardy renunciation of
+the doctrines of popular sovereignty as to make it safe for the
+returning king to do precisely as he chose. The glorious Revolution
+that was destined so soon to follow upon the heels of the gracious
+Restoration gave evidence, when it came, that there were some
+things the people of England prized even more highly than an
+hereditary throne. Misgivings as to the amount there might still
+be of this sort of electricity in the atmosphere suggested to the
+king and his counsellors the expediency of holding a conference,
+at which the leaders on either side might bring forward their strong
+reasons in favor of this or that method of dealing with the
+ecclesiastical question in general, and more especially with the
+vexed problem of worship.
+
+Accordingly, early in the spring of 1661 the King issued a
+royal warrant summoning to meet at the Savoy Palace in the
+Strand 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 other
+divines called coadjutors. The Presbyterians had also their twelve
+principal men and their nine coadjutors.
+
+Conspicuous among the Episcopalians for weight of learning were
+Bishops Sanderson, Cosin, and Walton, and Doctors Pearson, Sparrow,
+and Heylin. Baxter, Reynolds, Calamy, and Lightfoot were the most
+notable of the Presbyterians.
+
+The conference, which has ever since been known from its place of
+meeting (an old palace of the Piedmontese Ambassadors) as the Savoy
+Conference, convened on April 15, 1661. For various reasons, it
+was evident from the outset that the Churchmen were in a position
+of great advantage. In the first place, signs and tokens of a
+renewed confidence in monarchy and of a revived attachment to the
+reigning House were becoming daily more numerous.
+
+Before he had had a chance to test the strength of the existing
+political parties and to know how things really stood, Charles had
+borne himself very discreetly toward the Presbyterians, and had
+held out hopes to them which, as the event proved, were destined
+never to be realized. In a declaration put forth in the autumn of
+1660, after he had been for some months on English soil, he had even
+gone so far as to say: "When we were in Holland we were attended
+by many grave and learned ministers from hence, who were looked
+upon as the most able and principal asserters of the Presbyterian
+opinions; with whom we had as much conference as the multitude of
+affairs which were then upon us would permit us to have, and to
+our great satisfaction and comfort found them persons full of
+affection to us, of zeal for the peace of the Church and State, and
+neither enemies, as they have been given out to be, to episcopacy
+or liturgy, but modestly to desire such alterations in either,
+as without shaking foundations might best allay the present
+distempers."
+
+By the time the conference met it had become evident, from votes
+taken in Parliament and otherwise, that the Churchmen could sustain
+toward their opponents a somewhat stiffer attitude than this without
+imperilling their cause. Another great advantage enjoyed by the
+Episcopalians grew out of the fact that they were the party in
+possession. They had only to profess themselves satisfied with the
+Prayer Book as it stood, in order to throw the Presbyterians into
+the position of assailants, and defense is always easier than
+attack. Sheldon, the Bishop of London, was not slow to perceive
+this. At the very first meeting of the conference, he is reported
+to have said that "as the Non-conformists, and not the bishops, had
+sought for the conference, nothing could be done till the former
+had delivered their exceptions in writing, together with the
+additional forms and alterations which they desired." Upon which
+Bishop Burnet in his _History of his own Times_ remarks: "Sheldon
+saw well what the effect would be of putting them to make all their
+demands at once. The number of them raised a mighty outcry against
+them, as people that could never be satisfied."
+
+The Presbyterians, however, took up the challenge, set to work at
+formulating their objections, and appointed Richard Baxter, the most
+famous of their number, to show what could be done in the way of
+making a better manual of worship than the Book of Common Prayer.
+
+Baxter, a truly great man and wise in a way, though scarcely in the
+liturgical way, was guilty of the incredible folly of undertaking
+to construct a Prayer Book within a fortnight.
+
+Of this liturgy it is probably safe to say that no denomination of
+Christians, however anti-prelatical or eccentric, would for a
+moment dream of adopting it, if, indeed, there be a single local
+congregation anywhere that could be persuaded to employ it. The
+characteristic of the devotions is lengthiness. The opening sentence
+of the prayer with which the book begins contains by actual count
+eighty-three words. It is probable that Baxter by his rash act did
+more to injure the cause of intelligent and reverential liturgical
+revision than any ten men have done before or since. In every
+discussion of the subject he is almost sure to be brought forward
+as "the awful example."
+
+A document much more to the point than Baxter's Liturgy was the
+formal catalogue of faults and blemishes alleged against the Prayer
+Book, which the Puritan members of the conference in due time
+brought in. This indictment, for it may fairly be called such,
+since it was drawn up in separate counts, is very interesting
+reading. Of the "exceptions against the Book of Common Prayer,"
+as the Puritans named their list of liturgical grievances, some
+must strike almost any reader of the present day as trivial and
+unworthy. Others again there are that draw a sympathetic Amen from
+many quarters to-day. To an American Episcopalian the catalogue
+is chiefly interesting as showing how ready and even eager were
+our colonial ancestors of a hundred years ago to remove out of the
+way such known rocks of offence as they could. An attentive student
+of the American Prayer Book cannot fail to be struck with the number
+of instances in which the text gives evidence of the influence
+exerted over the minds of our revisers by what had been urged, more
+than a hundred years before, by the Puritan members of the Savoy
+Conference. The defeat of 1661 was, in a measure at least, avenged
+in 1789. It is encouraging to those who cast their bread upon
+liturgical waters to notice after how many days the return may come.
+But the conference, to all outward seeming, was a failure. Baxter's
+unhappy Prayer Book was its own sufficient refutation, and as for
+the 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 tone
+of this reply. Here, for instance, is the comment of the bishops
+upon the request of the Puritans to be allowed occasionally to
+substitute extemporaneous for liturgical devotions. "The gift or
+rather spirit of prayer consists in the inward graces of the spirit,
+not in extempore expressions which any man of natural parts having
+a voluble tongue and audacity may attain to without any special
+gift." Nothing very conciliatory in that. To the complaint that
+the Collects are too short, the bishops reply that they cannot
+for that reason be accounted faulty, being like those "short but
+prevalent prayers in Scripture, Lord, be merciful to me a sinner.
+Lord, increase our faith." The Puritans had objected to the
+antiphonal element in the Prayer-Book services, and desired to
+have nothing of a responsive character allowed beyond the single
+word Amen. "But," rejoin the bishops, "they directly practise the
+contrary in one of their principal parts of worship, singing of
+psalms, where the people bear as great a part as the minister. If
+this 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, but
+not winning.
+
+The Puritans had objected to the people's kneeling while the
+Commandments were read on the score that ignorant worshippers
+might mistake the Decalogue for a form of prayer. With some asperity
+the bishops reply that "why Christian people should not upon their
+knees ask their pardon for their life forfeited for the breach of
+every commandment and pray for grace to keep them for the time to
+come they must be more than 'ignorant' that can scruple."
+
+The time during which the conference at the Savoy should continue
+its sessions had been limited to four months. This period expired
+on July 24, 1661, and the apparently fruitless disputation was at
+an end. Meanwhile, however, Convocation, the recognized legislature
+of the Church of England, had begun to sit, and the bishops had
+undertaken a revision of the Prayer Book after their own mind, and
+with slight regard to what they had been hearing from their critics
+at the Savoy. The bulk of their work, which included, it is said,
+more than six hundred alterations, most of them of a verbal
+character and of no great importance, was accomplished within the
+compass of a single month. It is consoling to those who within our
+own memory have been charged with indecent haste for seeking to
+effect a revision of the American Book of Common Prayer within a
+period of nine years, to find this precedent in ecclesiastical
+history for their so great rashness.
+
+Since Charles the Second's day there has been no formal revision of
+the Prayer Book of the Church of England by the Church of England.
+
+Some slight relaxations of liturgical use on Sundays have been made
+legal by Act of Parliament, but in all important respects the Prayer
+Book of Victoria is identical with the book set forth by Convocation
+and sanctioned by Parliament shortly after the collapse of the Savoy
+Conference. Under no previous lease of life did the book enjoy
+anything like so long a period of continued existence. Elizabeth's
+book was the longest lived of all that preceded the Restoration,
+but that only continued in use five-and-forty years. But the Prayer
+Book of 1661 has now held its own in England for two centuries and
+a quarter. When, therefore, we are asked to accept the first
+Edwardian Book as the only just exponent of the religious mind of
+England, it is open to us to reply, "Why should we, seeing that
+the Caroline Book has served as the vehicle of English devotion for
+a period seventy-five times as long?" The most voluminous of the
+additions made to the Prayer Book, in 1661, were the Office for the
+Baptism of Adults and the Forms of Prayer to be used at Sea. The
+wide diffusion, under the Commonwealth, of what were then called
+Anabaptist opinions, had brought it to pass that throughout the
+kingdom there were thousands of men and women who had grown up
+unbaptized. At the time of the Reformation such a thing as an
+unchristened Christendom seems not to have been thought possible.
+At any rate no provision was made for the contingency. But upon
+the spread of liberty of religious thought there followed, logically
+enough, the spread of liberty of religious action, and it was not
+strange that after a whole generation had spent its life in
+controversy 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 Book
+for the addition of this office was that it might be used for the
+baptizing of "natives in the plantations and other converts." This
+is the first hint of any awakening of the conscience of the English
+Church to a sense of duty toward those strangers and foreigners who
+in the "Greater Britain" of these later days fill so large a place.
+The composition of the office, which differs very little, perhaps
+scarcely enough, from that appointed for the Baptism of Infants, is
+attributed to Griffith, the Bishop of St. Asaph. The compiler of
+the Forms of Prayer to be used at Sea was Bishop Sanderson, famous
+among English theologians as an authority on casuistry. He must have
+found it rather a nice case of conscience to decide whether a Stuart
+divine in preparing forms of prayer for a navy that had been the
+creation of Oliver Cromwell ought wholly to omit an acknowledgment
+of the nation's obligation to that stout-hearted, if non-Episcopal
+Christian. Other additions of importance made at this revision were
+the General Thanksgiving, in all probability the work of Reynolds,
+a conforming Presbyterian divine, the Collect, Epistle, and Gospel
+for the Sixth Sunday after the Epiphany, the Prayer for Parliament,
+upon the lines of which our own Prayer for Congress was afterward
+modelled, and the Prayer for All Sorts and Conditions of Men. In
+the Litany the words "rebellion" and "schism" were introduced into
+one of the suffrages, becoming tide-marks of the havoc wrought in
+Church and State by what the revisers, doubtless, looked back upon
+as "the flood of the ungodly." The words "Bishops, Priests, and
+Deacons" were substituted for "Bishops, Pastors, and Ministers of
+the Church." New Collects were appointed for the Third Sunday in
+Advent and for St. Stephen's Day. Both of these are distinct gains,
+albeit had the opinion then prevailed that to introduce into the
+Prayer 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 the
+Sentences, Epistles and Gospels of the language of King James's
+Bible in place of that of earlier versions. This principle was not
+applied to the Psalter, to the Decalogue, or, in fact, to any of
+the portions of Scripture contained in the Communion Service.
+
+It is also interesting to note that the Confession in the Holy
+Communion, which the earlier rubric had directed should be said
+by one of the congregation, or else by one of the ministers, or
+by the priest himself, "was now made general and enjoined upon all
+the worshippers."
+
+Most suggestive of all, however, was the reinsertion at the end of
+the Communion Service of a certain Declaration about the significance
+of the act of kneeling at the reception of the elements, which had,
+as some say, irregularly and without proper authority, found its way
+into the Second Book of Edward VI., but had been omitted from all
+subsequent books till now. This Declaration, which from its not
+being printed in red ink is known to those who dislike it under the
+name of "the black rubric," was undoubtedly intended to ease the
+consciences of those who scrupled to kneel at the altar-rail for
+fear of seeming to countenance that superstitious adoration of the
+elements known to and stigmatized by the Reformers as "host-worship."
+The language of the black rubric as it stood in Edward's Second
+Book was as follows: "Although no order can be so perfectly devised
+but it may be of some, either for their ignorance and infirmity,
+or else of malice and obstinacy, misconstrued, depraved, and
+interpreted in a wrong part; and yet because brotherly charity
+willeth that so much as conveniently may be offences should be
+taken away; therefore we willing to do the same: whereas, it is
+ordained in the Book of Common Prayer, in the Administration of
+the Lord's Supper, that the communicants kneeling should receive the
+Holy Communion, which thing being well meant for a signification
+of the humble and grateful acknowledging of the benefits of Christ
+given unto the worthy receiver, and to avoid the profanation and
+disorder, which about the Holy Communion might else ensue, lest
+yet the same kneeling might be thought or taken otherwise; we do
+declare that it is not meant thereby, that any adoration is done
+or ought to be done, either unto the sacramental bread or wine
+there bodily received or unto any real and essential presence there
+being of Christ's natural flesh and blood. For as concerning the
+sacramental bread and wine they remain still in their very natural
+substances, and therefore may not be adored, for that were idolatry
+to be abhorred of all faithful Christians: and as concerning the
+natural body and blood of our Saviour Christ, they are in heaven
+and not here, for it is against the truth of Christ's true natural
+body to be in more places than in one at one time."
+
+In restoring this significant Declaration, the revisers of 1662
+substituted the words "corporal presence" for the words "real and
+substantial presence," but probably with no intention other than
+that of making the original meaning more plain. The fact that in
+the teeth and eyes of the black rubric the practice known as
+Eucharistical adoration has become widely prevalent in the Church
+of England, only shows how little dependence can be placed on forms
+of words to keep even excellent and religious people from doing
+the things they have a mind to do.
+
+In taking leave of the Caroline revision, it may be permitted to
+dwell for a moment upon the serious character of the conclusion
+reached by the ecclesiastical leaders of that day. An opportunity
+was given them to conciliate dissent. Without going all lengths,
+without in any measure imperilling the great foundation principles
+of Anglican religion, they might, it would seem, have won back to
+the national church thousands of those whom their sternness not
+only repelled but permanently embittered. But it was the hour of
+victory with the Churchmen, and "Woe to the conquered" seems to
+have been their cry. They set their faces as a flint against
+concession; they passed their iron-clad act of uniformity, and
+now for more than two hundred years religion in Great Britain has
+been a household divided against itself. Perhaps nothing that the
+men 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 left
+a number who place a pride and a merit in refusing to enter?" was
+a fair question, and fatal to any dream of unity. And yet one may
+be pardoned for believing that had a little of the oil of brotherly
+kindness been poured upon those troubled waters we whom the waves
+still buffet might to-day be sailing a smoother sea.
+
+As stated above, the Convocation of 1662 gave to the Prayer Book of
+the Church of England the form it has ever since retained. But it
+must not be supposed that no efforts have been made meanwhile to
+bring changes to pass. The books written upon the subject form a
+literature by themselves.
+
+The one really serious attempt to reconstruct the Liturgy in
+post-Caroline times was that which grew naturally enough out of the
+Revolution 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 sympathetically
+responsive to one another; revisions of rubrics go naturally
+along with revisions of codes. It was only what might have been
+anticipated, therefore, that when William and Mary came to the
+throne a Commission should issue for a new review. If Elizabeth
+had found it necessary to revise the book, if James had found it
+necessary, if Charles had found it necessary, why should not the
+strong hand of William of Orange be laid upon the pages? But this
+time the rule was destined to find its exception. The work of review
+was, indeed, undertaken by a Royal Commission, including among its
+members the great names of Stillingfleet, Tillotson, and Beveridge,
+but nothing came of their work. Convocation again showed itself
+unfriendly to anything like concessive measures, and so complete
+was the obscurity into which the doings of the Commission fell,
+that even as late as 1849, Cardwell, in the third edition of
+his _History of Conferences_, speaks as if he knew nothing of
+the whereabouts of the record. In 1854 the manuscript minutes
+of the Commission's proceedings were discovered in the Library
+of Lambeth Palace, and by order of Parliament printed as a
+Blue-book. The same document has also been published in a more
+readable form by Bagster. One rises from the perusal of this Broad
+Church Prayer Book--for such, perhaps, Tillotson's attempt may not
+unfairly be called--profoundly thankful that the promoters of it
+were not suffered to succeed. The Preface to our American Book of
+Common Prayer refers to this attempted review of 1689 "as a great
+and good work." But the greatness and the goodness must have lain
+in the motive, for one fails to discern them either in the matter
+or in the manner of what was recommended.
+
+Even Macaulay, Whig that he is, fails not to put on record his
+condemnation of the literary violence which the Prayer Book so
+narrowly 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 Collects
+could be improved by amplification. One of the few really good
+suggestions made by the Commissioners was that of using the
+Beatitudes in the Office of the Holy Communion as an alternate
+for the Decalogue. There are certain festivals of the Christian
+year when such a substitution would be most timely and refreshing.
+
+We make a leap now of just a hundred years. From 1689 we pass to
+1789, and find ourselves in the city of Philadelphia, at a
+convention assembled for the purpose of framing a constitution
+and setting forth a liturgy for a body of Christians destined to
+be known as the Protestant Episcopal Church in the United States
+of America. During the interval between the issue of the Declaration
+of Independence and the Ratification of the Constitution of the
+United States, the people in this country who had been brought
+up in the communion of the Church of England found themselves
+ecclesiastically in a very delicate position indeed. As colonists
+they had been canonically under the spiritual jurisdiction of the
+Bishop of London, a somewhat remote diocesan. But with this
+Episcopal bond broken and no new one formed, they seemed to be
+in a peculiar sense adrift. It does not fall to me to narrate
+the steps that led to the final establishment of the episcopacy
+upon a sure foundation, nor yet to trace the process through which
+the Church's legislative system came gradually to its completion.
+Our interest is a liturgical one, and our subject matter the
+evolution of the Prayer Book. I say nothing, therefore, of other
+matters that were debated in the Convention of 1789, but shall
+propose instead that we confine ourselves to what was said and
+done about the Prayer Book. In order, however, fully to appreciate
+the situation we must go back a little. In a half-formal and
+half-informal fashion there had come into existence, four years
+before this Convention of 1789 assembled, an American Liturgy now
+known by the name of _The Proposed Book_. It had been compiled on
+the basis of the English Prayer Book by a Committee of three
+eminent clergymen, Dr. White of Pennsylvania, Dr. William Smith
+of Maryland, and Dr. Wharton of Delaware. Precisely what measure
+of acceptance this book enjoyed, or to what extent it came actually
+into use, are difficult, perhaps hopeless questions.
+
+What we know for certain is that the public opinion of the greater
+number of Churchmen rejected it as inadequate and unsatisfactory.
+In the Convention of 1789 The Proposed Book does not seem to have
+been seriously considered in open debate at all, though doubtless
+there was much talk about it, much controversy over its merits and
+demerits at Philadelphia dinner-tables and elsewhere while the
+session was in progress.
+
+The truth is, the changes set forth in _The Proposed Book_ were
+too sweeping to commend themselves to the sober second-thought of
+men 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 of
+public thanksgiving for the Fourth of July. There were Churchmen
+doubtless at that day who failed duly to appreciate what were called
+in the title of the office, "the inestimable blessings of Religious
+and Civil Liberty." Others again may have been offended by the
+treatment measured out to the Psalter, which was portioned into
+thirty selections of two parts each, with the _Benedicite_ added
+at the end, to be used, if desired, on the thirty-first day of any
+month. Another somewhat crude and unliturgical device was the
+running together without break of the Morning Prayer and the
+Litany.
+
+I speak of blemishes, but _The Proposed Book_ had its excellences
+also. Just at present it is the fashion in Anglican circles to heap
+ridicule and contempt on _The Proposed Book_ out of all proportion
+to its real demerits. Somehow it is thought to compromise us with
+the English by showing up our ecclesiastical ancestors in an
+unfavorable light as unlearned and ignorant men. It is treated
+as people will sometimes treat an old family portrait of a forebear,
+who in his day was under a cloud, mismanaged trust funds, or made
+money in the slave trade. Thus a grave historiographer by way of
+speaking comfortably on this score, assures us that the volume
+"speedily sunk into obscurity," becoming one of the rarest of the
+books illustrative of our ecclesiastical annals.
+
+And yet, curiously enough, _The Proposed Book_ was in some points
+more "churchly," using the word in a sense expressive of liturgical
+accuracy, than the book finally adopted. In the Morning Prayer it
+has the _Venite_ in full and not abridged. The _Benedictus_ it also
+gives entire. A single form of Absolution is supplied. The versicles
+following upon the Creed are more numerous than ours. In the Evening
+Prayer the great Gospel Hymns, _the Magnificat_ and the _Nunc
+dimittis_, stand in the places to which we with tardy justice have
+only just restored them.
+
+Again, if we consider those features of _The Proposed Book_ that
+were retained and made part of the Liturgy in 1789, we shall have
+further reason to refrain from wholesale condemnation of this
+tentative work. For example, we owe the two opening sentences of
+Morning Prayer, "The Lord is in his holy temple" and "From the
+rising of the sun," to _The Proposed Book_, and also the special
+form for Thanksgiving Day. And yet, on the whole, the Convention
+of 1789 acted most wisely in determining that it would make the
+Prayer Book of the Church of England, rather than _The Proposed
+Book_, the real basis of revision. It did so, and as a result we
+have what has served us so well during the first century of our
+national life--the _Book of Common Prayer and Administration of
+the Sacraments and other rites and ceremonies of the Church
+according to the use of the Protestant Episcopal Church in the
+United States of America_. The points wherein the American Prayer
+Book differs from the Prayer Book of the Church of England are too
+numerous to be catalogued in full. "They will appear," says the
+Preface (a composition borrowed, by the way, almost wholly from
+_The Proposed Book_), "and, it is to be hoped, the reasons of them
+also, upon a comparison of this with the Book of Common Prayer of
+the Church of England."
+
+The most important differences are the following: The permissive
+use of "Selections of Psalms in place of the Psalms appointed for
+the day of the month." This was doubtless suggested by the wholesale
+transformation of the Psalter in _The Proposed Book_ into a series
+of selections.
+
+The permitted shortening of the Litany is an American feature.
+
+A number of the special prayers, as, for example, the prayer for a
+sick person, that for persons going to sea, the thanksgivings for a
+recovery and for a safe return, all these are peculiar to the
+American use. Extensive alterations were made in the Marriage
+Service and certain greatly needed ones in the Burial Office.
+The two most noteworthy differences, however, are the omission
+from our Prayer Book of the so-called Athanasian Creed, and the
+insertion in it of that part of the Consecration Prayer in the
+Communion Office known as the Invocation. The engrafting of this
+latter feature we owe to the influence of Bishop Seabury, who by
+this addition not only assimilated the language of our liturgy more
+closely to that of the ancient formularies of the Oriental Church,
+but also insured our being kept reminded of the truly spiritual
+character of Holy Communion. "It is the spirit that quickeneth,"
+this Invocation seems to say; "the flesh profiteth nothing." Quite
+in line with this was the alteration made at the same time in the
+language of the Catechism. "The Body and Blood of Christ," says the
+English Book, "which are verily and indeed taken and received by
+the faithful in the Lord's Supper."
+
+"The Body and Blood of Christ," says the American Book, "which are
+spiritually taken and received by the faithful in the Lord's
+Supper."
+
+Many verbal changes are to be found scattered here and there
+through the book, some of them for the better, some, perhaps,
+for the worse. The prevailing purpose seems to have been to
+expunge all obsolete words and phrases while dealing tenderly
+with obsolescent ones. In this course, however, the revisers
+were by no means always and everywhere consistent.
+
+"Prevent," in the sense of "anticipate," is altered in some places
+but left unchanged in others. In the _Visitation of Prisoners_, an
+office borrowed from the Irish Prayer Book, the thoroughly obsolete
+expression, "As you tender," in the sense of "as you value," the
+salvation of your soul, is retained.
+
+From the Psalter has disappeared in the American Book "Thou tellest
+my Sittings," although why this particular archaism should have
+been selected for banishment and a hundred others spared, it is
+not easy to understand.
+
+Perhaps some sudden impatience seized the reviser, like that which
+moved Bishop Wren, while annotating his Prayer Book, to write on
+the margin of the calendar for August, "Out with 'dog days' from
+among the saints."
+
+Considering what a bond of unity the Lord's Prayer appears to be
+becoming among all English-speaking worshippers, it is, perhaps,
+to be regretted that our revisers changed the wording of it in two
+or three places. The excision of "Lighten our darkness" must
+probably be attributed to the prosaic matter-of-fact temper which
+had possession of everybody and everything during the last quarter
+of the eighteenth century.
+
+The Ordinal, the Articles, the Consecration of Churches, and the
+Institution of Ministers made no part of the Prayer Book as it was
+set forth in 1789; nor do they, even now, strictly speaking, make
+a part of it, although in the matter of binding force and legal
+authority they are on the same footing.
+
+The Ordinal and Articles are substantially identical with the
+English Ordinal and Articles, save in the matter of a reference
+to the Athanasian Creed and several references to the connection of
+Church and State. The Consecration of Churches and the Institution
+of Ministers are offices distinctively American. If I add that the
+American Book drops out of the Visitation of the Sick a form
+of private absolution, and greatly modifies the service for
+Ash-Wednesday, we shall have made our survey of differences
+tolerably, though by no means exhaustively complete.
+
+And now what is the lesson taught us by the history of the Prayer
+Book? Homiletical as the question sounds, it is worth asking.
+
+We have reviewed rapidly, but not carelessly, the vicissitudes of
+the book's wonderful career, and we ought to be in a position to
+draw some sort of instructive inference from it all. Well, one
+thing taught us is this, the singular power of survival that lives
+in gracious words. They wondered at the "gracious words which
+proceeded out of His mouth," and because they wondered at them
+they treasured them up.
+
+Kind words, says the child's hymn, can never die; neither can
+kindly words, and kindly in the deepest sense are many, many of
+the words of the Common Prayer; they touch that which is most
+catholic in us, that which strongly links us to our kind. There
+is that in some of the Collects which as it has lasted since the
+days when Roman emperors were sitting on their thrones, so will
+it last while man continues what he is, a praying creature.
+
+Another thing taught us by the Prayer Book's history is the duty
+of being forever on our guard in the religious life against "the
+falsehood of extremes."
+
+The emancipated thinkers who account all standards of belief to
+be no better than dungeon walls, scoff at this feature of the
+Anglican character with much bitterness. "Your Church is a Church
+of compromises," they say, "and your boasted _Via media_ only a
+coward's path, the poor refuge of the man who dares not walk in
+the open." But when we see this Prayer Book condemned for being
+what it is by Bloody Mary, and then again condemned for being what
+it is by the Long Parliament, the thought occurs to us that
+possibly there is enshrined in this much-persecuted volume a truth
+larger than the Romanist is willing to tolerate, or the Puritan
+generous enough to apprehend.
+
+A third important lesson is that we are not to confound revision
+with ruin, or to suppose that because a book is marvellously good
+it cannot conceivably be bettered. Each accomplished revision of
+the Book of Common Prayer has been a distinct step in advance. If
+God in his wise providence suffered an excellent growth of devotion
+to spring up out of the soil of England in the days of Edward
+the Sixth, and, after many years, determined that like a vine
+out of Egypt it should be brought across the sea and given root
+on these shores, we need not fear that we are about to lose
+utterly our pleasant plant if we notice that the twigs and leaves
+are adapting themselves to the climate and the atmosphere of the
+new dwelling-place. The life within the vine remains what it always
+was. The growth means health. The power of adaptation is the
+guarantee 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 and
+great. A wise doubtfulness prompts conservative minds to throw every
+mover for change upon the defensive, when liturgical interests
+are at stake. So many men are born into the world with a native
+disposition to tamper with and tinker all settled things, and so
+many more become persuaded, as time goes on, of a personal "mission"
+to pull down and remake whatever has been once built up, esteeming
+life a failure unless they have contrived to build each his own
+monument upon a clearing, that lovers of the old ways are sometimes
+compelled in sheer self-defence to put on the appearance of being
+more obstinately set against change than they really are. It ought
+not to be absolutely impossible to alter a national hand-book of
+worship (which is what any manual calling itself a Common Prayer
+must aspire to become), but it is well that it should be all but
+impossible to do so. Logically it might seem as if the possession
+of a power to make involved a continuance of power to remake; and
+so it does, to a certain extent, but only to a certain extent.
+Living organisms cannot be remodelled with the same freedom as dead
+matter. A solemnity hangs about the moment of birth that attaches
+to no other crisis in a man's life until death comes. Similarly
+there are certain features which the founders of institutions, the
+first makers of organic law, imprint lastingly upon their work. We
+may destroy the living thing so brought to birth; to kill is always
+possible; but only by very gradual and plastic methods can we hope
+in any measure to reconstruct the actual embodiment of life once
+achieved. The men of 1789 had us in their power, even as the men
+of 1549 had had both them and us. In every creative epoch many
+things are settled by which unborn generations will be bound.[2]
+
+It may be urged that this is an argument against adopting liturgies
+in the first instance as vehicles of worship; and such undoubtedly
+it is in so far forth as immobility ought in such matters to be
+reckoned a disadvantage. But we are bound to take into account the
+gain which comes with immobility as well as the drawbacks. We must
+consider how large a proportion of the reverence which the great
+institutes of human life exact from us is due to the fixity of the
+things themselves. Mont Blanc loses nothing of its hold upon our
+admiration because we always find it in the same place.
+
+Men like to feel that there is something in the world stronger
+than the individual will, stronger simply because it expresses
+the settled common-sense of many as to what is fitting and right
+in contrast with the whim of one. Lawyers, as a class, are almost
+as conservative as ecclesiastics, and for the very reason that
+they also are charged with the custody of established forms which
+it is important that men should reverence. Laws affecting the tenure
+of property, the binding force of contracts, the stability of the
+marriage relation, not only cannot be lightly altered, the very
+phraseology in which they are couched must be carefully handled,
+for fear lest with the passing away of the form something of the
+substance go also.
+
+Moreover, the affections of men fasten themselves very tenaciously
+to such a trellis as a liturgy affords. The love for "the old words
+and the old tunes" against which all innovators in hymnody, however
+deserving, have to do battle, asserts itself under the form of
+love for the old prayers with ten-fold vehemence. An immense fund
+of latent heat smoulders beneath the maxim, "Let the ancient customs
+prevail"; and few of the victories achieved by the papacy are so
+startling as those that have resulted in the displacement of the
+liturgical uses of local Churches, that of Paris, for example, by
+the Roman rite.
+
+But true principles, as we are often reminded, become falsehoods
+when shoved across the line of proper measure. The very cycles of
+the astronomers have an end, and the clock-work of the most ancient
+heavens, or at least our reading of it, calls, from time to time,
+for readjustment. So long as man continues fallible his best
+intended workmanship will occasionally demand such alteration for
+the better as, within the limits already pointed out, may be
+possible.
+
+Many signs of the times suggest that the hour for a fresh review
+of the Anglican formularies of worship is nigh at hand. Some of
+these tokens are written on a sky broad enough to cover the whole
+English-speaking race, others of them are visible chiefly within
+our 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 of
+reach, 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 more
+recent writer when he says--in language which, _mutatis mutandis_,
+applies to our own case: "The most weighty plea in favor of timely
+inquiry into the subject is that the process of revision is actually
+going on piecemeal, and with no very intelligent survey of the
+bearings as a preliminary to any one instalment. The New Lectionary
+of 1871, the Shortened Services Act, the debates in the Convocation
+of Canterbury on rubrical amendments, none of them marked by any
+sufficient care or knowledge, and all fraught with at least the
+possibility of serious consequence, are examples of formal and
+recognized inroads on the Act of Uniformity; while such practical
+though unauthorized additions to the scanty group of Anglican
+formularies as the Three Hours' Devotion, Harvest Thanksgivings,
+Public Institution of Incumbents, Ordination of Readers and
+Deaconesses, and Children's Services prove incontestably that
+the narrow limits of the Common Prayer Book are no longer adequate
+for the spiritual needs of the Church of England . . .
+
+"It is evident, then, that contented acquiescence with the old state
+of things already belongs to the past, and that a return to it is
+impossible. We must perforce advance, for good or ill, in the path
+of revision, and cannot even materially slacken the pace nor defer
+the crisis. One choice, however, is left in our power, and that is
+the most important of all, namely, the direction which revision
+shall take--that of conservative and recuperative addition, or that
+of further evisceration, ceremonial or devotional." [5]
+
+A measure looking in the direction towards which this reviewer
+points was actually passed by the General Convention of our own
+Church 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 and
+report to the next General Convention whether, in view of the fact
+that this Church is soon to enter upon the second century of its
+organized existence in this country, the changed conditions of the
+national life do not demand certain alterations in the Book of
+Common Prayer in the direction of liturgical enrichment and
+increased flexibility of use."[6]
+
+In the present article the writer proposes to inquire, in connection
+with this measure:
+
+(1) What motives may fairly be supposed to have actuated the
+Convention in allowing so important an initiatory step to be taken?
+
+(2) What measure of authority was conferred on and what scope given
+to the Joint Committee then constituted?
+
+(3) What reasons exist for considering the present a happy moment
+to attempt liturgical revision, within certain limits, should such
+a thing be determined upon?
+
+(4) What serious difficulties and obstacles are likely to be
+encountered in Committee, in Convention, and in the Church at large?
+
+(5) What particular improvements and adjustments of our existing
+system would be, in point of fact, best worth the effort necessary
+to secure them?
+
+I. The interpretation of motives, difficult enough in the case of
+individuals, becomes mere guess-work when the action under analysis
+is that of a large body of men. Which one of many considerations
+urged upon the Convention carried with it the supreme weight of
+persuasion in this particular instance it is impossible to say.
+Two or three arguments, however, from their frequent reappearance
+in the debate may fairly be judged to have exercised a controlling
+influence. One of these was hinted at in the language of the
+resolution itself, namely, the call for revision that has grown
+out of "the changed conditions of the national life." Shrewd and
+far-seeing as were William White and his coadjutors in their
+forecast of nineteenth century needs made from the standpoint of
+the Peace of Versailles, they would have been more than human had
+they succeeded in anticipating all the civil and ecclesiastical
+consequences destined to flow from that memorable event. Certainly
+it 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 not
+dreamed of a generation ago, should have demands to make in respect
+to a better adaptation of ancient formularies to present wants, such
+as thoughtful people count both reasonable and cogent. That a Prayer
+Book revised primarily for the use of a half-proscribed Church
+planted here and there along a sparsely inhabited sea-coast, should
+serve as amply as it does the purposes of a population now swollen
+from four millions to fifty, and covering the whole breadth of the
+continent, is marvel enough; to assert for the book entire adequacy
+to meet these altered circumstances is a mistake. "New time, new
+favors, and new joys," so a familiar hymn affirms, "do a new song
+require." We have conceded the principle so far as psalmody is
+concerned, why not apply it to the service of prayer as well as
+to that of praise, and in addition to our new hymns secure also such
+new intercessions and new thanksgivings as the needs of to-day
+suggest? The reference in the resolution to the approaching
+completion of the century has since been playfully characterized
+as a bit of "sentimentalism."[7] The criticism would be entirely
+just if the mere recurrence of the centennial anniversary were the
+point chiefly emphasized. But when a century closes as this one of
+ours has done with a great social revolution whereby "all estates
+of men" have been more or less affected, the proposal to signalize
+entrance upon a fresh stretch of national life by making devotional
+preparation for it is something better than a pretty conceit; there
+is a serious reasonableness in it.[8]
+
+Every revision of the Common Prayer of the Church of England, and
+there have been four of them since Edward's First Book was put in
+print, has taken place at some important era of transition in the
+national life: and conversely it may be said that every civil
+crisis, with a single exception, has left its mark upon the
+formularies.
+
+To one who argues that because we in this country are evidently
+entering upon a new phase of the national life we ought similarly
+to re-enforce and readjust our service-book, it is no sufficient
+reply to urge the severance effected here between Church and State.
+The fact that ours is a non-established Church does not make her
+wholly unresponsive to the shocks of change that touch the civil
+fabric. In so far as a political renewal alters the social grading
+of society, bringing in education, for instance, where before it
+was not, or suddenly developing new forms of industrial activity,
+the Church, whether established or not, is in duty bound to take
+cognizance 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 weighed
+man," as Hammond called him, there occurs a sentence which, both
+on account of its embodying in a few words the whole philosophy of
+liturgical revision and because of a certain practical bearing
+presently to be pointed out, it is worth while, in spite of its
+familiarity, to quote:
+
+"The particular forms of Divine worship, and the rites and ceremonies
+appointed to be used therein, being things in their own nature
+indifferent and alterable and so acknowledged, it is but reasonable,
+that upon weighty and important considerations, according to the
+various exigency of times and occasions, such changes and alterations
+should be made therein, as to those that are in place of authority
+should from time to time seem either necessary or expedient."
+
+Contemporaneously with this utterance there came into the Prayer
+Book, as a direct consequence of the enormous enlargement of the
+naval and commercial marine that had taken place under the
+Commonwealth, the "Forms of Prayer to be used at Sea." Here was a
+wise and right-minded recognition of a new want that had sprung up
+with a new time, a want which jealousy of the Puritans who had built
+up the naval supremacy did not prevent the Caroline bishops from
+meeting. But the change that passed on England during five years of
+Cromwell was as nothing compared with the transformation of America
+under ninety-five years of the federal constitution. Take a single
+illustration. The year 1789, the date of the Ratification of the
+American Prayer Book, saw sea-island cotton first planted in the
+United States, and it was about that time that upland cotton also
+began to be cultivated for home and foreign use. As the effect of
+this scarcely noticed experiment there straightway sprang up an
+industry, North and South, which has been to our country almost
+what her shipping interest is to Great Britain. Bishop White and
+his associates were not to blame for failure to provide bread that
+all this unanticipated multitude of toilers should eat. And yet a
+failure there has been. No one who has not labored at the task of
+trying to commend the Church of the Prayer Book to the working
+class, as it is represented in our large manufacturing towns, can
+know how lamentable that failure is. We gather in the rich and the
+poor, but the great middle class that makes the staple and the
+strength of American society stands aloof.
+
+Nowhere in this country, for instance, has the Church had a better
+opportunity to show what it could do for American people than in
+the city of Lowell, where cotton spinning had its first large
+development. It was a virgin soil: the Episcopal Church, as rarely
+happens, was earliest on the ground: and not only so, but it enjoyed
+for some years the friendly protection of the proprietors of the
+new settlement, almost a religious monopoly--was, in fact, an
+ecclesiastical preserve. Moreover, this beginning antedated the
+Irish occupation by many years, at least so far as skilled labor
+was concerned, for during a considerable period the operatives in
+the mills were of native New England stock, the best possible
+material to be made over into churchmen and churchwomen. And yet
+notwithstanding all this, and notwithstanding the patient and
+unintermitted toil through more than fifty years of perhaps the
+most laborious parish priest on the American clergy list, the
+Episcopal Church has to-day but a comparatively slender hold upon
+the affections and loyalty of the people of this largest of the
+manufacturing cities of New England.
+
+A similar failure to "reach the masses" betrays itself in Worcester
+and Fall River, the two cities of like character that come next in
+order of population, for in the former of these last named places
+only about two per cent, of the inhabitants have affiliations of
+any sort with the Episcopal Church.
+
+It was considerations of this sort, backed perhaps by memories of
+the ringing appeal sounded three years before at Boston by the
+Bishop of Connecticut, that moved the Convention to interpret as
+something better than a bit of sentimentalism the invitation to
+look the times in the face, and give the new century its infant
+baptism.
+
+But besides all this there pressed upon the mind of bishops and
+deputies a cumulative argument of a wholly different sort. The
+demand for revision seemed to be closing in upon the Church on
+converging lines. It was plain that, before long, hands of change
+must necessarily be laid upon certain semi-detached portions of
+the Prayer Book. There was the New Lectionary, for example, that
+would presently be knocking for hospitable reception within the
+covers, and the old Easter Tables, as they now stand, could not, it
+was observed, last very much longer. A new book, in the publisher's
+sense of that term, would soon have to be made. The sanctity of
+stereotype plates must be disturbed. Moreover, here was an admirable
+opportunity to settle the wrangle, now of nine years' standing, over
+the best way of bringing to pass shortened services for week-day
+use. Add to this the fact that the intrinsic weakness of the driblet
+method of revision[9] had been made so abundantly plain that even
+its former friends wisely refrained from all attempt to urge it,
+and our summing up of probable motives becomes approximately
+complete.
+
+II. As to the measure of authority conferred on, and scope allowed
+to the Committee of Twenty-one, it is possible to speak with more
+definiteness.
+
+A precisian might of course, were he so disposed, take up the ground
+that the report of the Committee when made ought to be monosyllabic,
+"Yes" or "No." The wording of the resolution admits of such a
+construction beyond a doubt; the Joint Committee was requested to
+consider and report whether, etc., etc. But no one who listened to
+the debate on the resolution could have been left in uncertainty
+as to the real _animus_ of the measure. The thing intended to be
+authorized was an experimental review, with implied reference to a
+limited revision at some time future, in case the fruits of the
+review should commend themselves to the mind of the Church.
+
+A distinction must be drawn between revision and review. Revision
+implies review as an antecedent step, but review is by no means
+necessarily followed by revision. The English book was reviewed and
+revised in 1662; it was reviewed but not revised in 1689. Review is
+tentative and advisory; revision is authoritative and final. In the
+present instance not an atom of power to effect binding change has
+been conveyed. No authority has been given to anybody to touch a
+line or a letter of the Prayer Book save in the way of suggestion
+and recommendation. Responsible action has been held wholly in
+reserve.
+
+Moreover, even the pathway of review was most scrupulously hedged.
+Applying to the resolution the legal maxim, _expressio unius est
+exclusio alterius_, one sees at a glance that doctrinal change is a
+matter left wholly on one side. The two points to which the
+Committee is instructed to bend all its studies are "liturgical
+enrichment" and "increased flexibility of use." Whatsoever is
+more than these is irrelevant. Accurate distinguishment between
+such "enrichments" as have and such as have not a doctrinal bearing
+is, no doubt, a delicate point, and must be set down among the
+difficulties to be encountered. As such it will be considered
+further on. For the present the fact to be noted is that the
+authorized reviewers are both in honor and in duty bound to keep
+themselves absolutely clear of controversial bias. The movement
+is not a movement to alter in any slightest respect the dogmatic
+teaching of the Church, not a movement to unsettle foundations,
+not a movement toward disowning or repudiating our past, but simply
+and only an endeavor to make the Common Prayer, if possible (and
+we are far from being sure, as yet, that it is possible), a better
+thing of its kind, more comprehensive, more elastic, more readily
+responsive to the demands of all occasions and the needs of "all
+sorts and conditions of men." Some who are deeply persuaded that
+only by doctrinal revision in one direction or another can the
+Prayer Book be made thoroughly to commend itself to the heart and
+mind of the American people will esteem the measure of change
+above indicated not worth the effort indispensable to the attainment
+of it. Be it so; other some there are who do think the attempt
+well advised and who are willing to waive their own pet notions
+as to possible doctrinal improvements of the book for the sake of
+securing a _consensus_ upon certain great practical improvements
+which come within the range of things attainable.
+
+Certain it is that any attempt of a body of reviewers like this to
+disturb, even by "shadowed hint," the existing doctrinal settlement
+under which we are living together, would be resented by the whole
+Church.
+
+There are divines among us who in the interest of a more sharply
+defined orthodoxy are conscientiously bent upon securing the
+reintroduction among our formularies of the so-called Athanasian
+Creed.
+
+There are others who consider that a more damaging blow at the
+catholicity of our dogmatic position as a Church could scarcely
+be dealt.
+
+Again, there are theologians who account the Prayer Book to be
+so thoroughly saturated in all its parts with the sacramental
+idea, that they would account it not only a piece of far-seeing
+statesmanship, but also a perfectly safe procedure to allow those
+who chose to do so to thank God after a child's baptism for the
+simple fact that he had thereby been "grafted into the body of
+Christ's Church."
+
+But over against these stand a much larger number who think
+nothing of the sort, and who would put up with the liturgical
+shortcomings of the Prayer Book, go without "enrichments" for
+a 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 incoming
+tide of host-worship with which, as they conceive, our reformed
+Church is threatened can never be stayed unless some carefully
+contrived definition inserted in the Prayer Book shall make
+impossible this subtile and refined species of idolatry. But
+men no whit less sensible laugh them in the face, pointing to
+the "black rubric" and its history as evidence that between the
+admitted doctrine of the real presence and the disallowed tenet
+of transubstantiation no impervious barrier of words can possibly
+be run.
+
+These illustrations of probable divergence in opinion, in case
+the field of doctrine were once entered, might be multiplied. The
+retranslation of the Nicene Creed and the more accurate punctuation
+of its sentences; the rendering of the word Sabbath in the Fourth
+Commandment into its English equivalent of Rest; the abolition of
+the curious misnomer under which we go on calling XXXVIII Articles
+XXXIX; the removal from the Catechism, or else the conversion into
+mother English of that sad _crux infantum_, the answer to the
+question, "What desirest thou of God in this prayer?" are a few
+examples of less importance than those previously cited; and yet,
+in the case of the least of them, it is most unlikely that the
+advocates of change would have the show of hands in their favor,
+so sensitive is the mind of the Church to anything that looks in
+the least degree like tampering with the standards of weight and
+measure, the shekels of the sanctuary.
+
+On the other hand, there are certain manifest and palpable instances
+of inaccuracy and, more rarely, infelicity of diction which the
+reviewers might very properly take occasion to amend even though
+such alterations could not be classified by a strict constructionist
+under either of the two heads "enrichment" and "flexibility." In the
+masterly Report of the Rev. Dr. T. W. Coit to the Joint Committee
+appointed by the Convention of 1841 to prepare a Standard Prayer
+Book,[10] a document of classical rank, there is more than one
+intimation of the hope that future reviewers would be given a larger
+liberty 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 the
+Consecration Prayer of the Communion Service. It is in the last
+sentence but one, at its close. It should be, not that he may dwell
+in 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 who
+will examine the parts put together will easily see how the thing
+was overlooked. A much greater error was overlooked elsewhere,
+showing that our American compilers were not sufficiently aware of
+the necessity which requires that the Prayer Book should always be
+consistent with itself. I allude to something in the office for the
+Private Baptism of Children. Suppose a clergyman to avail himself of
+the license given in the Rubric after the certification. He will then
+be made to talk thus: 'As the Holy Gospel doth witness to our
+comfort, on this wise--Dost thou in the name of this child,'" etc.[11]
+
+Other cases of evident inaccuracy, besides those referred to by
+this eminent critic, might be cited, even from the latest Standard
+Prayer Book, that of 1871. It is hard, for instance, to imagine even
+the veriest martinet in such matters objecting to the redress of a
+great wrong done on page 36 of the volume mentioned, where the
+prayer "to be used at the meetings of Convention" is entered under
+the general heading, "For malefactors after condemnation." Our
+ecclesiastical legislators have doubtless, like the rest of us,
+"erred and strayed" more than once, but to deal out to them such
+harsh measure as this is cruel.
+
+A strange uncertainty would seem from the Rubric to exist with
+reference to the limits of the Litany. On page 554 of the Standard
+Prayer Book, the words, "Here endeth the Litany," occur immediately
+after the prayer, "We humbly beseech thee, O Father," while on page
+31 the same statement is placed immediately after the minor
+benediction.
+
+These are not faults for which it could ever be worth while to
+revise a Prayer Book, but they are blemishes of which the revisers
+of a Prayer Book ought to take note.
+
+It is a graver matter to speak of infelicities of diction in a book
+so justly famous as the Prayer Book for its pure and wholesome
+English. 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, whoever
+he may be, who ventures to suggest that in any slightest instance
+the language of the formularies might have been more happily
+phrased. But there are spots on the sun. In the prayer already
+referred to, that for use "at the meetings of Convention," the
+petition, "We beseech thee to be _present_ with the council of thy
+Church here assembled in thy name and _presence_" does seem open
+to the charge of tautology if nothing worse.
+
+It would be well if wherever the word occurs in the Prayer Book
+in connection with Deity the anthropomorphic plural "ears" could
+be replaced by the symbolic singular "ear."
+
+Considering also the great evil of having in a formulary of worship
+too many things that have to be laboriously explained, it might be
+well if in the Litany the adjective "sudden," which ever since
+Hooker's day has given perpetual occasion for cavil, were to yield
+to "untimely," or some like word more suggestive than "sudden" of
+the thought clumsily expressed in the "Chapel Liturgy" by the
+awkward phrase, "death unprepared for."[12]
+
+It must be again remarked that these are not points for the sake
+of which word-fanciers would be justified in disturbing an existing
+order of things; they are simply instances of lesser improvements
+that might very properly accompany larger ones, should larger ones
+ever be seriously undertaken.
+
+With so many pegs upon which controversies might be hung staring
+us in the face, can we think of it as at all likely that any
+considerable number of Churchmen assembled in committee (to say
+nothing of Convention) will be able to agree upon a common line
+of action with reference to an amendment of the formularies?
+
+That is the very point at issue, and how it is to be decided only
+the event can show. Certainly in the roll of the victories of
+charity, a favorable result, were it achieved, would stand exceeding
+high.
+
+This reflection naturally leads up to the inquiry whether there is
+any special reason to consider the present a happy moment to
+attempt within the limits already defined a revision of the Prayer
+Book.
+
+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 the
+reader. Something, however, is still left to be said in evidence
+that the movement now begun is opportune--not rudely thrust upon
+the Church. "To everything," saith the preacher, "there is a season,
+and a time to every purpose under heaven," and among the categories
+that follow this statement we find reckoned what answers to
+liturgical enrichment, for "there is," he observes, "a time to
+build up."
+
+Fifty years ago a persuasive argument against attempting to amend
+the Prayer Book, either in text or rubrics, might have been based
+upon the lack of hands competent to undertake so delicate a task.
+Raw material, well adapted to edification, was lying about in
+blocks, but skilled workmen were scarce. This can hardly be said
+to-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 volume
+and momentum the stream has now probably reached its outer limit.
+The convincing citation, "There were giants in those days," with
+which a late bishop of one of the New England dioceses used to
+enforce his major premise that wisdom died with Cranmer and his
+colleagues, no longer satisfies. Probably no period of corresponding
+length in the whole range of English Church history has shown itself
+so rich in the fruits of liturgical study as the fifty years that
+have elapsed since the introduction into the English Parliament of
+the first Reform Bill.[13] This particular historical landmark is
+mentioned on account of the close connection of cause and effect
+between it and the remarkable movement set on foot by Newman, Pusey,
+Keble, and Froude. To be sure, one of the earliest utterances in
+the Tracts ran in these words: "Attempts are making to get the
+Liturgy altered. My dear brethren, I beseech you consider with me
+whether you ought not resist the alteration of even one jot or
+tittle of it."[14]
+
+And yet, notwithstanding this disclaimer, one of the main impulses
+that lay behind the whole movement represented by the Tracts was an
+earnest desire to quicken the life of the Church of England in the
+region of worship. In the _Table of the Tracts, showing their
+arrangement according to Subjects_, the "Liturgical" section comes
+first.
+
+The present writer acknowledges but a very limited sympathy with
+the doctrinal motives and aims of either the earlier or the later
+Tractarians. But let us, above all things, be fair. With whatever
+prepossessions one looks back upon it, the ground traversed by the
+Church of England during the past fifty years cannot be otherwise
+regarded than as a field sown with mingled tares and wheat.
+Individuals will differ in judgment as to the proportion in which
+these two products of a common soil have coexisted, but even those
+who have most stoutly opposed themselves to the Oxford movement,
+as a whole, are fain to credit it with, at least, this one good
+result, the rescue of the usages of worship from slovenliness and
+torpor, and the establishment of a better standard of what is
+seemly, reverent, and beautiful in the public service of Almighty
+God. Not that there have not been, even in this respect, grave
+errors in the direction of excess; the statement ventured is simply
+this, that, up to a certain point, all Churchmen agree in admitting
+a genuine and wholesome improvement in the popular estimate of what
+public worship, as such, ought to be. An immense amount of devout
+study has been given, during the period mentioned, by many able men
+to liturgical subjects, and it would be strange indeed if fifty
+years of searching criticism had not resulted in the detection of
+some few points in which formularies originally compiled to meet
+the needs of the sixteenth century might be better adapted to the
+requirements of the twentieth. Or, to put the same point in another
+way, has not all this searching into the mines of buried treasure,
+all this getting together of quarried stone (with possibly a certain
+surplusage of stubble) been so much labor lost, if there is never to
+come the recognition of a ripe moment for the Church to avail itself
+of the results achieved? Are the studious toils of a Palmer, a
+Maskell, a Neale, a Scudamore, and a Bright to go for nothing
+except in so far as they have been contributory to our fund of
+ecclesiological lore? If so, the contempt often expressed for ritual
+and liturgical studies by students busy with other lines of research
+would seem to be not wholly undeserved.
+
+A good opportunity is now before the Church to give answer as to
+whether this form of investigation is or is not anything better
+than a species of sacred antiquarianism. Liturgiology as an aspirant
+for recognition among the useful sciences may be said at the present
+moment to be waiting for the verdict. To be sure, it can be asserted
+for liturgiology that to those who love it it is a study that proves
+itself, like poetry, "its own exceeding great reward." It is not
+worth while to dispute this point. Liturgiology pursued for its own
+sake may not be the loftiest of studies, but this, at least, can be
+said for it, that it is a not less respectable object of pursuit
+than many another specialty the devotees of which look down upon the
+liturgiologist with self-complacent scorn as a mere chiffonier. The
+forms which Christian worship has taken on in successive generations
+and among peoples of various blood are certainly as well worthy of
+analysis and classification as are the flora and fauna of Patagonia
+or New Zealand. But while the Patagonian naturalist secures
+recognition and is decorated, every jaunty man of letters feels
+at liberty to scoff at the liturgiologist as a laborious trifler.
+
+Moreover, remembering that in favorite studies, as in crops, there
+rules a principle of rotation, fashion affecting even staid divines
+with its subtle influence, we may look to see presently a decline
+of interest in this particular department of inquiry. Especially
+may serious men be expected to turn their attention in other
+directions, should it be found that a _Non possumus_ awaits every
+effort to make the fruits of their labor available for the
+nourishment of the Church's daily life. So then, instead of
+deferring action until liturgical knowledge shall have become
+more widely spread, and available liturgical material more abundant,
+we shall, if we are wise, perceive that only by moving promptly
+will 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 pacific
+condition of the Church. Previous movements toward liturgical
+revision have been of a more or less partisan and acrimonious
+temper. Now for the first time we seem to be taking up this subject
+without the expression of a fear from any quarter that if changes
+are made this or that party will get the advantage of some other.
+The peculiar conditions that ensure this unwonted truce of God are
+not likely to last forever, nor is it perhaps wholly desirable that
+they should do so; what is desirable, and very desirable, is that
+we should avail ourselves of the lull to accomplish certain changes
+for the better, which in ordinary times the prevalent heat of
+friction makes impossible. The Joint Committee of Twenty-one is
+confidently believed to contain within itself every shade of color
+known to belong to the Anglican spectrum; if white light should be
+found to emerge, three years hence, as a result of the Committee's
+labors, it will be said, and truly, that never before in our history
+could such a blending of the rays possibly have taken place.
+
+Still another consideration properly included under the general
+head of timeliness is said to have been urged with much force in
+the House of Bishops when the "enrichment" resolution was under
+discussion.
+
+Up to the present time the Episcopal Church of this country has
+stood easily at the head in the matter of providing for the people
+a dignified and beautiful order of divine service. In fact, there
+has been, until lately, no one to compete. But all this is changing.
+Ours are no longer the only congregations in which common prayer is
+to be found. It is true that thus far the attempts at imitation
+have been rather grotesque than formidable, but such, until
+recently, have also been, in the judgment of foreign critics,
+all of our American endeavors after art. We are to consider what
+apt learners our quick-witted countrymen have shown themselves to
+be, in so much that even Christmas Day, once the _bete noire_ of
+Puritan legislators, has come to be accounted almost a national
+festival, and we shall be convinced that our primacy in the field
+of liturgies is not an absolutely assured position. This argument
+is open to the criticism that it seems to lower and cheapen the
+whole subject by representing Anglican religion in a mendicant
+attitude bidding for the favor of the great American public,
+and vexed that others, fellow-suppliants, have stolen a good
+formula of appeal. Nevertheless there is a certain amount of
+reasonableness in this way of putting the thing. Certainly with
+those who reckon the liturgical mode of worship among the notes
+of the Church, the argument is one that ought to have marked
+influence; while with those who, not so persuaded, nevertheless
+view with pleased interest the general spread of a liturgical
+taste among the people of this country, seeing in it a token
+of better things to come, a harbinger of larger agreements
+than we have yet attained to, and of an approaching "consolation
+of Israel" once not thought possible--even with such the argument
+ought not to be wholly powerless.[15]
+
+The fact that the Convocations of Canterbury and York have taken
+in hand and carried through a revision of the rubrics of the Prayer
+Book will seem to those who hold that our Church ought to advance
+_pari passu_ with the Church of England, and no faster, another
+evidence of the timeliness of the American movement. Under the
+title of _The Convocation Prayer Book_ there has lately appeared
+in England an edition of the Prayer Book so printed as to show how
+the book would read were the recommendations of York and Canterbury
+to go into effect. It is true that the consent of Parliament must
+be secured before the altered rubrics can have the force of law;
+but whatever may come of the rubrics recommended, the existence of
+the book containing them is evidence enough of a wide-spread
+conviction among the English clergy that change is needed.
+
+Indeed never has this point been more powerfully put in the fewest
+possible words than by the brilliant, and no less logical than
+brilliant Bishop of Peterborough in a recent speech in the Upper
+House of Convocation.[16] "If the Church of England wants absolute
+peace, she should have definite rubrics."
+
+It is true he goes on to say that in his judgment the dangers of
+carrying the question of rubrical revision into Parliament
+are greater than the evil of letting it alone, but it is to be
+remembered that we in this country are hampered with no Parliamentary
+entanglements 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 the
+risk of something very like revolution.
+
+But this matter of the rubrics and their susceptibility of
+improvement will come up later on. It seemed proper to refer
+to it, if no more, under the head of timeliness. If nothing else
+in the way of change be opportune at the present moment, it is an
+easy task to show that the rubrics, as they stand, cry aloud for
+a revision.
+
+IV. The obstacles to be encountered by any Committee undertaking
+so to carry forward a review of the Prayer Book that revision may
+eventually result, are of two sorts; there are the inherent
+difficulties of the work itself, such, for instance, as that of
+matching the literary style of the sixteenth century writers, and
+there is the wholesome dread of a change for the worse which
+is sure to assert itself in many quarters the moment definite
+propositions shall have reached a point at which the "yeas and
+nays" are likely to be called.
+
+Beginning, then, with the inherent difficulties, and taking them
+in the inverse order of arduousness, we see at once how hard it
+must be to secure unity and self-consistency in the revision of a
+book so complicated as the Common Prayer. It is like remodelling
+an old house. We think it a very easy matter, something that can
+be done in one's head, but the mistake is discovered when the new
+door designed to give symmetry to this room is found to have spoiled
+the looks of that, when the enlargement of the library turns out
+to have overtaxed the heating energy of the fireplace, and the
+ingenious staircase, instead of ending where it was expected to
+end, brings up against an intractable brick wall. Just such perils
+as these will beset anybody who ventures to disturb the adjustments
+of the "Prayer Book as it is" and to introduce desirable additions.
+But domestic architecture is not given up on account of the patient
+carefulness the practice of it demands, neither need Liturgical
+Revision be despaired of because it requires of the men who
+undertake it a like wisdom in looking before and after.
+
+The really formidable barrier to revision, so far as what have been
+called the "inherent difficulties" are concerned, is reached when
+we touch style. How to handle without harming the sentences in which
+English religion phrased itself when English language was fresher
+and more fluent than it can ever be again is a serious question.
+The hands that seek to "enrich" may well be cautioned to take heed
+lest they despoil. It is to be remembered, however, in the way of
+reassurance that the alterations most likely to find favor with the
+reviewers 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, find
+fault with the replacement in the Evening Prayer of the _Magnificat_
+and the _Nunc dimittis_, nor of bringing back a few of the Versicles
+that in the English book follow the Lord's Prayer, nor yet of our
+being allowed to say, "Lighten our darkness, we beseech thee, Lord,"
+rather than "O Lord, our Heavenly Father, by whose Almighty power
+we have been preserved this day." Objections to these alterations
+may be readily imagined, but it would be necessary to base them on
+other grounds than those of literary fastidiousness. In the case of
+enrichments like these no one could raise the cry that the faultless
+English of the Prayer Book had been marred.
+
+But what shall be said of the composition of entirely new services
+and offices, if it should be judged expedient to give admission to
+any such? How can we be sure that such modern additions to the
+edifice would be sufficiently in keeping with the general tone of
+the elder architecture? It might be held to be an adequate answer
+to these questions to reply that if the living Church cannot now
+trust herself to speak out through her formularies in her natural
+voice as she did venture to do in the seventeenth century and the
+eighteenth, it must be that she has fallen into that stage of
+decrepitude where the natural voice is uncertain.
+
+But, really, what ought to be said is this--that if the same canons
+of style that ruled the sixteenth century writers are studied and
+obeyed, there is no reason in the world why a result equally
+satisfactory 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 of
+the 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 in
+the American Book of Common Prayer. The Office for the Visitation of
+Prisoners, for example, is so redolent of the times of the Georges,
+when it was composed, that it might be appropriately enough
+interleaved with prints out of Hogarth. A bit of Palladian
+architecture in a Gothic church is not more easily recognized.
+Many worse things might happen to the Prayer Book than that the
+nineteenth century should leave its impress upon the pages.
+
+In fact, it is just as possible, if men will only think so, to use
+our language with effect for any good purpose to-day as it was
+three hundred years ago. All that is necessary is a willingness
+to submit to the same restrictions, and those mostly moral, that
+controlled the old writers; and our work, though not identical
+with theirs, will have the proper similarity. True, a modern author
+may not be able to reproduce, without a palpable betrayal of
+affectation and mannerism, the precise characteristics of a bygone
+style. Chattertons are not numerous. It is easier to secure for
+the brass andirons and mahogany dining chairs of our own manufacture
+the look of those that belonged to our grandfathers than it is to
+catch the tones of voices long dead; and just as good judgment
+dictates the wisdom of repeating the honest and thorough workmanship
+of the old cabinet-makers in place of slavishly imitating their
+patterns, so it will be well if the compilers of devotional forms
+for modern use seek to say what they have to say with sixteenth
+century simplicity rather than in sixteenth century speech. In
+letters, as in conduct, the supreme charm of style is the absence
+of self-consciousness. "Say in plain words the thing you mean, and
+say it as if you meant it," is good advice to any seeker after
+rhetorical excellence, be he young or old. The Reformers, that is
+to say, the men who Englished the Prayer Book, in seeking to meet
+the devotional needs of the people of their own time do not seem
+to have been at pains to tie themselves to the diction of a previous
+generation. They dared to "call a spade a spade" whenever and
+wherever the tool came into use, and they have their reward in the
+permanence of their work. Sweetnesses and prettinesses they banished
+altogether. Indeed, in those days it seems not to have occurred
+to people that such things had anything to do with religion. It
+was not that they did not know how to talk in the sweet way--never
+has sentimentalism been more rife in general literature than then,
+but they would not talk in that way; the stern traditions of Holy
+Church throughout all the world forbade. Religion was a most
+serious thing to their minds, and they would speak of it most
+seriously or not at all.
+
+Never since language began to be used have severity and tenderness
+been more marvellously blended than in the older portions of the
+English Prayer Book.
+
+This effect is largely due to an almost entire abstention on the
+part of the writers from figurative language, or at least from all
+imagery that is not readily recognized as Scriptural. Bread and
+beef are what men demand for a steady diet. Sweetmeats are well
+enough, now and then, but only now and then.
+
+It is the failure to observe this plain canon of style that has
+made shipwreck of many an attempt to construct liturgies _de novo_.
+Ambitious framers of forms of worship seem almost invariably to
+forget that there may be such a thing as a too exquisite prayer,
+an altogether too "eloquent address to the throne of grace." The
+longest and fullest supplicatory portion of the Prayer Book, the
+Litany, does not contain, from the first sentence to the last,[17]
+one single figurative expression, it is literally plain English
+from 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 stamp
+of authority or on account of some subtle intrinsic excellence, it
+may be difficult to say, does not pall upon the taste. And yet even
+this is used sparingly in the Prayer Book, some of the most striking
+exceptions to the general rule being afforded by the collects for
+the first and third Sundays in Advent, the collects for the Epiphany
+and Easter Even, and the opening prayer in the Baptismal Office. All
+these are instances of strictly Scriptural metaphor, and moreover
+it is to be kept in mind that they are designed for occasional, not
+constant use. In the orders for daily Morning and Evening Prayer,
+the "lost sheep" of the General Confession and the "dew" of God's
+blessing in the Collect for Clergy and People are almost the sole,
+if not the sole cases of evident metaphor, and these again are
+Scriptural. When in Jeremy Taylor's prayer, introduced by the
+American revisers into the Order for the Visitation of the Sick,
+we come upon the comparison of human life to a "vale of misery" we
+feel that somehow we have struck a new current in the atmosphere;
+for the moment it is the rhetorician who speaks, and no longer the
+earnest seeker after God.
+
+Besides this freedom from figures of speech, we notice in the
+style of Prayer Book English a careful avoidance of whatever looks
+like a metaphysical abstraction. The aim is ever to present God
+and divine things as realities rather than as mere concepts or
+notions of the mind. So far as the writer remembers, not a single
+prayer in the whole book begins with that formula so dear to the
+makers of extemporary forms of devotion, "O Thou." On the contrary,
+the approach to the Divine Majesty is almost always made with a
+reference to some attribute or characteristic that links Deity to
+man and man's affairs; it is "O God, the Protector of all that
+trust in thee," or "Almighty and everlasting God who of thy tender
+love toward mankind," or "Lord of all power and might who art the
+author and giver of all good things."
+
+Cardinal Newman in one of his theological works written before
+his departure from the Church of England, has a powerful passage
+bearing upon this point. He is criticising the evangelicals for
+their one-sided way of setting forth what it must mean to "preach
+the Gospel." No less a person than Legh Richmond is the object of
+his strictures.
+
+"A remarkable contrast between our Church's and this false view of
+religion," he says, "is afforded in the respective modes of treating
+a death-bed in the Visitation of the Sick, and a popular modern
+work, the Dairyman's Daughter. The latter runs thus: My dear friend,
+do you not FEEL _that you are supported_? The Lord deals very gently
+with 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. What
+are your _views_ of the dark valley of death now that you are
+passing through it? _It is not dark_. Now, if it be said that
+such questions and answers are not only in their place innocent
+but 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 is
+the Visitation of the Sick in the nineteenth century. Now let us
+listen to the nervous and stern tone of the sixteenth. In the Prayer
+Book the minister is instructed to say to the person visited:
+Forasmuch as after this life there is an account to be given to
+the _Righteous Judge_ . . . I require you to examine yourself and
+your estate both toward God and man. Therefore I shall rehearse to
+you the _Articles of our Faith_, that you may know whether you do
+believe as a Christian man should or no . . . 'Then shall the
+minister examine whether he repent him truly of his sins, and be
+in _charity_ with all the world: exhorting him to forgive from the
+bottom of his heart all persons who have offended him, and if he
+hath offended any other to _ask their forgiveness_, and where he
+hath done injury or wrong to any man that he _make amends_ to the
+utmost of his power.' . . . Such is the contrast between the dreamy
+talk of modern Protestantism, and 'holy fear's stern glow' in the
+Church 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 is
+just now the fashion to call realistic, that is, a language
+conversant with great facts rather than with phases of feeling
+and moods of mind; which after all is only another way of saying
+that it is a Book of Common Prayer and not a manual for the
+furtherance of spiritual introspection.
+
+These, then, are the characteristics of the Prayer Book style:
+it is simple, straightforward, unmetaphorical, realistic. Seriously
+it looks almost like a studied insult alike to the scholarship and
+to the religion of our day, to say that these are excellencies
+attainable no longer. That revisers venturing upon additions to
+the Prayer Book would be bound to set the face as a flint against
+any slightest approach to sentimentality is true. But why assume
+that the men do not exist who are capable of such a measure of
+self-control? Grant that there are whole volumes of devotional
+matter, original and compiled, which one may ransack without
+finding a single form that is not either prolix, wishy-washy, or
+superstitious--it does not follow that if the Prayer Book is to
+be enriched, the enrichments must necessarily come from such
+sources. Moreover it is to be remembered that there is another
+vice of style to be shunned in liturgical composition quite as
+carefully as sentimentality, namely, jejuneness. We cannot escape
+being sentimental simply by being dull. Feeling must not be denied
+its place in prayer for fear that it may not prove itself a duly
+chastened feeling. There ought to be a heart of fire underneath
+the calm surface of every formulary of worship. Flame and smoke
+are 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 revision
+growing out of the delicate nature of the work itself, obstacles
+of a different sort are certain to be encountered. In so large a
+body of men as the Joint Committee of the two Houses, entire and
+cordial agreement is almost too much to be expected; and then even
+supposing 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 sake
+of so insignificant a gain; whereas if the changes proposed are
+considerable, 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 Prayer
+Book? To be sure, the Concordat does not seem to weigh very heavily
+on the shoulders of the other party, as indeed there is no reason
+why it should. Convocation does not much disturb itself as to the
+view General Convention is likely to take of its sayings and doings,
+and even disestablishment might proceed without our being called
+into consultation. And yet the Concordat difficulty will have to
+be reckoned with; and the dire spectre of a possible disowning of
+us by our mother the Church of England will have to be laid, before
+any alterations in the Book of Common Prayer will be accounted by
+some among us perfectly safe.
+
+But it is scarcely worth while to go on gratuitously suggesting
+opposition arguments. They will be sure to present themselves
+unsolicited in due time. For the present it is enough to add that
+if the movement for liturgical revision has not in it enough
+toughness of fibre to enable it to survive vigorous attack, it
+does not deserve success.
+
+V. Under the head of liturgical enrichment ought to be classed
+whatever alteration would really serve to enhance the beauty,
+majesty, or fitness, of accepted formularies of worship. Excision
+may, under conceivable circumstances, be enrichment. James Wyatt
+undoubtedly imagined that he was improving the English cathedrals
+when he whitewashed their interiors, added composition pinnacles
+to the west towers of Durham, and rearranged the ancient monuments
+of Salisbury; but an important part of the enrichment accomplished
+by our nineteenth century restorers has lain simply in the undoing
+of what Wyatt did.
+
+Again, substitution may be enrichment, as in the case where a
+wooden spire built upon a stone tower is taken down to be replaced
+by honest work. It would be an enrichment if in St. George's Chapel,
+the central shrine of British royalty, the sham insignia now
+overhanging the stalls of the knights of the garter were to give
+room to genuine armor. Not merely then by addition, but possibly,
+in some instances, by both subtraction and substitution, we may
+find the "Prayer-book as it is" open to improvement.
+
+Before, however, entering upon any criticism of the formularies
+in detail, it is important to draw a distinction between two very
+different things, namely, the structure of a liturgical office and
+the contents of it. By structure should be understood the skeleton
+or frame that makes the groundwork of any given office, by contents
+the actual liturgical material employed in filling out the office
+to its proper contour.
+
+The offices of the Roman Breviary, for example, continue, for the
+most part, identical in structure from day to day, the year through;
+but they vary in contents. For an illustration nearer home take
+our own _Order for Daily Morning Prayer_. The structure of it
+is 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 from
+the lines of this framework, an indefinite number of services might
+by a process of substitution be put together, each one of which
+would in outward appearance differ widely from every other one.
+The identical skeleton, that is to say, might be so variously
+clothed upon that no two of its embodiments would be alike. But
+is it desirable to run very much after variety of such a sort in a
+book of prayer designed for common use? Most assuredly, No. To
+jeopard 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 part
+of revisionists an unpardonable blunder.
+
+There are, however, a few points at which the Morning Prayer
+might advantageously be enriched, and no risk run. It would
+surely add nothing to the difficulty of finding the places if
+for one-half of the present opening sentences there were to be
+substituted sentences appropriate to special days and seasons of
+the ecclesiastical year. We should in this way be enabled to
+give 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 of
+Scripture to this use, there is no reason why we should not
+carry out still more fully in our selection the principle of
+appropriateness. The sentences displaced need not be lost, for
+they might still stand, as now, at the opening of the Evening
+Prayer.
+
+Passing on to the declarations of absolution there is an opportunity
+to simplify the arrangement by omitting the alternate form borrowed
+from the Order for the Administration of the Lord's Supper, where
+only it properly belongs. This, however, is a change likely to be
+resisted on doctrinal grounds, and need not be urged.
+
+Coming to the _Venite_, we find another opportunity to accentuate
+the Christian Year. It may be said that the rubric, as it is already
+written, allows for the substitution of special anthems on the
+greater festivals and fasts. This is true; but by giving the anthem
+for Easter a place of honor, while relegating anthems for the other
+great days to an unnoticed spot between the Selections and the
+Psalter, the American compilers did practically discriminate in
+favor of Easter and against the rest. The real needs of the case
+would be more wisely met if the permission to omit _Venite_ now
+attached to "the nineteenth day of the month" were to be extended
+to Ash-Wednesday and Good Friday, and special New Testament anthems
+analagous to the Easter one were to be inserted along with the
+respective Collects, Epistles, and Gospels, for Christmas-day and
+Whitsunday.
+
+By this change we should put each of the three great festivals of
+the year into possession of an invitatory anthem of its own; and we
+should obviate on the fasting days, by the simple expedient of
+omission, the futile efforts of choir-master and organist to
+transform _Venite_ from a cry of joy into a moan of grief.
+
+This brings us to the Psalter. Here we have an opportunity to
+correct the palpable blunder by which it has come about that the
+greatest of the penitential psalms, the fifty-first, has no place
+assigned it among the proper psalms either for Ash-Wednesday or
+for Good Friday.[19] It would also be well to make optional, if
+not obligatory, the use of "proper psalms" on days other than those
+already provided with them; _e_. _g_., Advent Sunday, the Epiphany,
+Easter Even, Trinity Sunday, and All Saints' Day.[20] There would
+be a still larger gain in the direction of "flexibility of use,"
+as well as a great economy of valuable space, if instead of
+reprinting some thirty of the Psalms of David under the name of
+Selections, we were to provide for allowing "select" psalms to be
+announced by number in the same manner that "proper" psalms are
+now announced. Instead of only the ten selections we now have,
+there might then be made available twenty or thirty groups of
+psalms at absolutely no sacrifice of room. It has been objected
+to this proposal that the same difficulty which now attaches to
+the finding of the "proper psalms" on great days would embarrass
+congregations whenever "select psalms" were given out; but this
+is fairly met by the counter consideration that if our people were
+to be educated by the use of select psalms into a more facile
+handling of the Psalter it would be just so much gained for days
+when the "proper psalms" must of necessity be found and read. The
+services, that is to say, would run all the more smoothly on the
+great days, after congregations had become habituated, on ordinary
+days, to picking out the psalms by number.
+
+Another step in the line of simplification, and one which it is
+in order to mention here, would be the removal from the Morning
+Prayer of _Gloria in Excelsis_, seeing that it is never, or almost
+never, sung at the end of the psalms unless at Evening Prayer. As
+to 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 unlikely
+that any doctrinal motive dictated the abbreviation.
+
+Pausing a moment at the Creeds for the insertion of a better title
+than "_Or this_" before the confession of Nicaea, we pass to the
+versicles that follow.
+
+Here again it would be enrichment to restore the words of the
+English book, although the task of finding an equally melodious
+equivalent for _O Lord, save the Queen_ might not be easy.
+
+Happily the other versicles are such as no civil revolution can
+make 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 Prayer
+considered as a form of Divine Service for Sundays would seem to
+call. It will be observed that they are far from being of a radical
+character, that they affect the structure of the office not at
+all, 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, but
+for very decided enrichment by substitution. The wording of the
+office is altogether too exact an echo of what has been said only
+a few hours before in Morning Prayer. It betokens a poverty of
+resources that does not really exist, when we allow ourselves thus
+to exhort, confess, absolve, intercede, and give thanks in the
+very same phrases at three in the afternoon that were on our lips
+at eleven in the morning.
+
+Doubtless liturgical worship owes a good measure of its charm to
+the subtle power of repetition; but the principle is one that must
+be handled and applied with the most delicate tact, or virtue goes
+out of it. We must distinguish between similarity and sameness.
+The ordered recurrence of accents is what makes the rhythm of
+verse; but for all that, there is a difference between poetry and
+sing-song, just as there is a difference between melody and monotony.
+Moreover, the taste of mankind undergoes change as to the sorts of
+repetition which it is disposed to tolerate. No modern poet of
+standing would venture, for instance, to employ identical epithets
+to 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 be
+pleased with it now. It is possible in liturgies so to employ
+the principle of repetition that no wearying sense of sameness
+will be conveyed, and again it is possible so to mismanage it
+as to transform worship into something little better than a
+"slow mechanic exercise." Mere iteration, as such, is barren
+of spiritual power; witness the endless sayings over of _Kyrie
+Eleison_ in the Oriental service-books, a species of vain repetition
+which a liturgical writer of high intelligence rightly characterizes
+as "unmeaning, if not profane."[21] Now the common popular
+criticism upon the Evening Prayer of the Church is that it repeats
+too slavishly the wording of the Morning Prayer. If this is an
+unjust 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 wiser
+of 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 explain
+the present very noticeable disinclination of Churchmen to attend
+a second service on Sunday, by connecting it with the particular
+infelicity in question; but that the excuse, We have said all this
+once to-day; why say it again? may possibly have something, even
+if not much, to do with the staying at home is certainly a fair
+conjecture.
+
+Without altering at all the structure of the Evening Prayer, it
+would be perfectly possible so to refill or reclothe that formulary
+as to give it the one thing needful which now it lacks--freshness.
+In such a process the _Magnificat_ and the _Nunc dimittis_ would
+play an important part; as would also certain "ancient collects"
+of which we have heard much of late. Failing this, the next best
+thing (and the thing, it may be added, much more likely to be done,
+considering what a tough resistant is old usage) would be the
+provision of an alternate and optional form of Evening Prayer, to
+be used either in lieu of, or as supplementary to the existing
+office. In the framing of such a _Later Evensong_ a larger freedom
+would be possible than in the refilling of a form the main lines
+of 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 comes
+the Litany. Here there is no call for enrichment,[22] though
+increased flexibility of use might be secured for this venerable
+form of intercessory prayer by prefixing to it the following rubric
+abridged from a similar one proposed in The Convocation Prayer
+Book:
+
+"_A General Supplication, to be sung or said on Sundays, Wednesdays,
+and Fridays, and on the Rogation Days, after the third collect at
+Morning or Evening Prayer, or before the Administration of the Holy
+Communion; 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 another
+important question that imperatively demands discussion, namely, a
+week-day worship. The movement for "shortened services," so-called,
+has shared the usual fate of all efforts at bettering the life of
+the Church, in being at the outset of its course widely and seriously
+misunderstood. The impression has gone abroad, and to-day holds
+possession of many otherwise well-informed people, that a large
+and growing party in the Episcopal Church has openly declared
+itself wearied out with overmuch prayer and praise. Were such
+indeed the fact, the scandal would be grave; but the real truth
+about the matter is that the promoters of shortened services,
+instead of seeking to diminish, are really eager to see multiplied
+the amount of worship rendered in our churches. "Shortened services"
+is a phrase of English, not American origin, and has won its way
+here by dint of euphony rather than of fitness. Readjusted services,
+though a more clumsy, would be a less misdirecting term. In the
+matter of Sunday worship, the liberty now generally conceded of
+using separately the Morning Prayer, the Litany, and the Holy
+Communion is all that need be asked. Whether these services, or
+at least two of them, do not in themselves admit of a certain
+measure of improvement is a point that has already been considered,
+but there certainly is no need of shortening them, whatever else
+it may be thought well to do. When what a Boston worthy once termed
+"a holy alacrity" is observed, on the part of both minister and
+singers, even the aggregated services of Morning Prayer, Litany,
+and "Ante-Communion," together with a sermon five-and-twenty minutes
+long, can easily be brought within the compass of an hour and a
+half--a measure of time not unreasonably large to be given to the
+principal occasion of worship on the Lord's Day. As for the Evening
+Prayer--there certainty ought to be no call for the shortening of
+that on Sundays; for it would be scarcely decent or proper to devote
+to such a service anything less than the half hour the existing
+office demands.
+
+What the advocates of shortened services really desire to see
+furthered is an increase in the frequency of opportunities for
+worship during the week, their conviction being that if the Church
+were to authorize brief services for morning and evening use, such
+as would not occupy much more time than family prayers ordinarily
+do, the attendance might be secured of many who, at present, put
+aside the whole question of going to church on week-days as
+impracticable. Supposing it could be proved that such a provision
+would work to the discouragement of family prayer, it would plainly
+be wrong to advocate it; no priesthood is more sacred than that
+which comes with fatherhood. But we must face the fact that in our
+modern American life family prayer, like sundry other wholesome
+habits, has fallen largely into disuse. If the Church can, in any
+measure, supplement the deficiencies of the household, and help
+to supply to individuals a blessing they would gladly enjoy at
+their own homes, if they might, it is her plain duty to do so.
+Moreover, many a minister who single-handed cannot now prudently
+undertake a daily service, as that is commonly understood, would
+acknowledge himself equal to the less extended requirement.
+
+Not a few careful and friendly observers of the practical working
+of Anglican religion have been reluctantly led to consider the daily
+service, as an institution, only meagrely successful. Looking at
+the matter historically we find no reason to wonder at such a
+conclusion.
+
+Our existing usage (or more correctly, perhaps, _non-user_) dates
+from the Reformation period. The English Church and nation of that
+day had grown up familiar with the spectacle of a very large body
+of clerics, secular and regular, whose daily occupation may be said
+to have been the pursuit of religion.[23] The religion pursued
+consisted chiefly in the saying of prayers, and very thoroughly,
+so far at least as the consumption of time was concerned, were the
+prayers said. What more natural than that, under such circumstances,
+and with such associations, the compilers of a common Prayer Book
+for the people should have failed to see any good reason for
+discriminating between the amount of service proper to the Lord's
+Day and the amount that might be reasonably expected on other days?
+Theoretically they were right, all time belongs to God and he is
+as appropriately worshipped on Tuesdays and Thursdays as on Sundays.
+And yet as a result of their making no such discrimination, we have
+the daily service on our hands--a comparative, even if not an utter
+failure. We may lament the fact, but a fact it is, that In spite
+of all its improved appliances for securing leisure, the world is
+busier than ever it was; and there will always be those who will
+insist that the command to labor on six days is as imperative as
+the injunction to rest upon the seventh. As a consequence of all
+this accelerated business, and of the diminution in the number of
+persons officially set apart for prayer, the unabridged service of
+the Church fails to command a week-day attendance. We have no
+"clerks" nowadays to fill the choir. The only clerks known to modern
+times are busy at their desks.
+
+It may be urged in reply to this that the practical working of the
+daily service ought to be kept a secondary consideration, and that
+its main purpose is symbolical, or representative; the priest
+kneeling 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. This
+conception of the daily service as a vicarious thing has a certain
+mystical beauty about it, but if it is to be adopted as the Church's
+own let us, at least, clear ourselves of inconsistency by striking
+out the word "common" from before the word "prayer" in characterizing
+our book.
+
+What is really needed for daily use in our parishes is a short form
+of worship specially framed for the purpose. If they could be
+employed without offence to the Protestant ear (and they are good
+English Reformation words) _Week-Day Matins_ and _Week-Day Evensong_
+would not be ill chosen names for such services. The framework of
+these Lesser Orders for Morning and Evening Prayer, as they might
+also be called, were the other titles found obnoxious, ought to be
+modelled upon the lines of the existing daily offices, though with
+a careful avoidance of identity in contents. There should be, for
+instance, as unvarying elements, the reading of the lessons for the
+day, the use of the collect for the day, and the saying or singing
+of the psalms for the day. Another constant would be the Lord's
+Prayer; but aside from these the _Lesser Order_ need have nothing
+in common with the Order as we have it now. There might be, for
+example, after the manner of the old service-books, an invitatory
+opening with versicles and responses, or if the present mode of
+opening by sentences were preferred, specially chosen sentences,
+different from those with which the Sunday worship has made us
+familiar, could be employed. Moreover, the anthems or canticles
+and the prayers, with the exception of the two just mentioned,
+ought also to be distinctive, and, in the technical sense of the
+word, _proper_ to the week-day use.
+
+Again, it would serve very powerfully and appropriately to emphasize
+the pivot points in the ritual year if this same principle were to
+be applied to saints' days, and we were to have special _Holyday
+Matins_ and _Holy-day Evensong_, there still being required, on the
+greater festivals and fasts, the normal Morning and Evening Prayer
+proper to the Lord's Day.[24]
+
+The argument in favor of thus specializing the services for week-days
+and holydays, in preference to following the only method heretofore
+thought possible, namely, that of shortening the Lord's Day Order,
+rests on two grounds. In the first place permissions to skip and
+omit are of themselves objectionable in a book of devotions. They
+have an uncomely look. Our American Common Prayer boasts too many
+disfigurements of this sort already.
+
+Such a rubric as _The minister may, at his discretion, omit all
+that follows to, etc. _, puts one in mind of the finger-post
+pointing out a short cut to weary travellers. It is inopportune
+thus to hint at exhaustion as the probable concomitant of worship.
+That each form should have an integrity of its own, should as a
+separate whole be either said complete or left unsaid, is better
+liturgical philosophy than any "shortened services act" can show.
+
+In the second place, a certain amount of variety would be secured
+by the proposed method which under the existing system we miss.
+There is, of course, such a danger as that of providing too much
+liturgical variety. Amateur makers of Prayer Books almost invariably
+fall into this slough. Hymn-books, as is well known, often destroy
+their own usefulness by including too many hymns; and Prayer Books
+may do the same by having too many prayers.[25]
+
+To transgress in the compiling of formularies the line of average
+memory, to provide more material than the mind of an habitual
+worshipper is likely to assimilate, is to misread human nature.
+But here, as elsewhere, there is a just mean. Cranmer and his
+colleagues in the work of revision jumped at one bound from a
+scheme which provided a distinctive set of services for every day
+in the year to a scheme that assigned one stereotyped form to all
+days.
+
+Now nothing could be more unwise than any attempt to restore the
+methods of the Breviary, with its complicated and artificial forms
+of devotion; but so far to imitate the Breviary as to provide within
+limits for a recognition of man's innate love of change would be
+wisdom. By having a distinctive service for week-days, and a
+distinctive service for holydays, Ave might add just that little
+increment to the Church's power of traction that in many instances
+would avail to change "I cannot go to church this morning" into "I
+cannot stay away."
+
+It will be urged as a counter-argument to these considerations that
+the thing is impossible, that such a measure of enrichment is
+entirely in excess of anything the Church has expressed a wish
+to have, and that for reviewers to propose a plan so sweeping would
+be suicide. Doubtless this might be a sufficient answer to anybody
+who imagined that by a bare majority vote of two successive General
+Conventions new formularies of daily worship could be forced upon
+the Church. But suppose such formularies were to be made _optional_;
+suppose there were to be given to parishes the choice between these
+three things, viz.: (_a_) the normal Morning Prayer; (_b_) a
+shortened form of the normal Morning Prayer; and (_c_) such a
+special order as has been sketched--what then? Would the Church's
+liberty be impaired! On the contrary, would not the borders of that
+liberty have been most wisely and safely widened by the steady hand
+of law?
+
+This is perhaps the right point at which to call attention to the
+present state of the "shortened services" controversy, for wearisome
+as the story has become by frequent repetition, the nexus between
+it and the subject in hand is too important to be left out of sight.
+
+In the General Convention of 1877, where the topic under its
+American 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 by
+rubric, thus postponing for three years' time the fruition of
+their wish; while the bishops with a unanimity understood to have
+been equally striking insisted that a simple canon, such as could
+be passed at once, would suffice. And so the subject dropped.
+
+At the late Convention of 1880 an eirenicon was discovered. The
+quick eye of one of the legal members of the House of Deputies
+detected on the fourth page of the Prayer Book, just opposite the
+Preface, a loophole of escape, to wit, _The Ratification of the
+Book of Common Prayer_. Here was the very _tertium quid_ whereby
+the common wish of both parties to the dispute might be effected
+without injury to the sensibilities of either.
+
+The _Ratification_ certainly did not look like a canon; neither
+could anybody with his eyes open call it a rubric--why not amend
+that, and say no more about it? The suggestion prevailed, and by a
+vote of both Houses, the following extraordinary document is
+hereafter to stand (the next General Convention consenting) in
+the 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 in
+General 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 forth
+a _Book of Common Prayer and Administration of the Sacraments and
+other Rites and Ceremonies of the Church_, and thereby established
+the 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 the
+same and be in use from and after the first day of October in the
+year of our Lord 1790; the same book is hereby ratified and
+confirmed, and ordered to be the use of this Church from this
+time forth.
+
+"But note, however, that on days other than Sundays, Christmas-day,
+the Epiphany, Ash-Wednesday, Good Friday, and Ascension Day, it
+shall suffice if the Minister begins Morning or Evening Prayer at
+the General Confession or the Lord's Prayer preceded by one or more
+of the Sentences appointed at the beginning of Morning and Evening
+Prayer, and end after the Collect for Grace or the Collect for Aid
+against Perils, with 2 Cor. xiii. 14, using so much of the Lessons
+appointed for the day and so much of the Psalter as he shall judge
+to be for edification.
+
+"And note also that on any day when Morning and Evening Prayer shall
+have been duly said or are to be said, and on days other than those
+first aforementioned, it shall suffice, when need may require, if
+a sermon or lecture be preceded by at least the Lord's Prayer and
+one or more Collects found in this book, provided that no prayers
+not 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, the
+Litany, or the Order for the Administration of the Lord's Supper
+may be used as a separate and independent service, provided that
+no one of these services shall be disused habitually."
+
+It may seem harsh to characterize this act as the mutilation of a
+monument; but really it does seem to be little else. The old
+Ratification of 1789 is an historic landmark; it is the sign-manual
+of the Church of White's and Seabury's day, and ought never to be
+disturbed or tampered with while the Prayer Book stands. The year
+1889 might very properly see a supplemental Ratification written
+under it; and testifying to the fact of Revision; but to write into
+that venerable text special directions as to what may be done on
+days other than Ash-Wednesday, and what must not be done without
+2 Cor. xiii. 14, is very much as if the City Government of Cambridge
+should cause to be cut upon the stone under the Washington elm which
+now records the fact that there the commander of the American armies
+first drew his sword, divers and sundry additional items of
+information, such as the distance to Watertown, the shortest path
+across 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 for
+the Prayer Book "increased flexibility of use," should have thought
+it necessary subsequently to take up with this compromise of a
+compromise (for such the proposal to amend the Ratification really
+is) it is difficult to say. Perhaps it was with the determination
+to have, at any rate, something to fall back upon in case the larger
+and more comprehensive measure should come to naught.
+
+The rubric is confessedly the proper place for directions as to
+how to use the services, and but for the very natural and defensible
+objection on the part of some to touching the Prayer Book at all,
+there never would have been any question about it.[27] This
+objection having been at last waived, a straight path is now open
+to the end desired, and it ought to be followed even at the cost
+of three years more of delay.
+
+Returning to the general subject, and still following the order of
+the Table of Contents, we come to Prayers and Thanksgivings upon
+several Occasions.
+
+Here it would be well to note more intelligibly than is done by
+the present rubric the proper places for the introduction of the
+Prayers and the Thanksgivings, providing for the use of the former
+before, and of the latter after the General Thanksgiving.
+
+As to the deficiencies in this department let the late Dr. Muhlenberg
+speak.
+
+"The Prayer Book," he says, "is not undervalued as to its treasures
+in asserting its wants. The latter cannot be denied. Witness the
+meagre amount of New Testament prayer and praise for the round of
+festivals and fasts; the absence of any forms suited to the peculiar
+circumstances of our own Church and country and to the times we
+live in; or for our benevolent and educational institutions. There
+are no prayers for the increase of Ministers, for Missions, or
+Missionaries, for the Christian teaching of the young; for sponsors
+on occasions of Baptism; for persons setting out on long journeys
+by land, quite as perilous as voyages by sea; for the sick desiring
+the prayers of the Church when there is no prospect of or desire
+for recovery; for the bereaved at funerals, and many other occasions
+for which there might as well be provision as for those few for
+which 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, for
+Monday and Tuesday in Easter Week, and for Monday and Tuesday in
+Whitsun Week, would add very materially to our liturgical wealth,
+while there would seem to be no reason whatever why they should
+not be had. It would also serve to enhance the symmetry of the
+Christian Year if the old feast of the Transfiguration[29] (August
+6) were to be restored to its place among the recognized holy days
+of the Church and given its proper collect, epistle, and gospel.
+
+There are some liturgists who desire the restoration of the introits
+of the First Book of Edward VI. The introit (so called from being
+the psalm sung when the priest goes within the altar-rails) has
+been in modern usage replaced by a metrical hymn. A sufficient
+reason for not printing the introit for each day in full, just
+before the collect, as was the mode in Edward's Book, is that to
+do so would involve a costly sacrifice of room. A compromise course
+would be to insert between the title of each Sunday or holyday and
+the collect proper to it, a simple numerical reference stating
+whereabouts in the Psalter the introit for the day is to be found,
+and adding perhaps the Latin catchwords. Any attempt to make the
+use of the introit obligatory in our times would meet with deserved
+failure; the metrical hymn has gained too firm a hold upon the
+affections of the Church at large ever to be willingly surrendered.
+
+Coming, next, to the orders for the administration of the two
+sacraments, we find ourselves on delicate ground, where serious
+change of any sort is out of the question. Permission, under certain
+circumstances, still further to abbreviate the Office of the
+Communion of the Sick might, however, be sought without giving
+reasonable cause of alarm to any, and general consent might perhaps
+also be had for a provision with respect to the Exhortation, "Dearly
+beloved in the Lord," that in "Churches where there is frequent
+Communion it shall suffice to read the Exhortation above written
+once in a month on the Lord's Day."[30]
+
+There are three liturgical features of the Scottish Communion
+Office which some have thought might be advantageously transferred
+to our own service. They are (_a_) the inserting after Christ's
+summary of the Law a response, _Lord, have mercy upon us and write
+these thy laws in our hearts, we beseech thee_; (_b_) the repeating
+by the people, after the reading of the Gospel, of a formula of
+thanks corresponding to the _Glory be to thee, O Lord_, that
+precedes it; and (_c_) the saying or singing of an Offertory
+sentence at the presentation of the alms. Upon these suggested
+enrichments the present writer offers no opinion.
+
+In the Order of Confirmation a substitution for the present
+preface[31] of a responsive opening, in which the bishop should
+charge the minister to present none but such as he has found by
+personal inquiry "apt and meet" for the reception of the rite would
+be a marked improvement.
+
+The remaining Occasional Offices would seem to demand no change
+either in structure or contents, although in some, perhaps in all
+of them, additional rubrics would be helpful to worshippers.
+
+Some addition to the number of Occasional Offices would be a
+real gain. We need, for instance, a short Office for the Burial of
+Infants and Young Children; a Daybreak Office for Great Festivals;
+an Office for Midday Prayer; an Office of Prayer in behalf of
+Missions and Missionaries; an Office for the Setting apart of a
+Layman as a Reader, or as a Missionary; a Form of Prayer at
+the Laying of a Corner-stone; and possibly some others. It is
+evident that these new formularies might give opportunity for
+the introduction of hitherto unused collects, anthems, and
+benedictions of a sort that would greatly enhance the general
+usefulness of the Prayer Book.
+
+This completes the survey of the field of "liturgical enrichment."
+A full discussion of the allied topic, "flexibility of use," would
+involve the examination in detail of all the rubrics of the Prayer
+Book, and for this there is no room. It is enough to say that
+unless the rubrics, the hinges and joints of a service-book, are
+kept well oiled, much creaking is a necessary result. There are
+turning-points in our public worship where congregations almost
+invariably betray an awkward embarrassment, simply because there
+is nothing to tell them whether they are expected to stand or to
+sit or to kneel. It is easy to sneer at such points as trifles and
+to make sport of those who call attention to them; but if it
+is worth our while to have ritual worship at all it is also worth
+our while to make the directions as to how people are to behave
+adequate, explicit, plain. A lofty contempt for detail is not the
+token of good administration either in Church or State. To the list
+of defective rubrics add those that are confessedly obsolete and
+such as are palpably contradictory and we have a bill of particulars
+that would amply justify a rubrical revision of the Prayer Book even
+if nothing more were to be attempted.
+
+There is another reason. Far more rapidly than many people
+imagine, we are drifting away from the position of a Church that
+worships by liturgy to that of a Church worshipping by directory.
+The multiplicity of "uses" that vexed the Anglican Reformers is
+in our day multiplied four-fold. To those who honestly consider a
+directory a better thing than a liturgy this process of relaxation
+is most welcome, but for others who hold that, until the binding
+clauses 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 the
+touch of law, and this is one of their chief reasons for advocating
+revision.
+
+Two questions remain untouched, both of them of great practical
+importance. Could the Prayer Book be enriched to the extent
+suggested in this paper without a serious and most undesirable
+increase in its bulk as a volume?
+
+Even supposing this were possible, is it at all likely that the
+Church could be persuaded to accept the amended book?
+
+Unless the first of these two eminently proper questions can be
+met, 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 authoritative
+formularies of worship within the compass of a single volume is
+inestimable. Even the present enforced severance of the Hymnal
+from the Prayer Book is a misfortune.[32]
+
+Those were good days when "Bible and Prayer Book" was the Churchman's
+all sufficient formula so far as volumes were concerned.
+
+Rome boasts a much larger ritual variety than ours, but she secures
+it by multiplying books. The Missal is in one volume, the Breviary
+in four, the Pontifical, the Ritual, and the Ceremonial in one each,
+making eight in all.[33] This is an evil, and one from which we
+Anglicans have had a happy escape. It was evidently with a great
+groan of relief that the Church of England shook herself free from
+the whole host of service-books, and established her one only
+volume. It behooves us to be watchful how we take a single step
+towards becoming entangled in the old meshes.[34]
+
+But need the enrichment of the Prayer Book--such enrichment as has
+been 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 advocated
+in this paper, and more besides, might be accomplished without
+transgressing by so much as a page or a paragraph the limits of
+the present standard book. All the space needed could be secured
+by the simple expedient of omitting matter that has been found by
+actual experience to be superfluous. Redundancy and unnecessary
+repetition are to the discredit of a book that enjoys such an
+unrivalled reputation as the Common Prayer. They are blemishes
+upon the face of its literary perfectness. Who has not marvelled
+at the strange duplication of the Litany and the Office of the Holy
+Communion in the Ordinal, when the special petitions proper to
+those services when used in that connection might easily have been
+printed by themselves with a direction that they be inserted in
+the appointed place?
+
+Scholars, of course, know perfectly well how this came about. The
+Ordinal does not belong to the Prayer Book proper, but has a
+separate identity of its own. When printed as a book by itself
+it is all very well that it should include the Litany and the Holy
+Communion in full, but why allow these superfluous pages to crowd
+out 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 device
+the space engrossed by divers psalms here and there in the Occasional
+Offices, _e_. _g_., Psalm li in the Visitation of Prisoners, and
+Psalm cxxx in the Visitation of the Sick could be made available
+for other use.
+
+Again, why continue to devote a quarter of a page of precious
+space to the "Prayer for imprisoned debtors," seeing that now,
+for a long time past, there has been no such thing in the United
+States as imprisonment for debt? By availing ourselves of only a
+portion of these possible methods of garnering space, all that is
+desired might be accomplished, without making the Prayer Book
+bulkier by a single leaf than it is to-day.
+
+But would a Prayer Book thus enriched be accepted by the Church
+at large? Is there any reason to think that the inertia which
+inheres in all large bodies, and to a singularly marked degree
+in our own Communion, could be overcome? The General Convention
+can give an approximate answer to these questions; it cannot settle
+them decisively, for it is a body which mirrors only to a certain
+extent the real mind and temper of the constituencies represented
+in it. One thing is certain, that only by allowing fullest possible
+play to the principle of "local option" could any wholly new piece
+of work on the part of revisionists, however excellent it might be
+in itself considered, find acceptance. To allow features introduced
+into the body of an existing service to be accounted optional,
+would indeed be impossible, without gendering the very wildest
+confusion. Upon such points the Church would have to decide
+outright, for or against, and stand by her decisions. But as
+respects every additional and novel Office proposed, the greatest
+care ought to be taken to have the indefinite An rather than the
+definite _The_ prefixed to it. Before such new uses are made binding
+on all, they must have met and endured the test of thorough trial
+by some. This is only fair.
+
+But there is a limit, it must be remembered, in the Church's case
+to the binding power of precedent and prescription. The social
+order changes, and of these tides that ebb and flow it is our
+bounden duty to take note. Had mere aversion to change, dogged
+unwillingness to venture an experiment always carried the day,
+instead of having the "Prayer Book as it is," we should still be
+drearily debating the rival merits of Hereford and Sarum. The great
+question to be settled is, Does an emergency exist serious enough
+to warrant an attempt on our part to make better what we know
+already to be good? Is the Republic expecting of us, and reasonably
+expecting of us, greater things than with our present equipment we
+are quite able to accomplish? There are eyes that think they see a
+great future before this Church--are they right, or is it only
+mirage? At any rate ours is no return trip--we are outward bound.
+The ship is cutting new and untried waters with her keel at every
+moment. There is no occasion to question the sufficiency of either
+compass or helm, but in certain matters of a practical sort there
+is a demand upon us to use judgment, we are bound to give a place
+in our seamanship to present common-sense as well as to respect for
+ancient usage, and along with it all to feel some confidence that
+if the ship is what we think her to be, "the winds of God" may be
+trusted 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 to
+the revision of the American Common Prayer, that unless we can
+accomplish it with hearty good feeling the attempt at improvement
+ought to be abandoned altogether.
+
+The day has gone by when new formularies of worship could be
+imposed on an unwilling Church by edict, and although under our
+carefully guarded system of ecclesiastical legislation there is
+little danger of either haste or unfairness, we must bear it well
+in mind that something more than "a constitutional majority of both
+houses" is needful if we would see liturgical revision crowned with
+real success. Of course, absolute unanimity is not to be expected.
+Every improvement that the world has seen was greeted at its birth
+by a chorus of select voices sounding the familiar anthem, "The old
+is better"; and the generation of those, who, in the sturdy phrase
+of King James's revisers, "give liking unto nothing but what is
+framed by themselves, and hammered on their anvil," will be always
+with us. But substantial unanimity may exist, even when absolute
+unanimity is impossible, and if anything like as general a consent
+can be secured for revision in 1886 as was given to it in 1883, the
+friends of the movement will have good reason to be satisfied.
+
+That there has been, since the publication of _The Book Annexed as
+Modified_, a certain measure of reaction against the spirit of
+change must be evident to all who watch carefully the pulse of
+public opinion in the Church. Whether this reaction be as serious
+as some imagine, whether it have good reasons to allege, and whether
+it be not already giving tokens of spent force, are points which
+in the present paper will be touched only incidentally, for the
+writer's purpose is rather irenic than polemical, and he is more
+concerned to remove misapprehensions and allay fears than to seek
+the fading leaf of a controversial victory.
+
+
+LIMITATIONS.
+
+No estimate of the merits and demerits of _The Book Annexed_ can
+be a just one that leaves out of account the limitations under
+which the framers of it did their work. These limitations were not
+unreasonable ones. It was right and proper that they should be
+imposed. There is no good ground for a belief that the time will
+ever come when a "blank cheque," to borrow Mr. Goschen's mercantile
+figure, will be given to any company of liturgical revisers to fill
+out as they may see fit. But the moulders of forms, in whatever
+department of plastic art their specialty lies, when challenged to
+show cause why their work is deficient in symmetry or completeness,
+have an undoubted right to plead in reply the character of the
+conditions under which they labored. The present instance offers
+no exception to the general rule. In the first place, a distinct
+pledge was given in the House of Deputies, in 1880, before consent
+to the appointment of the Joint Committee was secured, that in case
+such permission to launch a movement in favor of revision as was
+asked for were to be granted, no attempt would be made seriously
+to change the Liturgy proper, namely, the Office of the Holy
+Communion.
+
+The question was distinctly asked by a clerical deputy from the
+diocese of Maryland,[37] Do you desire to modify the Office of
+the Holy Communion? and it was as distinctly answered by the mover
+of the resolution under which the Joint Committee was finally
+appointed, No, we do not. It is true that such a pledge, made by
+a single member of one House, could only measurably control the
+action of a Joint Committee in which both Houses were to be
+represented; but it is equally plain that the maker of the pledge
+was in honor bound to do all in his power to secure the observance
+of its terms.
+
+Let this historical fact be noted by those who are disposed to
+complain that the Joint Committee did not pull to pieces and
+entirely rearrange the Anglo-Scoto-American Office, which now
+for a long time, and until quite recently, we have been taught
+to esteem the nearest possible approach to liturgical perfection.
+
+Under this same head of "limitations" must be set down the following
+resolutions passed by the Joint Committee itself, at its first
+regular meeting:
+
+_Resolved_, That this Committee asserts, at the outset, its
+conviction that no alteration should be made touching either
+statements 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 ritual
+use which have guided the compilation and amendments of the Book
+of Common Prayer, and have made it what it is.
+
+It was manifestly impossible, under resolutions like these, to
+depart very widely from established precedent, or in any serious
+measure to disturb the foundations of things.
+
+The first of them shut out wholly the consideration of such
+questions as the reinstatement of the Athanasian Creed or the
+proposal to make optional the use of the word "regenerate" in
+the Baptismal Offices; while the other forbade the introduction
+of such sentimental and grotesque conceits as "An Office for the
+Blessing 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 unfriendly
+to that perfectness of contour which we naturally look to see
+in a liturgical formulary, grew out of the tender solicitude
+of the Committee for what may be called the vested rights of
+congregations. There was a strong reluctance to the cutting
+away even of what might seem to be dead wood, lest there should
+ensue, or be thought to ensue, the loss of something really
+valuable.
+
+It was only as the result of much painstaking effort, and only at
+some sacrifice of literary fastidiousness, that the Committee was
+enabled to report a book of which it could be said that, while it
+added much of possible enrichment, it took away almost nothing that
+had been in actual possession.[39] There could be no better
+illustration of this point than is afforded by certain of the
+alterations proposed to be made in the Order for Evening Prayer.
+
+The Committee felt assured that upon no point was the judgment of
+the Church likely to be more unanimous than in approving the
+restoration to their time-honored home in the Evening Office of
+_Magnificat_ and _Nunc dimittis_, and yet so unwilling were they
+to displace _Bonum est confiteri_ and _Benedic anima mea_ from
+positions they have only occupied since 1789 that they authorized
+the unquestionably clumsy expedient of printing three responds to
+each Lesson.
+
+Probably a large majority of the Committee would have preferred to
+drop _Bonum est confiteri_ and _Benedic anima mea_ altogether,
+retaining _Cantate Domino_ and _Deus miser eatur_ as the sole
+alternates to the two Gospel canticles, as in the English Book,
+but rather than have a thousand voices cry out, as it was believed
+they would cry out, "You have robbed us," the device of a second
+alternate was adopted, to the sad defacement of the printed page.
+In may be charged that, in thus choosing, the Committee betrayed
+timidity, and that a wise boldness would have been the better
+course; but if account be taken of the attitude consistently
+maintained by General Convention towards any proposition for the
+change of so much as a comma in the Prayer Book, during a period
+of fifty years prior to the introduction of _The Book Annexed_, it
+will perhaps be concluded that for the characterization of the
+Committee'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 very
+considerably affected by foreign criticism of _The Book Annexed_,
+it will be well at this point to give some attention to what has
+been said in English journals in review of the work thus far
+accomplished. The more noteworthy of the foreign criticisms are
+those contained in _The Church Quarterly Review_, _The Church
+Times_, and _The Guardian_.[40]
+
+The Church Quarterly reviewer opens with an expression of deep
+regret at "the failure to take advantage of the opportunity for
+reinstating the Athanasian Creed." As already observed, no such
+opportunity existed. By formal vote the Joint Committee debarred
+itself from any proceeding of this sort, and the Convention, which
+sat in judgment on its work, was manifestly of opinion that in so
+acting the Committee had rightly interpreted its charter.
+
+The reviewer, who is in full sympathy with the movement for
+enrichment as such, goes on to recommend, as a more excellent
+way 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 to
+an English Churchman, for it is unlikely that anything better than
+this, or, indeed, anything one half so satisfactory, could be
+secured by Act of Parliament.
+
+For something very much better than this, however, a self-governed
+Church, like our own, has a right to look, and, in all probability,
+will continue to look until the thing is found. _An Appendix_ to a
+manual of worship, whether the manual be Prayer Book or Hymnal,[41]
+is and cannot but be, from the very nature of things, a blemish to
+the eye, an embarrassment to the hand, and a vexation to the spirit.
+Such _addenda_ carry on their face the suggestion that they are
+makeshifts, postscripts, after-thoughts; and in their lack of
+dignity, 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 most
+of 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 obliged
+to follow precisely the same legal process we follow in altering
+the Prayer Book. If an Occasional Office cannot pass the ordeal of
+the criticism of two successive Conventions, it ought not to be set
+forth at all; if it can and does stand that test, then it ought to
+be inserted in the Prayer Book in the particular place where it most
+appropriately belongs and may most readily be found.
+
+Moreover, it should be remembered that one, and by no means the
+least efficient, of the causes that brought the Common Prayer into
+existence in the sixteenth century was disgust at the multiplication
+of service-books. We American Churchmen have two already; let us
+beware of adding a third.
+
+The critic of _The Quarterly_ was probably unacquainted with the
+fact that in the American Episcopal Church the experimental setting
+forth of Offices "for optional and discretional use" is not possible
+under the terms of the Constitution. We either must adopt outright
+and for permanent use, or else peremptorily reject whatever is urged
+upon us in the name of liturgical improvement.
+
+Entering next upon a detailed criticism of the contents of The _Book
+Annexed_ the writer proceeds to offer a number of suggestions, some
+of them of great value. He pleads earnestly and with real force for
+the restoration of the Lord's Prayer to its "place of honor" between
+the Creed and the Preces, showing, in a passage of singular beauty,
+how the whole daily office "may be said to have grown out of, or
+radiated from, or been crystallized round the central _Pater
+noster_" even as "from the Words of Institution has grown the
+Christian Liturgy."
+
+The critic has only praise for the amendments in the Office
+for Thanksgiving Day; approves the selection of Proper Sentences
+for the opening of Morning and Evening Prayer; avers, certainly
+with truth, that the Office of the Beatitudes might be improved;
+welcomes "the very full repertory of special prayers"; thinks
+that the _Short Office of Prayer for Sundry Occasions_ "certainly
+supplies a want"; rejoices in the recognition of the Feast of the
+Transfiguration; and closes what is by far the most considerable,
+and, both as respects praise and blame, the most valuable of all
+the reviews that have been made of _The Book Annexed_ whether at
+home or abroad, with these words:
+
+On the whole, we very heartily congratulate our Transatlantic
+brothers on the labors of their Joint Committee. We hope their
+recommendations may be adopted, and more in the same direction;
+and that the two or three serious blemishes which we have felt
+constrained to point out and to lament may be removed from the
+book in the form finally adopted.
+
+And further, we very earnestly trust that this work, which has
+been very evidently so carefully and conscientiously done, may
+speedily, by way of example and precedent, bear fruit in a like
+process of enrichment among ourselves.
+
+Commending these last words to the consideration of those who
+take alarm at the suggestion of touching the Prayer Book lest
+we may hurt the susceptibilities of our "kin beyond sea," and
+unduly anticipate that "joint action of both Churches," which,
+at least until disestablishment comes, must always remain a sheer
+impossibility, we pass to a consideration of the six articles
+contributed to the _Church Times_ in July and August last, under
+the title, _The Revised American Prayer Book_. Here we come upon
+a writer who, if not always edifying, has the undoubted merit of
+being never dull. In fact, so deliciously are logical inconsequence
+and accidental humor mingled throughout his fifteen columns of
+discursive criticism that a suspicion arises as to the writer's
+nationality. It is doubtful whether anyone born on the English side
+of the Irish Sea could possibly have suggested the establishment
+of a Saint's Day in honor of the late respected Warden of Racine
+College, or seriously have proposed that Messrs. Oliver Wendell
+Holmes, Russell Lowell, Henry James, and W. D. Howells be appointed
+a jury of "literary arbitrament" to sit in judgment on the liturgical
+language of _The Book Annexed_; and this out of respect to our
+proper national pride. Doubtless it would add perceptibly to the
+amused sense of the unfitness of things with which these eminent
+liberals must have seen themselves thus named, if permission could
+be given to the jury, when empanelled, to "co-opt" into its number
+Mr. Samuel Clemens and Mr. Dudley Warner.[42]
+
+The general tenor of the writer in _The Church Times_ may fairly
+be inferred from the following extract from the first article of
+the series:
+
+The judgment that must be pronounced on the work as a whole is
+precisely that which has been passed on the Revised New Testament,
+that there are doubtless some few changes for the better, so obvious
+and so demanded beforehand by all educated opinion that to have
+neglected them would at once have stamped the revisers as blockheads
+and dunces; but that the set-off in the way of petty and meddlesome
+changes for the worse, neglect of really desirable improvements,
+bad English, failure in the very matter of pure scholarship just
+where it was least to be expected, and general departure from
+the terms of the Commission assigned to them (notably by their
+introduction 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 cannot
+possibly be adopted by the Church, and must be dismissed as a dismal
+fiasco, to be dealt with anew in some more adequate fashion.
+
+This paragraph is not reproduced for the purpose of discrediting
+the writer of it as a judge of English prose, for there are various
+passages in the course of the six articles that would more readily
+lend themselves to such a use. The object in quoting it is simply
+to put the reader into possession, in a compact form, of the most
+angry, even if not the most formidable, of the various indictments
+yet brought against _The Book Annexed_.
+
+Moreover, the last words of the extract supply a good text for
+certain didactic remarks that ought to be made, with respect to
+what is possible and what is not possible in the line of liturgical
+revision in America.
+
+Worthless as the result of the Joint Committee's labors has turned
+out to be, their motive, we are assured, was a good one. The
+critic's contention is not that the work they undertook is a work
+that ought not to be done, but rather that when done it should be
+better done. The revision as presented must be "dismissed as a
+dismal fiasco," but only dismissed "in order to be dealt with anew
+in some more adequate fashion." But on what ground can we rest this
+sanguine expectation of better things to come? Whence is to
+originate 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, what
+wonder that its operation is roundabout, clumsy, slow, intermittent,
+and disappointing? You cannot eat your cake and have it; you cannot
+be at once a self-governing nation and have a strong government.[43]
+
+Similarly it may be said that, however great the difficulties that
+beset liturgical revision by legislative process at the hands of
+some five hundred men, nevertheless the fact remains that the body
+known in law as The Protestant Episcopal Church in the United States
+of America has provided in its Constitution that change in its
+formularies shall be so effected and not otherwise. It may turn
+out that we must give up in despair the whole movement for a better
+adaptation of our manual of worship to the needs of our land and
+of our time; it may be found that the obstacles in the way are
+absolutely insuperable; but let us dream no dreams of seeing this
+thing handed over, "with power," to a "commission of experts," for
+that is something which will never come to pass.
+
+Whether "experts" in liturgies are any more likely to furnish us
+with good prayers than "experts" in prosody are likely to give us
+the best poetry is a tempting question, but one that must be left,
+for the present, on one side. Perhaps, if the inquiry were to be
+pushed, we might find ourselves shut up to the curious conclusion
+that the framers of the very earliest liturgies, the authors of
+the old sacramentaries, were either verbally inspired or else were
+lacking in the qualifications which alone could fit them to do
+worthily the work they worthily did, for clearly "experts" they
+were not.
+
+But the question that immediately concerns us is one of simple
+fact. Assuming the present laborious effort at betterment to have
+been proved a "fiasco," how is the General Convention to set in
+motion any more promising enginery of revision? "Summon in," say
+our English advisers, "competent scholars, and give them _carte
+blanche_ to do what they will." But the Convention, which is by
+law the final arbiter, has no power to invite to a share in its
+councils men who have no constitutional right to a seat upon its
+floor. How thankfully should we welcome as participants in our
+debates and as allies in our legislation the eminent liturgical
+scholars who give lustre to the clergy list of the Church of
+England; but we are as powerless to make them members of the
+General Convention as we should be to force them into the House
+of Commons. The same holds true at home. If the several dioceses
+fail to discover their own "inglorious Miltons," and will not send
+them up to General Convention, General Convention may, and doubtless
+does, lament the blindness of the constituencies, but it cannot
+correct their blunder. The dioceses in which the "experts"
+canonically reside had had full warning that important liturgical
+interests were to be discussed and acted upon in the General
+Convention of 1883; why were the "experts" left at home? And if
+they were not returned in 1883, is there sufficient reason to
+believe that they will ever be returned in any coming year of
+grace? It must be either that the American Church is bereft of
+"experts," or else that the constituencies, influenced possibly
+by the hard sense of the laity, have learned hopelessly to confound
+the "expert" with the doctrinaire.
+
+Of "expert testimony," in the shape of the liturgical material
+gathered, mainly by English writers, during the last fifty years,
+the Joint Committee had no lack. That this material was carefully
+sifted and conscientiously used, _The Book Annexed_ will itself one
+day be acknowledged to be the sufficient evidence.
+
+There is still another point that must be taken into account in
+this connection, to wit, the attitude which the Episcopate has a
+right to take with respect to any proposed work of liturgical
+revision. Bishops have probably become inured to the hard measure
+habitually dealt out to them in the columns of the _Church Times_,
+and are unlikely to allow charges of ignorance and incompetency so
+far to disturb their composure as to make them afraid to prosecute
+a work which, from time immemorial, has been held to lie peculiarly
+within their province. It may be affirmed, with some confidence,
+that no revision of the American Offices will ever be ratified, in
+the conduct of which the Bishops of the Church have not been allowed
+the leadership which belongs to them of right. Then it is for the
+General Convention carefully to consider whether any House of
+Bishops destined to be convened in our time is likely to have on
+its roll the names of any prelates more competent, whether on the
+score of learning or of practical experience, to deal with a work
+of liturgical revision than were the seven prelates elected by the
+free voice of their brethren to represent the Episcopal Order on
+the Joint Committee of Twenty-one.
+
+Coming to details the reviewer of the _Church Times_ regrets, first
+of all, the failure of the Convention to change the name of the
+Church. He goes on to express a disapproval, more or less qualified,
+of the discretionary power given to bishops to set forth forms of
+prayer for special occasions, and of the continued permission to
+use Selections of Psalms instead of the psalms for the day. It is
+not quite clear whether he approves the expansion of the Table of
+Proper Psalms or not, though he thinks it "abstractedly desirable"
+that provision be made in this connection for "Corpus Christi and
+All Souls."
+
+He condemns the latitude allowed in the choice of lessons under
+the rules of the new lectionary, fearing that a clergyman who
+happens to dislike any given chapter because of its contents may
+be tempted habitually to suppress it by substituting another, but
+in the very next paragraph he gravely questions the expediency of
+limiting congregations to such hymns as have been "duly set forth
+and allowed by authority." Yet most observers, at least on this
+side of the water, are of opinion that liberty of choice within
+the limits of the Bible is a far safer freedom, so far as the
+breeding of heresy goes, than liberty of choice beyond the limits
+of the Hymnal has proved itself to be. The reviewer is pleased with
+the addition of the Feast of the Transfiguration to the Calendar,
+but "desiderates more," and would gladly welcome the introduction
+into the Prayer Book of commemorations of eminent saints, from
+Ignatius 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 proper
+Sentences prefixed to Morning and Evening Prayer.
+
+The revisers seem to have a glimmering of what was the right
+thing to do . . . but they should have swept away the undevotional
+and unliturgical plan of beginning with certain detached texts,
+which has no fitness whatever, and has never even seemed to answer
+any useful end.
+
+This is stronger language than most of us are likely to approve. A
+Church that directly takes issue with Rome, as ours does, with
+respect to the true source of authority in religion has an excellent
+reason for letting the voice of Holy Scripture sound the key-note
+of her daily worship, whether there be ancient precedent for such
+a use or not. At the same time, the reviewer's averment that "the
+only proper opening is the Invocation of the Holy Trinity" is
+entitled to attention; and it is worth considering whether the
+latter portion of the nineteenth verse of the twenty-eighth chapter
+of St. Matthew's Gospel might not be advantageously added to the
+list 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 revive
+the form of mutual confession of priest and people found in the old
+service-books.[45] This proposal would probably not be entertained
+in connection with the regular Orders for Morning and Evening
+Prayer, but room for such a feature might perhaps be found in
+some optional office.
+
+After a grudging commendation of the steps taken in _The Book
+Annexed_ to restore the Gospel Canticles, the reviewer next puts
+in a strong plea for a larger allowance of versicles and responses
+after the Creed, contending that this is "just one of the places
+where enrichment, much beyond that of replacing the English versicles
+and responses now missing, is feasible and easy," to which the
+answer is that we, who love these missing versicles, shall think
+ourselves fortunate if we succeed in regaining only so much as we
+have lost. Even this will be accomplished with difficulty. It is
+most interesting, however, to notice that this stout defender of
+all that is English acknowledges the coupling together of the
+versicle, "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 correcting
+this palpable incongruity, the authors of _The Book Annexed_ have
+been sharply criticised here at home. What were they that they
+should have presumed to disturb ancient Anglican precedent in such
+a point? If we could not understand why the God of battles, as
+the God of battles, should be implored to "give peace in our time,"
+so much the worse for our intelligence. But here comes the most
+acrid of all our critics, and shows how the collocation of sentences
+in the English Book has, from the beginning, been due to a palpable
+blunder in condensing an office of the Sarum Breviary. Of the
+American substitute for this "unhappy response" the best he can
+say, 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 we
+agree with him, as will hereafter appear, though wholly unable
+to concur in his sweeping condemnation, in this connection, of
+one of the most beautiful of Canon Bright's liturgical compositions,
+the Collect beginning, "O God, by whom the meek are guided in
+judgment and light riseth up in darkness for the godly." Of this
+exquisite piece of idiomatic English, the reviewer allows himself
+to speak as being "a very poor composition, defective in rhythm."
+
+The criticism of the eucharistic portions of _The Book Annexed_ is
+mainly in the line of complaint that more has not been added in the
+way of new collects and proper prefaces, but upon this point it is
+unnecessary to dwell, the reasons having been already given why
+the Joint Committee and the Convention left the liturgy proper
+almost untouched. Neither is there anything that specially calls
+for notice or serious reply in what is said about the Occasional
+Offices.
+
+The Office for the Burial of Children is acknowledged to be a needed
+addition, but as it stands "is pitched in an entirely wrong key. The
+cognate offices in the _Rituale Romanun_ and the _Priest's Prayer
+Book_ ought to have shown the Committee, were it not for their
+peculiar unteachableness, a better way." To one who can read between
+the lines, this arraignment of the Americans for their lack of
+docility to the teachings of the Priest's Prayer Book is not devoid
+of drollery.
+
+It will happily illustrate the peculiar difficulties that beset
+liturgical revision to close this resume of the censures of
+_The Church Times_ by printing, side by side, the reviewer's
+estimate of the changes proposed in the Confirmation Office and
+the independent judgment of a learned evangelical divine of our
+own Church upon the same point.
+
+The Confirmation Service, as one of the very poorest in the Anglican
+rites, stood particularly in need of amendment and enrichment,
+especially by the removal of the ambiguous word "confirm" applied
+to the acts of the candidates, whereby the erroneous opinion that
+they came merely to confirm and ratify their baptismal promises,
+and not to be confirmed and strengthened in virtue of something
+bestowed upon them, has gained currency.
+
+Thus far the English Ritualist. Here follows the American
+Evangelical:
+
+I still hope you will see your way clear to modify the present
+draft of the proposed Confirmation Office, as it gives a much
+higher Sacramentarian idea of it than the present, a concession
+which will greatly please the Sacerdotalists, to which they are
+by no means entitled.
+
+The critic of _The Guardian_ is a writer of different make,
+and entitled every way to the most respectful attention. His
+fault-finding, which is invariably courteous, is mainly confined
+to the deficiencies of _The Book Annexed_.
+
+He would have had more done rather than less; but at the same
+time clearly points out that under the restrictions which controlled
+the Committee more could not fairly have been expected. He regrets
+that in restoring the lost portions of _Venite_ and _Benedictus_
+the Convention did not make the use of the complete form in every
+case obligatory; and of the eight concluding verses of the latter
+canticle, which under the rubric of _The Book Annexed_ are only
+obligatory during Advent, he says, "Imagine their omission on
+Christmas Day!"
+
+To this criticism there are several answers, any one of which may
+be held to be sufficient. In the first place, it should be remembered
+that into the Committee's plan of enrichment there entered the
+element 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 any
+congregations desire the whole of these two canticles throughout
+the year, there is nothing in the rubrics of _The Book Annexed_ to
+forbid 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, mast
+they be so sung. The revision Committee was informed, on what was
+considered the highest authority, that in the Church of England
+the _Benedictus_, on account of its length, had been very generally
+disused. But, however this may be, there can be little doubt that
+the effort after restoration would have failed completely in the
+late Convention had the use of these two canticles in full been
+insisted upon by the promoters of revision.
+
+There is less of verbal criticism in _The Guardian's_ review than
+could have been wished, for any suggestions with respect to
+inaccuracies of style or rhythmical shortcomings would have
+been most welcome from the pen of so competent a censor. Attention
+is called to the unmusical flow of language in the alternate
+Confession provided for the Evening Office; the figurative features
+of the proposed Collect for Maundy-Thursday are characterized as
+infelicitous; and the Collect provided for the Feast of the
+Transfiguration is declared to be inferior to the corresponding
+one in the Sarum Breviary.
+
+Of this sort of criticism, at the hands of men who know their
+craft, _The Book Annexed_ cannot have too much. In fact, of such
+immeasurable importance is good English in this connection, that
+it would be no hardship were every separate clause of whatever
+formulary it may be proposed to engraft upon the Prayer Book to
+be subjected to the most searching tests.
+
+Let an epoch be agreed upon, if necessary, that shall serve as
+the criterion of admissibility for words and phrases. Let it
+be decided, for instance, that no word that cannot prove an
+Elizabethan parentage, or, if this be too severe a standard,
+then no word of post-Caroline origin, shall be admitted within
+the sacred precincts. Probably there are words in _The Book
+Annexed_ which such a canon would eject; but let us have them
+pointed out, and their merits and demerits discussed. Such
+criticism would be of infinitely more value to the real interests
+of revision than those vague and general charges of "crudeness"
+and "want of finish" which it is always so easy to make and
+sometimes so difficult to illustrate.
+
+The writer in _The Guardian_ closes an only too brief commentary
+upon what the Convention has laid before the Church with the
+following words:
+
+Many of the proposals now in question are excellent; but others
+will be improved by reconsideration in the light of fuller ritual
+study, such as will be seen to produce a more exact and cultured
+ritual _aesthesis_, perhaps we may, without offence, add, a more
+delicate appreciation of rhythm. What _The Book Annexed_ presents
+to us in the way of emendation is, on the whole, good; but, if
+subjected to a deliberate recension, it would, we predict, become
+still better. If thus improved by the Convention of 1886, it might
+be finally adopted by the Convention of 1889.
+
+This conspectus of English critical opinion would be incomplete
+were no account to be made of the utterances of the various writers
+and speakers who dealt with the general subject of liturgical
+revision at the recent Church Congress at Portsmouth.
+
+_The Book Annexed_ could scarcely ask a more complete justification
+than is supplied by these testimonies of men who at least may be
+supposed 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 tone
+of the discussion. It will be worth anyone's while to collate it
+with the thirty Resolutions that make up the "Notification to the
+Dioceses."
+
+Can it be seriously doubted that there are requirements of this
+age which are not satisfied by the provision for public worship
+made in the sixteenth century? Can any really suppose that the
+compilers of that brief manual, the Prayer Book, however proud
+we may rightly be of their work, were so gifted with inspired
+foresight as to save the Church of future ages the responsibilities
+of considering and supplying the devotional wants of successive
+generations?
+
+Who has not felt the scantiness of holy association in our Sunday
+and week-day worship? . . . Much, I know, has been supplied by our
+hymnology, which has progressed nobly in proportion as the meagreness
+of our liturgical provision has been realized. But beyond hymns we
+need actual forms of service, which shall strike the ear and touch
+the heart by fresh and vivid adaptations of God's Word to the great
+mysteries of the Gospel faith . . . After-services on Sunday evenings
+have of late grown common; for them we need also the aid of regular
+and elastic forms.
+
+Most deplorably have we felt the need of intercessory services
+for Home and Foreign Missions; and, though there are beautiful
+metrical litanies which bear directly on these and other objects,
+yet these are not sufficient, and of course are limited to times
+when a good and strong choir can be secured; . . . and further we
+want very simple forms of prayer to accompany addresses given in
+homes and mission rooms.[47]
+
+I declare it as my conviction, after many years of (I hope) a not
+indolent ministry, and of many opportunities of observation and
+experiment, that the Church stands in pressing and immediate
+need of a few rearrangements and adaptations of some of her
+Offices; also of an enormous number of supplementary Offices or
+services--some for frequent use, others for occasional purposes
+within the consecrated buildings; and that besides these there is
+need of a supply of special Offices for the use of a recognized
+lay 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, instead
+of the _Venite_, throughout the Octave; or at least on Easter Monday
+and Tuesday? Would not spiritual life be deepened and intensified,
+and, best of all, be strengthened, by the use in the same manner of
+a suitable anthem instead of the _Venite_ on Advent Sundays, on
+Christmas-day, at Epiphany, on Ash-Wednesday, on Good Friday,
+during Rogation days, at Ascension-tide, and on harvest festivals
+and the special annual Church festival of the year?
+
+I submit that an enrichment of the Book of Common Prayer is also
+required. For although, as already suggested, this may be provided
+to some extent by a Collect for occasional use before the final
+prayer of Morning Prayer or Evensong, the needs of the Church will
+not 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 have
+talked for nearly twenty-five years--not vainly, I believe--but
+let us "go and do" not a little in the next five years . . . Prove
+yourself to be of the Church of God by doing all the work of the
+Church, and in the proper way. Proclaim before our God by your
+actions and your activities, and by providing all that is needed,
+not only for Churchmen, but for earnest Christians who are not
+Churchmen, and for the poor, weary sinners who are living as if
+there were neither Church nor Saviour, such services for the one,
+and such means for drawing the others to Christ, that they all may
+become 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 is
+no 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 of
+Morning Prayer, that on such days as Easter-day, Whitsunday, and
+Ascension-day we should begin in a little different fashion than
+we do now.
+
+Is it always needful to begin on such great days of rejoicing for
+Christians with the same sentences and the _same_ Exhortation and
+Confession, and have to wait, so to speak, to give vent to our
+feelings till we reach the special psalms for the day? Might we
+not on such days accept the glorious facts, and begin with some
+special and appropriate psalm or anthem? . . . Thus we should at
+once get the great doctrine of the day, and be let to rejoice in
+it at the very outset, and then go on to the Lord's Prayer and the
+rest as we have it now. Confession of sin and absolution are not
+left out in the services of the day, as, of course, they occur in
+the Holy Communion; but leaving them out in the ordinary services,
+and beginning in the way suggested, would at one and the same time
+mark the day more clearly, and give opportunity for Christian
+gladness to show itself . . . Only one other alteration would, I
+think, be needed, namely, that a good selection of psalms be made,
+and used, as in the American Church, at the discretion of the
+minister. I think all must feel that for one reason or another all
+the psalms are not adapted for the ordinary worship of a mixed
+congregation; and this plan would ease the minds of many clergy
+and laity. Also copying the American Church, it would be well to
+omit the Litany on Christmas-day, Easter-day, and Whitsunday.[49]
+
+In the light of this summary of Anglican desiderata, compiled by
+wholly friendly hands, it is plain that whatever we may do in this
+country in the line of liturgical revision, always supposing it
+to be gravely and carefully done, instead of harming, ought
+marvellously to help the real interests of the Church of England.
+Certain principles of polity adopted in our own Church a century
+ago, and notably among them those affecting the legislative rights
+of the laity in matters ecclesiastical, are beginning to find tardy
+recognition in the England of the present. Possibly a hundred years
+hence, or sooner, a like change of mind may bring English Churchmen
+to the approval of liturgical methods which, even if not wholly
+consonant to the temper of the Act of Uniformity, have nevertheless
+been found useful and effective in the work of bringing the truth
+and 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 chances
+of which she sees enough already to alarm and not yet enough to
+reassure her. The dimness of uncertainty covers what may yet turn
+out to be the Mount of her Transfiguration, and she fears as she
+enters into the cloud. How shall we best and most wisely show our
+sympathy? By passing resolutions of condolence? By childish
+commiseration, the utterance of feigned lips, upon the approaching
+sorrows of disestablishment? Not thus at all, but rather by a
+courageous and well-considered pioneering work, which shall have
+it for its purpose to feel the ground and blaze the path which
+presently she and we may find ourselves treading in company. Tied
+as she is, for her an undertaking of this sort is impossible. We
+can show her no greater kindness than by entering upon it of our
+own motion and alone.
+
+(_b_) American.
+
+Criticism at home has been abundant; much of it intelligent and
+helpful, and by no means so much of it as might have been expected
+captious. Of what may be called official reviews there have been
+three, one from the Diocese of Central New York, one from the
+Diocese of Wisconsin, and one from the Diocese of Easton. The
+subject has also been dealt with in carefully prepared essays
+published from time to time in _The Church Review_ and _The Church
+Eclectic_, while in the case of the weekly journals the treatment
+of the topic has been so frequent and so full that a mere catalogue
+of the editorial articles and contributed communications in Which,
+during the two years last past, liturgical revision has been
+discussed would overtax the limits of the present paper.
+
+The only practicable means of dealing with this mass of criticism
+is to adopt the inductive method, and to seek to draw out from the
+utterances of these many voices the four or five distinct concepts
+that severally lie behind them.
+
+_In limine_ however, let this be said, that the broadest generalization
+of all is one to which the very discordance of the critics bears
+the best possible witness. Of a scheme of re vision against which
+is pressed, in Virginia,[50] the charge of Mariolatry; in Ohio,[51]
+the charge of Latitudinarianism; and in Wisconsin[52] the charge of
+Puritanic pravity, this much may at least be said, that it possesses
+the note of fairness. From henceforth suggestions of partisan bias
+are clearly out of order.
+
+The Anglo-Catholic censures of _The Book Annexed_ are substantially
+summed up in the assertion that due regard is not had, in the
+changes proposed, to the structural principles of liturgical
+science. In the exceedingly well written, if somewhat one-sided
+document, already referred to as the Wisconsin Report, this is,
+throughout, the burden of the complaint. The accomplished author
+of the Report, than whom no one of the critics at home or abroad
+has shown a keener or a better cultivated liturgical instinct, is
+afraid that a free use of all the liberties permitted by the new
+rubrics of the daily offices would so revolutionize Morning and
+Evening Prayer as practically to obliterate the line of their
+descent from the old monastic forms. If there were valid ground
+for such an expectation the alarm might be justifiable; but
+is there? The practical effect of the rubrics that make for
+abbreviation will be to give us back, on weekdays almost exactly,
+and with measurable precision on Sundays also, the Matins and
+Evensong of the First Book of Edward VI. Surely this is not the
+destruction of continuity with the pre-Reformation Church.
+
+In his dislike of the provision for grafting the Beatitudes upon
+the Evening Prayer, the author of the Wisconsin Report will have
+many sympathizers, the present writer among them; but in his fear
+that in the introduction of the Proem to the Song of the Three
+Children, as a possible respond to the First Lesson,[53] there
+lurks a covert design to dethrone the _Te Deum_, he is likely to
+find few to agree with him.
+
+But after all, may not this scrupulous regard for the precedents
+set 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 who
+it was that made war for the sake of "a scientific frontier." Some
+of the scientific frontiers in the region of liturgies are as
+illusory as his was. For example, _The Book Annexed_ may be
+"unscientific" in drawing as largely as it does on the language
+of the Apocalypse for versicles and responses. There has certainly
+been a departure from Anglican precedent in this regard. And yet
+it would scarcely seem that we could go far astray in borrowing
+from the liturgy of heaven, whether there be earthly precedent or
+not.
+
+Cranmer and his associates made a far bolder break with the old
+office-books than _The Book Annexed_ makes with the Standard Common
+Prayer. The statement of the Wisconsin Report, that "The Reformers
+of the English Church did not venture to write new Offices of
+Prayer," must be taken with qualifications. They did not make
+offices absolutely _de novo_, but they did condense and combine
+old offices in a manner that practically made a new thing of them.
+They took the monastic services and courageously remoulded them
+into a form suitable for the new era in which monasteries were to
+exist no longer.
+
+Happily they were so thorough in their work that comparatively
+little change is called for in adapting what they fitted to the
+needs of the sixteenth century to the more varied requirements of
+the nineteenth. Still, when they are quoted as conservatives, and
+we are referred for evidence of their dislike of change to that
+particular paragraph of the Preface to the English Prayer Book
+entitled, _Concerning the Service of the Church_[54] it is worth
+our while to follow up the reference and see what is actually
+there said. The Wisconsin Committee use very soft words in
+speaking of the mediaeval perversions and corruptions of Divine
+Service. "It was in the monasteries chiefly," they tell us,
+"that these services received the embellishments and wonderful
+variety which we find in the later centuries." But the following
+is the cruel manner in which, in the English Preface cited as
+authority, the "embellishments" and "wonderful variety" are
+characterized:
+
+But these many years past, this godly and ancient order of the
+ancient fathers hath been so altered, broken, and neglected,
+by planting in uncertain stories and legends, with multitudes
+of responds, verses, vain repetitions, commemorations, and
+synodals, that commonly when any book of the Bible was begun,
+after three or four chapters were read out, all the rest were
+unread.
+
+. . . And furthermore, notwithstanding that the ancient fathers
+have divided the Psalms into seven portions, whereof every one was
+called a Nocturn, now of late time a few of them have been daily
+said and the rest utterly omitted . . . So that here you have an
+Order for Prayer and for the Reading of the Holy Scripture much
+agreeable to the mind and purposes of the old fathers, and a great
+deal more profitable and commodious than that which of late was
+used.
+
+This is conservatism in the very best sense, for the object aimed
+at is plainly the conservation of purity, simplicity, and truth,
+but surely it is not the conservatism of men with whom inaction is
+the only wisdom and immobility the sole beatitude.
+
+We change our sky completely in passing from Anglo-Catholic to
+Broad Church criticism of _The Book Annexed_. This last has, in
+the main, addressed itself to the rubrical features of the proposed
+revision. "You promised us 'flexibility,'" the accusation runs,
+"but what you are really giving us is simply rigidity under a new
+form. Let things stay as they are, and we will undertake to
+find all the 'flexibility' we care to have, without help from
+legislation."
+
+This criticism has at least the merit of intelligibility, for
+it directly antagonizes what was, without doubt, one main purpose
+with the revisers, namely, that of reviving respect for the
+rubrics by making compliance with their terms a more practicable
+thing.
+
+Evidently what Broad Churchmen, or at least a section of them,
+would prefer is the prevalence of a general consent under which
+it shall be taken for granted that rubrics are not literally binding
+on the minister, but are to be stretched and adapted, at the
+discretion of the officiant, as the exigencies of times and seasons
+may suggest. It is urged that such a common understanding already
+in great measure exists; and that to enact new rubrics now, or
+to remodel old ones, would look like an attempt to revivify a
+principle of compliance which we have tacitly agreed to consider
+dead.
+
+The answer to this argument is not far to seek. If the Church
+means to allow the Common Prayer, which hitherto has been regarded
+as a liturgy, to lapse into the status of a directory; if, in other
+words, she is content to see her manual of worship altered from a
+book of instructions as to how Divine Service _shall_ be performed
+into a book of suggestions as to how it _may_ be rendered, the
+change ought to be officially and definitely announced, and not
+left to individual inference or uncertain conjecture. We are
+rapidly slipping into a position scarcely consistent with either
+the dignity or the honor of a great Church--that of seeming
+to be what we are not. To give it out to the public that we
+are a law-respecting communion, and then to whisper it about
+among ourselves that our laws bind only those who choose to be
+bound by them, may serve as a convenient device for tiding over
+a present difficulty, but is, oh the whole, a course of procedure
+more likely to harden than to relieve tender consciences.
+
+Take, by way of illustration, the case of a city clergyman who
+would gladly introduce into his parish the usage of daily service,
+but who is convinced, whether rightly or wrongly, that to secure
+even a fair attendance of worshippers he ought to have the liberty
+of so far condensing the Morning or the Evening Office as to bring
+it within the limits of a quarter of an hour. He seeks relief
+through the lawful channel of rubrical revision, and is only
+laughed at for his pains. In this busy nineteenth century it is
+nonsense, he is assured, to spend a dozen years in besieging so
+obdurate 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 smoothly
+it 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 "reserved
+sacrament," order the carpenter to make a tabernacle and the
+locksmith to provide a bolt.[55] This is a far less troublesome
+method of securing the ends desired than the tedious and roundabout
+process of proposing a change at one meeting of the General
+Convention, having your proposal knocked about among some forty
+or fifty dioceses, and brought up for final action three years later.
+
+And yet, superior as the former method may be to the latter in
+point of celerity and directness, the latter has certain advantages
+over the former that ought to be evident to men who are not
+frightened by having their scrupulousness called scrupulosity.
+
+Moreover, why should this whole matter be discussed, as so commonly
+it is discussed, wholly from the clerical side? Have the laity no
+rights in the liturgy which the clergy are bound to respect? When
+and where did the Protestant Episcopal Church confer on its
+ministers a general dispensing power over the ordinances of
+worship which it withheld from the body of the faithful?
+
+Heretofore it has been held that when a layman went to church he
+had a right to expect certain things guaranteed him by the Church's
+law. If all this has been changed, then formal notice ought to be
+served 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--in
+the face of such manifold hostility and such persistent opposition,
+why press the movement for revision any further? Is it worth while
+to divide public sentiment in the Church upon a question that
+looks to many to be scarcely more than a literary one? Why not
+drop the whole thing, and let it fall into the limbo, where lie
+already the _Proposed Book_ and the _Memorial Papers_? For this
+reason, and it is sufficient: There has arisen in America a
+movement toward Christian unity, the like of which has not been
+seen since the country was settled. It is the confident belief
+of many that the key to the situation lies with that Church which
+more truly than any other may be said to represent the historical
+Christianity of the peoples of English stock. One of the elements
+in this larger movement is the question of the form of worship.
+The chief significance of _The Book Annexed_ lies in the claim made
+for it by its friends, that more adequately than the present
+Standard it supplies what may fairly be demanded as their manual
+of worship by a people circumstanced like ours. While, in one
+sense, more English than the present book in that it restores
+liturgical treasures lost at the Revolution, it is also more
+thoroughly American, in that it recognizes and allows for many
+needs which the newly enfranchised colonists of 1789 could not
+have been expected to foresee.
+
+The question is, Shall we turn a cold shoulder on the movement
+churchward 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 face
+of the decrees of 1870, there can be "no peace with Rome." The
+Greeks are a good way off. Our true "solidarity," if "solidarity"
+is to be achieved at all, is not with Celts, but with our own kith
+and kin, the children of the Reformation. Is it wise of us to say
+to these fellow Christians of ours, adherents of the Catholic Faith
+as well as we, "Nay, but the nearer you draw to us the farther we
+mean to draw away from you; the more closely you approximate to
+Anglican religion, the more closely shall we, for the sake of
+differencing ourselves from you, approximate to Vatican religion?"
+
+In better harmony with the apostolic temper, in truer continuity
+with the early churchmanship, should we be found, were we to join
+voices 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 standard
+Common Prayer of 1890 a relation not unlike that of a clay model
+to the statue which is to be. The material is still in condition
+to be moulded; the end is not yet. It was in anticipation of this
+state of things that the friends of revision in 1883 were anxious
+to carry through the preliminary stage of acceptance as many of
+their propositions as possible. To revert to our parable, the
+modeller, in treating the face of his provisional image, must
+be careful to lay on clay enough, or he may find himself barred
+at the last moment from giving the features just that finishing
+touch which is to make them ready for the marble. All the skill in
+the world will not enable him to secure for the face precisely the
+expression he would have it wear, if the _materia_ be insufficient.
+Looked at in this light, the suggestion made by the Joint Committee
+in 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 had
+been submitted, should be passed, and sent down to the dioceses
+for consideration, instead of being the arbitrary and unreasonable
+demand it was reckoned by those who lifted their eyebrows at the
+very mention of such a thing, was really a sensible proposition
+which the Convention would have done well to heed.
+
+Few, if any, critics of _The Book Annexed as Modified_ have
+pronounced it an improvement to _The Book Annexed_ as presented.
+The Book came out of the Convention less admirable than it went
+in. As a school of Liturgies, the long debate at Philadelphia was
+doubtless salutary and helpful, but whether the immediate results,
+as shown in the emendation of the Joint Committee's work, were
+equally deserving of praise is another question.
+
+Nevertheless, as was argued in the paper of which this one is the
+continuation, we must take things as we find them, not as we wish
+they were; and since there is no other method of liturgical revision
+known to our laws than revision by popular debate, to revision by
+popular debate we must reconcile ourselves as best we may.
+Regrets are idle. Let us be thankful that the amicable struggle
+at Philadelphia had for its outcome so large rather than so small
+a mass of workable material, and instead of accounting _The Book
+Annexed_ to be what one of the signers of the Joint Committee's
+Report has lately called it, "a melancholy production," recognize
+in it the germ of something exceedingly to be desired. From
+the first, there has never been any disposition on the part of
+sober-minded friends of Revision to carry through their scheme
+with a rush; the delay that is likely to better things they will
+welcome; the only delay they deprecate is the delay that kills.
+
+The changes enumerated in the "Notification to the Dioceses," and
+illustrated to the eye in _The Book Annexed_ as Modified, may be
+broadly classified under the following heads:
+
+(_a_) Clearly desirable alterations, with respect to which there
+is practically unanimous consent, and for which there is immediate
+demand, _e_. _g_., shortened offices of week-day prayer.
+
+(_b_) Alterations desirable in the main, but likely to be more
+cordially acquiesced in, could still further improvement be
+secured, _e_. _g_., the new versicles introduced into Evening
+Prayer after the Creed.
+
+(_c_) Alterations generally accounted undesirable on any terms,
+e. g., the permissive rubrics with respect to the reading of
+certain psalms during Lent, instead of the regular responds to
+the First and Second Lessons of the Evening Prayer.
+
+The question arises, Is any course of action possible that will
+give us without delay the changes which for some fifteen years the
+whole Church has been laboring to secure; that will give us, with
+a reasonable delay of three years longer, the confessed improvements
+a little more improved; while at the same time we are kept from
+becoming involved in the wretched confusion sure to result from
+putting into circulation, within a brief period, two authorized
+but diverse books of Common Prayer? This threefold question it is
+proposed 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 year
+1890, of a standard Book of Common Prayer, such as shall embody
+the ripe results of what will then have been a period of ten years
+of continuous labor in the work of liturgical revision. To this
+reckoning of ten years should properly be added the seventeen years
+that intervened between the presentation of "The Memorial" in 1853
+and the passing of the "Enrichment Resolutions" in 1880: so that
+really our Revision would look back for its historical beginnings,
+not across a decade merely, but over almost the lifetime of a
+generation. No single one of the various revisions of the English
+Book has observed anything like so leisurely a movement.
+
+But by what methods of legislative procedure could such a result
+as the one indicated be reached? The precedent of the last century
+does not help us very much. The American Book of Common Prayer was
+set forth on the sixteenth day of October in the year of our Lord
+1789; but with an express statutory provision that the "use" of
+the book, as so set forth, should not become obligatory till the
+first day of October, 1790. We cannot copy this line of procedure,
+for the simple reason that no such undertaking as that of 1789 is
+in hand. It is not now proposed to legislate into existence a new
+Liturgy. The task before us is the far humbler one of passing
+judgment upon certain propositions of change, almost every one
+of which admits of segregation, has an independent identity of its
+own, and may be accepted or rejected wholly without reference to
+what is likely to happen to the other propositions that accompany
+it.
+
+_The Book Annexed as Modified_ is in no proper sense a _Proposed
+Book_, nor can it without misrepresentation be called such; it is
+simply a sample publication[56] illustrative of what the Book of
+Common Prayer would be, were all the Resolutions of Revision that
+passed their first stage of approval in 1883 carried into final
+effect; a result most unlikely to occur.
+
+
+
+
+THE MEANS TO THE END.
+
+The most expeditious and every way satisfactory means to the end
+that has now been defined would be the appointment, at an early
+stage 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 of
+the "several recommendations therein contained," is it either
+practicable or desirable to approve at once?
+
+(_b_) The question: How may such of the Resolutions of 1883 as
+are too good to be lost, but not in their present form good enough
+to satisfy the Church, be so remoulded as to make their adoption
+probable in 1889?
+
+(_c_) All new propositions of improvement that may from time to
+time during the session be brought to the notice of the Convention,
+either by individual members or by memorials from Diocesan
+Conventions. Such a Committee of Conference, holding daily
+sessions of three or four hours each, would be able in due
+time to report a carefully digested scheme which could then be
+intelligently discussed. By this method a flood of frivolous and
+aimless talk would be cut off without in the slightest degree
+infringing or limiting the real liberty of debate.
+
+But even if the Convention were to show itself reluctant to give
+to a select committee so large a power as this of preparing an
+_agenda_ paper, it still would be possible to refer to such a
+committee the subject-matter of so many of the resolutions as
+might chance, when put upon their passage, to fail by a narrow vote.
+
+It is to be remembered that the various recommendations contained
+in the resolutions of 1883 are to be voted upon _in ipsissimis
+verbis_. There will be no opportunity for the familiar cry: "Mr.
+President, I rise to propose an amendment." The resolution, or the
+section of a resolution, as the case may be, will either be approved
+just as it stands or condemned just as it stands. In this respect
+there will be an immense saving of time. Most of the tediousness
+of debate grows out of the natural disposition of legislators to
+try each his own hand at bettering the thing proposed; hence
+"amendments," "amendments to amendments," and substitutes for the
+amendment to the amendment. Even the makers of parliamentary law
+(much enduring creatures) lose their patience at this point, and
+peremptorily lay it down that confusion shall no further go.
+
+But to return to the supposed case of a proposition lost because
+of some slight defect, which, if only our Medo-Persian law had
+permitted an amendment, could easily have been remedied. Surely
+the sensible course in such a case as that would be to refer the
+subject-matter of the lost resolution to the Committee of Conference,
+with instructions to report a new resolution to be finally acted
+upon three years hence. So then, whether there be given to the
+Committee of Conference either the large power to recommend a
+carefully thought out way of dealing with all the material _en
+bloc_, or the lesser function of sitting in judgment on new
+propositions, and of remoulding rejected ones, in either case
+there could scarcely fail to result from the appointment of such
+a committee large and substantial gains.
+
+
+
+
+IMPROVEMENTS.
+
+It follows, from what has been said, that if there are features
+that admit of improvement in the proposals which the Convention
+has laid before the Church for scrutiny, now is emphatically the
+time for suggesting the better thing that might be done. Even the
+bitterest opponents of _The Book Annexed_ can scarcely be so
+sanguine as to imagine that nothing at all is coming from this
+labored movement for revision. A measure which was so far forth
+acceptable to the accredited representatives of the Church, in
+council assembled, as to pass its first stage three years ago
+almost by acclamation, is not destined to experience total collapse.
+The law of probabilities forbids the supposition. The personal
+make-up of the next General Convention will be to a great extent
+identical with that of the last, and of the one before the last.
+Sober-minded men familiar with the work of legislation are not
+accustomed to reverse their own well considered decisions without
+weighty cause. The strong probability is that something in the
+line of emendation, precisely how much or how little no one can
+say, will, as a matter of fact, be done. In view of this likelihood,
+would not those who are dissatisfied with _The Book Annexed_ as
+it stands be taking the wiser course were they to substitute
+co-operative for vituperative criticism? So far as the present
+writer is in any sense authorized to speak for the friends of
+revision, he can assure the dissidents that such co-operation
+would be most welcome.
+
+A. B., a scholar thoroughly familiar, we will suppose, with the
+sources of liturgical material, is dissatisfied with the collects
+proposed for the successive days of Holy Week. Very well, he has
+a perfect right to his dissatisfaction and to the expression of
+it in the strongest terms at his command. He does only his plain
+duty in seeking to exclude from the Prayer Book anything that
+seems to him unworthy of a place in it. But seeing that he must
+needs, as a "liturgical expert," acknowledge that the deficiency
+which the Joint Committee sought to make good is a real and not
+a merely fancied deficiency, would not A. B. approve himself a
+more judicious counsellor if, instead of bending all his energy
+to the disparagement of the collects proposed, he should devote a
+portion of it to the discovery and suggestion of prayers more
+happily worded?
+
+And this remark holds good with reference to whatever new feature
+is to be found between the covers of The Book Annexed. If
+betterment be possible, these six months now lying before us
+afford the time of all times in which to show how, with the least
+of loss and most of gain, it may be brought about.
+
+The Diocese of Maryland is first in the field with an adequate
+contribution of this sort. A thoroughly competent committee,
+appointed in October, 1884, has recently printed its Report, and
+whether the Diocesan Convention adopt, amend, or reject what is
+presented to it, there can be little doubt that the mind of the
+Church at large will be perceptibly affected by what these
+representative men of Maryland have said.[57] Apart from a
+certain aroma of omniscience pervading it (with which, by the
+way, sundry infelicities of language in the text of the Report,
+only indifferently consort), the document, is a forcible one, and
+of great practical value.
+
+The Committee have gone over the entire field covered by the
+"Notification to the Dioceses," taking up the Resolutions one
+by one, and not only noting in connection with each whatever is
+in itself objectionable, but also (a far more difficult task)
+suggesting in what respect this or that proposition might be
+better put. The _apparatus criticus_ thus provided, while not
+infallible, is eminently helpful, sets a wholesome pattern, and
+if supplemented by others of like tenor and scope, will go far
+to lighten the labor of whatever committee may have the final
+recension of the whole work put into its hands.[58]
+
+It would be a poor self-conceit in the framers of _The Book
+Annexed_, that should prompt them to resent as intrusive any
+criticism whatsoever. What we all have at heart is the bringing
+of our manual of worship as nearly as possible to such a pitch
+of perfectness as the nature of things human will allow. The thing
+we seek is a Liturgy which shall draw to itself everything that
+is best and most devout within our national borders, a Common
+Prayer suited to the common wants of all Americans. Whatever
+truly makes for this end, it will be our wisdom to welcome, whether
+those who bring it forward are popularly labelled as belonging
+to this, that, or the other school of Churchmanship. To allow
+party jealousies to mar the symmetry and fulness of a work in which
+all Churchmen ought to have an equal inheritance would be the worst
+of blunders. By all means let the raiment of needlework and the
+clothing of wrought gold be what they should be for such sacred
+uses as hers who is the daughter of the great King, but let us not
+fall to wrangling about the vats in which the thread was dyed or
+the river bed from which the gold was gathered.
+
+In a later paper the present writer intends to venture upon a task
+similar to that undertaken by the Maryland Committee. He will do
+this largely in the hope of encouraging by example other and more
+competent critics to busy themselves in the same way. Meanwhile a
+few observations may not be amiss with respect to the sources of
+liturgical material, and the methods by which they can be drawn
+upon to the best advantage.
+
+There has been, first and last, a deal of ill considered talk
+about the boundlessness of the liturgical treasures lying unused
+in the pre-Reformation formularies of the English Church, as well
+as in the old sacramentaries and office-books of the East and the
+West. Wonder is expressed that with such limitless wealth at its
+command, an "Enrichment Committee" should have brought in so
+poverty-stricken a Report. Have we not Muratori and Mabillon? it
+is asked: Daniel and Assemani, Renaudot and Goar? Are there not
+Missals Roman, Ambrosian, and Mozarabic? Breviaries Anglican,
+Gallican, and Quignonian? Has Maskell delved and Neale translated
+and Littledale compiled in vain? To all of which there are two
+replies, namely: first, It is inexpedient to overload a Prayer
+Book, even if the material be of the best; and secondly, This best
+material is by no means so abundant as the volume of our resources
+would seem to suggest. It was for the very purpose of escaping
+redundancy and getting rid of surplusage that the Anglican Reformers
+condensed Missal, Breviary, and Rituale into the one small and
+handy volume known as the First Prayer Book of Edward VI. It was
+a bold stroke, doubtless denounced as perilously radical at the
+time; but experience has justified Cranmer and his friends. In the
+whole history of liturgies there is no record of a wiser step. It
+is scarcely possible so grievously to sin against a people's Prayer
+Book as by making it more complicated in arrangement and more bulky
+in volume than need actually requires. It was ground of justifiable
+ pride with the "Enrichment Committee" that the Book which they
+brought in, despite the many additions it contained, was no thicker
+by a single page than the Prayer Book as it is. To be sure, the
+General Convention spoiled all this by insisting on retaining
+certain duplicated formularies which the Committee had very properly
+dropped in order to find room for fresh material. But of the Book
+as first presented, it was possible to say that in no degree was
+it more cumbrous than that to which the people were already
+accustomed. Doubtless it would have been still more to the
+Committee's credit could they have brought in an enriched Book
+smaller by a third than the Book in use; but this their conservatism
+forbade.
+
+Of even greater moment is the other point, which concerns the
+quality of the available material. It is the greatest mistake in
+the world to suppose that simply because a given prayer exists,
+say in an Oriental liturgy, and has been translated into English
+by an eminent scholar, it is therefore proper material to be worked
+into our services. As a matter of fact, a great deal of devotional
+language of which the Oriental liturgies is made up is prolix and
+tedious to a degree simply insufferable. Moreover in the case of
+prayers in themselves admirable in the original tongue in which
+they were composed, all is often lost through lack of a verbal
+felicity in the translation. If anyone questions this judgment,
+let him toil through Neale's and Littledale's _Translations of
+the Primitive Liturgies_ and see whether he can find six, nay,
+three, consecutive lines which he would be willing to see introduced
+into our own Communion Office. Or, as respects translations
+from the Latin office-books of the Church of England, let him
+scrupulously search the pages of the "Sarum Hours," as done
+into the vernacular by the Recorder of Salisbury, and see how
+many of the Collects strike him as good enough to be transplanted
+into the Book of Common Prayer. The result of this latter voyage
+of discovery will be an increased wonder at the affluence of the
+mediaeval devotions, combined with amazement at the poverty and
+unsatisfactoriness of the existing translations. It is with a Latin
+collect as with a Greek ode or an Italian sonnet: no matter how
+wonderful the diction, the charm of it is as a locked secret until
+the thing has been Englished by genius akin to his who first made
+it out of his own heart. Of others besides the many brave men who
+lived 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 for
+a translator, and the shades of Gregory and Leo owe it to a living
+Anglican divine that we English-speaking Christians can think their
+thoughts after them, and pray their prayers.
+
+Such being the facts in the case, it is evident that the range of
+choice open to American revisers is far narrower than half-informed
+persons imagine it to be.
+
+The very best sources of liturgical material are the following:
+
+(_a_) King James's Bible, including the Apocrypha, and supplemented
+by 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 the
+English Reformation;[59]
+
+(_e_) The devotional writings of the great Anglican divines of the
+school of Andrews, Ken, and Taylor;[60] and last and least,
+
+(_f_) The various manuals of prayer, of which the past twenty years
+have shown themselves so prolific.[61]
+
+Of the Anglican writers, Jeremy Taylor would be by far the most
+helpful, 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 cull
+from them here and there a telling phrase or a musical cadence.
+The "General Intercession," for example, on page 50 of _The Book
+Annexed_, is a cento to which Taylor is the chief contributor.
+
+That the Enrichment Committee made the best possible use of the
+various quarries to which they had access is unlikely. Even if they
+credited themselves with having done so, it would be immodest of
+them to say it. Better material than any that their researches
+brought to light may still be lying near the surface, somewhere
+close at hand, waiting to be unearthed. Certainly this paper will
+not have been written in vain if it serves the purpose of provoking
+to the good work of discovery some of those who on the score both
+of quality and of quantity account what has been thus far done in
+the line of revision inadequate and meagre.
+
+
+
+
+III.
+
+
+It is next proposed to take up the Philadelphia Resolutions of
+Revision (1883) one by one, and to consider in what measure, if
+in any, the subject-matter of each of them lies open to improvement.
+
+Should the method of procedure recommended in the previous
+paper, or any method resembling it, find favor at the approaching
+Convention, and a Conference Committee of the two Houses be
+appointed to remould the work with reference to final action
+three 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 the
+words, "together with the Psalter or Psalms of David," be dropped
+from the title-page as superfluous, and (_b _) that a general title,
+"THE BOOK OF COMMON PRAYER," be printed on the first page of the
+leaf preceding the title-page.
+
+Neither of these suggestions is of any great importance, and the
+interest attaching to them is mainly bibliographical. Whenever any
+addition 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 was
+a volume by itself, and was cited as such. In fact, it was a sort
+of "Hymnal Companion to the Book of Common Prayer." In the revision
+of 1662 the Psalter was incorporated, and immediately there appeared
+upon the title-page of the Common Prayer, in addition to what had
+been there before, the words, "together with the Psalter or Psalms
+of David printed as they are to be sung or read in the churches."
+The present title-page of the English Book has a singularly crowded
+and awkward look, contrasting most unfavorably in this regard with
+those of 1559, 1552, and 1549.[62] But if the needless mention of
+the Psalter on our present title-page gives pleasure to any
+considerable number of people, it would be foolish to press the
+suggestion of a change. Let it pass.
+
+Of a more serious character would be the omission, which some
+urge, 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 Episcopal
+Church," leaving it to read, "according to the use in the United
+States of America," would carry the better note of catholicity.
+
+But, after all, the remonstrants have only to turn the page to
+find the obnoxious "Protestant Episcopal" so fast riveted into
+the _Ratification_ that nothing short of an act of violence done
+to history could accomplish the excision of it.[63]
+
+
+RESOLUTION II.
+
+
+_The Introductory Portion_.
+
+(a) _Table of Contents_.--The suggestion[64] that all entries
+after "The Psalter" should be printed in italics, is a good one.
+
+(b) _Concerning the Service of the Church_.--This substitute for
+the 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 "Shortened
+Services Act" of 1872. The second paragraph relating to the use
+of the Litany appears to be superfluous.
+
+The enlarged Table of Proper Psalms and the Table of Selections of
+Psalms, which come under this same general heading, would be a very
+great gain. Why the Maryland Committee should have pronounced the
+latter Table "practically useless, since the psalms are not to be
+printed," it is hard, in the face of the existing usage with
+respect to "Proper Psalms," to understand; nor is there any special
+felicity in the proposal emanating from the same source that the
+number of the Selections be cut down to three, one for feasts and
+one for fasts and one for an extra service on Sunday nights.
+
+On the other hand, the Maryland Committee does well in recommending
+that permission be given to the minister to shorten the Lessons at
+his discretion, though the hard and fast condition, "provided he
+read not less than fifteen consecutive verses," apart from the
+questionable English in which it is phrased, smacks more of the
+drill-room than of the sanctuary. Far better would it be (if the
+suggestion may be ventured) to allow no liberty of abridgment
+whatever in the case of Proper Lessons, while giving entire freedom
+of choice on all occasions for which no proper lessons have been
+appointed. So far as "ferial" days are concerned, it would be much
+wiser to let the Table of Lessons be regarded as suggestive and
+not mandatory. The half-way recognition of this principle in the
+new Lectionary, in which such a freedom is allowed, _provided_ the
+Lesson taken be one of those appointed for "some day in the same
+week," seems open to a suspicion of childishness.
+
+The rubrical direction entitled "Hymns and Anthems" requires
+verbal correction, but embodies a wholesome principle.
+
+Under this same general head of "The Introductory Portion" come the
+new Lectionary and the new Tables for finding Easter. Of these, the
+former is law already, except so far as respects the Lessons
+appointed for the proposed Feast of the Transfiguration. The Easter
+Tables are a monument to the erudition and accuracy of the late
+Dr. Francis Harison. The Tables in our present Standard run to the
+year 1899. Perhaps a "wholesome conservatism" ought to discover a
+tincture of impiety in any proposal to disturb them before the
+century has expired.
+
+
+
+
+RESOLUTION III.
+
+
+_The Morning Prayer_.
+
+(a) _The First Rubric_.--The Maryland Committee is quite right
+in remarking that the language of this important rubric, as set
+forth by the Convention of 1883, is "inelegant and inaccurate,"
+but another diocese has called attention to the fact that the
+substitute which Maryland offers would, if adopted, enable any
+rector who might be so minded to withhold entirely from the
+non-communicating portion of his flock all opportunity for _public_
+confession and absolution from year's end to year's end. It is not
+for a moment to be supposed that there was any covert intention
+here, but the incident illustrates the value to rubric-makers of
+the 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 come
+to 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 Remission
+of all your sins, space for true penitence, amendment of life, and
+the grace and consolation of the Holy Spirit. Amen."[66]
+
+With the single change of the word "penitence" to "repentance" this
+is the form in which the Absolution stood in the original _Book
+Annexed_. The Convention thought that it detected a "Romanizing
+germ" in the place assigned to "penitence," and an archaism in the
+temporal sense assigned to "space," and accordingly rearranged the
+whole sentence. But in their effort to mend the language, our
+legislators assuredly marred the music.[67]
+
+(e) _The Benedictus es, Domine_.--The insertion of this Canticle
+as an alternate to the _Te Deum_ was in the interest of shortened
+services for week-day use, as has been already explained. The same
+purpose could be served equally well, and the always objectionable
+expedient of a second alternate avoided, by spacing off the last
+six verses of the _Benedicite_, which have an integrity of their
+own, 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 of
+this Canticle be said or sung_.
+
+(n) _The Benedictus_.--With reference to the restoration of the
+last portion of this Hymn, it has been very properly remarked by
+one of the critics of _The Book Annexed_, that the line of division
+between the required and the optional portions would more properly
+come after the eighth than after the fourth verse. This would make
+the portion reserved for Advent begin with the reference to John
+the Baptist, as undoubtedly it ought to do: "And thou, child, shalt
+be called the Prophet of the Highest."
+
+(o) _De Profundis_.--There will probably be general consent to the
+omission 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 unto
+Almighty God," are justly thought by many to be inferior both
+in rhythm and in dignity to "Let us make humble confession to
+Almighty God."
+
+(i)-(l) There seems to be absolute unanimity in the judgment that
+_Magnificat_ and _Nunc Dimittis_ ought, as Gospel Hymns, to have
+the prior places after the Lessons which they follow. In the
+interest of simplicity of arrangement a like general consent to
+omit altogether _Bonum est confiteri_ and _Benedic anima mea_ would
+be most fortunate, but this point has been already enlarged upon
+in a previous paper.[69]
+
+The "Notes," permitting the use of Psalms xlii. and xliii. after
+the 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, as
+all who have learned to love them in the service of the Church of
+England must earnestly desire, some better substitute for "God save
+the queen," than "O Lord, save our rulers," ought surely to be
+found.[70] Moreover, the order of the versicles, as Prof. Gold
+has 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 the
+fire of hostile criticism has been the most persistently directed.
+Whether the strictures passed upon the Office have been in all
+cases as intelligent as they have been severe, may be open to
+question, but there can be no doubt whatever that, in its present
+form, Resolution V. would, if put to the vote, be rejected.
+
+Passing by the more violent utterances of those whose language
+almost suggests that they find something objectionable in the
+very BEATITUDES themselves,[72] it will suffice to consider
+and weigh what has been said in various quarters, first, about
+the unprecedented character of the Office, and secondly, concerning
+the infelicity of the appointed response, "Lord, have mercy upon
+us, and be it unto thy servants according to thy word."
+
+So far as concerns precedent, it ought to be enough to say that
+the words are our Lord's words, and that they were thrown by him
+into a form which readily lends itself to antiphonal use. The very
+same characteristics of parallelism and antithesis, that make the
+Psalms so amenable to the purposes of worship, are conspicuous in
+the BEATITUDES. If the Church of England, for three hundred years,
+has been willing to give place in her devotions to the Curses of
+the Old Testament,[73] we of America need not to be afraid,
+precedent or no precedent, to make room among our formularies for
+the Blessings of the New.
+
+Those who allow themselves to characterize the liturgical use of
+these memorable sayings of the Son of Man as "fancy ritual" and
+"sentimentalism" may well pause to ask themselves what manner of
+spirit they are of. The BEATITUDES are the charter of the kingdom
+of heaven. If they are "sentimental," the kingdom is "sentimental";
+but if, on the other hand, they constitute the organic law of the
+People of God, they have at least as fair a right as the Ten
+Commandments to be published from the altar, and answered by the
+great congregation.
+
+But is the complaint of "no precedent" a valid one, even supposing
+considerations of intrinsic fitness to have been ruled out?
+
+The Liturgy of St. Chrysostom provides that the Beatitudes shall
+be sung on Sundays in room of the third antiphon.[74]
+
+The learned Bishop of Haiti, in a paper warmly commending the
+liturgical use of the BEATITUDES,[75] calls attention to the
+further fact that the Eight Sayings have a place in some of the
+service-books of the Eastern Church in the Office for the Sixth and
+Ninth Hours, and notes the suggestive and touching circumstances
+that, as there used, they have for a response the words of the
+penitent 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_ in
+1545, a sort of stepping-stone to the later "Book of Common Prayer,"
+we find the BEATITUDES very ingeniously worked into the Office of
+The Hours, as anthems; beginning with Prime and ending with
+Evensong. Appropriate Collects are interwoven, some of them so
+beautiful as to be well worth preserving.[76]
+
+But the most interesting precedent of all remains still to be
+studied. In the first year of the reign of William and Mary, a
+Royal 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. To
+all outward appearance the movement came to naught; for the proposed
+revision was not even put into print, until in 1854, the House of
+Commons, in response to a motion of Mr. Heywood, ordered it to be
+published as a Blue-book. And yet in some way our American revisers
+of 1789 must have found access to the original volume as it lay
+hidden in the archbishop's library at Lambeth; for not only does
+their work show probable evidence of such consultation, but in their
+Preface they distinctly refer to the effort of King William's
+Commission as a "great and good work,"[77] a thing they would
+scarcely have done had they possessed no real knowledge of the
+facts. Macaulay's sneering reference to the work of the Commission
+is well known, but, strangely enough, the justice which a Whig
+reviewer withholds, a high Anglican divine concedes, for no less
+exacting a critic than Dr. Neale, while manifesting, as was to be
+expected, a general dislike of the Commissioners of 1689, and of
+their work, does yet find something to praise in what they
+recommended.[78]
+
+Among the real improvements suggested by the Commission was the
+liturgical use of the BEATITUDES, and this in two places, once in
+"The Order for the Administration of the Lord's Supper," as an
+alternate to the Ten Commandments; and again in the Commination
+Office as a proper balance to the Anathemas of the Law.
+
+But the Commission, like the late Joint Committee on the Book of
+Common Prayer, was unfortunate in its choice of a response; and no
+wonder, for the task of finding the proper one is difficult.[79]
+
+A Beatitude differs from a Commandment in that while the latter
+enjoins the former only declares. The one therefore simply calls
+for assent, or, at most, assent coupled with petition, while the
+other peremptorily demands a cry for mercy. The immemorial form of
+the cry for mercy in the devotions of Christendom is the "Kyrie
+eleison," _Lord, have mercy upon us_; the immemorial form of assent
+the word _Amen_. Can we do better, therefore, in adapting the
+BEATITUDES to liturgical use than to treat them precisely as the
+Curses are treated in the Commination Office of the Church of
+England, namely, by inserting after each one of them a plain
+_Amen_.
+
+This recommendation has the great merit of simplicity. Two or three
+strikingly ingenious schemes for supplying each of the Eight Sayings
+with a proper response of its own have been suggested;[80] but the
+objection to them is that, beautiful though they are, their
+complexity would embarrass and distress the kneeling worshipper.
+In these matters, practical drawbacks have to be taken into account
+as well as abstract excellencies, and no matter how felicitous the
+antiphonal responses, they would be worse than useless were a
+puzzled congregation to refuse to join in them.
+
+There will be found appended to this Paper a plan for recasting
+the Office of the BEATITUDES in such a way as to make it coincide
+structurally, as far as it goes, with the introductory portion
+of the Holy Communion.[81] Were the Office to be thus set forth,
+it would be possible on week-days, and with singular appropriateness
+on Saints' Days, to substitute the BEATITUDES for the Commandments,
+without encumbering the Communion Office with an alternate. Should
+this suggestion find acceptance, the two Collects in the present
+Office of BEATITUDES, which are far too good to be lost, one of
+them being the modified form of a Leonine original, and the other
+one of the very best of Canon Bright's own compositions, might be
+transferred to a place among the "Occasional Prayers."
+
+
+
+
+RESOLUTION VI.
+
+
+_The Litany_.
+
+The rubrics prefixed to the Litany are a gain, but except by the
+addition of the two new suffrages, the one for the President and
+the other for the increase of the ministry, it will probably be
+best to leave the text of this formulary untouched. Even in the
+case of the new petitions it would be well if they could be
+grafted upon suffrages already existing, a thing that might easily
+be done.[82]
+
+It would be a liturgical improvement if the Litany, in its shortened
+form, were to end at the _Christe_, _audi_, and the minister
+directed to return, at this point, to the General Thanksgiving
+in the Morning Prayer. This would divide the Litany symmetrically,
+instead of arbitrarily, as is now done, and would remove the General
+Thanksgiving from a place to which it has little claim either by
+historical precedent or natural congruity.
+
+The greatest improvement of all would be the restoration of the
+august and massive words of invocation which of old stood at the
+beginning of the Litany. The modern invocations have a dignity of
+their own, but they are not to be compared for devotional power and
+simple 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 this
+section, and offer many valuable suggestions, the best of them being
+a recommendation to print the Prayer entitled, "For Grace to speak
+the Truth in Love," in Canon Bright's own words. Some of their
+comments, on the other hand, suggest canons of criticism which,
+if applied to "The Prayer Book as it is," would make havoc of its
+choicest treasures.[84]
+
+The Committee of Central New York[85] go much further in the line
+of destructive criticism than their brethren of Maryland, and after
+excepting four of the proposed prayers, condemn all the rest to
+dismissal.
+
+Possibly this is just judgment, but those who have searched
+diligently the storehouses of devotional English, will think
+twice before they consent to it. No doubt the phraseology of some
+of the proposed prayers might be improved. In view of the searching
+criticism to which for three years it has been exposed, it would
+be strange indeed if such were not found to be the case. But the
+collection as a whole, instead of suffering loss, ought to receive
+increment. At least three or four more prayers for the work of
+missions in its various aspects ought to be added, also a Prayer
+for the furtherance of Christian Education in Schools and Colleges.
+As Br. Dowden shrewdly asks, in speaking of spiritual needs which
+we postpone expressing for lack of language sufficiently artistic
+in form, "What is the measure of our faith in the efficacy of united
+prayer, when we are content to go on, year after year, and never
+come together to ask God to supply those needs?"[86]
+
+There is one consideration connected with this supply of special
+prayers too frequently lost out of sight. While it is perfectly
+true that the Book of Common Prayer was never designed to be a
+_Treasury of Devotion_ for individuals, it is equally true that
+for thousands and hundreds of thousands of our fellow-countrymen
+who live remote from "Church book-stores," or lack the means of
+patronizing them, the Prayer Book is, as a matter of fact, their
+only devotional help. In countless households, moreover, many of
+them beyond "Protestant Episcopal" borders altogether, the Prayer
+Book is doing a work only less beneficent than it might do, were we
+to concede a very little more to that outwardly illogical but
+spiritually self-consistent policy which, breaking away, a century
+ago, 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 introductory
+portion omitted. It would add to the merit of the formulary,
+especially when used as a separate office, were it to be prefaced
+by the versicle and response, similarly employed in the Hereford
+Breviary:
+
+_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 Litany
+and the intermediate portion of this Office, the following emendation
+of the first Rubric is suggested, a change which would carry with
+it the omission of the Rubric after psalm li. a little further on.
+
+_On the_ First Day of Lent, _at_ Morning Prayer, _the Office
+ensuing shall be read immediately after the words_, Have mercy
+upon 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 the
+English Book, in the precatory form; otherwise we might have the
+anomaly 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 of
+the beautiful prayer for unity to its own proper wording as given
+in the so-called "Accession Service" appended to the English Prayer
+Book. As it stands in _The Book Annexed_ the language of the prayer
+is possibly ungrammatical and certainly redundant. A critic,
+already more than once quoted,[87] protests against the prominence
+given to this office in _The Book Annexed_, ascribing it to
+influences born of the associations of New England. But although
+the motive of the revisers might have had a worse origin than that
+of which the reviewer complains, the actual fact is that the
+formulary was placed where it is purely in consideration of the
+liturgical fitness of things; it having been held that the proper
+position for an Office of Thanksgiving must be in immediate sequence
+to an Office of Penitence.
+
+It is with sincere diffidence that the present writer differs
+with _The Seminarian_, on a point of historical precedent, but
+he ventures to suggest that to find the prototype of Harvest-home
+we must go back far beyond New England, and for that matter far
+beyond Old England, nay, beyond the Christian era itself, even
+to the day when it was said, "Thou shalt observe the Feast of
+Tabernacles, seven days, after that thou hast gathered in thy corn
+and thy wine." Doubtless there is a joy greater than the "joy of
+harvest," and to this we give expression in the Eucharist; but
+doubtless also the joy of harvest is in itself a proper joy and
+one which finds fitting utterance in such forms of prayer and
+praise as this.
+
+
+
+
+RESOLUTION XI.
+
+
+_Collects, Epistles, and Gospels_.
+
+No department of liturgical revision calls for a nicer touch than
+that which includes the Collects. That new collects for certain
+unsupplied feasts and fasts would be a genuine enrichment of The
+Book of Common Prayer, has long been generally acknowledged among
+Anglican scholars. The most weighty fault to be found with the
+collects added by the revisers is that in too large proportion
+they are addressed to the second and third Persons of the Holy
+Trinity. The Eucharist itself, as a whole, is properly conceived
+of as addressed to the Eternal Father. The Collects, as forming
+part of the Eucharistic Office, ought, strictly speaking, to be
+also so addressed. It is true that there are exceptions to this
+rule, and they are found, some of them, in the Prayer Book as it
+is. But the revisers ought not to have altered the proportion so
+markedly as they have done, for whereas in our present Book the
+collects addressed to the Father are as eighty-three to three
+compared with those not so addressed, the ratio in _The Book
+Annexed_ is that of eleven to three.
+
+Moreover, there would seem to be no good reason for reverting to
+the usage of the First Book of Edward VI., which provides a second
+Collect, Epistle, and Gospel for the two great feasts of Christmas
+and Easter. A better way would be to take these additional collects,
+which are among the most beautiful in the language, and assign them
+respectively to the Sunday after Christmas, and the Monday in
+Easter-week.
+
+
+
+
+RESOLUTION XII.
+
+
+_The Holy Communion_.
+
+To the few changes proposed in this Office, comparatively slight
+exception has been taken in any quarter. It will probably be
+wise to leave the language of the Prayer of Consecration wholly
+untouched, notwithstanding the alleged grammatical error near the
+end of it.
+
+The Rubric which it has been proposed to append to the Office,
+touching the number of communicants without which it shall not be
+lawful to administer the Sacrament, being of a disciplinary rather
+than of a liturgical character, ought not to be urged. The proposal
+to transfer the Prayer of Humble Access to a place immediately
+before the Communion appears to be very generally acceptable.
+
+It would relieve many worshippers who scruple as Christians at
+responding to the Fourth Commandment on the score of its Judaic
+character, if the language of the rubric prefixed to the Decalogue
+could contain, as did the corresponding rubric in Laud's Book for
+Scotland, a clause indicative of the mystical and spiritual sense
+in which the Law should be interpreted by those who live under the
+Gospel. But such a proposal would probably be accounted "of
+doctrine," and so be self-condemned.
+
+Of the desirability of allowing a week-day use of the BEATITUDES
+in the room of the COMMANDMENTS enough has been already said.
+
+
+
+
+RESOLUTION XVI.
+
+
+_Confirmation_.
+
+The permission to use a form of presentation instead of, or in
+addition to, the Preface is likely to be widely welcomed. The
+other _addenda_ to this office, being apparently distasteful (for
+unlike reasons) to all the "schools of thoughts" in the Church,
+are likely to fail of acceptance; and on the whole may easily be
+spared.
+
+
+
+
+RESOLUTION XVIII.
+
+_Visitation of the Sick_.
+
+The proposed Commendatory Prayer, though in some of its features
+strikingly felicitous, is open to formal improvement. The addition
+of a short _Litany of the Dying_ would be appreciated by those
+whose ministry is largely exercised among the sick.
+
+
+
+
+RESOLUTION XX.
+
+
+_Burial of the Dead_.
+
+By far the most important section of this Resolution is the one
+providing for the insertion of special features when the office
+is used at the burial of children. The provision, or at least the
+suggestion, of a more appropriate Lesson would be wise, but for
+the rest, the office is almost all that could be wished.
+
+A recent critic[88] raises the question, "Why single out infants
+alone for a special service? Why not forms for rich men and poor
+men--old men and maidens--widows and orphans?" And yet our Lord
+Jesus Christ did single out little children in a very striking and
+wonderful manner, and drew a distinction between them and us which
+may well justify our treating their obsequies with a peculiar
+tenderness. Even Rome, _Mater dura infantum_ as she has been
+sometimes thought, is studious to consult in this point the natural
+affections of the bereaved, and appoints a funeral mass distinct
+from that appointed for the dead in general.
+
+Bishop Seabury felt the need of a rite of this sort and prepared
+one, but whether it was ever in actual use among the clergy of
+Connecticut the writer is not informed. Many, very many, since
+Seabury's day, have felt the same need, and it is safe to say that
+no one feature of _The Book Annexed_ has enjoyed so universal a
+welcome as this rightful concession to the demands of the parental
+heart.
+
+
+
+
+CONCLUSION.
+
+
+The survey of corrigenda is now complete. The list looks like a
+long one, but really the points noted are few compared with those
+which have passed unchallenged. Here and there in the Resolutions
+that have not been considered are words or phrases that admit of
+improvement, and which in an actual and authorized re-review by
+a Committee of Conference would undoubtedly be improved.
+
+The bulk of the work has, for a period of three years, stood the
+incessant fire of a not always friendly criticism far better than
+could have been anticipated by those who in the first instance
+gave it shape. The difficulties of the task have been immense. That
+they have not all of them been successfully overcome is clear
+enough, but that they were faced with an honest purpose to be
+just and fair, and that this purpose was clung to persistently
+throughout, is a credit which Churchmen of the next generation
+will not withhold from those who sought to be of service to them.
+
+It remains to be seen whether the representatives of the Church
+will take up this work and perfect it; or _per contra_ in response
+to the demand for a "Commission of Experts," or the specious but
+utterly impracticable[89] proposal of concerted action with the
+Church of England, will decide to postpone the whole affair to the
+Greek Kalends. One thing is certain, to wit, that the death of this
+movement 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 fresh
+enterprise of the like purport while the shipwreck of this one is
+before their eyes. There are many who, out of a conscientious fear
+of disturbing what they like to think of as permanently settled,
+would view such a conclusion of the whole matter with profound
+gratitude to God. But there are many more to whom such a confession
+of the Church's inability to appreciate and unwillingness to meet
+the spiritual needs of a civilization wonderfully unlike anything
+that has preceded it would be most disheartening. Least of all is
+there valid ground for hope in the case of those who fancy that if
+they can only annihilate this project, the day will speedily
+come when they can revise the Prayer Book in a manner perfectly
+conformable to their own conception of the "Ideal Liturgy," and
+after a fashion which the most ardent Anglo-Catholic must fain
+approve.
+
+The American Book of Common Prayer bears the impress to-day of
+two controlling minds, the mind of Seabury and the mind of White.
+Doubtless it stood written in the councils of the Divine Providence
+that so it should be. The two men represented respectively the two
+modes of apprehending spiritual truth which have always been allowed
+counterplay and interaction in the history of English religion, and
+which always will be allowed such counterplay and interaction while
+English religion remains the comprehensive thing it is. No scheme
+of liturgical revision, no matter how scientifically constructed,
+will ever find acceptance with the people of this Church which does
+not do even-handed justice to both of the great historic growths
+which find their common root in Anglican soil.
+
+When the spirit of Seabury shall have completely exorcised the
+spirit of White, or the spirit of White shall have completely
+exorcised the spirit of Seabury from the Church and from the Prayer
+Book, logic will have triumphed, as sixteen years ago it triumphed
+under the dome of St. Peter's--logical consistency will have
+triumphed, but catholicity will have fled.
+
+
+
+
+NOTE.
+
+
+THE BEATITUDES OF THE GOSPEL.
+
+
+_On_ Christmas-day, Easter-day, _and_ Whitsunday, _and on any
+week-day save_ Ash-Wednesday _and_ Good Friday, _this Office may
+be used in lieu of so much of_ The Order for the Administration
+of the Lord's Supper _as precedeth the Epistle for the Day_.
+
+_This Office may also be used separately on occasions for which
+no proper Order hath been provided_.
+
+_The Minister standing up shall say the Lord's Prayer and the
+Collect following, the People kneeling, but the Lord's Prayer may
+be omitted if it hath been said immediately before_.
+
+Our Father, who art in heaven, Hallowed be thy Name. Thy kingdom
+come. Thy will be done on earth, As it is in heaven. Give us this
+day our daily bread. And forgive us our trespasses, As we forgive
+those who trespass against us. And lead us not into temptation; But
+deliver us from evil. _Amen_.
+
+_The Collect_.
+
+Almighty God, unto whom all hearts are open, all desires known, and
+from whom no secrets are hid; Cleanse the thoughts of our hearts by
+the 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 Eight
+Sayings of our Lord commonly called_ THE BEATITUDES; _and the
+People, still kneeling, shall after every one of them reverently
+say_ Amen.
+
+_Minister_.
+
+Jesus went up into a mountain; and his disciples came unto him. And
+he opened his mouth and taught them, saying: Blessed are the poor
+in 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 after
+righteousness; 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 called
+the 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 dead
+who 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 without
+hope of mercy; Bow thine ear, we beseech thee, to our supplications,
+and in the country of peace and rest cause us to be made partners
+with thy holy servants; through Jesus Christ our Lord. _Amen_.[90]
+
+_Then shall be said the Collect for the Day and, unless the Holy
+Communion 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 THE
+ANNIVERSARY 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, whatever
+there is in life that is stable stands out with a sharpness that
+compels notice. Just because the world is so full of variableness,
+our hearts' affections fasten with the tighter grip upon anything
+that seems to have the guarantees of permanence. The Book of Common
+Prayer appeals to us on this score, precisely as the Bible, in its
+larger measure, does: it is the book of many generations, not of
+one, and there is "the hiding of its power." We have received the
+Prayer Book from the generations that are gone; we purpose handing
+it on when "another generation cometh"; we hold it for the use and
+blessing of the generation which now is.
+
+Our thoughts about the book, therefore, if we would have the
+thinking rightly done, must take hold upon the past, the present,
+and the future, a breadth of topic covered well enough perhaps by
+this phrase, The Permanent and the Variable Characteristics of the
+Prayer Book.
+
+I make no apology for asking you to take up the subject in so grave
+a temper. Now, for more than three hundred years, the Common Prayer
+has been the manual of worship in use with the greater number of
+the people of that race which, meanwhile, in the providence of God,
+has been growing up to be the leading power on earth. Everywhere
+the English language seems to be going forth conquering and to
+conquer, and whithersoever it penetrates it carries with it the
+letters and the social traditions of a people whose character has
+been largely moulded by the influences of the Prayer Book. Africans,
+Indians, Hindoos are to-day, even in their heathenism, feeling the
+effects of waves of movement which throb from this centre. Men in
+authority, the world over, are living out, with more or less of
+consistency and thoroughness, those convictions about our duty
+toward God, and our duty toward our neighbor, which were early
+inwrought into their consciences through the instrumentality of
+these venerable forms. Surely no one can afford to think or speak
+otherwise than most seriously and carefully with regard to a book
+which has behind it a history so worthy, so rich, so pregnant with
+promise for the future.
+
+Look first, then, at the power which the Prayer Book draws from
+its affiliations with the past. It is a common remark, so common
+as to be commonplace, that our liturgy owes its excellence to the
+fact of its not having been the composition or compilation of any
+one man. So much is evident enough upon the face of it: for a form
+of worship devised off-hand by an individual, or even put together
+by a committee sitting around a table, could scarcely be wholly
+satisfactory to any save the maker or the makers of it. But it is
+more to the purpose to observe that not only is the Prayer Book
+not the result of any one man's or any one committee's labors; it
+is not the work even of any one generation, or of any one age.
+
+The men who gradually put the Prayer Book into what is substantially
+its present shape, in the days of Edward VI. and of Elizabeth, were
+no more the makers of the Prayer Book than were the men who, in a
+later reign, set forth what we call "the authorized version" of the
+Holy Scriptures, the first translators of the Bible. In both cases
+the work done was a work of review and revision. A much more severe
+review, a vastly more sweeping revision in the case of the Prayer
+Book than in the case of the Bible, I grant; but still, mainly
+a work of review and revision after all. "Continuity," that
+characteristic so precious in the eye of modern science, continuity
+marked the whole process.
+
+The first Prayer Book of the Reformed Church of England was a
+condensed, simplified, and purified combination of formularies
+of worship already in use in the National Church. A certain
+amount of new material, some of it home-made, some of it drawn
+from foreign sources, was added; but the great bulk of the
+new service-book had been contained in one or other of the
+older manuals. The Reformers did but clip and prune, with that
+exquisite taste and judgment which belong by tradition to English
+gardeners, the overgrowth and rank luxuriance of a too long
+neglected, "careless-ordered" garden. But whence came the earlier
+formularies themselves, from which Cranmer and the rest quarried
+the 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 best
+portions of which were merged in the English Common Prayer?
+From the far past; the Missal from those primitive liturgies or
+communion services, some of which we trace back with certainty
+to the later portion of the ante-Niceneage, and by not unreasonable
+conjecture to the edge of apostolic days; the Breviary or daily
+prayers from the times when Christians first took up community
+life; the Offices from periods of uncertain date all along the
+track of previous Church history. But what advantage, asks someone
+full of the modern spirit, what advantage has the Common Prayer
+in that it can trace a genealogy running up through ages of such
+uncertain reputation? Have we not been accustomed to regard those
+times as hopelessly corrupt, impenetrably dark, universally
+superstitious? Ought we not to be mortified, rather than gratified,
+to learn that from the pit of so mouldy a past our book of prayer
+was digged? Would not a brand-new liturgy, modernized expressly
+to meet the needs of nineteenth century culture, with all the old
+English idioms displaced, every rough corner smoothed and every
+crooked place made straight--would not that be something far
+worthier our respect, better entitled to our allegiance, than
+this book full of far-away echoes, and faint bell-notes from a
+half-forgotten past?
+
+Yes, if modern man were only modern man and nothing more, such
+reasoning would be extremely cogent. But what if modern man be
+really, not the mere creature of the century in which he lives,
+but the gathered sum and product of all that has preceded him in
+history? What if you and I, from the very fact that we are living
+now, have in the dim groundwork of our nature something that would
+not have been there had we lived one, three, twelve hundred years
+ago? What if there be such a thing as cumulative acquirement for
+the race of men, so that a new generation starts with an available
+capital of associations and ideas of which the generation last
+preceding it owned but a part? Take such words as "feudalism," "the
+Crusades," "the Renaissance," "the printing press," consider how
+much they mean to us, and then remember that to a man of the third
+century they would have been empty sounds conveying absolutely no
+meaning. What all this goes to show is that human nature is a map
+which is continually unrolling. To say that the entirety of it lies
+between the two meridians that bound the particular tract in which
+our own little life happens to be cast is stupid. The whole great
+past belongs to us--river and island, ocean, forest, continent, all
+are 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 life
+is now in the background or in the middle distance of yours. It has
+become a part of you.[92]
+
+So, then, if we would have a liturgy that shall speak to our whole
+nature, and not to a mere fraction of it, it must be a liturgy full
+of voices sounding out of the past. There must be reminders and
+suggestions in it of all the great epochs of the Church's story.
+Yes, echoes even from those very ages which we call dark (perhaps
+as much because we are in the dark about them as on account of any
+special blackness attaching to the times themselves), some echoes
+even from them may have a rightful place in the worship which is to
+call out responsively all that is in the heart of the most modern
+of modern men.
+
+As there were heroes before Agamemnon, so were there holy and humble
+men of heart before Cranmer and Luther, yes, and before Jerome and
+Augustine. If any cry that ever went up from any one of them out of
+the depths of that nature which they share with us and we with them,
+if any breath of supplication, any moan of penitence, any shout of
+victory that issued from their lips has made out to survive the
+noise and tumult of intervening times, it has earned by its very
+persistency of tone a _prima facie_ title to be put into the Prayer
+Book of to-day.[93] And this is why a prayer book may survive the
+wreck of many systems of theology. A prayer book holds the utterance
+of our needs; a theological system is the embodiment of our thoughts.
+
+Now our thoughts about things divine are painfully fallible and
+liable to change with change of times; but a want which is genuinely
+and entirely human is a permanent fact; the great needs of the soul
+never grow obsolete, and though the language in which the lips shall
+clothe the heart's desire may alter, as tastes alter, yet the
+substance of the prayer abides, and in some happy instances the
+form also abides.
+
+To an eye that looks wisely and lovingly on such sights, there is
+the same keen sense of enjoyment in finding here and there in the
+Prayer Book suggestions of forgotten customs, reminders of famous
+persons and events, that there is in detecting in the masonry of
+an old castle or minster tell-tale stones which betray the different
+ages, the "sundry times and divers manners" which the fabric
+represents. Who, for instance, that has traced the history of
+that apostolic ordinance, "the kiss of peace," down through the
+liturgical changes and revolutions of eighteen hundred years, can
+fail to be interested in finding in a single clause of one of the
+exhortations of our communion service that which corresponds to
+the literal kiss of primitive times, as well as to the petrified
+symbol 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 an
+impatient gesture can we imagine a spruce reviser brushing these
+away as so much trash! They are not trash, they are way marks that
+tell of times when devout men loved those catchwords, as we love
+the first lines of our favorite hymns. A few of the headings,
+such as "_De Profundis_" and "_Miserere_," still possess such
+associations for ourselves. There was a time when very many more
+of 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 or
+me.[95]
+
+Then, too, the monuments of specially revered heroes of the faith
+that dot the paths of the Common Prayer, how precious they are! We
+like to think of Ambrose as speaking to us in the lofty sentences
+of the _Te Deum_. It is pleasant to associate Chrysostom with the
+prayer that bears his name, and to know that he who swayed the
+city's multitude still prized the Master's promise to the "two or
+three gathered together" in his name. So also, in our American Book,
+Jeremy Taylor, the modern Chrysostom, meets us in the Office for
+the 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 friend
+whom we revere because he is kindly in his tone, generous in his
+judgments, quick to understand us at every point.
+
+So much for the past of the Prayer Book. We have touched it in no
+image-breaking mood, but with reverence. "One generation passeth
+away, another generation cometh," and it has been the peculiar
+felicity 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 Book
+and the possibility of extending that usefulness in the future.
+And now I shall speak wholly as an American to Americans, not
+because the destinies of the Prayer Book in the New World are
+the more important, though such may in the end turn out to be
+the fact, but simply because we are at home here and know our own
+wants and wishes, our own liabilities and opportunities, far better
+than we can possibly know those of other people. As a Church we
+have always tied ourselves too slavishly to English precedent. Our
+vine is greatly in danger of continuing merely a potted ivy, an
+indoor exotic. The past of the Common Prayer we cannot disconnect
+from England, but its present and its future belong in part at
+least to us, and it is in this light that we are bound as American
+Churchmen to study them. Let us agree, then, that the usefulness
+of the book here and now lies largely in the moulding and formative
+influence which it is quietly exerting, not only on the religion
+of those who use it, but also largely on the religion of the far
+greater number who publicly use it not. It has interested me, as
+it would interest almost anyone, to learn how many prayer books
+our 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. They
+keep it on the devotional shelf midway between Thomas a Kempis and
+the Pilgrim's Progress, finding it a sort of interpreter of the
+one to the other, and possessed of a certain flavor differencing
+it from both. This is a happy augury for the future. Much latent
+heat is generating which shall yet warm up the dullness of the land.
+The seed-grain of the Common Prayer will not lie unproductive in
+those forgotten furrows. The fitness of such a system of worship
+as this to counteract some of the flagrant evils of our popular
+religion can scarcely fail to commend it to the minds of those who
+thus unobserved and, "as it were in secret," read and ponder.
+Much of our American piety, fervid as it is, shows confessedly
+a feverish, intermittent character which needs just such a tonic
+as the Prayer Book provides in what Keble happily called its "sober
+standard of feeling in matters of practical religion."
+
+Then, too, there is the constantly increasing interest which it
+is such a pleasure to observe among Christians of all names in
+the order of the ritual year, in Christmas and Easter, Lent and
+Good-Friday--who can tell how much of this may not be due to the
+leavening influence of the Prayer Book, over and above what is
+effected by the public services of the Church? "I wonder," said
+a famous revivalist to a friend, a clergyman of our Church, "I
+wonder if you Episcopalians know what a good thing you have in
+that 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 a
+wish very near to the heart of that holy and true man who, if
+anyone, deserves the title of the saint among our priests, the
+late Dr. Muhlenberg, the man who twenty-five years ago headed the
+not wholly abortive movement known as the "Memorial."[96] One
+fruit of that movement is perhaps to be seen in the earnest desire
+now prevalent throughout the Church to see the scope of the Prayer
+Book's influence enlarged. In General Conventions and Church
+Congresses nowadays no topic excites greater interest than the
+question how better to adapt the services of the Church to
+the present needs and special conditions of all classes of the
+population. To be sure, the apparent impotence of the governing
+body to find or furnish any lawful way of relief is a little
+discouraging, but it is something to see an almost universal
+assent given in terms, to the proposition that relief ought to
+be had. What we have to fear is that during the long delay
+which puts off the only proper and regular method of giving more
+elasticity to the services, there may spring up a generation of
+Churchmen from whose minds the idea of obligation to law in matters
+of ritual observance will have faded out altogether.
+
+There is a conservatism so conservative that it will stand by and
+see a building tumble down rather than lay a sacrilegious hand on
+a single stone, will see dam and mill and village all swept away
+sooner than lift the flash-boards that keep the superabundant water
+from coming safely down. It is among the things possible, that for
+lack of readjustment and timely adaptation of the laws regulating
+worship, just such a fate may befall our whole liturgical fabric.
+
+The plausible theory of "the rubric of common sense," about which
+we have heard so much, a theory good within limitations, is
+threatening, by the wholesale application it receives, presently
+to 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 of
+a Sunday whether he is going to mass, or to meeting, or to church,
+the inquiry will be in order, What has conservatism of this sort
+really conserved?
+
+"The personal liberty of the officiating clergyman," I fear
+will be the only answer; certainly not, "The liberty of the
+worshipping congregation." The straight and only honest way out
+of our embarrassment will, some day or other, be found, I dare not
+believe very soon, in a careful, loving, fair-minded revision of
+the formularies; a revision undertaken, not for the purpose of
+giving victory to one theological party rather than to another, or
+of changing in any degree the doctrinal teaching of the Church,
+but solely and wholly with a view to enriching, amplifying, and
+making more available the liturgical treasures of the book.
+
+"One generation passeth away, another generation cometh." As we
+have seen in these words an argument in favor of not breaking with
+the past, so let them also speak to us of our plain duty to the
+present. True, the great needs are, as I have said, common alike
+to all the generations, to those that pass and those that come; but
+the lesser needs are variable, and unless we are prepared to take
+the ground that because "lesser" they maybe disregarded altogether,
+we are bound, with the changed times, to provide for the new wants
+new satisfactions. Take, simply by way of illustration, the need we
+stand in of an appropriate form of third service for use on Sundays
+in city churches, when Morning and Evening Prayer have been already
+said according to the prescribed order.
+
+Why have we no such service?
+
+Simply because no such need existed in our American cities when the
+Prayer Book, as we have it now, was taking shape, at the close of
+the last century. Just as no form for the administration of Adult
+Baptism was put into Queen Elizabeth's Prayer Book, simply because
+the usage of Infant Baptism was universal in that day, and there
+were no unbaptized adults; but such service was inserted at the
+Restoration to meet the need that had sprung up under the Puritan
+regime; so was it unnecessary in Bishop White's day to provide for
+a form of service which has only become practicable and desirable
+since modern discovery has enabled us to make the public streets
+almost as safe at night as in the daytime, and church-going as easy
+by gaslight as by sunlight.
+
+Now it is perfectly possible, of course, under the present order of
+things, and with no change in rubric or canon law, for any clergyman
+to provide an additional service, to provide it in the form of a
+mosaic made up of bits of the liturgy wrenched out of their proper
+places, and so irregularly put together that no stranger among the
+worshippers can possibly, with the book in hand, thread his way
+among its intricacies.
+
+But when we consider how many exquisite gems of devotional speech
+there are still left outside the covers of the Prayer Book; when we
+consider how delightful it would be to have back again the
+_Magnificat _, and the _Nunc Dimittis _, and some of the sweet
+versicles of the Evensong of the Church of England; when we consider
+the lamentable mistake already made in our existing formularies of
+introducing into Morning and Evening Prayer identically the same
+opening sentences, the same General Exhortation, the same General
+Confession, the same Declaration of Absolution, the same Prayer for
+the President, and the same General Thanksgiving--is it not evident
+that an additional, or, if you please, an alternative service,
+composed of material not elsewhere employed, would be for the
+worshippers a very great gain? The repetition which wearies is
+only the repetition which we feel need not have been. We never
+tire 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 liturgy
+no form of words, except the Creed, the Doxology, and the Lord's
+Prayer, would at any time reappear, but as in arabesque work every
+square inch of space differs from every other square, so each clause
+and sentence of the manual of worship would have a distinctive
+beauty of its own, to be looked for precisely there and nowhere
+else.
+
+This is but one illustration of what may be called a possible
+enrichment of our Book of Common Prayer. Impoverishment under
+the name of revision may very justly be deprecated, but who shall
+find any just fault with an enrichment that is really such?
+
+We must remember that the men who gave us what we now have were, in
+their day and generation, the innovators, advocates of what the
+more timid spirits accounted dangerous change. We cannot, I think,
+sufficiently admire the courageous foresight of those Reformers
+who, at a time when public worship was mainly associated in men's
+minds with what went on among a number of ecclesiastics gathered
+together at one end of a church, dared to plant themselves firmly
+on the principle of "common" prayer, and to say, Henceforth the
+worship of the National Church shall be the worship not of priests
+alone, but of priests and people too. What a bold act it was! The
+printing-press, remember, although it had given the impulse to the
+Reformation, was far from being at that time the omnipresent thing
+it is now; books were scarce; popular education, as we understand
+it, was unknown; there were no means of supplying service-books to
+the poorer classes (no Prayer Book Societies, like this of yours),
+nor could the books have been used had they been furnished. And yet
+in the face of these seemingly insuperable obstacles, the leaders
+of religious thought in the England of that day had the sagacity
+to plan a system of worship which should involve participation by
+the people in all the acts of divine service, including the
+administration of the sacraments.
+
+Here was genuine statesmanship applied to the administration of
+religion. Those men discerned wisely the signs of their own times.
+They saw what the right principle was, they foresaw what the art
+of printing was destined in time to accomplish, and they did a
+piece of work which has bravely stood the wear and tear of full
+three hundred years.
+
+No Churchman questions the wisdom of their innovations now. Is it
+hopeless to expect a like quickness of discernment in the leaders
+of to-day? Surely they have eyes to see that a new world has been
+born, and that a thousand unexampled demands are pressing us on
+every side. If the Prayer Book is not enriched with a view to
+meeting those demands, it is not for lack of materials. A Saturday
+reviewer has tried to fasten on the Church of England the stigma
+of being the Church which for the space of two centuries has not
+been able to evolve a fresh prayer.
+
+If the reproach were just it would be stinging indeed; but it is
+most cruelly unjust. In the devotional literature of the Anglicanism
+of the last fifty years, to go no further back, there may be found
+prayers fully equal in compass of thought and depth of feeling to
+any of those that are already in public use. Not to single out
+too many instances, it may suffice to mention the prayers appended
+to the book of Ancient Collects edited a few years since by a
+distinguished Oxford scholar. The clergy are acquainted with them,
+and know how beautiful they are. Why should not the whole Church
+enjoy the happiness of using them?[97] Why is there not the same
+propriety in our garnering the devotional harvest of the three
+hundred years last past that there was in the Reformers garnering
+the harvest of five times three hundred years?
+
+"One generation passeth away, another generation cometh." I have
+spoken of the present and the past, what now of the future? We
+know that all things come to an end. What destiny awaits the book
+to which our evening thoughts have been given? That is a path not
+open to our tread. The cloudy curtain screens the threshold of it.
+Still we may listen and imagine that we hear sounds. What if such
+a voice as this were to come to us from the distance of a hundred
+years hence--a voice tinged with sadness, and carrying just the
+least suggestion of reproach? "Our fathers," the voice says,
+"in the last quarter of the last century, forfeited a golden
+opportunity. It was a time of reconstruction in the State, social
+life was taking on the form it was destined long to retain, a great
+war had come to an end and its results were being registered, all
+things were fluent. Moreover, there happened, just then, to be an
+almost unparalleled lull in the strife of religious parties; men
+were more disposed than usual to agree; the interest in liturgical
+research was at its greatest, and scholars knew and cared more
+than they have ever done since about the history and the structure
+of forms of prayer. Nevertheless, timid councils prevailed; nothing
+was done with a view to better adapting the system to the needs of
+society, and the hope that the Church might cease to wear the
+dimensions of a sect, and might become the chosen home of a great
+people, died unrealized. We struggle on, a half-hearted company,
+and try to live upon the high traditions, the sweet memories of our
+past."
+
+God forbid, my friends, that the dismal prophecy come true! We will
+not believe it. But what, you ask, is the pathway to any such
+betterment as I have ventured roughly to sketch to-night? I will
+not attempt to map it, but I feel very confident which way it
+does not run. I am sure it does not run through the region of
+disaffection, complaint, threatening, restlessness, petulance,
+or secession. Mere fretfulness never carries its points. No, the
+true way to better things is always to begin by holding on manfully
+to that which we already are convinced is good. The best restorers
+of old fabrics are those who work with affectionate loyalty as
+nearly as possible on the lines of the first builders, averse to
+any change which is made merely for change's sake, not so anxious
+to modernize as to restore, and yet always awake to the fact that
+what they have been set to do is to make the building once more what
+it 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, and
+build the house that was builded these many years ago."--Ezra v.11.
+
+This was the reply of the rebuilders of Jerusalem to certain
+critical lookers-on who would fain be informed by what authority
+a picturesque ruin was disturbed. It is a serviceable answer still.
+There are always those to whom the activity of the Christian Church
+is a standing puzzle. Religion, or at any rate revealed religion,
+having, as they think, received its death-blow, the unmistakable
+signs of life which, from time to time, it manifests take on almost
+the character of a personal affront. They resent them. What right
+have these Christians to be showing such a lively interest in their
+vanquished faith? they ask. What business have they to be holding
+councils, and laying plans, and acting as if they had some high and
+splendid effort in hand? Are they such fools as to imagine that
+they can reconstruct what has so evidently tumbled into ruin?
+
+But the wonderful thing about this great building enterprise known
+as the kingdom of God is that, from the day when the corner-stone
+was laid to this day, the workmen on the walls have never seemed to
+know what it meant to be discouraged. In the face of taunt and
+rebuff and disappointment, they have kept on saying to their
+critics: "We are the servants of the God of heaven and earth, and
+build the house that was builded these many years ago." This is
+just what the Church Council which has been holding its sessions
+in 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 give
+you, 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 ecclesiastical
+annals for having closed one question of grave moment only to open
+a kindred one of still larger reach. The question closed was the
+question of liturgical revision; the question opened is the question
+of constitutional revision. I should like to speak to you this
+morning retrospectively of the one, and prospectively of the other.
+
+It is now about twenty years since the question of modifying, to
+some extent, the methods of our public worship began to be mooted.
+
+While it was acknowledged that the need was greater in the mother
+country than here, many of the repetitions and superfluities of the
+English Church service having been set aside by Bishop White and
+his compeers in the American Revision of 1789, it was felt that
+further improvements were still possible, and that the time had
+fully come for making them. Since the beginning of the so-called
+"tractarian movement" in the Church of England a great deal of
+valuable liturgical material had been accumulating, and it was
+discerned that if ever the fruits of the scholarship of such men
+as Palmer and Neale and Maskell and Bright were to be garnered
+the harvest-day had arrived. To the question often asked why
+it would not have been wiser to wait until the Church of England
+had led the way and set the pattern, the answer is that the
+hands of the Church of England were tied, as they have been
+tied these many years past, and as they may continue to be tied,
+for aught we know to the contrary, for many years to come. The
+Church of England cannot touch her own Prayer Book, whether to
+mend or to mar it, except with the consent of that very mixed
+body, the House of Commons--a consent she is naturally and properly
+most loth to ask. Immersed in a veritable ocean of accumulated
+liturgical material, she is as helpless as Tantalus to moisten
+her lips with so much as a single drop. It was seen that this
+fact laid upon us American Churchmen a responsibility as urgent
+as it was unique, viz., the responsibility of doing what we could
+to meet the devotional needs of present-day Christendom, not only
+for our own advantage, but with a view to being ultimately of
+service to our Anglican brethren across the sea. An experiment
+of the greatest interest, which for them was a sheer impossibility,
+it lay open to us to try. After various abortive attempts had
+come to nought, a beginning was at length made in the General
+Convention of 1880, a joint committee of bishops and deputies
+being then appointed to consider whether, in view of the fact
+that this Church was soon to enter upon the second century of
+its organized existence in America, the changed condition of
+the national life did not demand certain alterations in the Book
+of Common Prayer in the direction of liturgical enrichment and
+increased flexibility of use.
+
+Few were of the opinion at the time that anything definite would
+come of the deliberations of this committee, and the fact, never
+before publicly stated till this moment, that of the deputies
+appointed to serve upon it the greater number were men who had
+not voted in favor of the measure, makes it all the more interesting
+to remember that the report, when brought in at Philadelphia
+three years later, was signed by every member of the committee
+then living. This Philadelphia report recommended very numerous
+changes in the direction both of "flexibility" and "enrichment,"
+and by far the greater number of the recommendations met with the
+approval of the convention. There is, however, a very wise provision
+of our Church constitution, a provision strikingly characteristic
+of the Anglo-Saxon mind, which, by way of making allowance for
+second thought, requires that liturgical changes, before being
+finally adopted, shall run the gauntlet of two successive conventions.
+Much was accepted at Philadelphia; it remained to be seen how much
+would pass the ordeal of its second reading at Chicago three years
+later.
+
+Into the war of words waged over the subject during that interval
+period, I have neither the time nor the disposition to carry you.
+The three years, while they gave opportunity for reaction, also
+allowed space for counter-reaction; so that when, at last, the
+question came once more before the Church in council assembled
+whether the work done at Philadelphia should be approved or
+disallowed, men's minds had sufficiently recovered balance to
+permit of their exercising discrimination. Accordingly in 1886
+some things were rejected, some adopted, and some remanded for
+further revision. But why should I confuse your minds by an attempt
+to tell in detail the whole story of the movement? No matter how
+clear I might make the narrative it would be difficult to follow
+it, for in the progress of the work there have been surprises many,
+successes and reverses not a few; enough that, at last, the long
+labor is ended and in this Columbian year the ship comes into port.
+
+As to results, their number and their quality, opinions will of
+course differ. In connection with this, as with all similar
+undertakings, there are many to cry: "Who will show us any good?"
+Certainly nothing that could be called a radical change has been
+brought to pass; but then, is there any reason to suppose that
+radical changes were either sought or desired by those who have
+been active in the movement? Certain distinct and indisputable
+gains may be counted up. The recovery of the great Gospel hymns
+come under this head. There are some of us who think that only to
+have succeeded in replacing the _Magnificat_ and the _Nunc Dimittis_
+in the Evening Prayer is of itself a sufficient reward for years
+of effort, but this is only a small part of our harvest. The new
+opening sentences for Morning and Evening Prayer, which have so
+"adorned and beautified" our observance of great festivals, the
+remodelling of the Ash-Wednesday service, the recovered Feast of
+the Transfiguration, the various provisions for adapting the
+Church's worship to the exigencies of times and seasons, the
+increased freedom in the use of the Psalter, all these go to make
+up an aggregate of betterment the measure of which will be more
+fully understood as time goes on. "_Parturiunt montes_" is an easy
+verdict to pronounce; it remains to be proved whether in this case
+it is a just one to render. If there are some (as doubtless some
+there are) who hold that the sample book presented at Philadelphia
+in 1883, faulty as it confessedly was, is still, all things
+considered, a better book for American needs than the standard
+finally adopted at Baltimore, week before last, if there are some
+who deeply regret the failure to include among our special offices
+one for the burial of little children, and among our prayers
+intercessions for the country, for the families of the land, for
+schools of good learning, for employers and those whom they employ,
+together with many other forms of supplication gathered from the
+wide field of English liturgiology--if, I say, there arc some who
+are of this mind they must comfort themselves with the reflection
+that, after all, they are a minority, that the greater number of
+those upon whom rested the responsibility of decision did not wish
+for these additions, and that the things which finally found
+acceptance were the things unanimously desired. For, when we think
+of it, this is perhaps the very best feature of the whole thing,
+looked at in its length and breadth, that there is no defeated
+party, no body of people who feel that they have a right to fret
+and sulk because unpalatable changes have been forced upon them by
+narrow majorities. It is a remarkable fact, that of the many scores
+of alterations effected, it can be truly said that, with rare, very
+rare exceptions, they found, when it came to the decisive vote,
+what was practically a unanimous consent. They were things that
+everybody wanted.
+
+As to the annoyance and vexation experienced by worshippers
+during the years the revision has been in progress, perhaps the
+very best thing that can be done, now that the end is so near at
+hand, will be to forget all about it. In a few months, at the
+furthest, the Prayer Book, in its complete form, will be available
+for purchase and use, and the hybrid copies which have been so
+long in circulation, to the scandal of people of fastidious taste,
+will quickly vanish away. Meanwhile, it is interesting to know
+that all through this stretch of years while the Prayer Book has
+been "in solution," as some have been fond of phrasing it, the
+Episcopal Church has exhibited a rate of growth quite unparalleled
+in its history.
+
+Of course nobody can say with certainty what has caused the
+increase. But it is at least conceivable that among the accelerating
+forces has been this very work of liturgical revision. People at
+large have been made aware that this Church was honestly endeavoring
+to 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 to
+allay prejudice and to foster a spirit of inquiry. Finding us
+disposed to relax something of our rigidity, they, on their part,
+have been first attracted, then conciliated, and finally completely
+won.
+
+I cannot leave this subject without paying a personal tribute
+to a prelate but for whose aid in the House of which he is a
+distinguished ornament, liturgical revision would, humanly speaking,
+have long ago come to nought. To the fearlessness, the patience, the
+kindly temper, and the resolute purpose of William Croswell Doane,
+Bishop of Albany, this Church for these results stands deeply and
+lastingly indebted. When others' courage failed them, he stood firm;
+when friends and colleagues were counselling retreat, and under
+their breath were whispering "Fiasco!" and "Collapse!" his spirit
+never faltered. He has been true to a great purpose, at the cost of
+obloquy sometimes, and to the detriment even of old friendships.
+Separated from him by a dozen shades of theological opinion and by
+as many degrees of ecclesiastical bias, I render him here and now
+that homage of grateful appreciation which every Churchman owes him.
+
+So much for the ship that has dropped anchor. I have left my self
+but a few moments in which to say God-speed to the other craft which
+is even now sliding down the ways, ready for the great deep. Put
+perhaps it is just as well. History is always a safer line to enter
+upon than prophecy; and were I to say all that is in my mind and
+heart as to the possibilities of this new venture of faith on the
+Church's part, constitutional revision, I might be betrayed into
+expressions of hopefulness which would strike most of you as
+overwrought.
+
+Suffice it to say, that never since the Reformation of Religion
+in the sixteenth century has a fairer prospect been opened to
+the Church of our affections than is opened to her to-day. No
+interpretation of the divine purpose with respect to this broad
+land we name America has one-half so much of likelihood as that
+which makes our country the predestined building plot for the
+Church 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 historical
+association, the opportunity of leadership.
+
+It is possible for us, at this crisis of our destiny, so to mould
+our organic law that we shall be brought into sympathetic contact
+with hundreds of thousands of our fellow-countrymen who worship the
+same God, hold the same faith, love the same Christ. On the other
+hand, it is possible for us so to fence ourselves off from this
+huge family of our fellow-believers as to secure for our lasting
+heritage 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 comprehensive
+Church. We have the opportunity of dwindling into a self-conscious,
+self-conceited, and unsympathetic sect. Which shall it be? With
+those to whom, under God, the remoulding of our organic law has
+been intrusted it largely rests to say.
+
+
+COMPARATIVE TABLE OF ADDITIONS MADE TO THE BOOK OF COMMON PRAYER AT
+THE SEVERAL REVISIONS SINCE 1549.
+
+
+                        1552   1559   1604   1662   1789   1892
+Scripture Sentences       11                           8     31
+Collects                                        3      1      3
+Epistles                                        2      1      3
+Gospels                                         1      1      3
+Offices                   13                    8      1      1
+Prayers                   15       2     7     18     13      9
+Proper Psalms (days)                            2            10
+Selections of Psalms                                  10     10
+Canticles                                              8      2
+Versicles                  4                    3            11
+Litany Suffrages                   1                          1
+Catechetical Questions                  12
+Exhortations               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 our
+ecclesiastical legislation grows out of not keeping in mind the
+fact that here in America the organic genetic law of the Church,
+as well as of the State, is in writing, and compacted into definite
+propositions. We draw, that is to say, a far sharper distinction
+than it is possible to do in England between what is constitutional
+and what is simply statutory. There is no function of our General
+Convention that answers to the "omnipotence of Parliament." This
+creative faculty was vacated once for all at the adoption of the
+Constitution.
+
+[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 as
+follows: "Of the Clergy there were 43 Dioceses represented--Ayes,
+33; nays, 9; divided, 1. Of the Laity there were 35 Dioceses
+represented--Ayes, 20; nays, 11; divided, 4."--_Journal of
+Convention of_ 1880, p. 152.
+
+[7] _Church Eclectic_ for November, 1880.
+
+[8] Remembering the deluge of "centennial" rhetoric let loose
+upon the country five years ago, another critic may well feel
+justified in finding in the language of the resolution what he
+considers "an unnecessary _raison d'etre_." But it is just possible
+that centennial changes rest on a basis of genuine cause and effect
+quite independent of the decimal system. A century covers the range
+of three generations, and the generation is a natural, not an
+arbitrary division of time. What the grandfather practises the son
+criticises and the grandson amends. This at least ought to commend
+itself to the consideration of the lovers of mystical numbers and
+"periodic laws."
+
+[9] The real argument against the "driblet method" (by which is
+meant the concession of improvement only as it is actually conquered
+inch by inch) lies in what has been already said about the
+undesirability of frequent changes in widely used formularies of
+worship.
+
+It may be true, as some allege, that a revision of the Prayer Book
+would shake the Church, but it is more likely that half a dozen
+patchings at triennial intervals would shatter it. After twenty
+years of this sort of piecemeal revision, a _variorum_ edition of
+the Prayer Book would be a requisite of every well furnished pew.
+
+The late Convention has been twitted with inconsistency on the
+score of having negatived outright the proposal for a Commission
+to overhaul the Constitution of the Church while consenting to
+send the Prayer Book to a committee for review. Discernment would
+be a better word than inconsistency, for although on grounds of
+pure theory the Constitution and the Prayer Book seem to stand in
+corresponding attitudes as respects methods of amendment, in
+practice the difference between the two is very wide. Triennial
+changes in the letter of the Constitution (and these have often
+been made) involve no inconvenience to anybody, for the simple
+reason that that document must of necessity be reprinted with every
+fresh issue of the Journal. Old copies do not continue in use,
+except as books of reference, but old Prayer Books do hold their
+place in parish churches, and the spectacle of congregations trying
+to worship in unison with books some of which contained the reading
+of 1880, others that of 1883, and still others that of 1886 would
+scarcely edify. Theoretically, let it be freely granted, the
+"driblet method" of amendment is the proper one for both Prayer
+Book and Constitution, but the fact that the Convention had eyes
+to see that this was a case to which the maxims of pure mathematics
+did not apply should be set down to its credit, rather than its
+discredit.
+
+[10] Reprinted together with a supplementary Letter in the Journal
+of the Convention of 1868.
+
+[11] Dr. Coit's Letter of 1868, also reprinted in Journal of that
+year.
+
+[12] See _Book of Common Prayer according to the use of King's
+Chapel, Boston_. Among the rhetorical crudities of this emasculated
+Prayer Book (from the title-page of which, by the way, the definite
+article has been with praiseworthy truthfulness omitted) few things
+are worse than the following from the form for the Burial of
+Children, a piece of writing which in point of style would seem
+to savor more of the Lodge than of the Church: "My brethren, what
+is our life? It is as the early dew of morning that glittereth for
+a short time, and then is exhaled to heaven. Where is the beauty
+of childhood? Where is [sic] the light of those eyes and the bloom
+of that countenance?" . . . "Who is young and who is old? Whither
+are we going and what shall we become?" And yet the author of
+this mawkish verbiage probably fancied that he was improving upon
+the stately English of the Common Prayer. It is a warning to all
+would-be enrichers.
+
+[13] A list of the more noticeable Anglican works on Liturgies
+published during the period named, arranged in the order of their
+appearance, will serve to illustrate the accuracy of the statement
+made above, and may also be of value to the general reader for
+purposes of reference.
+
+1832. Origines Liturgicae, William Palmer. 1833-41. Tracts for
+the Times. 1840. Conferences on the Book of Common Prayer, Edward
+Cardwell. 1843. The Choral Service of the Churches of England and
+Ireland, John Jebb. 1844. The Ancient Liturgy of the Church of
+England, William Maskell. 1845. Pickering's Reprints of the Prayer
+Books of 1549, 1552, 1559, 1603, and 1662. 1846. Monumenta
+Ritualia, William Maskell. 1847. Reliquiae Liturgicae, Peter
+Hall. 1848. Fragmenta Liturgica, Peter Hall. 1849. Book of Common
+Prayer with Notes legal and historical, A. J. Stephens. Manuscript
+Book of Common Prayer for Ireland, A. J. Stephens. Tetralogia
+Liturgica, John Mason Neale. 1853. Two Liturgies of Edward VI.,
+Edward Cardwell. 1855. Principles of Divine Service, Philip
+Freeman. 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 Common
+Prayer, R. P. Blakeney. 1866. The Prayer Book Interleaved, Campion
+and 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. with
+the Ordinal, Walton and Medd. 1872. Psalms and Litanies, Rowland
+Williams. 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 successive
+Revisions, James Parker. 1877. Introduction to the History of the
+successive Revisions of the Book of Common Prayer, James Parker.
+1878. Liturgies--Eastern and Western, C. E. Hammond. 1880. The
+Convocation Prayer Book.
+
+[14] Tract No. 3. _Thoughts respectfully addressed to the Clergy on
+alterations in the Liturgy_.
+
+[15] One of the most curious illustrations of the spread of
+Anglican ideas about worship now in progress is to be found in
+the upspringing in the very bosom of Scottish Presbyterianism of
+a CHURCH SERVICE SOCIETY. Two of the publications of this Society
+have lately fallen in the present writer's way. They bear the
+imprint of Wm. Blackwood & Sons, Edinburgh, and are entitled
+respectively, _A Book of Common Order_, and _Home Prayer_. With
+questionable good taste the compilers have given to the former
+work 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 ludicrous
+side to this attempt to commend English viands to Northern palates
+under a thin garniture of Scottish herbs which probably has not
+wholly 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," be
+reckoned an exception.
+
+[18] _Lectures on Justification_, p 380.
+
+[19] The rationale of this curious lapse is simple. The American
+revisers, instead of transferring the Commination Office _in toto_
+to the new book, wisely decided to engraft certain features of
+it upon the Morning Prayer for Ash-Wednesday. In the process, the
+fifty-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 Protestant
+Episcopal mind to anything that can be supposed even remotely to
+endanger our doctrinal settlement was afforded at the late General
+Convention, when the House of Deputies was thrown into something
+very like a panic by a most harmless suggestion with reference to
+the opening sentences of the Litany. A venerable and thoroughly
+conservative deputy from South Carolina had ventured to say that
+it would be doctrinally an improvement if the tenet of the double
+procession of the Holy Ghost were to be removed from the third of
+the invocations, and a devotional improvement if the language of
+the fourth were to be phrased in words more literally Scriptural
+and less markedly theological than those at present in use. Eager
+defenders of the faith instantly leaped to their feet in various
+parts of the House, persuaded that a deadly thrust had been aimed
+at the doctrine of the Trinity. Never was there a more gratuitous
+misconception. The real intrenchment of the doctrine of the
+Trinity, so far as the Litany is concerned, lies in the four
+opening words of the second and the five opening words of the
+third of the invocations, and these it had not been proposed to
+touch. In confirmation of this view of the matter, it is pertinent
+to instance the _Book of Family Prayers_ lately put forth by a
+Committee of the Upper House of the Convocation of Canterbury.
+This manual provides no fewer than six different Litanies, all of
+them opening with addresses to the three Persons of the adorable
+Trinity, and yet in no one instance is the principle advocated by
+the deputy from South Carolina unrecognized. Every one of the six
+Litanies begins with language similar to that which he recommended.
+[See also in witness of the mediaeval use, which partially bears
+out Mr. McCrady's thought, the ancient Litany reprinted by Maskell
+from _The Prymer in English_. Mon. Hit. ii. p. 95.] If the Upper
+House of the Convocation of Canterbury, fondly supposed by us
+Anglicans to be the very citadel of sound doctrine, be thus tainted
+with heresy, upon what can we depend?
+
+Polemical considerations aside, probably even the most orthodox
+would allow that the invocations of the Litany might gain in
+devotional power, while losing nothing in august majesty, were
+the third to run--_O God the Holy Ghost, Sanctifier of the
+faithful, have mercy upon us miserable sinners_. And the fourth
+as in Bishop Heber's glorious hymn, _Holy, Holy, Holy, Lord God
+Almighty, have mercy upon us miserable sinners_. But all this is
+doctrinal and plainly _ultra vires_.
+
+[23] A very natural explanation, by the way, of the fact, often
+noticed, that there is no petition in the Litany for an increase
+of the ministry.
+
+[24] Here, _i_. _e._, in connection with Saints' Day services,
+would be an admirable opportunity for the introduction into
+liturgical use of the Beatitudes. What could possibly be more
+appropriate? And yet these much loved words of Christ have seldom
+been 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 of
+liturgies with the name of this Father of the Church and with his
+name only, would be to pay him better honor than we now show by
+three times inserting in our Prayer Book the collect conjecturally
+his--a thing the Golden-mouthed himself, when in the flesh, would
+not 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 animated
+and interesting debate in the House of Deputies as to the wisdom
+of thus seeming to cut off every opportunity for extemporary prayer
+in our public services. Up to this time, it was alleged, a liberty
+had existed of using _after_ sermon, if the preacher were disposed to
+do so, the "free prayer" which _before_ sermon it was confessedly
+not permitted him to have--why thus cut off peremptorily an
+ancient privilege? why thus sharply annul a traditional if not a
+chartered right?
+
+At first sight this distinction between before and after sermon
+looks both arbitrary and artificial, but when examined there is
+found to be a reason in it. The sermon, especially in the case of
+emotional preachers, is a sort of bridge of transition from what
+we may call the liturgical to the spontaneous mood of mind, and if
+the speaker has carried his listeners with him they are across
+the bridge at the same moment with himself. The thing that would
+have been incongruous before, becomes natural after the minister
+has been for some time speaking less in his priestly than in his
+personal character.
+
+The notion that the points at issue between the advocates of
+liturgical and the advocates of extemporaneous worship can be
+settled by a promiscuous jumbling together of the two modes, is
+a fond conceit, as the Reformed Episcopalians will doubtless confess
+when they shall have had time enough to make full trial of the
+following rubrics in their Prayer-book:
+
+_Then shall the Minister say the Collects and Prayers following in
+whole or in part, or others at his discretion_.
+
+_Here may be used any of the occasional Prayers, or extemporaneous
+Prayer_.
+
+This is bad philosophy. It need not be said that such directions
+are undevotional--for doubtless they were piously meant; but it
+must be said that they are inartistic (if the word may be allowed),
+at variance with the fitness of things and counter to the instinct
+of purity. Formality and informality are two things that cannot
+be mingled to advantage. There is place and time for each. The
+secret of the power of liturgical worship is wrapped up with the
+principle of order. A certain majesty lies in the movement which
+is without break. On the other hand the charm of extemporaneous
+devotion, and it is sometimes a very real charm, is traceable to our
+natural interest in whatever is irregular, fresh, and spontaneous.
+
+To suppose that we can secure at any given time the good effects of
+both methods by some trick of combination is an error--as well
+attempt to arrange on the same plot of ground a French and an
+English garden. If indeed Christian people could bring themselves
+to acknowledge frankly the legitimacy of both methods and provide
+amicably for their separate use, a great step forward in the
+direction of Church unity would have been achieved; but for a
+catholicity so catholic as this, public opinion is not yet ripe,
+and perhaps may not be ripe for centuries to come. Those who
+believe in the excellency of liturgies, while not believing in
+them as _jure divino_, would be well content in such a case to
+wait the working of the principle of the survival of the fittest.
+
+[27] The able and fair-minded jurist who first hit upon this
+ingenious scheme for patching the Ratification has lately, with
+characteristic frankness, said substantially this under his own
+signature.
+
+"The proper place for the amendment," he writes, "is at the end
+of the first rubric preceding the sentences of Scripture for both
+Morning and Evening Prayer, after the word Scripture, as everyone
+can see by looking." He adds: "This, however, is only a question
+of form, and ought not to interfere with the adoption of the
+amendment at the next Convention. It is to be hoped that the
+resolution for enrichment, so called, will present a variety of
+additions out of which an acceptable selection can be made; and
+when they are finally carried that the Book of Common Prayer will
+be not only the standard book, but a sealed book, so to speak, for
+as many generations as have passed since the present book was
+adopted."--Letter of the Hon. J. B. Howe of Indiana in _The
+Churchman_ for January 29, 1881.
+
+[28] See page 578 of _Evangelical Catholic Papers_. A collection
+of 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 sundry
+much desired liturgical improvements (although it yet remains to
+be seen whether the failure has been total) was perhaps due to a
+certain vagueness inherent in his plans of reform. A clear vision
+of the very thing desired seems to have been lacking, or at least
+the gift of imparting it to others. But even as no man has deserved
+better of the American Episcopal Church than he, so it is no more
+than right that his deeply cherished wishes should be had in
+careful 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 better
+way of providing relief for our Widows and Orphans than that of
+the 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 our
+American 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 the
+manifold changings of the Service, was the cause, that to turn
+the Book only was so hard and intricate a matter, that many times
+there was more business to find out what should be read than to
+read it when it was found out."
+
+[35] It may be wise to buttress the position taken with a
+quotation out of Dr. Coit.
+
+"We really, however, do not see any necessity for either of
+these Services in American Books, as with us the Ordinal always,
+now, makes a part of the Prayer Book in all editions. It would
+be a saving to expunge them and no change would be necessary,
+except the introduction of such a litanical petition and suffrage
+with the Services for Deacons and Priests, as already exists in
+the Service for Bishops. The Church of England retains the Litany
+in her Ordinal, for that, until latterly, was printed in a separate
+book, and was not to be had unless ordered expressly. And yet with
+even such a practice she has but one Communion Service. We study
+cheapness and expedition in our day. They can both be consulted
+here, _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 the
+only formulary actually dropped.
+
+[40] _The Church Quarterly Review_ for April, 1884, and July,
+1884. _The Church Times_ for August 29, 1884; also July 31, August
+7, 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 innocent
+mirth that, in justice to the maker of it, attention should be
+called 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 judgment
+of the four specified men of letters, he means, not, as he has been
+understood to mean, the whole subject-matter of _The Book Annexed_,
+but only the abstract question whether verbal variations from the
+English original of the Common Prayer be or be not, on grounds of
+purity of style, desirable. Even if this be all that he means there
+is perhaps still room for a smile, but, at all events, he ought to
+have the benefit of the doubt.
+
+[43] _Discussions and Arguments_, p. 341.
+
+[44] "The list might be brought down as late as the authorities
+pleased to bring it, even to include, if they chose, such names
+as John Keble, James De Koven, and Ferdinand Ewer."--_The Church
+Times_ for August 14, 1885.
+
+[45] This form of absolution suggested as an alternate in _The
+Book Annexed_ is taken from the source mentioned.
+
+[46] The paper read by the Dean of Worcester dealt exclusively
+with the legal aspects of the question as it concerns the Church
+of England.
+
+[47] The Rev. Edgar Morris Dumbleton (Rector of St. James's,
+Exeter).
+
+[48] The Rev. George Venables (Hon. Canon of Norwich and Vicar
+of Great Yarmouth).
+
+[49] The Rev. Arthur James Robinson (Rector of Whitechapel).
+
+[50] See letter of "J. L. W." in _The Southern Churchman_ for
+August 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 the
+Diocese of Wisconsin," _passim_.
+
+[53] The evident intention of the Joint Committee in the
+introduction of this Canticle was to make it possible to shorten
+the Morning Prayer on week-days, without spoiling the structure
+of the office, as is now often done, by leaving out one of the
+Lessons. It is certainly open to question whether a better
+alternate might not have been provided, but it is surprising to
+find so well furnished a scholar as the Wisconsin critic speaking
+of the _Benedictus es Domine_ as a liturgical novelty, "derived
+neither from the Anglican or the more ancient service-hooks." As
+a matter of fact the _Benedictus es Domine_ was sung daily in the
+Ambrosian Rite at Matins, and is found also in the Mozarabic
+Breviary.
+
+[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 _The
+Convocation Prayer Book_ published by Murray in 1880, for the
+purpose of showing what the English Book would be like if "amended
+in conformity with the recommendations of the Convocations of
+Canterbury and York, contained in reports presented to her Majesty
+the Queen in the year 1879."
+
+[57] The Report was adopted.
+
+[58] In addition to the Maryland Report we have now a still more
+admirable one from Central New York.
+
+[59] Strangely enough the Elizabethan period, so rich in genius
+of every other type, seems to have been almost wholly barren of
+liturgical power. Men had not ceased to write prayers, as a stout
+volume in the Parker Society's Library abundantly evidences; but
+they had ceased to write them with the terseness and melody that
+give to the style of the great Churchmen of the earlier reigns so
+singular a charm.
+
+[60] The liturgical manuscripts of Sanderson and Wren, made
+public only recently by the late Bishop of Chester, ought to be
+included under this head.
+
+[61] Many of these "Treasuries," "Golden Gates," and the like,
+have here and there something good, but for the most part they
+are disfigured by sins against that "sober standard of feeling,"
+than which, as a high authority assures us, nothing except "a sound
+rule of faith" is more important "in matters of practical
+religion." 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 a
+constitutional, and in no sense a liturgical question. Let it be
+considered at the proper time, and in a proper way, but why thrust
+it precipitately into a discussion to which it is thoroughly
+foreign?
+
+[64] By the Maryland Committee.
+
+[65] This paragraph was written before the author had been
+privileged to read Prof. Gold's interesting paper in _The
+Seminarian_. It is only proper to say that this accomplished
+writer and very competent critic does object emphatically to
+the theory that the opening Sentences are designed to give the
+key-note of the Service. But here he differs with Blunt, as
+elsewhere in the same paper he dissents from Freeman and from
+Littledale, admirably illustrating by his proper assertion of
+an independent judgment, the difficulty of applying the Vicentian
+rule 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 that
+the doctrinal and philological objections to the formulary as
+it originally stood were sound and sufficient. On the lips of
+a 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 was
+made, it should be noticed that King James's Bible gives us
+nineteen precedents for it; and the Prayer Book itself one.
+
+[68] In _The Book Annexed_, as originally presented, there
+stood in this place the beautiful and appropriate psalm, _Levavi
+oculos_. But the experts declared that this would never do, since
+from time immemorial _Levavi oculos_ had been a Vesper Psalm, and
+it would be little less than sacrilege to insert it in a morning
+service, 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 larger
+measure of good sense, as well as a better exegesis, than the
+Convention 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 to
+morning 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 metrical
+equivalent of "O Lord, save the queen," and it is directly
+antiphonal to the versicle which follows.
+
+There being no Established Church in the United States, it is
+doubtful whether any prayers for "rulers" are desirable, over and
+above those we already have. And if this point be conceded, the
+other considerations mentioned may be allowed to have weight in
+favor 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 illustration
+of what might otherwise be thought an extravagant statement. The
+Rev. W. C. Bishop, writing in _The Church Eclectic_ for February,
+1884, says:
+
+"The service of the Beatitudes proposed by the Committee is just
+one of 'fancy-liturgy making,' which ought to be summarily rejected.
+We have more than enough of this sort of thing already; the
+commandments, comfortable words, _et hoc genus omne_, are anything
+but 'unique glories' of our Liturgy. Anything of which we have
+exclusive possession is nearly certain to be a 'unique _blunder_,'
+instead of anything better, because the chances are a thousand to
+one that anything really beautiful or edifying would have been
+discovered by, and have commended itself to, some other Christians
+in the last two thousand years." If such is to be the nomenclature
+of our new "science," Devotion may well stand aghast in the face
+of Liturgies.
+
+[73] See the Commination Office in the Prayer Book of the Church
+of England.
+
+[74] Daniel's _Codex Liturgicus_, vol. iv. p. 343. Quoted in
+_Dictionary of Christian Antiquities_. The translation of makapismoi
+has been doubted; but Dr. Neale and Prof. Cheetham agree that the
+reference 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 the
+clean 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 alway
+pure and clean without spot of sin; Grant us the grace to follow
+thee in mercifulness toward our neighbors, and always to bear a
+pure heart and a clean conscience toward thee, that we may after
+this life see thee in thy everlasting glory, which livest and
+reignest God, world without end. _Amen_.
+
+[77] It is interesting and suggestive to observe with how much
+less frequency our attention is called to this paragraph of the
+Preface than to the later one which asserts historical continuity
+with the Church of England.
+
+[78] _Essays on Liturgiology_, p. 226.
+
+[79] The response proposed by the Commissioners ran, "Lord have
+mercy upon us, and make us partakers of this blessing," a prayer
+unobjectionable 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 laborers
+into 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 committee
+on hymnody, many years ago, as he and his colleagues were sitting
+in 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 that
+lives, not the green." Happily the suggestion failed to find a
+seconder. 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"; Lindley
+Murray, were he consulted, would have no mercy on it: and yet a
+more beautiful and touching combination of words is not to be
+found anywhere in the Psalter. It is the utter lack of this
+idiomatic characteristic that makes "Lambeth prayers" proverbially
+so 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 of
+England is inestimably precious; impracticable, because there is
+no representative body of the English Church authorized to treat
+with us.
+
+[90] This Prayer has been gathered from the _Dirige_ in _The
+Primer set forth by the King's Majesty and his Clergy_, 1545; the
+same source (it is interesting to note) to which we trace the
+English form of the _Collect for Purity_ at the beginning of the
+office.
+
+[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 forms
+of prayer. They may get speeches to be spoken upward by people on
+their knees. They may obtain a juxtaposition in space of curiously
+tessellated pieces of Bible and Prayer Book. But when I speak of
+the rareness and preciousness of prayers, I mean such prayers as
+contain three conditions--permanence, capability jot being really
+prayed, and universality. Such prayers primates and senates can no
+more command than they can order a new Cologne Cathedral or another
+epic 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 of
+God 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 men
+the men, and the women the women, and let the children stand by
+the Bema. _"--_The Divine Liturgy of St. Clement_ (Bretts's
+Translation, corrected by Neale).
+
+"_At Solemn High Mass, the deacon kisses the altar at the same
+time with the celebrating priest, by whom he is saluted with the
+kiss of peace, accompanied by these words_, PAX TECUM."--Rubric of
+the 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 Agnus
+Dei in the Mass, to communicate the kiss of peace."--_Pugin's
+Glossary_.
+
+_St. George's Chapel, Windsor_. "Item, a fine PAX, silver and gilt
+enamelled, with an image of the crucifixion, Mary and John, and
+having on the top three crosses, with two shields hanging on either
+side. Item, a ferial PAX, of plate of silver gilt, with the image
+of the Blessed Virgin."--_Dugdale's Monasticon_ quoted in above
+Glossary.
+
+"Ye who do truly and earnestly repent you of your sins, _and are
+in love and charity with your neighbors_, and intend to lead a new
+life . . . Draw near with faith, and take this holy sacrament to your
+comfort."--Shorter Exhortation in the Communion Office of the Prayer
+Book.
+
+[95] A friend who heard the sermon preached has kindly sent me the
+following apt illustrations. They do not, indeed, come from history
+technically so-called, but they report the mind of one to whose eye
+the whole life of the Middle Ages was as an open book.
+
+"There was now a pause, of which the abbot availed himself by
+commanding the brotherhood to raise the solemn chant, _De profundis
+clamavi_"--_The Monastery_, chap, xxxvii.
+
+"'To be a guest in the house where I should command?' said the
+Templar; 'Never! Chaplains, raise the psalm, _Quare fremuerunt
+Gentes_? Knights, squires, and followers of the Holy Temple, prepare
+to follow the banner of _Beau-seant_!'"--_Ivanhoe_, chap. xliv.
+
+[96] So many good things are washed oat of men's memory by the lapse
+of even a quarter of a century that possibly some even of those who
+knew all about the "Memorial" in 1852 may be willing to be reminded
+what its scope and purpose were.
+
+The petition was addressed to the bishops "in council," and
+prayed for the appointment of a commission to report upon the
+practicability of making this Church a central bond of union
+among the Christian people of America, by providing for as much
+freedom in opinion, discipline, and worship as might be held to
+be 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. Their
+Report, subsequently edited in book form by Bishop Potter, is one
+of the most valuable documents of American Church history. The
+following extract from Bishop Burgess' portion of the Report will
+be read with interest by all who ever learned to revere that
+theologian for the largeness of his learning, the calmness of his
+judgment, and the goodness of his heart. He has been speaking of
+liturgical changes as contemplated and allowed for by the framers
+of 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 the
+liturgy or its application may be rendered more perfect. To hazard
+for this result the safety or unity of the Church may be inexcusable,
+and the utmost certainty may be demanded before a change of
+this kind shall be practically ventured. But should it be once
+established, beyond the smallest doubt, that any addition or
+alteration would increase the excellence or the excellent influence
+of the liturgy in any degree sufficient to compensate or more than
+compensate for the inconveniences incident to all change, it seems
+as difficult to say that it should not be adopted by the Church,
+as to excuse any Christian from adding to his virtues or his
+usefulness.
+
+"The other 'contingencies' recognized are briefly these:
+
+"(2) When in process of time words or regulations have become
+obsolete or unsuitable.
+
+"(3) When civil or social changes require ecclesiastical changes.
+
+"(4) When the earnest desire of any respectable number of the
+members of the Church, or of persons who are without its communion,
+is urged in behalf of some not wholly unreasonable proposal of
+alteration.
+
+"(5) When error or superstition has been introduced; when that
+which was at first good and healthful has been perverted to the
+nourishment of falsehood or wickedness; or when that which was
+always evil has found utterance, and is now revealed in its true
+character."
+
+The Memorial failed for the reason that the promoters of it had not
+a clearly defined notion in their own minds of what they wanted--the
+secret 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 Devotional
+Use from Various Rituals_. By William Bright, M. A. J. H. & Jas.
+Parker, Oxford and London.
+
+From the Appendix I take the following illustrations of the
+statement 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 our
+doubts and uncertainties the grace to ask what thou wouldest have
+us to do; that the Spirit of wisdom may save us from all false
+choices, and that in thy light we may see light, and in thy straight
+path 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; vouchsafe
+them grace to come to themselves, the will and power to return to
+thee, and the loving welcome of thy forgiveness through Jesus Christ
+our Lord.
+
+"_For all who do the work of the Church_.--O Lord, without whom
+our labor is but lost, and with whom thy little ones go forth as the
+mighty, be present to all works in thy Church which are undertaken
+according to thy will, and grant to thy laborers a pure intention,
+patient faith, sufficient success upon earth, and the bliss of
+serving thee in heaven, through Jesus Christ our Lord.
+
+"_For grace to speak the Truth in love_.--O Lord and Saviour Jesus
+Christ, who earnest not to strive nor cry, but to let thy words
+fall as the drops that water the earth: grant all who contend
+for the faith once delivered, never to injure it by clamor and
+impatience, but speaking thy precious truth in love, so to present
+it that it may be loved, and that men may see in it thy goodness
+and thy beauty: who livest and reignest with the Father and the
+Holy Ghost, one God, world without end."
+
+Both as regards devotional flavor and literary beauty these prayers
+will, I feel sure, be judged worthy, by such as will read them more
+than once, to stand by the side certainly of many of the collects
+already in the Prayer Book.
+
+[98] Preached in Grace Church, N. Y., on the Twentieth Sunday after
+Trinity, that being the Sunday next following the adjournment of the
+General Convention of 1892.
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of A Short History of the Book of Common
+Prayer, by William Reed Huntington
+
+*** END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 30136 ***
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+Project Gutenberg (https://www.gutenberg.org) public repository for
+eBook #30136 (https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/30136)
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+The Project Gutenberg EBook of A Short History of the Book of Common Prayer, by 
+William Reed Huntington
+
+This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with
+almost no restrictions whatsoever.  You may copy it, give it away or
+re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included
+with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org
+
+
+Title: A Short History of the Book of Common Prayer
+
+Author: William Reed Huntington
+
+Release Date: September 30, 2009 [EBook #30136]
+
+Language: English
+
+Character set encoding: ASCII
+
+*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK SHORT HISTORY--BOOK COMMON PRAYER ***
+
+
+
+
+Produced by Elaine Laizure
+
+
+
+
+[Transcriber's Note: The footnotes have been numbered and moved to
+the end of the document.]
+
+This file was produced from images generously made available by
+The Internet Archive/American Libraries.
+
+
+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--A
+Sermon 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 a
+lecture before a liturgical class, and is now published for the
+first time. The others have appeared in print from time to time
+during the movement for revision. If they have any permanent
+value, it is because of their showing, so far as the writer's part
+in the matter is concerned, what things were attempted and what
+things failed of accomplishment. Should they serve as contributory
+to some future narrative of the revision, the object of their
+publication will have been accomplished. So much has been said as
+to the poverty of our gains on the side of "enrichment," as
+compared with what has been secured in the line of "flexibility,"
+that it has seemed proper to append to the volume a Comparative
+Table detailing the additions of liturgical matter made to the
+Common 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 can
+bear, means divine service rendered in accordance with an established
+form. Of late years there has been an attempt made among purists to
+confine the word "liturgy" to the office entitled in the Prayer
+Book, _The Order for the Administration of the Lord's Supper or
+Holy Communion_.
+
+This restricted and specialized interpretation of a familiar word
+may serve the purposes of technical scholarship, for undoubtedly
+there is much to be said in favor of the narrowed signification as
+we shall see; but unless English literature can be rewritten, plain
+people who draw their vocabulary from standard authors will go on
+calling service-books "liturgies" regardless of the fact that they
+contain many things other than that one office which is entitled
+to be named by eminence _the_ Liturgy. "This Convention," write the
+fathers of the American Episcopal Church in the Ratification printed
+on the fourth page of the Prayer Book, "having in their present
+session set forth a Book of Common Prayer and other rites and
+ceremonies of the Church, do hereby establish the said book; and
+they declare it to be the _Liturgy_ of this Church."
+
+For the origin of liturgy thus broadly defined we have to go a long
+way back; beyond the Prayer Book, beyond the Mass-book, beyond the
+ancient Sacramentaries, yes, beyond the synagogue worship, beyond
+the temple worship, beyond the tabernacle worship; in fact I am
+disposed to think that, logically, we should be unable to stop
+short until we had reached the very heart of man itself, that
+dimly discerned groundwork we call human nature, and had discovered
+there those two instincts, the one of worship and the other of
+gregariousness, from whence all forms of common prayer have sprung.
+Where three or two assemble for the purposes of supplication, some
+form must necessarily be accepted if they are to pray in unison.
+When the disciples came to Jesus begging him that he would teach
+them how to pray, he gave them, not twelve several forms, though
+doubtless James's special needs differed from John's and Simon's
+from Jude's--he gave them, not twelve, but one. "When ye pray,"
+was his answer, "say Our Father." That was the beginning of
+Christian Common Prayer. Because we are men we worship, because
+we are fellow-men our worship must have form.
+
+But waiving this last analysis of all which carries us across the
+whole field of history at a leap, it becomes necessary to seek
+for liturgical beginnings by a more plodding process.
+
+If we take that manual of worship with which as English-speaking
+Christians we are ourselves the most familiar, the Book of Common
+Prayer, and allow it to fall naturally apart, as a bunch of
+flowers would do if the string were cut, we discover that in
+point of fact we have, as in the case of the Bible, many books
+in one. We have scarcely turned the title-page, for instance,
+before we come upon a ritual of daily worship, an order for
+Morning Prayer and an order for Evening Prayer, consisting in
+the main of Psalms, Scripture Lessons, Antiphonal Versicles,
+and Collects. Appended to this we find a Litany or General
+Supplication and a collection of special prayers.
+
+Mark an interval here, and note that we have completed the first
+volume of our liturgical library. Next, we have a sacramental
+ritual, entitled, _The Order for the Administration of the Lord's
+Supper or Holy Communion_, ingeniously interwoven by a system of
+appropriate prayers and New Testament readings with the Sundays
+and holydays of the year. This gives us our second volume.
+Then follow numerous offices which we shall find it convenient
+to classify under two heads, namely: those which may be said by
+a bishop or by a presbyter, and those that may be said by a
+bishop only. Under the former head come the baptismal offices,
+the Order for the Burial of the Dead, and the like; under the
+latter, the services of Ordination and Confirmation and the Form
+of 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 and
+recognized realities. Each had its title and each its separate
+use. The name of the book of daily services was _The Breviary_.
+The name of the book used in the celebration of the Holy Communion
+was _The Missal_. The name of the book of Special Offices was
+_The Ritual_. The name of the book of such offices as could be
+used by a bishop only was _The Pontifical_. It was one of the
+greatest of the achievements of the English reformers that they
+succeeded in condensing, after a practical fashion, these four
+books, or, to speak more accurately, the first three of them,
+Breviary, Missal, and Ritual, into one. The Pontifical, or
+Ordinal, they continued as a separate book, although it soon for
+the sake of convenience became customary in England, as it has
+always been customary here, for Prayer Book and Ordinal to be
+stitched together by the binders into a single volume. Popularly
+speaking the Prayer Book is the entire volume one purchases under
+that name from the bookseller, but accurately speaking the Book
+of 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 indeed
+from the Prayer Book's Table of Contents plainly appears.
+
+Setting aside now, for the present, that portion of the formularies
+which corresponds to the Ritual and Pontifical of the mediaeval
+Church, I proceed to speak rapidly of the antecedents of Breviary
+and Missal. Whence came they? And how are we to account for
+their being sundered so distinctly as they are?
+
+They came, so some of the most thoughtful of liturgical students
+are agreed, from a source no less remote than the Temple of
+Solomon, and they are severed, to speak figuratively, by a valley
+not unlike that which in our thoughts divides the Mount of
+Beatitudes 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 of
+man's making ever was, there went on from day to day these two
+things, psalmody and sacrifice. Peace-offering, burnt-offering,
+sin-offering, the morning oblation, and the evening oblation--these
+with other ceremonies of a like character went to make what we
+know as the sacrificial ritual of the temple.
+
+But this was not all. It would appear that there were other
+services in the temple over and above those that could strictly
+be called sacrificial. The Hebrew Psalter, the hymn-book of that
+early day, contains much that was evidently intended by the
+writers for temple use, and even more that could be easily
+adapted to such use. And although there is no direct evidence
+that in Solomon's time forms of prayer other than those associated
+with sacrificial rites were in use, yet when we find mention in
+the New Testament of people going up to the temple of those later
+days "at the hour of prayer," it seems reasonable to infer that
+the custom was an ancient one, and that from the beginning of the
+temple's history forms of worship not strictly speaking sacrificial
+had been a stated feature of the ritual. But whether in the temple
+or not, certainly in the synagogues, which after the return from
+the captivity sprang up all over the Jewish world, services
+composed of prayers, of psalms, and of readings from the law and
+the prophets were of continual occurrence. Therefore we may safely
+say that with these two forms of divine service, the sacrificial
+and the simply devotional and didactic, the apostles, the founders
+of the Christian Church, had been familiar from their childhood.
+They were at home in both synagogue and temple. They knew by sight
+the ritual of the altar, and by ear the ritual of the choir. They
+were 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 should
+have come down to us in two great lines, why there should be a
+tradition of eucharistic worship and, parallel to this, a tradition
+of 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 a
+suggestion of the temple worship, so the other seems to show a
+continuity with what went on in those less pretentious sanctuaries
+which had place in all the cities and villages of Judea, and indeed
+wherever, throughout the Roman world, Jewish colonists were to be
+found. The earliest Christian disciples having been themselves
+Hebrews, nothing could have been more natural than their moulding
+the worship of the new Church in general accordance with the
+models that had stood before their eyes from childhood in the
+old. The Psalms were sung in the synagogues according to a settled
+principle. We cannot wonder, then, that the Psalter should have
+continued to be what in fact it had always been, the hymn-book of
+the Church. Moreover, they had in the synagogue besides their
+psalmody a system of Bible readings, confined, of course, to the
+Old Testament Scriptures. This is noted in the observation that
+fell from Simon Peter, at the first Council of the Church, "Moses
+of old time hath in every city them that preach him, being read in
+the synagogue every Sabbath day." Scripture lessons, therefore,
+would be no novelty.
+
+We gather also from the New Testament, not to speak of other
+authorities, that in the apostolic days people were familiar with
+what were known as "hours of prayer." There were particular times
+in the day, that is to say, which were held to be especially
+appropriate for worship. "Peter and John went up together into
+the temple at the hour of prayer, being the ninth hour." Again,
+at Joppa, we find the former of these two apostles going up upon
+the house-top to pray at "the sixth hour." Long before this David
+had mentioned morning and evening and noon as fitting hours of
+prayer, and one psalmist, in his enthusiasm, had even gone so far
+as to declare seven times a day to be not too often for giving
+God thanks. There was also the precedent of Daniel opening his
+windows toward Jerusalem three times a day. As the love for order
+and system grew year by year stronger in the Christian Church,
+the laws that govern ritual would be likely to become more
+stringent, and so very probably it came to pass. For aught we
+know to the contrary, the observance of fixed hours of prayer
+was a matter of voluntary action with the Christians of the first
+age. There was, as we say, no "shall" about it. But when the
+founders of the monastic orders came upon the scene a fixed rule
+took the place of simple custom, and what had been optional
+became mandatory. By the time we reach the mediaeval period
+evolution has had its perfect work, and we find in existence
+a scheme of daily service curiously and painfully elaborate.
+The mediaeval theologians were very fond of classifying things
+by sevens. In the symbolism of Holy Scripture seven appears as
+the number of perfection, it being the aggregate of three, the
+number of Deity, and four, the number of the earth. Accordingly
+we find in the theology of those times seven sacraments, seven
+deadly sins, seven contrary virtues, seven works of mercy, and
+also seven hours of prayer. These seven hours were known as
+Matins, Prime, Tierce, Sext, Nones, Vespers, and Complene. The
+theory of the hours of prayer was that at each one of them a
+special office of devotion was to be said. Beginning before
+sunrise with matins there was to be daily a round of services at
+stated intervals culminating at bedtime in that which, as its
+name indicated, filled out the series, Complene. To what extent
+this ideal scheme of devotion was ever carried out in practice it
+is difficult positively to say.
+
+Probably in the monastic and conventual life of the severer orders
+there was an approximation to a punctual observance of the hours
+as they successively arrived. Possibly the modern mind fails to
+do full justice to the conception of worship on which this system
+was based. Those principles of devotion of which the rosary is the
+visible symbol do not easily commend themselves to us. They have
+about them a suggestion of mechanism. They remind us of the
+Buddhist praying wheel, and seem to put the Church in the attitude
+of expecting to be heard for her "much speaking."
+
+Doubtless many a pure, courageous spirit fought the good fight
+of faith successfully in spite of all this weight of outward
+observances; but in the judgment of the wiser heads among English
+churchmen, the time had come, by the middle of the sixteenth
+century, when this complicated armor must either be greatly
+lightened or else run the risk of being cast aside altogether.
+Let Cranmer tell his own story. This is what he says in the
+Preface to the First Book of Edward VI. as to the ritual grievances
+of the times. The passage is worth listening to if only for the
+quaintness of its strong and wholesome English:
+
+"There was never anything by the wit of man so well devised or so
+surely established which, in continuance of time, hath not been
+corrupted, as, among other things, it may plainly appear by the
+common prayer, in the Church, commonly called divine service. The
+first original and ground whereof, if a man would search out by
+the ancient fathers, he shall find that the same was not ordained
+but of a good purpose, and for a great advancement of godliness, for
+they so ordered the matter that all the whole Bible, or the greatest
+part thereof, should be read over once in the year . . . But these
+many years past this godly and decent order of the ancient fathers
+hath been so altered, broken, and neglected by planting in
+uncertain stories, legends, responds, verses, vain repetitions,
+commemorations, and synodals that commonly, when any book of the
+Bible was begun, before three or four chapters were read out all
+the rest were unread. And in this sort the Book of Esaie was begun
+in Advent, and the Book of Genesis in Septuagesima, but they were
+only begun and never read through . . . And moreover, whereas St.
+Paul would have such language spoken to the people in the Church
+as they might understand and have profit by hearing the same, the
+service in this Church of England (these many years) hath been
+read in Latin to the people, which they understood not, so that
+they have heard with their ears only, and their hearts, spirit,
+and mind have not been edified thereby . . . Moreover, the number
+and hardness of the rules called the Pie, and the manifold
+changings of the service was the cause that to turn the Book
+only was so hard and intricate a matter that many times there was
+more business to find out what should be read than it was to read
+it when it was found out. These inconveniences therefore considered,
+here is set forth such an order whereby the same shall be
+redressed."
+
+As an illustration of what Cranmer meant by his curious phrase,
+"planting in uncertain stories," take the following Lessons quoted
+by Dr. Neale in his _Essays on Liturgiology_:
+
+"Besides the commemoration of saints," writes this distinguished
+antiquarian, "there are in certain local calenders notices of
+national events connected with the well-being of the Church. Thus,
+in the _Parisian Breviary_, we have on the eighteenth of August a
+commemoration of the victory of Philip the Fair in Flanders, A.D.
+1304." Here is the fourth of the appointed lessons: "Philip the
+Fair, King of the French, in the year 1304, about the feast of St.
+Mary Magdalene, having set forth with his brothers Charles and
+Louis and a large army into Flanders, pitched his tent near Mons,
+where was a camp of the rebel Flemings. But when, on the eighteenth
+of August, which was the Tuesday after the Assumption of St. Mary,
+the French had from morning till evening stood on the defence, and
+were resting themselves at nightfall, the enemy, by a sudden
+attack, rushed on the camp with such fury that the body-guard had
+scarce time to defend him.
+
+"_Response_. Come from Lebanon, my spouse; come, and thou shalt be
+crowned, 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 the
+life of the king was in great danger, but shortly after, his
+troops crowding together from all quarters to his tent, where the
+battle was sharpest, obtained an illustrious victory over the
+enemy"--and more of this sort until all of a sudden we come upon
+the Song of Solomon again. "_V_. Thou art all fair, my love; come
+from 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 legends
+and vain repetitions amply justified? And can we be too thankful
+to the sturdy champions of the Reformation, who in the face of no
+little opposition and by efforts scarcely appreciated to-day, cut
+us loose from all responsibility for such solemn nonsense?
+
+There are some who feel aggrieved that chapters from the Apocrypha
+should have found admission to our new lectionary, and there are
+even those who think that of the canonical Scriptures, passages
+more edifying than certain of those appointed to be read might
+have been chosen, but what would they think if they were compelled
+to hear the minister at the lecturn say: "Here beginneth the first
+chapter of the Adventures of Philip the Fair"?
+
+But the reformers, happily, were not discouraged by the portentous
+front of wood, hay, and stubble which the liturgical edifice of
+their day presented to the eye. They felt convinced that there
+were also to be found mixed in with the building material gold,
+silver, and precious stones, and for these they determined to make
+diligent search, resolved most of all that the foundation laid
+should be Jesus Christ. This system of canonical hours, they
+argued, this seven-fold office of daily prayer is all very
+beautiful in theory, but it never can be made what in fact it
+never in the past has been, a practicable thing. Let us be content
+if we can do so much as win people to their devotions at morning
+and at night. With this object in view Cranmer and his associates
+subjected the services of the hours to a process of combination
+and condensation. The Offices for the first three hours they
+compressed into _An Order for Daily Morning Prayer_, or, as it was
+called in Edward's first Book, _An Order for Matins_, and the
+Offices for the last two hours, namely, Vespers and Complene,
+they made over into _An Order for Daily Evening Prayer_, or, as
+it was named in Edward's first Book, _An Order for Evensong_.
+
+These two formularies, the _Order for Matins_ and the _Order for
+Evensong_, make the core and substance of our present daily
+offices. But the tradition of daily prayer is only one of the
+two great devotional heritages of the Church. With the destruction
+of the temple by the Roman soldiery, the sacrificial ritual of
+the Jewish Church came to a sudden end; but it was not God's
+purpose that the memory of sacrifice should fade out of men's
+minds or that the thought of sacrifice should be banished from
+the field of worship. Years before the day when the legionaries
+of Titus marched amid flame and smoke, into the falling sanctuary
+of an out-worn faith, one who was presently to die upon a cross
+had taken bread, had blessed it and broken it, and giving it to
+certain followers gathered about him, had said, "Take, eat; this
+is my body, which is given for you: this do in remembrance of me."
+Likewise also he had taken the cup after supper, saying, "This cup
+is the New Testament in my blood which is shed for you."
+
+Certainly there must be a relation of cause and effect between this
+scene and the fact, which is a fact, that the most ancient
+fragments of primitive Christian worship now discoverable are
+forms for the due commemoration of the sacrifice of the death of
+Christ.
+
+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 to
+generation." Of the references to Christian worship discoverable
+in documents later than the New Testament Scriptures there are
+three that stand out with peculiar prominence, namely, the lately
+discovered _Teaching of the Twelve Apostles_, placed by some
+authorities as early as the first half of the second century;
+the famous letter of Pliny to the Emperor Trajan, a writing of
+the same period; and the Apology or Defence addressed by Justin
+Martyr to Antoninus Pius about the year 140 after Christ. The
+noteworthy fact in connection with these passages is that of the
+three, two certainly, and probably the third also, refer directly
+to the Holy Communion. In the _Teaching_ we have a distinct sketch
+of a eucharistic service with three of the prescribed prayers
+apparently given in full. In Justin Martyr's account, the evidence
+of a definitely established liturgical form is perhaps less plain,
+but nothing that he says would appear to be irreconcilable with
+the existence of a more or less elastic ritual order. Whether he
+does or does not intend to describe extemporaneous prayer as
+forming one feature of the eucharistic worship of the Christians
+of his time depends upon the translation we give to a single word
+in his narrative. Later on in the life of the Church, though by
+just how much later is a difficult point of scholarship, we are
+brought in contact with a number of formularies, all of them
+framed for the uses of eucharistical worship, all of them, that
+is to say, designed to perpetuate the commandment, "This do in
+remembrance of me," and all of them preserving, no matter in what
+part of the world they may be found, a certain structural
+uniformity. These are the primitive liturgies, as they are
+called, the study of which has in late years attained almost to
+the dignity of a science. As to the exact measure of antiquity
+that ought to be accorded to these venerable documents the
+authorities differ and probably will always differ. Dr. Neale's
+enthusiasm carried him so far that he was persuaded and sought
+to persuade others of the existence of liturgical quotations in
+the writings of St. Paul. This hypothesis is at the present time
+generally rejected by sober-minded scholars. Perhaps "the personal
+equation" enters equally into the conclusions of those who assign
+a very late origin to the liturgies, pushing them along as far as
+the sixth or seventh century. If one happens to have a rooted
+dislike for prescribed forms of worship, and believes them in his
+heart to be both unscriptural and unspiritual, it will be the
+most natural thing in the world for him to disparage whatever
+evidence makes in favor of the early origin of liturgies. Hammond
+is sensible when he says in the Preface to his valuable work
+entitled _Liturgies Eastern and Western_, "I have assumed an
+intermediate position between the views of those on the one hand
+who hold that the liturgies had assumed a recognized and fixed
+form so early as to be quoted in the Epistles to the Corinthians
+and Hebrews . . . and of those, on the other, who because there are
+some palpable interpolations and marks of comparatively late date
+in some of the texts, assert broadly that they are all untrustworthy
+and 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 the
+Christian Liturgy may be compactly stated thus: The very earliest
+monuments of Christian worship that we possess are rituals of
+thanksgiving, having direct reference to the sacrifice of the
+death of Christ. Going back from these to the New Testament we
+find there the narrative of the institution of the Holy Communion
+by Christ himself, and in connection with it the command, "This
+do in remembrance of me." It is, I submit, a reasonable inference
+that the liturgies in the main fairly represent what it was in
+the mind of the apostle to recognize and establish as proper
+Christian worship. I do not call it demonstration, I call it
+reasonable inference. There is a striking parallelism between the
+argument for liturgical worship and the argument for episcopacy.
+In both cases we take the ground that continuity existed between
+the life of the Church as we find it a hundred years after the
+last of the apostles had gone to his rest and the life of the
+Church as it is pictured in the New Testament.
+
+That there were many changes during the interval must no doubt be
+granted, but we say that if those changes were serious ones
+affecting great principles of belief or order, those who maintain
+that such a hidden revolution took place are bound to bring
+positive evidence to the fact. This history of the Church during
+the second century has been likened with more of ingenuity than
+of poetical beauty to the passing of a train through a railway
+tunnel.
+
+We see the train enter, we see it emerge, but its movement while
+inside the tunnel is concealed from us. Similarly we may say that
+we see with comparative distinctness the Christian Church of the
+Apostolic Age, and we see with comparative distinctness the Church
+of the Age of Cyprian and Origen, but with respect to the interval
+separating the two periods we are not indeed wholly, but, we are,
+it must be confessed, very largely ignorant. And yet as in the
+case of the tunnel we confidently affirm an identity between what
+we saw go in and what we see coming out, so with the doctrine,
+discipline, and worship of the Church, the usages of the third
+century, we argue, are probably in their leading features what the
+usages of the first century were. If reason to the contrary can
+be given, well and good; but in the absence of countervailing
+testimony we abide by our inference, holding it to be sound.
+
+I am far from wishing to maintain that these considerations bind
+liturgical worship upon the Christian Church as a matter of
+obligation for all time. It might be argued, and I think with
+great force, that liturgical worship having been universal
+throughout the ancient world, heathen as well as Jewish, the
+apostles and fathers of the Christian Church judged it unwise
+to make any departure at the outset from a custom so invariable,
+trusting it to the spirit of the new religion to work out freer and
+less formal methods of approaching God through Christ in the times
+to come. This, I confess, strikes me as a perfectly legitimate line
+of reasoning and one which is strengthened rather than weakened by
+what we have seen happen in Christendom since the sixteenth
+century. Great bodies of Christians have for a period of some
+three hundred years been worshipping Almighty God in non-liturgical
+ways, and have not been left without witness that their service
+was acceptable to the Divine Majesty. Moreover, the fact that
+absolute rigidity in liturgical use never was insisted upon in
+any age of the Church until the English passed their Act of
+Uniformity, makes in the same direction. And yet even after these
+allowances have been made, there remains a considerable amount
+of solid satisfaction for those who do adhere to the liturgical
+method, in the thought that they are in the line which is apparently
+the line of continuity, and that their interpretation of the
+apostolic purpose with respect to worship is the interpretation
+that has been generally received in Christendom as far back as we
+can go.
+
+
+
+
+II.
+
+VICISSITUDES.
+
+
+Certain of the necromancers of the far East are said to have the
+power of causing a tree to spring up, spread its branches, blossom,
+and bear fruit before the eyes of the lookers-on within the space
+of a few moments.
+
+Modern liturgies have sometimes been brought into being by a process
+as extemporaneous as this, but not such was the genesis of the
+Book of Common Prayer.
+
+There are at least eight forms under which the Prayer Book has
+been from time to time authoritatively set forth--five English,
+one Scottish, one Irish, and one American; so that, if we would
+be accurate, we are bound to specify, when we speak of "The Prayer
+Book," 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 like
+that which attaches to what, in the case of a man, we call personal
+identity. Which is the true, the actual Napoleon? Is it the
+Napoleon of the Directory, or the Napoleon of the Consulate, or the
+Napoleon of the Empire? At each epoch we discern a different phase
+of 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 and
+the same man.
+
+But just as a ship acquires, as we may say, her personal identity
+when she is launched and named, even though there may be a great
+deal yet to be done in the way of finishing and furnishing before
+she can be pronounced seaworthy, so it is with a book that is
+destined to undergo repeated revision and reconstruction, it does
+acquire, on the day when it is first published, and first given a
+distinctive title, a certain character the losing of which would be
+the loss of personal identity. There is many an old cathedral that
+might properly enough be called a re-edited book in stone. Norman
+architecture, Early English, Decorated, and Perpendicular, all are
+there, and yet one dominant thought pervades the building.
+Notwithstanding the many times it has been retouched, the fabric
+still expresses to the eye the original creative purpose of the
+designer; there is no possibility of our mistaking Salisbury for
+York or Peterborough for London.
+
+The first Book of Common Prayer was built up of blocks that for the
+most part had been previously used in other buildings, but the
+resulting structure exhibited, from the very moment it received a
+name, such distinct and unmistakable characteristics as have
+guaranteed it personal identity through more than three hundred
+years. Hence, while it is in one sense true that there are no
+fewer than eight Books of Common Prayer, it is in another sense
+equally true that the Book of Common Prayer is one.
+
+An identity of purpose, of scope, and of spirit shows itself
+in all its various forms under which the book exists, so that
+whether we are speaking of the First Prayer Book of King Edward
+the Sixth, or of the book adopted by the Church of Ireland after
+its disestablishment, or of the American Book of Common Prayer,
+what we have in mind is, in a very real and deep sense, one and
+the same thing.
+
+Let us proceed now to a rapid survey of the facts connected with
+the first issue of the Common Prayer.
+
+For a period long anterior to the Reformation there had been in
+use among the English brief books of devotion known as "primers,"
+written in the language of the people. The fact that the public
+services of the Church were invariably conducted in the Latin
+tongue made a resort to such expedients as this necessary, unless
+religion was to be reserved as the private property of ecclesiastics.
+
+By a curious process of evolution the primer, from having been
+in mediaeval times a book wholly religious and devotional, has
+come to be in our day a book wholly secular and educational. We
+associate it with Noah Webster and the Harper Brothers. The New
+England Primer of the Puritans, with its odd jumble of piety and
+the three R's, marks a point of transition from the ancient to the
+modern type.
+
+But this by the way. The primer we are now concerned with is the
+devotional primer of the times just previous to the Reformation.
+This, as a rule, contained prayers, the Belief, the Ave Maria, a
+litany of some sort, the Ten Commandments, and whatever else there
+might be that in the mind of the compiler came under the head of
+"things which a Christian ought to know." There were three of
+these primers set forth during the reign of Henry the Eighth, one
+in 1535, one in 1539, and one in 1545. During the space that
+intervened between the publication of the second and that of the
+third of these primers, appeared "The Litany and Suffrages," a
+formulary compiled, as is generally believed, by Cranmer, the then
+Archbishop of Canterbury, and in substance identical with the Litany
+we use to-day. This Litany of 1544 has been properly described as
+"the precursor and first instalment of the English Book of Common
+Prayer." It was the nucleus or centre of crystallization about
+which the other constituent portions of our manual of worship
+were destined to be grouped. A quaint exhortation was prefixed to
+this Litany, in which it was said to have been set forth "because
+the not understanding the prayers and suffrages formerly used
+caused that the people came but slackly to the processions."
+Besides the primers and the Litany, there were printed in Henry's
+reign 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 Christians
+in their private devotional life than to the public worship of the
+Church, but we are not to suppose that meanwhile the larger
+interests of the whole body were forgotten. So early as in the
+year 1542, Convocation, which according to the Anglican theory
+stands toward the Church in the same attitude that Parliament holds
+to the State, appointed a Committee of Eight to review and correct
+the existing service-books. We know very little as to the proceedings
+of this committee, but that something was done, and a real impulse
+given to liturgical revision, is evidenced by the fact that at a
+meeting of Convocation held soon after King Henry's death a
+resolution prevailed "That the books of the Bishops and others who
+by the command of the Convocation have labored in examining,
+reforming, and publishing the divine service, may be produced
+and laid before the examination of this house."
+
+The next important step in the process we are studying was the
+publication by authority in the early spring of 1548, of an Order
+of the Communion, as it was called, a formulary prepared by Cranmer
+to enable the priest, after having consecrated the elements in
+the usual manner, to distribute them to the people with the
+sentences of delivery spoken in English. The priest, that is to
+say, was to proceed with the service of the Mass as usual in the
+Latin tongue, but after he had himself received the bread and
+the wine, he was to proceed to a service of Communion for the
+people 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 Communion
+as we are using it to-day.
+
+We have, then, as an abiding result of the liturgical experiments
+made in anticipation of the actual setting forth of an authoritative
+Prayer Book, the Litany and this Order of the Communion.
+
+The time was now ripe for something better and more complete; a
+new king was upon the throne, and one whose counsellors were
+better disposed toward change than ever Henry had been. The great
+movement we know under the name of the Reformation touched the
+life of the Christian Church in every one of its three great
+departments--doctrine, discipline, and worship. In Henry's mind,
+however, the question appears to have been almost exclusively one
+of discipline or polity. His quarrel was not with the accepted
+theological errors of his day, for as Defender of the Faith he
+covered some of the worst of them with his shield. Neither was
+he ill-disposed toward the methods and usages of public worship
+so far as we can judge. His quarrel first, last, and always was
+with a certain rival claimant of power, whose pretended authority
+he was determined to drive out of the realm, to wit, the Pope.
+But while it was thus with Henry, it was far otherwise with many
+of the more thoughtful and devout among his theologians, and
+when the restraint that had been laid on them was removed by
+the king's death, they welcomed the opportunity to apply to
+doctrine and worship the same reforming touch that had already
+remoulded polity.
+
+An enlarged Committee of Convocation sat at Windsor in the summer
+of 1548, and as a result there was finally set forth, and ordered
+to be put into use on Whitsunday, 1549, what has become known in
+history as the "First Prayer Book of Edward VI."
+
+To dwell on those features of the First Book that have remained
+unaltered to the present day would be superfluous; I shall
+therefore, in speaking of it, confine myself to the distinctive
+and characteristic points in which it differs from the Prayer
+Books that have succeeded it.
+
+It is worthy of note that in the title page of the First Book
+there is a clear distinction drawn between the Church Universal,
+or what we call in the _Te Deum_ "the holy Church throughout all
+the world," and that particular Church to which King Edward's
+subjects, in virtue of their being Englishmen, belonged. The book
+is said to be "the Book of the Common Prayer and administration of
+the Sacraments and other Rites and Ceremonies of _The Church_,
+after the use of the Church of England." "_The Church_" is
+recognized as being a larger and, perhaps, older thing than the
+_Church of England_, while at the same time it is intimated that
+only through such use of these same prayers and sacraments as the
+English Church ordains and authorizes can English folk come into
+communion with the great family of believers spread over the whole
+earth.
+
+The Preface is a singularly racy piece of English, in which with
+the utmost plainness of speech the compilers give their reasons
+for having dealt with the old services as they have done. This
+reappears in the English Prayer Book of the present day under the
+title "Concerning the Service of The Church," and so described is
+placed after the Preface written in 1662 by the Revisers of the
+Restoration.
+
+The Order for Daily Morning Prayer, as we name it, is called in
+Edward's First Book "An Order for Matins daily through the year."
+Similarly, what we call the Order for Daily Evening Prayer was
+styled "An Order for Evensong." These beautiful names, "Matins"
+and "Evensong," which it is a great pity to have lost, for surely
+there is nothing superstitious about them, disappeared from the
+book as subsequently revised, and save in the Lectionary of the
+Church of England have no present recognition. One of them,
+however, Evensong, seems to be coming very generally into colloquial
+use. The Order for Matins began with the Lord's Prayer. Then, after
+the familiar versicles still in use, including two that have no
+place 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, a
+portion of which is known to us as the _Venite_. From this point
+the service proceeded, as in the English Prayer Book of to-day,
+through the Collect for Grace, where it came to an end. The
+structure of Evensong was similar, beginning with the Lord's
+Prayer and ending, as our shortened Evening Prayer now does, with
+the Collect for Aid against Perils. Then followed the Athanasian
+Creed, and immediately afterward came the Introits, Collects,
+Epistles, and Gospels.
+
+These Introits, so-called, were psalms appointed to be sung when
+the priest was about to begin the Holy Communion. They had been
+an ancient feature of divine service, but were dropped from the
+subsequent books as a required feature of the Church's worship.
+
+The title of the Communion Service in Edward's First Book is as
+follows: "The Supper of the Lord and the Holy Communion commonly
+called 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 with
+us, except that the Prayer for the Church Militant and the
+Consecration Prayer are welded into one, and the Prayer of Humble
+Access given a place immediately before the reception of the
+elements. I note, in passing, certain phrases and sentences that
+are peculiar to the Communion Office of the First Book, as, for
+instance, this from the Prayer for the whole state of Christ's
+Church: "And here we do give unto thee most high praise and hearty
+thanks for the wonderful grace and virtue declared in all thy
+saints from the beginning of the world, and chiefly in the most
+glorious and blessed Virgin Mary, Mother of thy Son Jesus Christ
+our Lord and God, and in the holy patriarchs, prophets, apostles,
+and martyrs, whose examples, O Lord, and steadfastness in thy
+faith and keeping thy holy commandments grant us to follow. We
+commend unto thy mercy, O Lord, all other thy servants which are
+departed hence from us with the sign of faith and do now rest in
+the sleep of peace. Grant unto them, we beseech thee, thy mercy and
+everlasting peace, and that at the day of the general resurrection
+we and all they which be of the mystical body of thy Son may
+altogether be set on his right hand."
+
+And this from the closing portion of the Consecration: "Yet we
+beseech thee to accept this our bounden duty and service, and
+command these our prayers and supplications by the ministry of thy
+holy angels to be brought up into thy holy tabernacle before the
+sight of thy divine majesty."
+
+Following close upon the Communion Service came the Litany, differing
+very little from what we have to-day, save in the memorable petition,
+"From the tyranny of the Bishop of Rome and all his detestable
+enormities, good Lord deliver us."
+
+The Baptismal Offices of the First Book contain certain unique
+features. The sign of the cross is ordered to be made on the child's
+breast as well as on his forehead. There is a form of exorcism said
+over the infant in which the unclean spirit is commanded to come
+out and to depart. There is also the giving of the "Crisome" or
+white vesture as a symbol of innocence. "Take this white vesture
+for a token of the innocency which by God's grace in this holy
+sacrament of Baptism is given unto thee, and for a sign whereby
+thou art admonished, so long as thou livest, to give thyself to
+innocency of living, that after this transitory life thou mayest
+be partaker of the life everlasting."
+
+The Catechism in Edward VI. First Book, as in the subsequent books
+down to 1662, is made a part of the Confirmation Office, although
+it does not clearly appear that the children were expected to say
+it as a preliminary to the service.
+
+The Office for the Visitation of the Sick contains provision for
+private confession and absolution, and also directs that the priest
+shall 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 what
+is called the reservation of the elements, but contains also, be it
+observed, that rubric which has held its place through all the
+changes the Prayer Book has undergone, where we are taught that if
+the sick man by any "just impediment fail to receive the sacrament
+of Christ's body and blood, the curate shall instruct him that if
+he do truly repent him of his sins and steadfastly believe that
+Jesus Christ hath suffered death upon the cross for him . . . he
+doth eat and drink the body and blood of our Saviour Christ,
+profitably to his soul's health although he do not receive the
+sacrament 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 differs
+but little from the service still in use. A special Introit,
+Collect, Epistle, and Gospel are appointed "for the Celebration of
+the Holy Communion when there is a Burial of the Dead."
+
+A Commination Office for Ash-Wednesday, substantially identical
+with that still in use in the Church of England, concludes the book.
+
+The First Prayer Book of King Edward the Sixth, memorable as it was
+destined to become, proved, so far as actual use was concerned, but
+short-lived. It became operative, as we have seen, on Whitsunday,
+1549, but it was soon evident that while the new services went too
+far in the direction of reform to please the friends of the ancient
+order of things, they did not go far enough to meet the wishes of
+the reforming party.
+
+Before the year was out no fewer than three translations of the
+Liturgy into Latin had been undertaken with a view to informing
+the Protestant divines of the Continent as to what their English
+colleagues were doing. "There was already within the Church" (of
+England), writes Cardwell, in his comparison of Edward's two books,
+"a party, though probably not numerous, which espoused the peculiar
+sentiments of Calvin; there were others, and Cranmer, it appears,
+had recently been one of them, adhering strictly to the opinions
+of Luther; there were many, and those among the most active and the
+most learned, who adopted the views of Bullinger and the theologians
+of Zurich; there was a still larger body anxious to combine all
+classes 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 more
+completely 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 Book
+of King Edward VI., a work of the very greatest interest, for the
+reason that it was destined to become the basis of all future
+revisions. Whitsunday, 1549, was the day when the First Book began
+to be used. The Feast of All Saints, 1552, was the date officially
+appointed for the introduction of the Second Book. Presently King
+Edward died, and by an act of Mary passed in October, 1553, the use
+of 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 and
+about four months, and the Second Book one year and about two
+months. A memorable three years and a half for the English-speaking
+peoples of all time to come, for it is not too much to say that
+while the language of Tyndale and of Cranmer continues to be heard
+on earth, the devotions then put into form will keep on moulding
+the religious thought and firing the spiritual imagination of this
+race.
+
+The points in which the second of King Edward's two books differs
+from the first are of such serious moment and the general complexion
+of the later work has in it such an access of Protestant coloring,
+that high Anglican writers have been in the habit of attributing the
+main features of the revision to the interference of the Continental
+Reformers. "If it had not been for the impertinent meddling," they
+have been accustomed to say, "of such foreigners as Bucer, Peter
+Martyr, and John a-Lasco, we might have been enjoying at the present
+day the admirable and truly Catholic devotions set forth in the
+fresh morning of the Reformation, before the earth-born vapors of
+theological controversy and ecclesiastical partisanship had
+beclouded an otherwise fair sky." But it does not appear that there
+is any solid foundation in fact for these complaints.
+
+The natural spread of the spirit of reform among the people of the
+realm, taken in connection with the changes of opinion which the
+swift movement of the times necessarily engendered in the minds of
+the leading divines, are of themselves quite sufficient to account
+for what took place. Certainly, if the English of that day were at
+all like their descendants in our time, it is in the highest degree
+unlikely that they would have allowed a handful of learned refugees
+to force upon them changes which their own sober judgment did not
+approve.
+
+The truth is, very little is certainly known as to the details of
+what was done in the making of Edward's Second Book. Even the names
+of the members of the committee intrusted with the revision are
+matter of conjecture, and of the proceedings of that body no
+authentic record survives. What we do possess and are in a position
+to criticise is the book itself, and to a brief review of the
+points in which it differs from its predecessor we will now pass.
+
+Upon taking up the Second Book after laying down the First, one is
+struck immediately with the changed look of Morning Prayer. This
+is no longer called Matins, and no longer begins as before with the
+Lord's Prayer. An Introduction has been prefixed to the office
+consisting of a collection of sentences from Holy Scripture, all of
+them of a penitential character, and besides these of an Exhortation,
+a Confession, and an Absolution. There can be little doubt that this
+opportunity for making public acknowledgment of sin and hearing
+the declaration of God's willingness to forgive, was meant to
+counterbalance the removal from the book of all reference, save
+in one instance, to private confession and absolution. The Church
+of England has always retained in her Visitation Office a permission
+to the priest to pronounce absolution privately to the sick man.
+This was a feature of the First Book that was not disturbed in the
+Second. But wherever else they found anything that seemed to look
+toward the continuance of the system familiarly known to us under
+the name of "the Confessional," they expunged it. Between the
+Exhortation and the Confession there is, in point of literary merit,
+a noticeable contrast, and it is scarcely to be believed that both
+formularies can have proceeded from one and the same pen. Another
+step in the Protestant direction was the prohibition of certain
+vestments that in the First Book had been allowed, as the alb and
+cope. The Introit Psalms were taken away. The word "table" was
+everywhere substituted for the word "altar." The changes in the
+Office of the Holy Communion were numerous and significant. The
+Ten Commandments, for instance, were inserted in the place where
+we now have them. The _Gloria in Excelsis_ was transferred from
+the beginning of the service to the end. The Exhortations were
+re-written. The supplication for the dead was taken out of the
+Prayer for the whole state of Christ's Church, and the words
+"militant here on earth" were added to the title with a view to
+confining the scope of the intercession to the circle of people
+still alive. The Confession, Absolution, Comfortable Words, and
+Prayer of Humble Access were placed before the Consecration instead
+of after it. Most important of all was the change of the words
+appointed to be said in delivering the elements to the communicants.
+In the First Book these had been, "The body of our Lord Jesus Christ
+which was given for thee, preserve thy body and soul unto everlasting
+life," and in the case of the cup, "The blood of our Lord Jesus
+Christ, which was shed for thee, preserve thy body and soul unto
+everlasting life." For these were now substituted in the one
+instance the words, "Take and eat this in remembrance that Christ
+died for thee, and feed on him in thy heart by faith, with
+thanksgiving," and in the other, "Drink this in remembrance that
+Christ's blood was shed for thee, and be thankful."
+
+From the Office for the Communion of the Sick the direction to
+reserve the elements was omitted, as was also the permission to
+anoint the sick man with oil. The Service of Baptism was no longer
+suffered to retain the exorcism of the evil spirit, or the white
+vesture, or the unction; and there were other items of less
+important change. Those mentioned reveal plainly enough what was
+the animus of the revisers. Most evidently the intention was to
+produce a liturgy more thoroughly reformed, more in harmony with
+the new tone and temper which the religious thought of the times
+was 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 the
+Reformed service-books should be given up to the ecclesiastical
+authorities within fifteen days to be burned. This is doubtless
+the reason why copies of the liturgical books of Edward's reign
+are now so exceedingly rare. Reprints of them abound, but the
+originals exist only as costly curiosities.
+
+Soon after Elizabeth's accession a committee of divines assembled
+under her authority for the purpose of again revising the
+formularies.
+
+The queen was personally a High-Churchwoman, and her own judgment
+is said to have been favorable to taking the first of Edward's two
+books as the basis of the revision, but a contrary preference
+swayed the committee, and the lines followed were those of 1552
+and 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 old
+vestments recognized in the earlier part of King Edward's reign
+were again legalized. The petition for deliverance from the tyranny
+of the Pope was struck out of the Litany, and by a compromise
+peculiarly English in its character, and, as experience has shown,
+exceedingly well judged, the two forms of words that had been used
+in the delivery of the elements in the Holy Communion were welded
+together into the shape in which we have them still.
+
+Queen Elizabeth's Prayer Book continued in use for five-and-forty
+years. Nothing was more natural than that when she died there should
+come with the accession of a new dynasty a demand for fresh revision.
+King James, who was not afflicted with any want of confidence in
+his own judgment, invited certain representatives of the disaffected
+party to meet, under his presidency, the Churchmen in council with
+a view to the settlement of differences. The Puritans had been
+gaining in strength during Elizabeth's reign, and they felt that
+they were now in position to demand a larger measure of liturgical
+reform than that monarch and her advisers had been willing to
+concede to them.
+
+King James convened his conference at Hampton Court, near London,
+and he himself was good enough to preside. Very little came of the
+debate. The Puritans had demanded the discontinuance of the sign of
+the cross in Baptism, of bowing at the name of Jesus, of the ring
+in 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 made
+optional.
+
+Almost nothing was conceded to them. The words "or Remission of
+Sins" were added to the title of the Absolution, certain Prayers
+and Thanksgivings were introduced, and that portion of the Catechism
+which deals with the Sacraments was for the first time set forth.
+And thus the English Prayer Book started out upon its fourth lease
+of life destined in this form to endure unchanged, though by no
+means unassailed, for more than half a century.
+
+A stirring half century it was. The Puritan defeat at Hampton Court
+was redressed at Naseby. With the coming in of the Long Parliament
+the Book of Common Prayer went out, and to all appearances the
+triumph of the Commonwealth meant the final extinction of the usage
+of liturgical worship on English soil. The book, under its various
+forms, 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 word
+of the Prayer Book he had loved and for which he had fought was
+said 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 Common
+Prayer, and took order that thereafter only such divine service
+should be lawful as accorded with what was called the _Directory_,
+a manual of suggestions with respect to public worship adopted by
+the Presbyterian party as a substitute for the ancient liturgy.
+
+With the restoration of the Stuarts in 1660 came naturally the
+restoration of the Prayer Book, and with equal naturalness a
+revision of it. But of what sort should the revision be, and under
+whose auspices conducted? This was an anxious question for the
+advisers, civil and ecclesiastical, of the restored king. Should
+the second Charles take up the book just as it had fallen from the
+hands of the first Charles, unchanged in line or letter, or should
+he seek by judicious alterations and timely concessions to win
+back for the national Church the good-will and loyalty of those
+who, eighteen years before, had broken down her hedge? The situation
+may be described as triangular.
+
+The king's secret and personal sympathies were probably all along
+with the Roman Church; his official allegiance was plainly due to
+the Church of England; and yet, at the same time, he owed much
+to the forbearance of the men who had been dominant under the
+Commonwealth. The mind of the nation had, indeed, reacted toward
+monarchy, but not with such an absolute and hardy renunciation of
+the doctrines of popular sovereignty as to make it safe for the
+returning king to do precisely as he chose. The glorious Revolution
+that was destined so soon to follow upon the heels of the gracious
+Restoration gave evidence, when it came, that there were some
+things the people of England prized even more highly than an
+hereditary throne. Misgivings as to the amount there might still
+be of this sort of electricity in the atmosphere suggested to the
+king and his counsellors the expediency of holding a conference,
+at which the leaders on either side might bring forward their strong
+reasons in favor of this or that method of dealing with the
+ecclesiastical question in general, and more especially with the
+vexed problem of worship.
+
+Accordingly, early in the spring of 1661 the King issued a
+royal warrant summoning to meet at the Savoy Palace in the
+Strand 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 other
+divines called coadjutors. The Presbyterians had also their twelve
+principal men and their nine coadjutors.
+
+Conspicuous among the Episcopalians for weight of learning were
+Bishops Sanderson, Cosin, and Walton, and Doctors Pearson, Sparrow,
+and Heylin. Baxter, Reynolds, Calamy, and Lightfoot were the most
+notable of the Presbyterians.
+
+The conference, which has ever since been known from its place of
+meeting (an old palace of the Piedmontese Ambassadors) as the Savoy
+Conference, convened on April 15, 1661. For various reasons, it
+was evident from the outset that the Churchmen were in a position
+of great advantage. In the first place, signs and tokens of a
+renewed confidence in monarchy and of a revived attachment to the
+reigning House were becoming daily more numerous.
+
+Before he had had a chance to test the strength of the existing
+political parties and to know how things really stood, Charles had
+borne himself very discreetly toward the Presbyterians, and had
+held out hopes to them which, as the event proved, were destined
+never to be realized. In a declaration put forth in the autumn of
+1660, after he had been for some months on English soil, he had even
+gone so far as to say: "When we were in Holland we were attended
+by many grave and learned ministers from hence, who were looked
+upon as the most able and principal asserters of the Presbyterian
+opinions; with whom we had as much conference as the multitude of
+affairs which were then upon us would permit us to have, and to
+our great satisfaction and comfort found them persons full of
+affection to us, of zeal for the peace of the Church and State, and
+neither enemies, as they have been given out to be, to episcopacy
+or liturgy, but modestly to desire such alterations in either,
+as without shaking foundations might best allay the present
+distempers."
+
+By the time the conference met it had become evident, from votes
+taken in Parliament and otherwise, that the Churchmen could sustain
+toward their opponents a somewhat stiffer attitude than this without
+imperilling their cause. Another great advantage enjoyed by the
+Episcopalians grew out of the fact that they were the party in
+possession. They had only to profess themselves satisfied with the
+Prayer Book as it stood, in order to throw the Presbyterians into
+the position of assailants, and defense is always easier than
+attack. Sheldon, the Bishop of London, was not slow to perceive
+this. At the very first meeting of the conference, he is reported
+to have said that "as the Non-conformists, and not the bishops, had
+sought for the conference, nothing could be done till the former
+had delivered their exceptions in writing, together with the
+additional forms and alterations which they desired." Upon which
+Bishop Burnet in his _History of his own Times_ remarks: "Sheldon
+saw well what the effect would be of putting them to make all their
+demands at once. The number of them raised a mighty outcry against
+them, as people that could never be satisfied."
+
+The Presbyterians, however, took up the challenge, set to work at
+formulating their objections, and appointed Richard Baxter, the most
+famous of their number, to show what could be done in the way of
+making a better manual of worship than the Book of Common Prayer.
+
+Baxter, a truly great man and wise in a way, though scarcely in the
+liturgical way, was guilty of the incredible folly of undertaking
+to construct a Prayer Book within a fortnight.
+
+Of this liturgy it is probably safe to say that no denomination of
+Christians, however anti-prelatical or eccentric, would for a
+moment dream of adopting it, if, indeed, there be a single local
+congregation anywhere that could be persuaded to employ it. The
+characteristic of the devotions is lengthiness. The opening sentence
+of the prayer with which the book begins contains by actual count
+eighty-three words. It is probable that Baxter by his rash act did
+more to injure the cause of intelligent and reverential liturgical
+revision than any ten men have done before or since. In every
+discussion of the subject he is almost sure to be brought forward
+as "the awful example."
+
+A document much more to the point than Baxter's Liturgy was the
+formal catalogue of faults and blemishes alleged against the Prayer
+Book, which the Puritan members of the conference in due time
+brought in. This indictment, for it may fairly be called such,
+since it was drawn up in separate counts, is very interesting
+reading. Of the "exceptions against the Book of Common Prayer,"
+as the Puritans named their list of liturgical grievances, some
+must strike almost any reader of the present day as trivial and
+unworthy. Others again there are that draw a sympathetic Amen from
+many quarters to-day. To an American Episcopalian the catalogue
+is chiefly interesting as showing how ready and even eager were
+our colonial ancestors of a hundred years ago to remove out of the
+way such known rocks of offence as they could. An attentive student
+of the American Prayer Book cannot fail to be struck with the number
+of instances in which the text gives evidence of the influence
+exerted over the minds of our revisers by what had been urged, more
+than a hundred years before, by the Puritan members of the Savoy
+Conference. The defeat of 1661 was, in a measure at least, avenged
+in 1789. It is encouraging to those who cast their bread upon
+liturgical waters to notice after how many days the return may come.
+But the conference, to all outward seeming, was a failure. Baxter's
+unhappy Prayer Book was its own sufficient refutation, and as for
+the 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 tone
+of this reply. Here, for instance, is the comment of the bishops
+upon the request of the Puritans to be allowed occasionally to
+substitute extemporaneous for liturgical devotions. "The gift or
+rather spirit of prayer consists in the inward graces of the spirit,
+not in extempore expressions which any man of natural parts having
+a voluble tongue and audacity may attain to without any special
+gift." Nothing very conciliatory in that. To the complaint that
+the Collects are too short, the bishops reply that they cannot
+for that reason be accounted faulty, being like those "short but
+prevalent prayers in Scripture, Lord, be merciful to me a sinner.
+Lord, increase our faith." The Puritans had objected to the
+antiphonal element in the Prayer-Book services, and desired to
+have nothing of a responsive character allowed beyond the single
+word Amen. "But," rejoin the bishops, "they directly practise the
+contrary in one of their principal parts of worship, singing of
+psalms, where the people bear as great a part as the minister. If
+this 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, but
+not winning.
+
+The Puritans had objected to the people's kneeling while the
+Commandments were read on the score that ignorant worshippers
+might mistake the Decalogue for a form of prayer. With some asperity
+the bishops reply that "why Christian people should not upon their
+knees ask their pardon for their life forfeited for the breach of
+every commandment and pray for grace to keep them for the time to
+come they must be more than 'ignorant' that can scruple."
+
+The time during which the conference at the Savoy should continue
+its sessions had been limited to four months. This period expired
+on July 24, 1661, and the apparently fruitless disputation was at
+an end. Meanwhile, however, Convocation, the recognized legislature
+of the Church of England, had begun to sit, and the bishops had
+undertaken a revision of the Prayer Book after their own mind, and
+with slight regard to what they had been hearing from their critics
+at the Savoy. The bulk of their work, which included, it is said,
+more than six hundred alterations, most of them of a verbal
+character and of no great importance, was accomplished within the
+compass of a single month. It is consoling to those who within our
+own memory have been charged with indecent haste for seeking to
+effect a revision of the American Book of Common Prayer within a
+period of nine years, to find this precedent in ecclesiastical
+history for their so great rashness.
+
+Since Charles the Second's day there has been no formal revision of
+the Prayer Book of the Church of England by the Church of England.
+
+Some slight relaxations of liturgical use on Sundays have been made
+legal by Act of Parliament, but in all important respects the Prayer
+Book of Victoria is identical with the book set forth by Convocation
+and sanctioned by Parliament shortly after the collapse of the Savoy
+Conference. Under no previous lease of life did the book enjoy
+anything like so long a period of continued existence. Elizabeth's
+book was the longest lived of all that preceded the Restoration,
+but that only continued in use five-and-forty years. But the Prayer
+Book of 1661 has now held its own in England for two centuries and
+a quarter. When, therefore, we are asked to accept the first
+Edwardian Book as the only just exponent of the religious mind of
+England, it is open to us to reply, "Why should we, seeing that
+the Caroline Book has served as the vehicle of English devotion for
+a period seventy-five times as long?" The most voluminous of the
+additions made to the Prayer Book, in 1661, were the Office for the
+Baptism of Adults and the Forms of Prayer to be used at Sea. The
+wide diffusion, under the Commonwealth, of what were then called
+Anabaptist opinions, had brought it to pass that throughout the
+kingdom there were thousands of men and women who had grown up
+unbaptized. At the time of the Reformation such a thing as an
+unchristened Christendom seems not to have been thought possible.
+At any rate no provision was made for the contingency. But upon
+the spread of liberty of religious thought there followed, logically
+enough, the spread of liberty of religious action, and it was not
+strange that after a whole generation had spent its life in
+controversy 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 Book
+for the addition of this office was that it might be used for the
+baptizing of "natives in the plantations and other converts." This
+is the first hint of any awakening of the conscience of the English
+Church to a sense of duty toward those strangers and foreigners who
+in the "Greater Britain" of these later days fill so large a place.
+The composition of the office, which differs very little, perhaps
+scarcely enough, from that appointed for the Baptism of Infants, is
+attributed to Griffith, the Bishop of St. Asaph. The compiler of
+the Forms of Prayer to be used at Sea was Bishop Sanderson, famous
+among English theologians as an authority on casuistry. He must have
+found it rather a nice case of conscience to decide whether a Stuart
+divine in preparing forms of prayer for a navy that had been the
+creation of Oliver Cromwell ought wholly to omit an acknowledgment
+of the nation's obligation to that stout-hearted, if non-Episcopal
+Christian. Other additions of importance made at this revision were
+the General Thanksgiving, in all probability the work of Reynolds,
+a conforming Presbyterian divine, the Collect, Epistle, and Gospel
+for the Sixth Sunday after the Epiphany, the Prayer for Parliament,
+upon the lines of which our own Prayer for Congress was afterward
+modelled, and the Prayer for All Sorts and Conditions of Men. In
+the Litany the words "rebellion" and "schism" were introduced into
+one of the suffrages, becoming tide-marks of the havoc wrought in
+Church and State by what the revisers, doubtless, looked back upon
+as "the flood of the ungodly." The words "Bishops, Priests, and
+Deacons" were substituted for "Bishops, Pastors, and Ministers of
+the Church." New Collects were appointed for the Third Sunday in
+Advent and for St. Stephen's Day. Both of these are distinct gains,
+albeit had the opinion then prevailed that to introduce into the
+Prayer 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 the
+Sentences, Epistles and Gospels of the language of King James's
+Bible in place of that of earlier versions. This principle was not
+applied to the Psalter, to the Decalogue, or, in fact, to any of
+the portions of Scripture contained in the Communion Service.
+
+It is also interesting to note that the Confession in the Holy
+Communion, which the earlier rubric had directed should be said
+by one of the congregation, or else by one of the ministers, or
+by the priest himself, "was now made general and enjoined upon all
+the worshippers."
+
+Most suggestive of all, however, was the reinsertion at the end of
+the Communion Service of a certain Declaration about the significance
+of the act of kneeling at the reception of the elements, which had,
+as some say, irregularly and without proper authority, found its way
+into the Second Book of Edward VI., but had been omitted from all
+subsequent books till now. This Declaration, which from its not
+being printed in red ink is known to those who dislike it under the
+name of "the black rubric," was undoubtedly intended to ease the
+consciences of those who scrupled to kneel at the altar-rail for
+fear of seeming to countenance that superstitious adoration of the
+elements known to and stigmatized by the Reformers as "host-worship."
+The language of the black rubric as it stood in Edward's Second
+Book was as follows: "Although no order can be so perfectly devised
+but it may be of some, either for their ignorance and infirmity,
+or else of malice and obstinacy, misconstrued, depraved, and
+interpreted in a wrong part; and yet because brotherly charity
+willeth that so much as conveniently may be offences should be
+taken away; therefore we willing to do the same: whereas, it is
+ordained in the Book of Common Prayer, in the Administration of
+the Lord's Supper, that the communicants kneeling should receive the
+Holy Communion, which thing being well meant for a signification
+of the humble and grateful acknowledging of the benefits of Christ
+given unto the worthy receiver, and to avoid the profanation and
+disorder, which about the Holy Communion might else ensue, lest
+yet the same kneeling might be thought or taken otherwise; we do
+declare that it is not meant thereby, that any adoration is done
+or ought to be done, either unto the sacramental bread or wine
+there bodily received or unto any real and essential presence there
+being of Christ's natural flesh and blood. For as concerning the
+sacramental bread and wine they remain still in their very natural
+substances, and therefore may not be adored, for that were idolatry
+to be abhorred of all faithful Christians: and as concerning the
+natural body and blood of our Saviour Christ, they are in heaven
+and not here, for it is against the truth of Christ's true natural
+body to be in more places than in one at one time."
+
+In restoring this significant Declaration, the revisers of 1662
+substituted the words "corporal presence" for the words "real and
+substantial presence," but probably with no intention other than
+that of making the original meaning more plain. The fact that in
+the teeth and eyes of the black rubric the practice known as
+Eucharistical adoration has become widely prevalent in the Church
+of England, only shows how little dependence can be placed on forms
+of words to keep even excellent and religious people from doing
+the things they have a mind to do.
+
+In taking leave of the Caroline revision, it may be permitted to
+dwell for a moment upon the serious character of the conclusion
+reached by the ecclesiastical leaders of that day. An opportunity
+was given them to conciliate dissent. Without going all lengths,
+without in any measure imperilling the great foundation principles
+of Anglican religion, they might, it would seem, have won back to
+the national church thousands of those whom their sternness not
+only repelled but permanently embittered. But it was the hour of
+victory with the Churchmen, and "Woe to the conquered" seems to
+have been their cry. They set their faces as a flint against
+concession; they passed their iron-clad act of uniformity, and
+now for more than two hundred years religion in Great Britain has
+been a household divided against itself. Perhaps nothing that the
+men 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 left
+a number who place a pride and a merit in refusing to enter?" was
+a fair question, and fatal to any dream of unity. And yet one may
+be pardoned for believing that had a little of the oil of brotherly
+kindness been poured upon those troubled waters we whom the waves
+still buffet might to-day be sailing a smoother sea.
+
+As stated above, the Convocation of 1662 gave to the Prayer Book of
+the Church of England the form it has ever since retained. But it
+must not be supposed that no efforts have been made meanwhile to
+bring changes to pass. The books written upon the subject form a
+literature by themselves.
+
+The one really serious attempt to reconstruct the Liturgy in
+post-Caroline times was that which grew naturally enough out of the
+Revolution 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 sympathetically
+responsive to one another; revisions of rubrics go naturally
+along with revisions of codes. It was only what might have been
+anticipated, therefore, that when William and Mary came to the
+throne a Commission should issue for a new review. If Elizabeth
+had found it necessary to revise the book, if James had found it
+necessary, if Charles had found it necessary, why should not the
+strong hand of William of Orange be laid upon the pages? But this
+time the rule was destined to find its exception. The work of review
+was, indeed, undertaken by a Royal Commission, including among its
+members the great names of Stillingfleet, Tillotson, and Beveridge,
+but nothing came of their work. Convocation again showed itself
+unfriendly to anything like concessive measures, and so complete
+was the obscurity into which the doings of the Commission fell,
+that even as late as 1849, Cardwell, in the third edition of
+his _History of Conferences_, speaks as if he knew nothing of
+the whereabouts of the record. In 1854 the manuscript minutes
+of the Commission's proceedings were discovered in the Library
+of Lambeth Palace, and by order of Parliament printed as a
+Blue-book. The same document has also been published in a more
+readable form by Bagster. One rises from the perusal of this Broad
+Church Prayer Book--for such, perhaps, Tillotson's attempt may not
+unfairly be called--profoundly thankful that the promoters of it
+were not suffered to succeed. The Preface to our American Book of
+Common Prayer refers to this attempted review of 1689 "as a great
+and good work." But the greatness and the goodness must have lain
+in the motive, for one fails to discern them either in the matter
+or in the manner of what was recommended.
+
+Even Macaulay, Whig that he is, fails not to put on record his
+condemnation of the literary violence which the Prayer Book so
+narrowly 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 Collects
+could be improved by amplification. One of the few really good
+suggestions made by the Commissioners was that of using the
+Beatitudes in the Office of the Holy Communion as an alternate
+for the Decalogue. There are certain festivals of the Christian
+year when such a substitution would be most timely and refreshing.
+
+We make a leap now of just a hundred years. From 1689 we pass to
+1789, and find ourselves in the city of Philadelphia, at a
+convention assembled for the purpose of framing a constitution
+and setting forth a liturgy for a body of Christians destined to
+be known as the Protestant Episcopal Church in the United States
+of America. During the interval between the issue of the Declaration
+of Independence and the Ratification of the Constitution of the
+United States, the people in this country who had been brought
+up in the communion of the Church of England found themselves
+ecclesiastically in a very delicate position indeed. As colonists
+they had been canonically under the spiritual jurisdiction of the
+Bishop of London, a somewhat remote diocesan. But with this
+Episcopal bond broken and no new one formed, they seemed to be
+in a peculiar sense adrift. It does not fall to me to narrate
+the steps that led to the final establishment of the episcopacy
+upon a sure foundation, nor yet to trace the process through which
+the Church's legislative system came gradually to its completion.
+Our interest is a liturgical one, and our subject matter the
+evolution of the Prayer Book. I say nothing, therefore, of other
+matters that were debated in the Convention of 1789, but shall
+propose instead that we confine ourselves to what was said and
+done about the Prayer Book. In order, however, fully to appreciate
+the situation we must go back a little. In a half-formal and
+half-informal fashion there had come into existence, four years
+before this Convention of 1789 assembled, an American Liturgy now
+known by the name of _The Proposed Book_. It had been compiled on
+the basis of the English Prayer Book by a Committee of three
+eminent clergymen, Dr. White of Pennsylvania, Dr. William Smith
+of Maryland, and Dr. Wharton of Delaware. Precisely what measure
+of acceptance this book enjoyed, or to what extent it came actually
+into use, are difficult, perhaps hopeless questions.
+
+What we know for certain is that the public opinion of the greater
+number of Churchmen rejected it as inadequate and unsatisfactory.
+In the Convention of 1789 The Proposed Book does not seem to have
+been seriously considered in open debate at all, though doubtless
+there was much talk about it, much controversy over its merits and
+demerits at Philadelphia dinner-tables and elsewhere while the
+session was in progress.
+
+The truth is, the changes set forth in _The Proposed Book_ were
+too sweeping to commend themselves to the sober second-thought of
+men 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 of
+public thanksgiving for the Fourth of July. There were Churchmen
+doubtless at that day who failed duly to appreciate what were called
+in the title of the office, "the inestimable blessings of Religious
+and Civil Liberty." Others again may have been offended by the
+treatment measured out to the Psalter, which was portioned into
+thirty selections of two parts each, with the _Benedicite_ added
+at the end, to be used, if desired, on the thirty-first day of any
+month. Another somewhat crude and unliturgical device was the
+running together without break of the Morning Prayer and the
+Litany.
+
+I speak of blemishes, but _The Proposed Book_ had its excellences
+also. Just at present it is the fashion in Anglican circles to heap
+ridicule and contempt on _The Proposed Book_ out of all proportion
+to its real demerits. Somehow it is thought to compromise us with
+the English by showing up our ecclesiastical ancestors in an
+unfavorable light as unlearned and ignorant men. It is treated
+as people will sometimes treat an old family portrait of a forebear,
+who in his day was under a cloud, mismanaged trust funds, or made
+money in the slave trade. Thus a grave historiographer by way of
+speaking comfortably on this score, assures us that the volume
+"speedily sunk into obscurity," becoming one of the rarest of the
+books illustrative of our ecclesiastical annals.
+
+And yet, curiously enough, _The Proposed Book_ was in some points
+more "churchly," using the word in a sense expressive of liturgical
+accuracy, than the book finally adopted. In the Morning Prayer it
+has the _Venite_ in full and not abridged. The _Benedictus_ it also
+gives entire. A single form of Absolution is supplied. The versicles
+following upon the Creed are more numerous than ours. In the Evening
+Prayer the great Gospel Hymns, _the Magnificat_ and the _Nunc
+dimittis_, stand in the places to which we with tardy justice have
+only just restored them.
+
+Again, if we consider those features of _The Proposed Book_ that
+were retained and made part of the Liturgy in 1789, we shall have
+further reason to refrain from wholesale condemnation of this
+tentative work. For example, we owe the two opening sentences of
+Morning Prayer, "The Lord is in his holy temple" and "From the
+rising of the sun," to _The Proposed Book_, and also the special
+form for Thanksgiving Day. And yet, on the whole, the Convention
+of 1789 acted most wisely in determining that it would make the
+Prayer Book of the Church of England, rather than _The Proposed
+Book_, the real basis of revision. It did so, and as a result we
+have what has served us so well during the first century of our
+national life--the _Book of Common Prayer and Administration of
+the Sacraments and other rites and ceremonies of the Church
+according to the use of the Protestant Episcopal Church in the
+United States of America_. The points wherein the American Prayer
+Book differs from the Prayer Book of the Church of England are too
+numerous to be catalogued in full. "They will appear," says the
+Preface (a composition borrowed, by the way, almost wholly from
+_The Proposed Book_), "and, it is to be hoped, the reasons of them
+also, upon a comparison of this with the Book of Common Prayer of
+the Church of England."
+
+The most important differences are the following: The permissive
+use of "Selections of Psalms in place of the Psalms appointed for
+the day of the month." This was doubtless suggested by the wholesale
+transformation of the Psalter in _The Proposed Book_ into a series
+of selections.
+
+The permitted shortening of the Litany is an American feature.
+
+A number of the special prayers, as, for example, the prayer for a
+sick person, that for persons going to sea, the thanksgivings for a
+recovery and for a safe return, all these are peculiar to the
+American use. Extensive alterations were made in the Marriage
+Service and certain greatly needed ones in the Burial Office.
+The two most noteworthy differences, however, are the omission
+from our Prayer Book of the so-called Athanasian Creed, and the
+insertion in it of that part of the Consecration Prayer in the
+Communion Office known as the Invocation. The engrafting of this
+latter feature we owe to the influence of Bishop Seabury, who by
+this addition not only assimilated the language of our liturgy more
+closely to that of the ancient formularies of the Oriental Church,
+but also insured our being kept reminded of the truly spiritual
+character of Holy Communion. "It is the spirit that quickeneth,"
+this Invocation seems to say; "the flesh profiteth nothing." Quite
+in line with this was the alteration made at the same time in the
+language of the Catechism. "The Body and Blood of Christ," says the
+English Book, "which are verily and indeed taken and received by
+the faithful in the Lord's Supper."
+
+"The Body and Blood of Christ," says the American Book, "which are
+spiritually taken and received by the faithful in the Lord's
+Supper."
+
+Many verbal changes are to be found scattered here and there
+through the book, some of them for the better, some, perhaps,
+for the worse. The prevailing purpose seems to have been to
+expunge all obsolete words and phrases while dealing tenderly
+with obsolescent ones. In this course, however, the revisers
+were by no means always and everywhere consistent.
+
+"Prevent," in the sense of "anticipate," is altered in some places
+but left unchanged in others. In the _Visitation of Prisoners_, an
+office borrowed from the Irish Prayer Book, the thoroughly obsolete
+expression, "As you tender," in the sense of "as you value," the
+salvation of your soul, is retained.
+
+From the Psalter has disappeared in the American Book "Thou tellest
+my Sittings," although why this particular archaism should have
+been selected for banishment and a hundred others spared, it is
+not easy to understand.
+
+Perhaps some sudden impatience seized the reviser, like that which
+moved Bishop Wren, while annotating his Prayer Book, to write on
+the margin of the calendar for August, "Out with 'dog days' from
+among the saints."
+
+Considering what a bond of unity the Lord's Prayer appears to be
+becoming among all English-speaking worshippers, it is, perhaps,
+to be regretted that our revisers changed the wording of it in two
+or three places. The excision of "Lighten our darkness" must
+probably be attributed to the prosaic matter-of-fact temper which
+had possession of everybody and everything during the last quarter
+of the eighteenth century.
+
+The Ordinal, the Articles, the Consecration of Churches, and the
+Institution of Ministers made no part of the Prayer Book as it was
+set forth in 1789; nor do they, even now, strictly speaking, make
+a part of it, although in the matter of binding force and legal
+authority they are on the same footing.
+
+The Ordinal and Articles are substantially identical with the
+English Ordinal and Articles, save in the matter of a reference
+to the Athanasian Creed and several references to the connection of
+Church and State. The Consecration of Churches and the Institution
+of Ministers are offices distinctively American. If I add that the
+American Book drops out of the Visitation of the Sick a form
+of private absolution, and greatly modifies the service for
+Ash-Wednesday, we shall have made our survey of differences
+tolerably, though by no means exhaustively complete.
+
+And now what is the lesson taught us by the history of the Prayer
+Book? Homiletical as the question sounds, it is worth asking.
+
+We have reviewed rapidly, but not carelessly, the vicissitudes of
+the book's wonderful career, and we ought to be in a position to
+draw some sort of instructive inference from it all. Well, one
+thing taught us is this, the singular power of survival that lives
+in gracious words. They wondered at the "gracious words which
+proceeded out of His mouth," and because they wondered at them
+they treasured them up.
+
+Kind words, says the child's hymn, can never die; neither can
+kindly words, and kindly in the deepest sense are many, many of
+the words of the Common Prayer; they touch that which is most
+catholic in us, that which strongly links us to our kind. There
+is that in some of the Collects which as it has lasted since the
+days when Roman emperors were sitting on their thrones, so will
+it last while man continues what he is, a praying creature.
+
+Another thing taught us by the Prayer Book's history is the duty
+of being forever on our guard in the religious life against "the
+falsehood of extremes."
+
+The emancipated thinkers who account all standards of belief to
+be no better than dungeon walls, scoff at this feature of the
+Anglican character with much bitterness. "Your Church is a Church
+of compromises," they say, "and your boasted _Via media_ only a
+coward's path, the poor refuge of the man who dares not walk in
+the open." But when we see this Prayer Book condemned for being
+what it is by Bloody Mary, and then again condemned for being what
+it is by the Long Parliament, the thought occurs to us that
+possibly there is enshrined in this much-persecuted volume a truth
+larger than the Romanist is willing to tolerate, or the Puritan
+generous enough to apprehend.
+
+A third important lesson is that we are not to confound revision
+with ruin, or to suppose that because a book is marvellously good
+it cannot conceivably be bettered. Each accomplished revision of
+the Book of Common Prayer has been a distinct step in advance. If
+God in his wise providence suffered an excellent growth of devotion
+to spring up out of the soil of England in the days of Edward
+the Sixth, and, after many years, determined that like a vine
+out of Egypt it should be brought across the sea and given root
+on these shores, we need not fear that we are about to lose
+utterly our pleasant plant if we notice that the twigs and leaves
+are adapting themselves to the climate and the atmosphere of the
+new dwelling-place. The life within the vine remains what it always
+was. The growth means health. The power of adaptation is the
+guarantee 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 and
+great. A wise doubtfulness prompts conservative minds to throw every
+mover for change upon the defensive, when liturgical interests
+are at stake. So many men are born into the world with a native
+disposition to tamper with and tinker all settled things, and so
+many more become persuaded, as time goes on, of a personal "mission"
+to pull down and remake whatever has been once built up, esteeming
+life a failure unless they have contrived to build each his own
+monument upon a clearing, that lovers of the old ways are sometimes
+compelled in sheer self-defence to put on the appearance of being
+more obstinately set against change than they really are. It ought
+not to be absolutely impossible to alter a national hand-book of
+worship (which is what any manual calling itself a Common Prayer
+must aspire to become), but it is well that it should be all but
+impossible to do so. Logically it might seem as if the possession
+of a power to make involved a continuance of power to remake; and
+so it does, to a certain extent, but only to a certain extent.
+Living organisms cannot be remodelled with the same freedom as dead
+matter. A solemnity hangs about the moment of birth that attaches
+to no other crisis in a man's life until death comes. Similarly
+there are certain features which the founders of institutions, the
+first makers of organic law, imprint lastingly upon their work. We
+may destroy the living thing so brought to birth; to kill is always
+possible; but only by very gradual and plastic methods can we hope
+in any measure to reconstruct the actual embodiment of life once
+achieved. The men of 1789 had us in their power, even as the men
+of 1549 had had both them and us. In every creative epoch many
+things are settled by which unborn generations will be bound.[2]
+
+It may be urged that this is an argument against adopting liturgies
+in the first instance as vehicles of worship; and such undoubtedly
+it is in so far forth as immobility ought in such matters to be
+reckoned a disadvantage. But we are bound to take into account the
+gain which comes with immobility as well as the drawbacks. We must
+consider how large a proportion of the reverence which the great
+institutes of human life exact from us is due to the fixity of the
+things themselves. Mont Blanc loses nothing of its hold upon our
+admiration because we always find it in the same place.
+
+Men like to feel that there is something in the world stronger
+than the individual will, stronger simply because it expresses
+the settled common-sense of many as to what is fitting and right
+in contrast with the whim of one. Lawyers, as a class, are almost
+as conservative as ecclesiastics, and for the very reason that
+they also are charged with the custody of established forms which
+it is important that men should reverence. Laws affecting the tenure
+of property, the binding force of contracts, the stability of the
+marriage relation, not only cannot be lightly altered, the very
+phraseology in which they are couched must be carefully handled,
+for fear lest with the passing away of the form something of the
+substance go also.
+
+Moreover, the affections of men fasten themselves very tenaciously
+to such a trellis as a liturgy affords. The love for "the old words
+and the old tunes" against which all innovators in hymnody, however
+deserving, have to do battle, asserts itself under the form of
+love for the old prayers with ten-fold vehemence. An immense fund
+of latent heat smoulders beneath the maxim, "Let the ancient customs
+prevail"; and few of the victories achieved by the papacy are so
+startling as those that have resulted in the displacement of the
+liturgical uses of local Churches, that of Paris, for example, by
+the Roman rite.
+
+But true principles, as we are often reminded, become falsehoods
+when shoved across the line of proper measure. The very cycles of
+the astronomers have an end, and the clock-work of the most ancient
+heavens, or at least our reading of it, calls, from time to time,
+for readjustment. So long as man continues fallible his best
+intended workmanship will occasionally demand such alteration for
+the better as, within the limits already pointed out, may be
+possible.
+
+Many signs of the times suggest that the hour for a fresh review
+of the Anglican formularies of worship is nigh at hand. Some of
+these tokens are written on a sky broad enough to cover the whole
+English-speaking race, others of them are visible chiefly within
+our 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 of
+reach, 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 more
+recent writer when he says--in language which, _mutatis mutandis_,
+applies to our own case: "The most weighty plea in favor of timely
+inquiry into the subject is that the process of revision is actually
+going on piecemeal, and with no very intelligent survey of the
+bearings as a preliminary to any one instalment. The New Lectionary
+of 1871, the Shortened Services Act, the debates in the Convocation
+of Canterbury on rubrical amendments, none of them marked by any
+sufficient care or knowledge, and all fraught with at least the
+possibility of serious consequence, are examples of formal and
+recognized inroads on the Act of Uniformity; while such practical
+though unauthorized additions to the scanty group of Anglican
+formularies as the Three Hours' Devotion, Harvest Thanksgivings,
+Public Institution of Incumbents, Ordination of Readers and
+Deaconesses, and Children's Services prove incontestably that
+the narrow limits of the Common Prayer Book are no longer adequate
+for the spiritual needs of the Church of England . . .
+
+"It is evident, then, that contented acquiescence with the old state
+of things already belongs to the past, and that a return to it is
+impossible. We must perforce advance, for good or ill, in the path
+of revision, and cannot even materially slacken the pace nor defer
+the crisis. One choice, however, is left in our power, and that is
+the most important of all, namely, the direction which revision
+shall take--that of conservative and recuperative addition, or that
+of further evisceration, ceremonial or devotional." [5]
+
+A measure looking in the direction towards which this reviewer
+points was actually passed by the General Convention of our own
+Church 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 and
+report to the next General Convention whether, in view of the fact
+that this Church is soon to enter upon the second century of its
+organized existence in this country, the changed conditions of the
+national life do not demand certain alterations in the Book of
+Common Prayer in the direction of liturgical enrichment and
+increased flexibility of use."[6]
+
+In the present article the writer proposes to inquire, in connection
+with this measure:
+
+(1) What motives may fairly be supposed to have actuated the
+Convention in allowing so important an initiatory step to be taken?
+
+(2) What measure of authority was conferred on and what scope given
+to the Joint Committee then constituted?
+
+(3) What reasons exist for considering the present a happy moment
+to attempt liturgical revision, within certain limits, should such
+a thing be determined upon?
+
+(4) What serious difficulties and obstacles are likely to be
+encountered in Committee, in Convention, and in the Church at large?
+
+(5) What particular improvements and adjustments of our existing
+system would be, in point of fact, best worth the effort necessary
+to secure them?
+
+I. The interpretation of motives, difficult enough in the case of
+individuals, becomes mere guess-work when the action under analysis
+is that of a large body of men. Which one of many considerations
+urged upon the Convention carried with it the supreme weight of
+persuasion in this particular instance it is impossible to say.
+Two or three arguments, however, from their frequent reappearance
+in the debate may fairly be judged to have exercised a controlling
+influence. One of these was hinted at in the language of the
+resolution itself, namely, the call for revision that has grown
+out of "the changed conditions of the national life." Shrewd and
+far-seeing as were William White and his coadjutors in their
+forecast of nineteenth century needs made from the standpoint of
+the Peace of Versailles, they would have been more than human had
+they succeeded in anticipating all the civil and ecclesiastical
+consequences destined to flow from that memorable event. Certainly
+it 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 not
+dreamed of a generation ago, should have demands to make in respect
+to a better adaptation of ancient formularies to present wants, such
+as thoughtful people count both reasonable and cogent. That a Prayer
+Book revised primarily for the use of a half-proscribed Church
+planted here and there along a sparsely inhabited sea-coast, should
+serve as amply as it does the purposes of a population now swollen
+from four millions to fifty, and covering the whole breadth of the
+continent, is marvel enough; to assert for the book entire adequacy
+to meet these altered circumstances is a mistake. "New time, new
+favors, and new joys," so a familiar hymn affirms, "do a new song
+require." We have conceded the principle so far as psalmody is
+concerned, why not apply it to the service of prayer as well as
+to that of praise, and in addition to our new hymns secure also such
+new intercessions and new thanksgivings as the needs of to-day
+suggest? The reference in the resolution to the approaching
+completion of the century has since been playfully characterized
+as a bit of "sentimentalism."[7] The criticism would be entirely
+just if the mere recurrence of the centennial anniversary were the
+point chiefly emphasized. But when a century closes as this one of
+ours has done with a great social revolution whereby "all estates
+of men" have been more or less affected, the proposal to signalize
+entrance upon a fresh stretch of national life by making devotional
+preparation for it is something better than a pretty conceit; there
+is a serious reasonableness in it.[8]
+
+Every revision of the Common Prayer of the Church of England, and
+there have been four of them since Edward's First Book was put in
+print, has taken place at some important era of transition in the
+national life: and conversely it may be said that every civil
+crisis, with a single exception, has left its mark upon the
+formularies.
+
+To one who argues that because we in this country are evidently
+entering upon a new phase of the national life we ought similarly
+to re-enforce and readjust our service-book, it is no sufficient
+reply to urge the severance effected here between Church and State.
+The fact that ours is a non-established Church does not make her
+wholly unresponsive to the shocks of change that touch the civil
+fabric. In so far as a political renewal alters the social grading
+of society, bringing in education, for instance, where before it
+was not, or suddenly developing new forms of industrial activity,
+the Church, whether established or not, is in duty bound to take
+cognizance 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 weighed
+man," as Hammond called him, there occurs a sentence which, both
+on account of its embodying in a few words the whole philosophy of
+liturgical revision and because of a certain practical bearing
+presently to be pointed out, it is worth while, in spite of its
+familiarity, to quote:
+
+"The particular forms of Divine worship, and the rites and ceremonies
+appointed to be used therein, being things in their own nature
+indifferent and alterable and so acknowledged, it is but reasonable,
+that upon weighty and important considerations, according to the
+various exigency of times and occasions, such changes and alterations
+should be made therein, as to those that are in place of authority
+should from time to time seem either necessary or expedient."
+
+Contemporaneously with this utterance there came into the Prayer
+Book, as a direct consequence of the enormous enlargement of the
+naval and commercial marine that had taken place under the
+Commonwealth, the "Forms of Prayer to be used at Sea." Here was a
+wise and right-minded recognition of a new want that had sprung up
+with a new time, a want which jealousy of the Puritans who had built
+up the naval supremacy did not prevent the Caroline bishops from
+meeting. But the change that passed on England during five years of
+Cromwell was as nothing compared with the transformation of America
+under ninety-five years of the federal constitution. Take a single
+illustration. The year 1789, the date of the Ratification of the
+American Prayer Book, saw sea-island cotton first planted in the
+United States, and it was about that time that upland cotton also
+began to be cultivated for home and foreign use. As the effect of
+this scarcely noticed experiment there straightway sprang up an
+industry, North and South, which has been to our country almost
+what her shipping interest is to Great Britain. Bishop White and
+his associates were not to blame for failure to provide bread that
+all this unanticipated multitude of toilers should eat. And yet a
+failure there has been. No one who has not labored at the task of
+trying to commend the Church of the Prayer Book to the working
+class, as it is represented in our large manufacturing towns, can
+know how lamentable that failure is. We gather in the rich and the
+poor, but the great middle class that makes the staple and the
+strength of American society stands aloof.
+
+Nowhere in this country, for instance, has the Church had a better
+opportunity to show what it could do for American people than in
+the city of Lowell, where cotton spinning had its first large
+development. It was a virgin soil: the Episcopal Church, as rarely
+happens, was earliest on the ground: and not only so, but it enjoyed
+for some years the friendly protection of the proprietors of the
+new settlement, almost a religious monopoly--was, in fact, an
+ecclesiastical preserve. Moreover, this beginning antedated the
+Irish occupation by many years, at least so far as skilled labor
+was concerned, for during a considerable period the operatives in
+the mills were of native New England stock, the best possible
+material to be made over into churchmen and churchwomen. And yet
+notwithstanding all this, and notwithstanding the patient and
+unintermitted toil through more than fifty years of perhaps the
+most laborious parish priest on the American clergy list, the
+Episcopal Church has to-day but a comparatively slender hold upon
+the affections and loyalty of the people of this largest of the
+manufacturing cities of New England.
+
+A similar failure to "reach the masses" betrays itself in Worcester
+and Fall River, the two cities of like character that come next in
+order of population, for in the former of these last named places
+only about two per cent, of the inhabitants have affiliations of
+any sort with the Episcopal Church.
+
+It was considerations of this sort, backed perhaps by memories of
+the ringing appeal sounded three years before at Boston by the
+Bishop of Connecticut, that moved the Convention to interpret as
+something better than a bit of sentimentalism the invitation to
+look the times in the face, and give the new century its infant
+baptism.
+
+But besides all this there pressed upon the mind of bishops and
+deputies a cumulative argument of a wholly different sort. The
+demand for revision seemed to be closing in upon the Church on
+converging lines. It was plain that, before long, hands of change
+must necessarily be laid upon certain semi-detached portions of
+the Prayer Book. There was the New Lectionary, for example, that
+would presently be knocking for hospitable reception within the
+covers, and the old Easter Tables, as they now stand, could not, it
+was observed, last very much longer. A new book, in the publisher's
+sense of that term, would soon have to be made. The sanctity of
+stereotype plates must be disturbed. Moreover, here was an admirable
+opportunity to settle the wrangle, now of nine years' standing, over
+the best way of bringing to pass shortened services for week-day
+use. Add to this the fact that the intrinsic weakness of the driblet
+method of revision[9] had been made so abundantly plain that even
+its former friends wisely refrained from all attempt to urge it,
+and our summing up of probable motives becomes approximately
+complete.
+
+II. As to the measure of authority conferred on, and scope allowed
+to the Committee of Twenty-one, it is possible to speak with more
+definiteness.
+
+A precisian might of course, were he so disposed, take up the ground
+that the report of the Committee when made ought to be monosyllabic,
+"Yes" or "No." The wording of the resolution admits of such a
+construction beyond a doubt; the Joint Committee was requested to
+consider and report whether, etc., etc. But no one who listened to
+the debate on the resolution could have been left in uncertainty
+as to the real _animus_ of the measure. The thing intended to be
+authorized was an experimental review, with implied reference to a
+limited revision at some time future, in case the fruits of the
+review should commend themselves to the mind of the Church.
+
+A distinction must be drawn between revision and review. Revision
+implies review as an antecedent step, but review is by no means
+necessarily followed by revision. The English book was reviewed and
+revised in 1662; it was reviewed but not revised in 1689. Review is
+tentative and advisory; revision is authoritative and final. In the
+present instance not an atom of power to effect binding change has
+been conveyed. No authority has been given to anybody to touch a
+line or a letter of the Prayer Book save in the way of suggestion
+and recommendation. Responsible action has been held wholly in
+reserve.
+
+Moreover, even the pathway of review was most scrupulously hedged.
+Applying to the resolution the legal maxim, _expressio unius est
+exclusio alterius_, one sees at a glance that doctrinal change is a
+matter left wholly on one side. The two points to which the
+Committee is instructed to bend all its studies are "liturgical
+enrichment" and "increased flexibility of use." Whatsoever is
+more than these is irrelevant. Accurate distinguishment between
+such "enrichments" as have and such as have not a doctrinal bearing
+is, no doubt, a delicate point, and must be set down among the
+difficulties to be encountered. As such it will be considered
+further on. For the present the fact to be noted is that the
+authorized reviewers are both in honor and in duty bound to keep
+themselves absolutely clear of controversial bias. The movement
+is not a movement to alter in any slightest respect the dogmatic
+teaching of the Church, not a movement to unsettle foundations,
+not a movement toward disowning or repudiating our past, but simply
+and only an endeavor to make the Common Prayer, if possible (and
+we are far from being sure, as yet, that it is possible), a better
+thing of its kind, more comprehensive, more elastic, more readily
+responsive to the demands of all occasions and the needs of "all
+sorts and conditions of men." Some who are deeply persuaded that
+only by doctrinal revision in one direction or another can the
+Prayer Book be made thoroughly to commend itself to the heart and
+mind of the American people will esteem the measure of change
+above indicated not worth the effort indispensable to the attainment
+of it. Be it so; other some there are who do think the attempt
+well advised and who are willing to waive their own pet notions
+as to possible doctrinal improvements of the book for the sake of
+securing a _consensus_ upon certain great practical improvements
+which come within the range of things attainable.
+
+Certain it is that any attempt of a body of reviewers like this to
+disturb, even by "shadowed hint," the existing doctrinal settlement
+under which we are living together, would be resented by the whole
+Church.
+
+There are divines among us who in the interest of a more sharply
+defined orthodoxy are conscientiously bent upon securing the
+reintroduction among our formularies of the so-called Athanasian
+Creed.
+
+There are others who consider that a more damaging blow at the
+catholicity of our dogmatic position as a Church could scarcely
+be dealt.
+
+Again, there are theologians who account the Prayer Book to be
+so thoroughly saturated in all its parts with the sacramental
+idea, that they would account it not only a piece of far-seeing
+statesmanship, but also a perfectly safe procedure to allow those
+who chose to do so to thank God after a child's baptism for the
+simple fact that he had thereby been "grafted into the body of
+Christ's Church."
+
+But over against these stand a much larger number who think
+nothing of the sort, and who would put up with the liturgical
+shortcomings of the Prayer Book, go without "enrichments" for
+a 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 incoming
+tide of host-worship with which, as they conceive, our reformed
+Church is threatened can never be stayed unless some carefully
+contrived definition inserted in the Prayer Book shall make
+impossible this subtile and refined species of idolatry. But
+men no whit less sensible laugh them in the face, pointing to
+the "black rubric" and its history as evidence that between the
+admitted doctrine of the real presence and the disallowed tenet
+of transubstantiation no impervious barrier of words can possibly
+be run.
+
+These illustrations of probable divergence in opinion, in case
+the field of doctrine were once entered, might be multiplied. The
+retranslation of the Nicene Creed and the more accurate punctuation
+of its sentences; the rendering of the word Sabbath in the Fourth
+Commandment into its English equivalent of Rest; the abolition of
+the curious misnomer under which we go on calling XXXVIII Articles
+XXXIX; the removal from the Catechism, or else the conversion into
+mother English of that sad _crux infantum_, the answer to the
+question, "What desirest thou of God in this prayer?" are a few
+examples of less importance than those previously cited; and yet,
+in the case of the least of them, it is most unlikely that the
+advocates of change would have the show of hands in their favor,
+so sensitive is the mind of the Church to anything that looks in
+the least degree like tampering with the standards of weight and
+measure, the shekels of the sanctuary.
+
+On the other hand, there are certain manifest and palpable instances
+of inaccuracy and, more rarely, infelicity of diction which the
+reviewers might very properly take occasion to amend even though
+such alterations could not be classified by a strict constructionist
+under either of the two heads "enrichment" and "flexibility." In the
+masterly Report of the Rev. Dr. T. W. Coit to the Joint Committee
+appointed by the Convention of 1841 to prepare a Standard Prayer
+Book,[10] a document of classical rank, there is more than one
+intimation of the hope that future reviewers would be given a larger
+liberty 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 the
+Consecration Prayer of the Communion Service. It is in the last
+sentence but one, at its close. It should be, not that he may dwell
+in 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 who
+will examine the parts put together will easily see how the thing
+was overlooked. A much greater error was overlooked elsewhere,
+showing that our American compilers were not sufficiently aware of
+the necessity which requires that the Prayer Book should always be
+consistent with itself. I allude to something in the office for the
+Private Baptism of Children. Suppose a clergyman to avail himself of
+the license given in the Rubric after the certification. He will then
+be made to talk thus: 'As the Holy Gospel doth witness to our
+comfort, on this wise--Dost thou in the name of this child,'" etc.[11]
+
+Other cases of evident inaccuracy, besides those referred to by
+this eminent critic, might be cited, even from the latest Standard
+Prayer Book, that of 1871. It is hard, for instance, to imagine even
+the veriest martinet in such matters objecting to the redress of a
+great wrong done on page 36 of the volume mentioned, where the
+prayer "to be used at the meetings of Convention" is entered under
+the general heading, "For malefactors after condemnation." Our
+ecclesiastical legislators have doubtless, like the rest of us,
+"erred and strayed" more than once, but to deal out to them such
+harsh measure as this is cruel.
+
+A strange uncertainty would seem from the Rubric to exist with
+reference to the limits of the Litany. On page 554 of the Standard
+Prayer Book, the words, "Here endeth the Litany," occur immediately
+after the prayer, "We humbly beseech thee, O Father," while on page
+31 the same statement is placed immediately after the minor
+benediction.
+
+These are not faults for which it could ever be worth while to
+revise a Prayer Book, but they are blemishes of which the revisers
+of a Prayer Book ought to take note.
+
+It is a graver matter to speak of infelicities of diction in a book
+so justly famous as the Prayer Book for its pure and wholesome
+English. 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, whoever
+he may be, who ventures to suggest that in any slightest instance
+the language of the formularies might have been more happily
+phrased. But there are spots on the sun. In the prayer already
+referred to, that for use "at the meetings of Convention," the
+petition, "We beseech thee to be _present_ with the council of thy
+Church here assembled in thy name and _presence_" does seem open
+to the charge of tautology if nothing worse.
+
+It would be well if wherever the word occurs in the Prayer Book
+in connection with Deity the anthropomorphic plural "ears" could
+be replaced by the symbolic singular "ear."
+
+Considering also the great evil of having in a formulary of worship
+too many things that have to be laboriously explained, it might be
+well if in the Litany the adjective "sudden," which ever since
+Hooker's day has given perpetual occasion for cavil, were to yield
+to "untimely," or some like word more suggestive than "sudden" of
+the thought clumsily expressed in the "Chapel Liturgy" by the
+awkward phrase, "death unprepared for."[12]
+
+It must be again remarked that these are not points for the sake
+of which word-fanciers would be justified in disturbing an existing
+order of things; they are simply instances of lesser improvements
+that might very properly accompany larger ones, should larger ones
+ever be seriously undertaken.
+
+With so many pegs upon which controversies might be hung staring
+us in the face, can we think of it as at all likely that any
+considerable number of Churchmen assembled in committee (to say
+nothing of Convention) will be able to agree upon a common line
+of action with reference to an amendment of the formularies?
+
+That is the very point at issue, and how it is to be decided only
+the event can show. Certainly in the roll of the victories of
+charity, a favorable result, were it achieved, would stand exceeding
+high.
+
+This reflection naturally leads up to the inquiry whether there is
+any special reason to consider the present a happy moment to
+attempt within the limits already defined a revision of the Prayer
+Book.
+
+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 the
+reader. Something, however, is still left to be said in evidence
+that the movement now begun is opportune--not rudely thrust upon
+the Church. "To everything," saith the preacher, "there is a season,
+and a time to every purpose under heaven," and among the categories
+that follow this statement we find reckoned what answers to
+liturgical enrichment, for "there is," he observes, "a time to
+build up."
+
+Fifty years ago a persuasive argument against attempting to amend
+the Prayer Book, either in text or rubrics, might have been based
+upon the lack of hands competent to undertake so delicate a task.
+Raw material, well adapted to edification, was lying about in
+blocks, but skilled workmen were scarce. This can hardly be said
+to-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 volume
+and momentum the stream has now probably reached its outer limit.
+The convincing citation, "There were giants in those days," with
+which a late bishop of one of the New England dioceses used to
+enforce his major premise that wisdom died with Cranmer and his
+colleagues, no longer satisfies. Probably no period of corresponding
+length in the whole range of English Church history has shown itself
+so rich in the fruits of liturgical study as the fifty years that
+have elapsed since the introduction into the English Parliament of
+the first Reform Bill.[13] This particular historical landmark is
+mentioned on account of the close connection of cause and effect
+between it and the remarkable movement set on foot by Newman, Pusey,
+Keble, and Froude. To be sure, one of the earliest utterances in
+the Tracts ran in these words: "Attempts are making to get the
+Liturgy altered. My dear brethren, I beseech you consider with me
+whether you ought not resist the alteration of even one jot or
+tittle of it."[14]
+
+And yet, notwithstanding this disclaimer, one of the main impulses
+that lay behind the whole movement represented by the Tracts was an
+earnest desire to quicken the life of the Church of England in the
+region of worship. In the _Table of the Tracts, showing their
+arrangement according to Subjects_, the "Liturgical" section comes
+first.
+
+The present writer acknowledges but a very limited sympathy with
+the doctrinal motives and aims of either the earlier or the later
+Tractarians. But let us, above all things, be fair. With whatever
+prepossessions one looks back upon it, the ground traversed by the
+Church of England during the past fifty years cannot be otherwise
+regarded than as a field sown with mingled tares and wheat.
+Individuals will differ in judgment as to the proportion in which
+these two products of a common soil have coexisted, but even those
+who have most stoutly opposed themselves to the Oxford movement,
+as a whole, are fain to credit it with, at least, this one good
+result, the rescue of the usages of worship from slovenliness and
+torpor, and the establishment of a better standard of what is
+seemly, reverent, and beautiful in the public service of Almighty
+God. Not that there have not been, even in this respect, grave
+errors in the direction of excess; the statement ventured is simply
+this, that, up to a certain point, all Churchmen agree in admitting
+a genuine and wholesome improvement in the popular estimate of what
+public worship, as such, ought to be. An immense amount of devout
+study has been given, during the period mentioned, by many able men
+to liturgical subjects, and it would be strange indeed if fifty
+years of searching criticism had not resulted in the detection of
+some few points in which formularies originally compiled to meet
+the needs of the sixteenth century might be better adapted to the
+requirements of the twentieth. Or, to put the same point in another
+way, has not all this searching into the mines of buried treasure,
+all this getting together of quarried stone (with possibly a certain
+surplusage of stubble) been so much labor lost, if there is never to
+come the recognition of a ripe moment for the Church to avail itself
+of the results achieved? Are the studious toils of a Palmer, a
+Maskell, a Neale, a Scudamore, and a Bright to go for nothing
+except in so far as they have been contributory to our fund of
+ecclesiological lore? If so, the contempt often expressed for ritual
+and liturgical studies by students busy with other lines of research
+would seem to be not wholly undeserved.
+
+A good opportunity is now before the Church to give answer as to
+whether this form of investigation is or is not anything better
+than a species of sacred antiquarianism. Liturgiology as an aspirant
+for recognition among the useful sciences may be said at the present
+moment to be waiting for the verdict. To be sure, it can be asserted
+for liturgiology that to those who love it it is a study that proves
+itself, like poetry, "its own exceeding great reward." It is not
+worth while to dispute this point. Liturgiology pursued for its own
+sake may not be the loftiest of studies, but this, at least, can be
+said for it, that it is a not less respectable object of pursuit
+than many another specialty the devotees of which look down upon the
+liturgiologist with self-complacent scorn as a mere chiffonier. The
+forms which Christian worship has taken on in successive generations
+and among peoples of various blood are certainly as well worthy of
+analysis and classification as are the flora and fauna of Patagonia
+or New Zealand. But while the Patagonian naturalist secures
+recognition and is decorated, every jaunty man of letters feels
+at liberty to scoff at the liturgiologist as a laborious trifler.
+
+Moreover, remembering that in favorite studies, as in crops, there
+rules a principle of rotation, fashion affecting even staid divines
+with its subtle influence, we may look to see presently a decline
+of interest in this particular department of inquiry. Especially
+may serious men be expected to turn their attention in other
+directions, should it be found that a _Non possumus_ awaits every
+effort to make the fruits of their labor available for the
+nourishment of the Church's daily life. So then, instead of
+deferring action until liturgical knowledge shall have become
+more widely spread, and available liturgical material more abundant,
+we shall, if we are wise, perceive that only by moving promptly
+will 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 pacific
+condition of the Church. Previous movements toward liturgical
+revision have been of a more or less partisan and acrimonious
+temper. Now for the first time we seem to be taking up this subject
+without the expression of a fear from any quarter that if changes
+are made this or that party will get the advantage of some other.
+The peculiar conditions that ensure this unwonted truce of God are
+not likely to last forever, nor is it perhaps wholly desirable that
+they should do so; what is desirable, and very desirable, is that
+we should avail ourselves of the lull to accomplish certain changes
+for the better, which in ordinary times the prevalent heat of
+friction makes impossible. The Joint Committee of Twenty-one is
+confidently believed to contain within itself every shade of color
+known to belong to the Anglican spectrum; if white light should be
+found to emerge, three years hence, as a result of the Committee's
+labors, it will be said, and truly, that never before in our history
+could such a blending of the rays possibly have taken place.
+
+Still another consideration properly included under the general
+head of timeliness is said to have been urged with much force in
+the House of Bishops when the "enrichment" resolution was under
+discussion.
+
+Up to the present time the Episcopal Church of this country has
+stood easily at the head in the matter of providing for the people
+a dignified and beautiful order of divine service. In fact, there
+has been, until lately, no one to compete. But all this is changing.
+Ours are no longer the only congregations in which common prayer is
+to be found. It is true that thus far the attempts at imitation
+have been rather grotesque than formidable, but such, until
+recently, have also been, in the judgment of foreign critics,
+all of our American endeavors after art. We are to consider what
+apt learners our quick-witted countrymen have shown themselves to
+be, in so much that even Christmas Day, once the _bete noire_ of
+Puritan legislators, has come to be accounted almost a national
+festival, and we shall be convinced that our primacy in the field
+of liturgies is not an absolutely assured position. This argument
+is open to the criticism that it seems to lower and cheapen the
+whole subject by representing Anglican religion in a mendicant
+attitude bidding for the favor of the great American public,
+and vexed that others, fellow-suppliants, have stolen a good
+formula of appeal. Nevertheless there is a certain amount of
+reasonableness in this way of putting the thing. Certainly with
+those who reckon the liturgical mode of worship among the notes
+of the Church, the argument is one that ought to have marked
+influence; while with those who, not so persuaded, nevertheless
+view with pleased interest the general spread of a liturgical
+taste among the people of this country, seeing in it a token
+of better things to come, a harbinger of larger agreements
+than we have yet attained to, and of an approaching "consolation
+of Israel" once not thought possible--even with such the argument
+ought not to be wholly powerless.[15]
+
+The fact that the Convocations of Canterbury and York have taken
+in hand and carried through a revision of the rubrics of the Prayer
+Book will seem to those who hold that our Church ought to advance
+_pari passu_ with the Church of England, and no faster, another
+evidence of the timeliness of the American movement. Under the
+title of _The Convocation Prayer Book_ there has lately appeared
+in England an edition of the Prayer Book so printed as to show how
+the book would read were the recommendations of York and Canterbury
+to go into effect. It is true that the consent of Parliament must
+be secured before the altered rubrics can have the force of law;
+but whatever may come of the rubrics recommended, the existence of
+the book containing them is evidence enough of a wide-spread
+conviction among the English clergy that change is needed.
+
+Indeed never has this point been more powerfully put in the fewest
+possible words than by the brilliant, and no less logical than
+brilliant Bishop of Peterborough in a recent speech in the Upper
+House of Convocation.[16] "If the Church of England wants absolute
+peace, she should have definite rubrics."
+
+It is true he goes on to say that in his judgment the dangers of
+carrying the question of rubrical revision into Parliament
+are greater than the evil of letting it alone, but it is to be
+remembered that we in this country are hampered with no Parliamentary
+entanglements 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 the
+risk of something very like revolution.
+
+But this matter of the rubrics and their susceptibility of
+improvement will come up later on. It seemed proper to refer
+to it, if no more, under the head of timeliness. If nothing else
+in the way of change be opportune at the present moment, it is an
+easy task to show that the rubrics, as they stand, cry aloud for
+a revision.
+
+IV. The obstacles to be encountered by any Committee undertaking
+so to carry forward a review of the Prayer Book that revision may
+eventually result, are of two sorts; there are the inherent
+difficulties of the work itself, such, for instance, as that of
+matching the literary style of the sixteenth century writers, and
+there is the wholesome dread of a change for the worse which
+is sure to assert itself in many quarters the moment definite
+propositions shall have reached a point at which the "yeas and
+nays" are likely to be called.
+
+Beginning, then, with the inherent difficulties, and taking them
+in the inverse order of arduousness, we see at once how hard it
+must be to secure unity and self-consistency in the revision of a
+book so complicated as the Common Prayer. It is like remodelling
+an old house. We think it a very easy matter, something that can
+be done in one's head, but the mistake is discovered when the new
+door designed to give symmetry to this room is found to have spoiled
+the looks of that, when the enlargement of the library turns out
+to have overtaxed the heating energy of the fireplace, and the
+ingenious staircase, instead of ending where it was expected to
+end, brings up against an intractable brick wall. Just such perils
+as these will beset anybody who ventures to disturb the adjustments
+of the "Prayer Book as it is" and to introduce desirable additions.
+But domestic architecture is not given up on account of the patient
+carefulness the practice of it demands, neither need Liturgical
+Revision be despaired of because it requires of the men who
+undertake it a like wisdom in looking before and after.
+
+The really formidable barrier to revision, so far as what have been
+called the "inherent difficulties" are concerned, is reached when
+we touch style. How to handle without harming the sentences in which
+English religion phrased itself when English language was fresher
+and more fluent than it can ever be again is a serious question.
+The hands that seek to "enrich" may well be cautioned to take heed
+lest they despoil. It is to be remembered, however, in the way of
+reassurance that the alterations most likely to find favor with the
+reviewers 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, find
+fault with the replacement in the Evening Prayer of the _Magnificat_
+and the _Nunc dimittis_, nor of bringing back a few of the Versicles
+that in the English book follow the Lord's Prayer, nor yet of our
+being allowed to say, "Lighten our darkness, we beseech thee, Lord,"
+rather than "O Lord, our Heavenly Father, by whose Almighty power
+we have been preserved this day." Objections to these alterations
+may be readily imagined, but it would be necessary to base them on
+other grounds than those of literary fastidiousness. In the case of
+enrichments like these no one could raise the cry that the faultless
+English of the Prayer Book had been marred.
+
+But what shall be said of the composition of entirely new services
+and offices, if it should be judged expedient to give admission to
+any such? How can we be sure that such modern additions to the
+edifice would be sufficiently in keeping with the general tone of
+the elder architecture? It might be held to be an adequate answer
+to these questions to reply that if the living Church cannot now
+trust herself to speak out through her formularies in her natural
+voice as she did venture to do in the seventeenth century and the
+eighteenth, it must be that she has fallen into that stage of
+decrepitude where the natural voice is uncertain.
+
+But, really, what ought to be said is this--that if the same canons
+of style that ruled the sixteenth century writers are studied and
+obeyed, there is no reason in the world why a result equally
+satisfactory 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 of
+the 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 in
+the American Book of Common Prayer. The Office for the Visitation of
+Prisoners, for example, is so redolent of the times of the Georges,
+when it was composed, that it might be appropriately enough
+interleaved with prints out of Hogarth. A bit of Palladian
+architecture in a Gothic church is not more easily recognized.
+Many worse things might happen to the Prayer Book than that the
+nineteenth century should leave its impress upon the pages.
+
+In fact, it is just as possible, if men will only think so, to use
+our language with effect for any good purpose to-day as it was
+three hundred years ago. All that is necessary is a willingness
+to submit to the same restrictions, and those mostly moral, that
+controlled the old writers; and our work, though not identical
+with theirs, will have the proper similarity. True, a modern author
+may not be able to reproduce, without a palpable betrayal of
+affectation and mannerism, the precise characteristics of a bygone
+style. Chattertons are not numerous. It is easier to secure for
+the brass andirons and mahogany dining chairs of our own manufacture
+the look of those that belonged to our grandfathers than it is to
+catch the tones of voices long dead; and just as good judgment
+dictates the wisdom of repeating the honest and thorough workmanship
+of the old cabinet-makers in place of slavishly imitating their
+patterns, so it will be well if the compilers of devotional forms
+for modern use seek to say what they have to say with sixteenth
+century simplicity rather than in sixteenth century speech. In
+letters, as in conduct, the supreme charm of style is the absence
+of self-consciousness. "Say in plain words the thing you mean, and
+say it as if you meant it," is good advice to any seeker after
+rhetorical excellence, be he young or old. The Reformers, that is
+to say, the men who Englished the Prayer Book, in seeking to meet
+the devotional needs of the people of their own time do not seem
+to have been at pains to tie themselves to the diction of a previous
+generation. They dared to "call a spade a spade" whenever and
+wherever the tool came into use, and they have their reward in the
+permanence of their work. Sweetnesses and prettinesses they banished
+altogether. Indeed, in those days it seems not to have occurred
+to people that such things had anything to do with religion. It
+was not that they did not know how to talk in the sweet way--never
+has sentimentalism been more rife in general literature than then,
+but they would not talk in that way; the stern traditions of Holy
+Church throughout all the world forbade. Religion was a most
+serious thing to their minds, and they would speak of it most
+seriously or not at all.
+
+Never since language began to be used have severity and tenderness
+been more marvellously blended than in the older portions of the
+English Prayer Book.
+
+This effect is largely due to an almost entire abstention on the
+part of the writers from figurative language, or at least from all
+imagery that is not readily recognized as Scriptural. Bread and
+beef are what men demand for a steady diet. Sweetmeats are well
+enough, now and then, but only now and then.
+
+It is the failure to observe this plain canon of style that has
+made shipwreck of many an attempt to construct liturgies _de novo_.
+Ambitious framers of forms of worship seem almost invariably to
+forget that there may be such a thing as a too exquisite prayer,
+an altogether too "eloquent address to the throne of grace." The
+longest and fullest supplicatory portion of the Prayer Book, the
+Litany, does not contain, from the first sentence to the last,[17]
+one single figurative expression, it is literally plain English
+from 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 stamp
+of authority or on account of some subtle intrinsic excellence, it
+may be difficult to say, does not pall upon the taste. And yet even
+this is used sparingly in the Prayer Book, some of the most striking
+exceptions to the general rule being afforded by the collects for
+the first and third Sundays in Advent, the collects for the Epiphany
+and Easter Even, and the opening prayer in the Baptismal Office. All
+these are instances of strictly Scriptural metaphor, and moreover
+it is to be kept in mind that they are designed for occasional, not
+constant use. In the orders for daily Morning and Evening Prayer,
+the "lost sheep" of the General Confession and the "dew" of God's
+blessing in the Collect for Clergy and People are almost the sole,
+if not the sole cases of evident metaphor, and these again are
+Scriptural. When in Jeremy Taylor's prayer, introduced by the
+American revisers into the Order for the Visitation of the Sick,
+we come upon the comparison of human life to a "vale of misery" we
+feel that somehow we have struck a new current in the atmosphere;
+for the moment it is the rhetorician who speaks, and no longer the
+earnest seeker after God.
+
+Besides this freedom from figures of speech, we notice in the
+style of Prayer Book English a careful avoidance of whatever looks
+like a metaphysical abstraction. The aim is ever to present God
+and divine things as realities rather than as mere concepts or
+notions of the mind. So far as the writer remembers, not a single
+prayer in the whole book begins with that formula so dear to the
+makers of extemporary forms of devotion, "O Thou." On the contrary,
+the approach to the Divine Majesty is almost always made with a
+reference to some attribute or characteristic that links Deity to
+man and man's affairs; it is "O God, the Protector of all that
+trust in thee," or "Almighty and everlasting God who of thy tender
+love toward mankind," or "Lord of all power and might who art the
+author and giver of all good things."
+
+Cardinal Newman in one of his theological works written before
+his departure from the Church of England, has a powerful passage
+bearing upon this point. He is criticising the evangelicals for
+their one-sided way of setting forth what it must mean to "preach
+the Gospel." No less a person than Legh Richmond is the object of
+his strictures.
+
+"A remarkable contrast between our Church's and this false view of
+religion," he says, "is afforded in the respective modes of treating
+a death-bed in the Visitation of the Sick, and a popular modern
+work, the Dairyman's Daughter. The latter runs thus: My dear friend,
+do you not FEEL _that you are supported_? The Lord deals very gently
+with 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. What
+are your _views_ of the dark valley of death now that you are
+passing through it? _It is not dark_. Now, if it be said that
+such questions and answers are not only in their place innocent
+but 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 is
+the Visitation of the Sick in the nineteenth century. Now let us
+listen to the nervous and stern tone of the sixteenth. In the Prayer
+Book the minister is instructed to say to the person visited:
+Forasmuch as after this life there is an account to be given to
+the _Righteous Judge_ . . . I require you to examine yourself and
+your estate both toward God and man. Therefore I shall rehearse to
+you the _Articles of our Faith_, that you may know whether you do
+believe as a Christian man should or no . . . 'Then shall the
+minister examine whether he repent him truly of his sins, and be
+in _charity_ with all the world: exhorting him to forgive from the
+bottom of his heart all persons who have offended him, and if he
+hath offended any other to _ask their forgiveness_, and where he
+hath done injury or wrong to any man that he _make amends_ to the
+utmost of his power.' . . . Such is the contrast between the dreamy
+talk of modern Protestantism, and 'holy fear's stern glow' in the
+Church 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 is
+just now the fashion to call realistic, that is, a language
+conversant with great facts rather than with phases of feeling
+and moods of mind; which after all is only another way of saying
+that it is a Book of Common Prayer and not a manual for the
+furtherance of spiritual introspection.
+
+These, then, are the characteristics of the Prayer Book style:
+it is simple, straightforward, unmetaphorical, realistic. Seriously
+it looks almost like a studied insult alike to the scholarship and
+to the religion of our day, to say that these are excellencies
+attainable no longer. That revisers venturing upon additions to
+the Prayer Book would be bound to set the face as a flint against
+any slightest approach to sentimentality is true. But why assume
+that the men do not exist who are capable of such a measure of
+self-control? Grant that there are whole volumes of devotional
+matter, original and compiled, which one may ransack without
+finding a single form that is not either prolix, wishy-washy, or
+superstitious--it does not follow that if the Prayer Book is to
+be enriched, the enrichments must necessarily come from such
+sources. Moreover it is to be remembered that there is another
+vice of style to be shunned in liturgical composition quite as
+carefully as sentimentality, namely, jejuneness. We cannot escape
+being sentimental simply by being dull. Feeling must not be denied
+its place in prayer for fear that it may not prove itself a duly
+chastened feeling. There ought to be a heart of fire underneath
+the calm surface of every formulary of worship. Flame and smoke
+are 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 revision
+growing out of the delicate nature of the work itself, obstacles
+of a different sort are certain to be encountered. In so large a
+body of men as the Joint Committee of the two Houses, entire and
+cordial agreement is almost too much to be expected; and then even
+supposing 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 sake
+of so insignificant a gain; whereas if the changes proposed are
+considerable, 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 Prayer
+Book? To be sure, the Concordat does not seem to weigh very heavily
+on the shoulders of the other party, as indeed there is no reason
+why it should. Convocation does not much disturb itself as to the
+view General Convention is likely to take of its sayings and doings,
+and even disestablishment might proceed without our being called
+into consultation. And yet the Concordat difficulty will have to
+be reckoned with; and the dire spectre of a possible disowning of
+us by our mother the Church of England will have to be laid, before
+any alterations in the Book of Common Prayer will be accounted by
+some among us perfectly safe.
+
+But it is scarcely worth while to go on gratuitously suggesting
+opposition arguments. They will be sure to present themselves
+unsolicited in due time. For the present it is enough to add that
+if the movement for liturgical revision has not in it enough
+toughness of fibre to enable it to survive vigorous attack, it
+does not deserve success.
+
+V. Under the head of liturgical enrichment ought to be classed
+whatever alteration would really serve to enhance the beauty,
+majesty, or fitness, of accepted formularies of worship. Excision
+may, under conceivable circumstances, be enrichment. James Wyatt
+undoubtedly imagined that he was improving the English cathedrals
+when he whitewashed their interiors, added composition pinnacles
+to the west towers of Durham, and rearranged the ancient monuments
+of Salisbury; but an important part of the enrichment accomplished
+by our nineteenth century restorers has lain simply in the undoing
+of what Wyatt did.
+
+Again, substitution may be enrichment, as in the case where a
+wooden spire built upon a stone tower is taken down to be replaced
+by honest work. It would be an enrichment if in St. George's Chapel,
+the central shrine of British royalty, the sham insignia now
+overhanging the stalls of the knights of the garter were to give
+room to genuine armor. Not merely then by addition, but possibly,
+in some instances, by both subtraction and substitution, we may
+find the "Prayer-book as it is" open to improvement.
+
+Before, however, entering upon any criticism of the formularies
+in detail, it is important to draw a distinction between two very
+different things, namely, the structure of a liturgical office and
+the contents of it. By structure should be understood the skeleton
+or frame that makes the groundwork of any given office, by contents
+the actual liturgical material employed in filling out the office
+to its proper contour.
+
+The offices of the Roman Breviary, for example, continue, for the
+most part, identical in structure from day to day, the year through;
+but they vary in contents. For an illustration nearer home take
+our own _Order for Daily Morning Prayer_. The structure of it
+is 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 from
+the lines of this framework, an indefinite number of services might
+by a process of substitution be put together, each one of which
+would in outward appearance differ widely from every other one.
+The identical skeleton, that is to say, might be so variously
+clothed upon that no two of its embodiments would be alike. But
+is it desirable to run very much after variety of such a sort in a
+book of prayer designed for common use? Most assuredly, No. To
+jeopard 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 part
+of revisionists an unpardonable blunder.
+
+There are, however, a few points at which the Morning Prayer
+might advantageously be enriched, and no risk run. It would
+surely add nothing to the difficulty of finding the places if
+for one-half of the present opening sentences there were to be
+substituted sentences appropriate to special days and seasons of
+the ecclesiastical year. We should in this way be enabled to
+give 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 of
+Scripture to this use, there is no reason why we should not
+carry out still more fully in our selection the principle of
+appropriateness. The sentences displaced need not be lost, for
+they might still stand, as now, at the opening of the Evening
+Prayer.
+
+Passing on to the declarations of absolution there is an opportunity
+to simplify the arrangement by omitting the alternate form borrowed
+from the Order for the Administration of the Lord's Supper, where
+only it properly belongs. This, however, is a change likely to be
+resisted on doctrinal grounds, and need not be urged.
+
+Coming to the _Venite_, we find another opportunity to accentuate
+the Christian Year. It may be said that the rubric, as it is already
+written, allows for the substitution of special anthems on the
+greater festivals and fasts. This is true; but by giving the anthem
+for Easter a place of honor, while relegating anthems for the other
+great days to an unnoticed spot between the Selections and the
+Psalter, the American compilers did practically discriminate in
+favor of Easter and against the rest. The real needs of the case
+would be more wisely met if the permission to omit _Venite_ now
+attached to "the nineteenth day of the month" were to be extended
+to Ash-Wednesday and Good Friday, and special New Testament anthems
+analagous to the Easter one were to be inserted along with the
+respective Collects, Epistles, and Gospels, for Christmas-day and
+Whitsunday.
+
+By this change we should put each of the three great festivals of
+the year into possession of an invitatory anthem of its own; and we
+should obviate on the fasting days, by the simple expedient of
+omission, the futile efforts of choir-master and organist to
+transform _Venite_ from a cry of joy into a moan of grief.
+
+This brings us to the Psalter. Here we have an opportunity to
+correct the palpable blunder by which it has come about that the
+greatest of the penitential psalms, the fifty-first, has no place
+assigned it among the proper psalms either for Ash-Wednesday or
+for Good Friday.[19] It would also be well to make optional, if
+not obligatory, the use of "proper psalms" on days other than those
+already provided with them; _e_. _g_., Advent Sunday, the Epiphany,
+Easter Even, Trinity Sunday, and All Saints' Day.[20] There would
+be a still larger gain in the direction of "flexibility of use,"
+as well as a great economy of valuable space, if instead of
+reprinting some thirty of the Psalms of David under the name of
+Selections, we were to provide for allowing "select" psalms to be
+announced by number in the same manner that "proper" psalms are
+now announced. Instead of only the ten selections we now have,
+there might then be made available twenty or thirty groups of
+psalms at absolutely no sacrifice of room. It has been objected
+to this proposal that the same difficulty which now attaches to
+the finding of the "proper psalms" on great days would embarrass
+congregations whenever "select psalms" were given out; but this
+is fairly met by the counter consideration that if our people were
+to be educated by the use of select psalms into a more facile
+handling of the Psalter it would be just so much gained for days
+when the "proper psalms" must of necessity be found and read. The
+services, that is to say, would run all the more smoothly on the
+great days, after congregations had become habituated, on ordinary
+days, to picking out the psalms by number.
+
+Another step in the line of simplification, and one which it is
+in order to mention here, would be the removal from the Morning
+Prayer of _Gloria in Excelsis_, seeing that it is never, or almost
+never, sung at the end of the psalms unless at Evening Prayer. As
+to 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 unlikely
+that any doctrinal motive dictated the abbreviation.
+
+Pausing a moment at the Creeds for the insertion of a better title
+than "_Or this_" before the confession of Nicaea, we pass to the
+versicles that follow.
+
+Here again it would be enrichment to restore the words of the
+English book, although the task of finding an equally melodious
+equivalent for _O Lord, save the Queen_ might not be easy.
+
+Happily the other versicles are such as no civil revolution can
+make 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 Prayer
+considered as a form of Divine Service for Sundays would seem to
+call. It will be observed that they are far from being of a radical
+character, that they affect the structure of the office not at
+all, 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, but
+for very decided enrichment by substitution. The wording of the
+office is altogether too exact an echo of what has been said only
+a few hours before in Morning Prayer. It betokens a poverty of
+resources that does not really exist, when we allow ourselves thus
+to exhort, confess, absolve, intercede, and give thanks in the
+very same phrases at three in the afternoon that were on our lips
+at eleven in the morning.
+
+Doubtless liturgical worship owes a good measure of its charm to
+the subtle power of repetition; but the principle is one that must
+be handled and applied with the most delicate tact, or virtue goes
+out of it. We must distinguish between similarity and sameness.
+The ordered recurrence of accents is what makes the rhythm of
+verse; but for all that, there is a difference between poetry and
+sing-song, just as there is a difference between melody and monotony.
+Moreover, the taste of mankind undergoes change as to the sorts of
+repetition which it is disposed to tolerate. No modern poet of
+standing would venture, for instance, to employ identical epithets
+to 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 be
+pleased with it now. It is possible in liturgies so to employ
+the principle of repetition that no wearying sense of sameness
+will be conveyed, and again it is possible so to mismanage it
+as to transform worship into something little better than a
+"slow mechanic exercise." Mere iteration, as such, is barren
+of spiritual power; witness the endless sayings over of _Kyrie
+Eleison_ in the Oriental service-books, a species of vain repetition
+which a liturgical writer of high intelligence rightly characterizes
+as "unmeaning, if not profane."[21] Now the common popular
+criticism upon the Evening Prayer of the Church is that it repeats
+too slavishly the wording of the Morning Prayer. If this is an
+unjust 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 wiser
+of 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 explain
+the present very noticeable disinclination of Churchmen to attend
+a second service on Sunday, by connecting it with the particular
+infelicity in question; but that the excuse, We have said all this
+once to-day; why say it again? may possibly have something, even
+if not much, to do with the staying at home is certainly a fair
+conjecture.
+
+Without altering at all the structure of the Evening Prayer, it
+would be perfectly possible so to refill or reclothe that formulary
+as to give it the one thing needful which now it lacks--freshness.
+In such a process the _Magnificat_ and the _Nunc dimittis_ would
+play an important part; as would also certain "ancient collects"
+of which we have heard much of late. Failing this, the next best
+thing (and the thing, it may be added, much more likely to be done,
+considering what a tough resistant is old usage) would be the
+provision of an alternate and optional form of Evening Prayer, to
+be used either in lieu of, or as supplementary to the existing
+office. In the framing of such a _Later Evensong_ a larger freedom
+would be possible than in the refilling of a form the main lines
+of 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 comes
+the Litany. Here there is no call for enrichment,[22] though
+increased flexibility of use might be secured for this venerable
+form of intercessory prayer by prefixing to it the following rubric
+abridged from a similar one proposed in The Convocation Prayer
+Book:
+
+"_A General Supplication, to be sung or said on Sundays, Wednesdays,
+and Fridays, and on the Rogation Days, after the third collect at
+Morning or Evening Prayer, or before the Administration of the Holy
+Communion; 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 another
+important question that imperatively demands discussion, namely, a
+week-day worship. The movement for "shortened services," so-called,
+has shared the usual fate of all efforts at bettering the life of
+the Church, in being at the outset of its course widely and seriously
+misunderstood. The impression has gone abroad, and to-day holds
+possession of many otherwise well-informed people, that a large
+and growing party in the Episcopal Church has openly declared
+itself wearied out with overmuch prayer and praise. Were such
+indeed the fact, the scandal would be grave; but the real truth
+about the matter is that the promoters of shortened services,
+instead of seeking to diminish, are really eager to see multiplied
+the amount of worship rendered in our churches. "Shortened services"
+is a phrase of English, not American origin, and has won its way
+here by dint of euphony rather than of fitness. Readjusted services,
+though a more clumsy, would be a less misdirecting term. In the
+matter of Sunday worship, the liberty now generally conceded of
+using separately the Morning Prayer, the Litany, and the Holy
+Communion is all that need be asked. Whether these services, or
+at least two of them, do not in themselves admit of a certain
+measure of improvement is a point that has already been considered,
+but there certainly is no need of shortening them, whatever else
+it may be thought well to do. When what a Boston worthy once termed
+"a holy alacrity" is observed, on the part of both minister and
+singers, even the aggregated services of Morning Prayer, Litany,
+and "Ante-Communion," together with a sermon five-and-twenty minutes
+long, can easily be brought within the compass of an hour and a
+half--a measure of time not unreasonably large to be given to the
+principal occasion of worship on the Lord's Day. As for the Evening
+Prayer--there certainty ought to be no call for the shortening of
+that on Sundays; for it would be scarcely decent or proper to devote
+to such a service anything less than the half hour the existing
+office demands.
+
+What the advocates of shortened services really desire to see
+furthered is an increase in the frequency of opportunities for
+worship during the week, their conviction being that if the Church
+were to authorize brief services for morning and evening use, such
+as would not occupy much more time than family prayers ordinarily
+do, the attendance might be secured of many who, at present, put
+aside the whole question of going to church on week-days as
+impracticable. Supposing it could be proved that such a provision
+would work to the discouragement of family prayer, it would plainly
+be wrong to advocate it; no priesthood is more sacred than that
+which comes with fatherhood. But we must face the fact that in our
+modern American life family prayer, like sundry other wholesome
+habits, has fallen largely into disuse. If the Church can, in any
+measure, supplement the deficiencies of the household, and help
+to supply to individuals a blessing they would gladly enjoy at
+their own homes, if they might, it is her plain duty to do so.
+Moreover, many a minister who single-handed cannot now prudently
+undertake a daily service, as that is commonly understood, would
+acknowledge himself equal to the less extended requirement.
+
+Not a few careful and friendly observers of the practical working
+of Anglican religion have been reluctantly led to consider the daily
+service, as an institution, only meagrely successful. Looking at
+the matter historically we find no reason to wonder at such a
+conclusion.
+
+Our existing usage (or more correctly, perhaps, _non-user_) dates
+from the Reformation period. The English Church and nation of that
+day had grown up familiar with the spectacle of a very large body
+of clerics, secular and regular, whose daily occupation may be said
+to have been the pursuit of religion.[23] The religion pursued
+consisted chiefly in the saying of prayers, and very thoroughly,
+so far at least as the consumption of time was concerned, were the
+prayers said. What more natural than that, under such circumstances,
+and with such associations, the compilers of a common Prayer Book
+for the people should have failed to see any good reason for
+discriminating between the amount of service proper to the Lord's
+Day and the amount that might be reasonably expected on other days?
+Theoretically they were right, all time belongs to God and he is
+as appropriately worshipped on Tuesdays and Thursdays as on Sundays.
+And yet as a result of their making no such discrimination, we have
+the daily service on our hands--a comparative, even if not an utter
+failure. We may lament the fact, but a fact it is, that In spite
+of all its improved appliances for securing leisure, the world is
+busier than ever it was; and there will always be those who will
+insist that the command to labor on six days is as imperative as
+the injunction to rest upon the seventh. As a consequence of all
+this accelerated business, and of the diminution in the number of
+persons officially set apart for prayer, the unabridged service of
+the Church fails to command a week-day attendance. We have no
+"clerks" nowadays to fill the choir. The only clerks known to modern
+times are busy at their desks.
+
+It may be urged in reply to this that the practical working of the
+daily service ought to be kept a secondary consideration, and that
+its main purpose is symbolical, or representative; the priest
+kneeling 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. This
+conception of the daily service as a vicarious thing has a certain
+mystical beauty about it, but if it is to be adopted as the Church's
+own let us, at least, clear ourselves of inconsistency by striking
+out the word "common" from before the word "prayer" in characterizing
+our book.
+
+What is really needed for daily use in our parishes is a short form
+of worship specially framed for the purpose. If they could be
+employed without offence to the Protestant ear (and they are good
+English Reformation words) _Week-Day Matins_ and _Week-Day Evensong_
+would not be ill chosen names for such services. The framework of
+these Lesser Orders for Morning and Evening Prayer, as they might
+also be called, were the other titles found obnoxious, ought to be
+modelled upon the lines of the existing daily offices, though with
+a careful avoidance of identity in contents. There should be, for
+instance, as unvarying elements, the reading of the lessons for the
+day, the use of the collect for the day, and the saying or singing
+of the psalms for the day. Another constant would be the Lord's
+Prayer; but aside from these the _Lesser Order_ need have nothing
+in common with the Order as we have it now. There might be, for
+example, after the manner of the old service-books, an invitatory
+opening with versicles and responses, or if the present mode of
+opening by sentences were preferred, specially chosen sentences,
+different from those with which the Sunday worship has made us
+familiar, could be employed. Moreover, the anthems or canticles
+and the prayers, with the exception of the two just mentioned,
+ought also to be distinctive, and, in the technical sense of the
+word, _proper_ to the week-day use.
+
+Again, it would serve very powerfully and appropriately to emphasize
+the pivot points in the ritual year if this same principle were to
+be applied to saints' days, and we were to have special _Holyday
+Matins_ and _Holy-day Evensong_, there still being required, on the
+greater festivals and fasts, the normal Morning and Evening Prayer
+proper to the Lord's Day.[24]
+
+The argument in favor of thus specializing the services for week-days
+and holydays, in preference to following the only method heretofore
+thought possible, namely, that of shortening the Lord's Day Order,
+rests on two grounds. In the first place permissions to skip and
+omit are of themselves objectionable in a book of devotions. They
+have an uncomely look. Our American Common Prayer boasts too many
+disfigurements of this sort already.
+
+Such a rubric as _The minister may, at his discretion, omit all
+that follows to, etc. _, puts one in mind of the finger-post
+pointing out a short cut to weary travellers. It is inopportune
+thus to hint at exhaustion as the probable concomitant of worship.
+That each form should have an integrity of its own, should as a
+separate whole be either said complete or left unsaid, is better
+liturgical philosophy than any "shortened services act" can show.
+
+In the second place, a certain amount of variety would be secured
+by the proposed method which under the existing system we miss.
+There is, of course, such a danger as that of providing too much
+liturgical variety. Amateur makers of Prayer Books almost invariably
+fall into this slough. Hymn-books, as is well known, often destroy
+their own usefulness by including too many hymns; and Prayer Books
+may do the same by having too many prayers.[25]
+
+To transgress in the compiling of formularies the line of average
+memory, to provide more material than the mind of an habitual
+worshipper is likely to assimilate, is to misread human nature.
+But here, as elsewhere, there is a just mean. Cranmer and his
+colleagues in the work of revision jumped at one bound from a
+scheme which provided a distinctive set of services for every day
+in the year to a scheme that assigned one stereotyped form to all
+days.
+
+Now nothing could be more unwise than any attempt to restore the
+methods of the Breviary, with its complicated and artificial forms
+of devotion; but so far to imitate the Breviary as to provide within
+limits for a recognition of man's innate love of change would be
+wisdom. By having a distinctive service for week-days, and a
+distinctive service for holydays, Ave might add just that little
+increment to the Church's power of traction that in many instances
+would avail to change "I cannot go to church this morning" into "I
+cannot stay away."
+
+It will be urged as a counter-argument to these considerations that
+the thing is impossible, that such a measure of enrichment is
+entirely in excess of anything the Church has expressed a wish
+to have, and that for reviewers to propose a plan so sweeping would
+be suicide. Doubtless this might be a sufficient answer to anybody
+who imagined that by a bare majority vote of two successive General
+Conventions new formularies of daily worship could be forced upon
+the Church. But suppose such formularies were to be made _optional_;
+suppose there were to be given to parishes the choice between these
+three things, viz.: (_a_) the normal Morning Prayer; (_b_) a
+shortened form of the normal Morning Prayer; and (_c_) such a
+special order as has been sketched--what then? Would the Church's
+liberty be impaired! On the contrary, would not the borders of that
+liberty have been most wisely and safely widened by the steady hand
+of law?
+
+This is perhaps the right point at which to call attention to the
+present state of the "shortened services" controversy, for wearisome
+as the story has become by frequent repetition, the nexus between
+it and the subject in hand is too important to be left out of sight.
+
+In the General Convention of 1877, where the topic under its
+American 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 by
+rubric, thus postponing for three years' time the fruition of
+their wish; while the bishops with a unanimity understood to have
+been equally striking insisted that a simple canon, such as could
+be passed at once, would suffice. And so the subject dropped.
+
+At the late Convention of 1880 an eirenicon was discovered. The
+quick eye of one of the legal members of the House of Deputies
+detected on the fourth page of the Prayer Book, just opposite the
+Preface, a loophole of escape, to wit, _The Ratification of the
+Book of Common Prayer_. Here was the very _tertium quid_ whereby
+the common wish of both parties to the dispute might be effected
+without injury to the sensibilities of either.
+
+The _Ratification_ certainly did not look like a canon; neither
+could anybody with his eyes open call it a rubric--why not amend
+that, and say no more about it? The suggestion prevailed, and by a
+vote of both Houses, the following extraordinary document is
+hereafter to stand (the next General Convention consenting) in
+the 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 in
+General 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 forth
+a _Book of Common Prayer and Administration of the Sacraments and
+other Rites and Ceremonies of the Church_, and thereby established
+the 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 the
+same and be in use from and after the first day of October in the
+year of our Lord 1790; the same book is hereby ratified and
+confirmed, and ordered to be the use of this Church from this
+time forth.
+
+"But note, however, that on days other than Sundays, Christmas-day,
+the Epiphany, Ash-Wednesday, Good Friday, and Ascension Day, it
+shall suffice if the Minister begins Morning or Evening Prayer at
+the General Confession or the Lord's Prayer preceded by one or more
+of the Sentences appointed at the beginning of Morning and Evening
+Prayer, and end after the Collect for Grace or the Collect for Aid
+against Perils, with 2 Cor. xiii. 14, using so much of the Lessons
+appointed for the day and so much of the Psalter as he shall judge
+to be for edification.
+
+"And note also that on any day when Morning and Evening Prayer shall
+have been duly said or are to be said, and on days other than those
+first aforementioned, it shall suffice, when need may require, if
+a sermon or lecture be preceded by at least the Lord's Prayer and
+one or more Collects found in this book, provided that no prayers
+not 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, the
+Litany, or the Order for the Administration of the Lord's Supper
+may be used as a separate and independent service, provided that
+no one of these services shall be disused habitually."
+
+It may seem harsh to characterize this act as the mutilation of a
+monument; but really it does seem to be little else. The old
+Ratification of 1789 is an historic landmark; it is the sign-manual
+of the Church of White's and Seabury's day, and ought never to be
+disturbed or tampered with while the Prayer Book stands. The year
+1889 might very properly see a supplemental Ratification written
+under it; and testifying to the fact of Revision; but to write into
+that venerable text special directions as to what may be done on
+days other than Ash-Wednesday, and what must not be done without
+2 Cor. xiii. 14, is very much as if the City Government of Cambridge
+should cause to be cut upon the stone under the Washington elm which
+now records the fact that there the commander of the American armies
+first drew his sword, divers and sundry additional items of
+information, such as the distance to Watertown, the shortest path
+across 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 for
+the Prayer Book "increased flexibility of use," should have thought
+it necessary subsequently to take up with this compromise of a
+compromise (for such the proposal to amend the Ratification really
+is) it is difficult to say. Perhaps it was with the determination
+to have, at any rate, something to fall back upon in case the larger
+and more comprehensive measure should come to naught.
+
+The rubric is confessedly the proper place for directions as to
+how to use the services, and but for the very natural and defensible
+objection on the part of some to touching the Prayer Book at all,
+there never would have been any question about it.[27] This
+objection having been at last waived, a straight path is now open
+to the end desired, and it ought to be followed even at the cost
+of three years more of delay.
+
+Returning to the general subject, and still following the order of
+the Table of Contents, we come to Prayers and Thanksgivings upon
+several Occasions.
+
+Here it would be well to note more intelligibly than is done by
+the present rubric the proper places for the introduction of the
+Prayers and the Thanksgivings, providing for the use of the former
+before, and of the latter after the General Thanksgiving.
+
+As to the deficiencies in this department let the late Dr. Muhlenberg
+speak.
+
+"The Prayer Book," he says, "is not undervalued as to its treasures
+in asserting its wants. The latter cannot be denied. Witness the
+meagre amount of New Testament prayer and praise for the round of
+festivals and fasts; the absence of any forms suited to the peculiar
+circumstances of our own Church and country and to the times we
+live in; or for our benevolent and educational institutions. There
+are no prayers for the increase of Ministers, for Missions, or
+Missionaries, for the Christian teaching of the young; for sponsors
+on occasions of Baptism; for persons setting out on long journeys
+by land, quite as perilous as voyages by sea; for the sick desiring
+the prayers of the Church when there is no prospect of or desire
+for recovery; for the bereaved at funerals, and many other occasions
+for which there might as well be provision as for those few for
+which 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, for
+Monday and Tuesday in Easter Week, and for Monday and Tuesday in
+Whitsun Week, would add very materially to our liturgical wealth,
+while there would seem to be no reason whatever why they should
+not be had. It would also serve to enhance the symmetry of the
+Christian Year if the old feast of the Transfiguration[29] (August
+6) were to be restored to its place among the recognized holy days
+of the Church and given its proper collect, epistle, and gospel.
+
+There are some liturgists who desire the restoration of the introits
+of the First Book of Edward VI. The introit (so called from being
+the psalm sung when the priest goes within the altar-rails) has
+been in modern usage replaced by a metrical hymn. A sufficient
+reason for not printing the introit for each day in full, just
+before the collect, as was the mode in Edward's Book, is that to
+do so would involve a costly sacrifice of room. A compromise course
+would be to insert between the title of each Sunday or holyday and
+the collect proper to it, a simple numerical reference stating
+whereabouts in the Psalter the introit for the day is to be found,
+and adding perhaps the Latin catchwords. Any attempt to make the
+use of the introit obligatory in our times would meet with deserved
+failure; the metrical hymn has gained too firm a hold upon the
+affections of the Church at large ever to be willingly surrendered.
+
+Coming, next, to the orders for the administration of the two
+sacraments, we find ourselves on delicate ground, where serious
+change of any sort is out of the question. Permission, under certain
+circumstances, still further to abbreviate the Office of the
+Communion of the Sick might, however, be sought without giving
+reasonable cause of alarm to any, and general consent might perhaps
+also be had for a provision with respect to the Exhortation, "Dearly
+beloved in the Lord," that in "Churches where there is frequent
+Communion it shall suffice to read the Exhortation above written
+once in a month on the Lord's Day."[30]
+
+There are three liturgical features of the Scottish Communion
+Office which some have thought might be advantageously transferred
+to our own service. They are (_a_) the inserting after Christ's
+summary of the Law a response, _Lord, have mercy upon us and write
+these thy laws in our hearts, we beseech thee_; (_b_) the repeating
+by the people, after the reading of the Gospel, of a formula of
+thanks corresponding to the _Glory be to thee, O Lord_, that
+precedes it; and (_c_) the saying or singing of an Offertory
+sentence at the presentation of the alms. Upon these suggested
+enrichments the present writer offers no opinion.
+
+In the Order of Confirmation a substitution for the present
+preface[31] of a responsive opening, in which the bishop should
+charge the minister to present none but such as he has found by
+personal inquiry "apt and meet" for the reception of the rite would
+be a marked improvement.
+
+The remaining Occasional Offices would seem to demand no change
+either in structure or contents, although in some, perhaps in all
+of them, additional rubrics would be helpful to worshippers.
+
+Some addition to the number of Occasional Offices would be a
+real gain. We need, for instance, a short Office for the Burial of
+Infants and Young Children; a Daybreak Office for Great Festivals;
+an Office for Midday Prayer; an Office of Prayer in behalf of
+Missions and Missionaries; an Office for the Setting apart of a
+Layman as a Reader, or as a Missionary; a Form of Prayer at
+the Laying of a Corner-stone; and possibly some others. It is
+evident that these new formularies might give opportunity for
+the introduction of hitherto unused collects, anthems, and
+benedictions of a sort that would greatly enhance the general
+usefulness of the Prayer Book.
+
+This completes the survey of the field of "liturgical enrichment."
+A full discussion of the allied topic, "flexibility of use," would
+involve the examination in detail of all the rubrics of the Prayer
+Book, and for this there is no room. It is enough to say that
+unless the rubrics, the hinges and joints of a service-book, are
+kept well oiled, much creaking is a necessary result. There are
+turning-points in our public worship where congregations almost
+invariably betray an awkward embarrassment, simply because there
+is nothing to tell them whether they are expected to stand or to
+sit or to kneel. It is easy to sneer at such points as trifles and
+to make sport of those who call attention to them; but if it
+is worth our while to have ritual worship at all it is also worth
+our while to make the directions as to how people are to behave
+adequate, explicit, plain. A lofty contempt for detail is not the
+token of good administration either in Church or State. To the list
+of defective rubrics add those that are confessedly obsolete and
+such as are palpably contradictory and we have a bill of particulars
+that would amply justify a rubrical revision of the Prayer Book even
+if nothing more were to be attempted.
+
+There is another reason. Far more rapidly than many people
+imagine, we are drifting away from the position of a Church that
+worships by liturgy to that of a Church worshipping by directory.
+The multiplicity of "uses" that vexed the Anglican Reformers is
+in our day multiplied four-fold. To those who honestly consider a
+directory a better thing than a liturgy this process of relaxation
+is most welcome, but for others who hold that, until the binding
+clauses 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 the
+touch of law, and this is one of their chief reasons for advocating
+revision.
+
+Two questions remain untouched, both of them of great practical
+importance. Could the Prayer Book be enriched to the extent
+suggested in this paper without a serious and most undesirable
+increase in its bulk as a volume?
+
+Even supposing this were possible, is it at all likely that the
+Church could be persuaded to accept the amended book?
+
+Unless the first of these two eminently proper questions can be
+met, 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 authoritative
+formularies of worship within the compass of a single volume is
+inestimable. Even the present enforced severance of the Hymnal
+from the Prayer Book is a misfortune.[32]
+
+Those were good days when "Bible and Prayer Book" was the Churchman's
+all sufficient formula so far as volumes were concerned.
+
+Rome boasts a much larger ritual variety than ours, but she secures
+it by multiplying books. The Missal is in one volume, the Breviary
+in four, the Pontifical, the Ritual, and the Ceremonial in one each,
+making eight in all.[33] This is an evil, and one from which we
+Anglicans have had a happy escape. It was evidently with a great
+groan of relief that the Church of England shook herself free from
+the whole host of service-books, and established her one only
+volume. It behooves us to be watchful how we take a single step
+towards becoming entangled in the old meshes.[34]
+
+But need the enrichment of the Prayer Book--such enrichment as has
+been 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 advocated
+in this paper, and more besides, might be accomplished without
+transgressing by so much as a page or a paragraph the limits of
+the present standard book. All the space needed could be secured
+by the simple expedient of omitting matter that has been found by
+actual experience to be superfluous. Redundancy and unnecessary
+repetition are to the discredit of a book that enjoys such an
+unrivalled reputation as the Common Prayer. They are blemishes
+upon the face of its literary perfectness. Who has not marvelled
+at the strange duplication of the Litany and the Office of the Holy
+Communion in the Ordinal, when the special petitions proper to
+those services when used in that connection might easily have been
+printed by themselves with a direction that they be inserted in
+the appointed place?
+
+Scholars, of course, know perfectly well how this came about. The
+Ordinal does not belong to the Prayer Book proper, but has a
+separate identity of its own. When printed as a book by itself
+it is all very well that it should include the Litany and the Holy
+Communion in full, but why allow these superfluous pages to crowd
+out 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 device
+the space engrossed by divers psalms here and there in the Occasional
+Offices, _e_. _g_., Psalm li in the Visitation of Prisoners, and
+Psalm cxxx in the Visitation of the Sick could be made available
+for other use.
+
+Again, why continue to devote a quarter of a page of precious
+space to the "Prayer for imprisoned debtors," seeing that now,
+for a long time past, there has been no such thing in the United
+States as imprisonment for debt? By availing ourselves of only a
+portion of these possible methods of garnering space, all that is
+desired might be accomplished, without making the Prayer Book
+bulkier by a single leaf than it is to-day.
+
+But would a Prayer Book thus enriched be accepted by the Church
+at large? Is there any reason to think that the inertia which
+inheres in all large bodies, and to a singularly marked degree
+in our own Communion, could be overcome? The General Convention
+can give an approximate answer to these questions; it cannot settle
+them decisively, for it is a body which mirrors only to a certain
+extent the real mind and temper of the constituencies represented
+in it. One thing is certain, that only by allowing fullest possible
+play to the principle of "local option" could any wholly new piece
+of work on the part of revisionists, however excellent it might be
+in itself considered, find acceptance. To allow features introduced
+into the body of an existing service to be accounted optional,
+would indeed be impossible, without gendering the very wildest
+confusion. Upon such points the Church would have to decide
+outright, for or against, and stand by her decisions. But as
+respects every additional and novel Office proposed, the greatest
+care ought to be taken to have the indefinite An rather than the
+definite _The_ prefixed to it. Before such new uses are made binding
+on all, they must have met and endured the test of thorough trial
+by some. This is only fair.
+
+But there is a limit, it must be remembered, in the Church's case
+to the binding power of precedent and prescription. The social
+order changes, and of these tides that ebb and flow it is our
+bounden duty to take note. Had mere aversion to change, dogged
+unwillingness to venture an experiment always carried the day,
+instead of having the "Prayer Book as it is," we should still be
+drearily debating the rival merits of Hereford and Sarum. The great
+question to be settled is, Does an emergency exist serious enough
+to warrant an attempt on our part to make better what we know
+already to be good? Is the Republic expecting of us, and reasonably
+expecting of us, greater things than with our present equipment we
+are quite able to accomplish? There are eyes that think they see a
+great future before this Church--are they right, or is it only
+mirage? At any rate ours is no return trip--we are outward bound.
+The ship is cutting new and untried waters with her keel at every
+moment. There is no occasion to question the sufficiency of either
+compass or helm, but in certain matters of a practical sort there
+is a demand upon us to use judgment, we are bound to give a place
+in our seamanship to present common-sense as well as to respect for
+ancient usage, and along with it all to feel some confidence that
+if the ship is what we think her to be, "the winds of God" may be
+trusted 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 to
+the revision of the American Common Prayer, that unless we can
+accomplish it with hearty good feeling the attempt at improvement
+ought to be abandoned altogether.
+
+The day has gone by when new formularies of worship could be
+imposed on an unwilling Church by edict, and although under our
+carefully guarded system of ecclesiastical legislation there is
+little danger of either haste or unfairness, we must bear it well
+in mind that something more than "a constitutional majority of both
+houses" is needful if we would see liturgical revision crowned with
+real success. Of course, absolute unanimity is not to be expected.
+Every improvement that the world has seen was greeted at its birth
+by a chorus of select voices sounding the familiar anthem, "The old
+is better"; and the generation of those, who, in the sturdy phrase
+of King James's revisers, "give liking unto nothing but what is
+framed by themselves, and hammered on their anvil," will be always
+with us. But substantial unanimity may exist, even when absolute
+unanimity is impossible, and if anything like as general a consent
+can be secured for revision in 1886 as was given to it in 1883, the
+friends of the movement will have good reason to be satisfied.
+
+That there has been, since the publication of _The Book Annexed as
+Modified_, a certain measure of reaction against the spirit of
+change must be evident to all who watch carefully the pulse of
+public opinion in the Church. Whether this reaction be as serious
+as some imagine, whether it have good reasons to allege, and whether
+it be not already giving tokens of spent force, are points which
+in the present paper will be touched only incidentally, for the
+writer's purpose is rather irenic than polemical, and he is more
+concerned to remove misapprehensions and allay fears than to seek
+the fading leaf of a controversial victory.
+
+
+LIMITATIONS.
+
+No estimate of the merits and demerits of _The Book Annexed_ can
+be a just one that leaves out of account the limitations under
+which the framers of it did their work. These limitations were not
+unreasonable ones. It was right and proper that they should be
+imposed. There is no good ground for a belief that the time will
+ever come when a "blank cheque," to borrow Mr. Goschen's mercantile
+figure, will be given to any company of liturgical revisers to fill
+out as they may see fit. But the moulders of forms, in whatever
+department of plastic art their specialty lies, when challenged to
+show cause why their work is deficient in symmetry or completeness,
+have an undoubted right to plead in reply the character of the
+conditions under which they labored. The present instance offers
+no exception to the general rule. In the first place, a distinct
+pledge was given in the House of Deputies, in 1880, before consent
+to the appointment of the Joint Committee was secured, that in case
+such permission to launch a movement in favor of revision as was
+asked for were to be granted, no attempt would be made seriously
+to change the Liturgy proper, namely, the Office of the Holy
+Communion.
+
+The question was distinctly asked by a clerical deputy from the
+diocese of Maryland,[37] Do you desire to modify the Office of
+the Holy Communion? and it was as distinctly answered by the mover
+of the resolution under which the Joint Committee was finally
+appointed, No, we do not. It is true that such a pledge, made by
+a single member of one House, could only measurably control the
+action of a Joint Committee in which both Houses were to be
+represented; but it is equally plain that the maker of the pledge
+was in honor bound to do all in his power to secure the observance
+of its terms.
+
+Let this historical fact be noted by those who are disposed to
+complain that the Joint Committee did not pull to pieces and
+entirely rearrange the Anglo-Scoto-American Office, which now
+for a long time, and until quite recently, we have been taught
+to esteem the nearest possible approach to liturgical perfection.
+
+Under this same head of "limitations" must be set down the following
+resolutions passed by the Joint Committee itself, at its first
+regular meeting:
+
+_Resolved_, That this Committee asserts, at the outset, its
+conviction that no alteration should be made touching either
+statements 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 ritual
+use which have guided the compilation and amendments of the Book
+of Common Prayer, and have made it what it is.
+
+It was manifestly impossible, under resolutions like these, to
+depart very widely from established precedent, or in any serious
+measure to disturb the foundations of things.
+
+The first of them shut out wholly the consideration of such
+questions as the reinstatement of the Athanasian Creed or the
+proposal to make optional the use of the word "regenerate" in
+the Baptismal Offices; while the other forbade the introduction
+of such sentimental and grotesque conceits as "An Office for the
+Blessing 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 unfriendly
+to that perfectness of contour which we naturally look to see
+in a liturgical formulary, grew out of the tender solicitude
+of the Committee for what may be called the vested rights of
+congregations. There was a strong reluctance to the cutting
+away even of what might seem to be dead wood, lest there should
+ensue, or be thought to ensue, the loss of something really
+valuable.
+
+It was only as the result of much painstaking effort, and only at
+some sacrifice of literary fastidiousness, that the Committee was
+enabled to report a book of which it could be said that, while it
+added much of possible enrichment, it took away almost nothing that
+had been in actual possession.[39] There could be no better
+illustration of this point than is afforded by certain of the
+alterations proposed to be made in the Order for Evening Prayer.
+
+The Committee felt assured that upon no point was the judgment of
+the Church likely to be more unanimous than in approving the
+restoration to their time-honored home in the Evening Office of
+_Magnificat_ and _Nunc dimittis_, and yet so unwilling were they
+to displace _Bonum est confiteri_ and _Benedic anima mea_ from
+positions they have only occupied since 1789 that they authorized
+the unquestionably clumsy expedient of printing three responds to
+each Lesson.
+
+Probably a large majority of the Committee would have preferred to
+drop _Bonum est confiteri_ and _Benedic anima mea_ altogether,
+retaining _Cantate Domino_ and _Deus miser eatur_ as the sole
+alternates to the two Gospel canticles, as in the English Book,
+but rather than have a thousand voices cry out, as it was believed
+they would cry out, "You have robbed us," the device of a second
+alternate was adopted, to the sad defacement of the printed page.
+In may be charged that, in thus choosing, the Committee betrayed
+timidity, and that a wise boldness would have been the better
+course; but if account be taken of the attitude consistently
+maintained by General Convention towards any proposition for the
+change of so much as a comma in the Prayer Book, during a period
+of fifty years prior to the introduction of _The Book Annexed_, it
+will perhaps be concluded that for the characterization of the
+Committee'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 very
+considerably affected by foreign criticism of _The Book Annexed_,
+it will be well at this point to give some attention to what has
+been said in English journals in review of the work thus far
+accomplished. The more noteworthy of the foreign criticisms are
+those contained in _The Church Quarterly Review_, _The Church
+Times_, and _The Guardian_.[40]
+
+The Church Quarterly reviewer opens with an expression of deep
+regret at "the failure to take advantage of the opportunity for
+reinstating the Athanasian Creed." As already observed, no such
+opportunity existed. By formal vote the Joint Committee debarred
+itself from any proceeding of this sort, and the Convention, which
+sat in judgment on its work, was manifestly of opinion that in so
+acting the Committee had rightly interpreted its charter.
+
+The reviewer, who is in full sympathy with the movement for
+enrichment as such, goes on to recommend, as a more excellent
+way 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 to
+an English Churchman, for it is unlikely that anything better than
+this, or, indeed, anything one half so satisfactory, could be
+secured by Act of Parliament.
+
+For something very much better than this, however, a self-governed
+Church, like our own, has a right to look, and, in all probability,
+will continue to look until the thing is found. _An Appendix_ to a
+manual of worship, whether the manual be Prayer Book or Hymnal,[41]
+is and cannot but be, from the very nature of things, a blemish to
+the eye, an embarrassment to the hand, and a vexation to the spirit.
+Such _addenda_ carry on their face the suggestion that they are
+makeshifts, postscripts, after-thoughts; and in their lack of
+dignity, 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 most
+of 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 obliged
+to follow precisely the same legal process we follow in altering
+the Prayer Book. If an Occasional Office cannot pass the ordeal of
+the criticism of two successive Conventions, it ought not to be set
+forth at all; if it can and does stand that test, then it ought to
+be inserted in the Prayer Book in the particular place where it most
+appropriately belongs and may most readily be found.
+
+Moreover, it should be remembered that one, and by no means the
+least efficient, of the causes that brought the Common Prayer into
+existence in the sixteenth century was disgust at the multiplication
+of service-books. We American Churchmen have two already; let us
+beware of adding a third.
+
+The critic of _The Quarterly_ was probably unacquainted with the
+fact that in the American Episcopal Church the experimental setting
+forth of Offices "for optional and discretional use" is not possible
+under the terms of the Constitution. We either must adopt outright
+and for permanent use, or else peremptorily reject whatever is urged
+upon us in the name of liturgical improvement.
+
+Entering next upon a detailed criticism of the contents of The _Book
+Annexed_ the writer proceeds to offer a number of suggestions, some
+of them of great value. He pleads earnestly and with real force for
+the restoration of the Lord's Prayer to its "place of honor" between
+the Creed and the Preces, showing, in a passage of singular beauty,
+how the whole daily office "may be said to have grown out of, or
+radiated from, or been crystallized round the central _Pater
+noster_" even as "from the Words of Institution has grown the
+Christian Liturgy."
+
+The critic has only praise for the amendments in the Office
+for Thanksgiving Day; approves the selection of Proper Sentences
+for the opening of Morning and Evening Prayer; avers, certainly
+with truth, that the Office of the Beatitudes might be improved;
+welcomes "the very full repertory of special prayers"; thinks
+that the _Short Office of Prayer for Sundry Occasions_ "certainly
+supplies a want"; rejoices in the recognition of the Feast of the
+Transfiguration; and closes what is by far the most considerable,
+and, both as respects praise and blame, the most valuable of all
+the reviews that have been made of _The Book Annexed_ whether at
+home or abroad, with these words:
+
+On the whole, we very heartily congratulate our Transatlantic
+brothers on the labors of their Joint Committee. We hope their
+recommendations may be adopted, and more in the same direction;
+and that the two or three serious blemishes which we have felt
+constrained to point out and to lament may be removed from the
+book in the form finally adopted.
+
+And further, we very earnestly trust that this work, which has
+been very evidently so carefully and conscientiously done, may
+speedily, by way of example and precedent, bear fruit in a like
+process of enrichment among ourselves.
+
+Commending these last words to the consideration of those who
+take alarm at the suggestion of touching the Prayer Book lest
+we may hurt the susceptibilities of our "kin beyond sea," and
+unduly anticipate that "joint action of both Churches," which,
+at least until disestablishment comes, must always remain a sheer
+impossibility, we pass to a consideration of the six articles
+contributed to the _Church Times_ in July and August last, under
+the title, _The Revised American Prayer Book_. Here we come upon
+a writer who, if not always edifying, has the undoubted merit of
+being never dull. In fact, so deliciously are logical inconsequence
+and accidental humor mingled throughout his fifteen columns of
+discursive criticism that a suspicion arises as to the writer's
+nationality. It is doubtful whether anyone born on the English side
+of the Irish Sea could possibly have suggested the establishment
+of a Saint's Day in honor of the late respected Warden of Racine
+College, or seriously have proposed that Messrs. Oliver Wendell
+Holmes, Russell Lowell, Henry James, and W. D. Howells be appointed
+a jury of "literary arbitrament" to sit in judgment on the liturgical
+language of _The Book Annexed_; and this out of respect to our
+proper national pride. Doubtless it would add perceptibly to the
+amused sense of the unfitness of things with which these eminent
+liberals must have seen themselves thus named, if permission could
+be given to the jury, when empanelled, to "co-opt" into its number
+Mr. Samuel Clemens and Mr. Dudley Warner.[42]
+
+The general tenor of the writer in _The Church Times_ may fairly
+be inferred from the following extract from the first article of
+the series:
+
+The judgment that must be pronounced on the work as a whole is
+precisely that which has been passed on the Revised New Testament,
+that there are doubtless some few changes for the better, so obvious
+and so demanded beforehand by all educated opinion that to have
+neglected them would at once have stamped the revisers as blockheads
+and dunces; but that the set-off in the way of petty and meddlesome
+changes for the worse, neglect of really desirable improvements,
+bad English, failure in the very matter of pure scholarship just
+where it was least to be expected, and general departure from
+the terms of the Commission assigned to them (notably by their
+introduction 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 cannot
+possibly be adopted by the Church, and must be dismissed as a dismal
+fiasco, to be dealt with anew in some more adequate fashion.
+
+This paragraph is not reproduced for the purpose of discrediting
+the writer of it as a judge of English prose, for there are various
+passages in the course of the six articles that would more readily
+lend themselves to such a use. The object in quoting it is simply
+to put the reader into possession, in a compact form, of the most
+angry, even if not the most formidable, of the various indictments
+yet brought against _The Book Annexed_.
+
+Moreover, the last words of the extract supply a good text for
+certain didactic remarks that ought to be made, with respect to
+what is possible and what is not possible in the line of liturgical
+revision in America.
+
+Worthless as the result of the Joint Committee's labors has turned
+out to be, their motive, we are assured, was a good one. The
+critic's contention is not that the work they undertook is a work
+that ought not to be done, but rather that when done it should be
+better done. The revision as presented must be "dismissed as a
+dismal fiasco," but only dismissed "in order to be dealt with anew
+in some more adequate fashion." But on what ground can we rest this
+sanguine expectation of better things to come? Whence is to
+originate 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, what
+wonder that its operation is roundabout, clumsy, slow, intermittent,
+and disappointing? You cannot eat your cake and have it; you cannot
+be at once a self-governing nation and have a strong government.[43]
+
+Similarly it may be said that, however great the difficulties that
+beset liturgical revision by legislative process at the hands of
+some five hundred men, nevertheless the fact remains that the body
+known in law as The Protestant Episcopal Church in the United States
+of America has provided in its Constitution that change in its
+formularies shall be so effected and not otherwise. It may turn
+out that we must give up in despair the whole movement for a better
+adaptation of our manual of worship to the needs of our land and
+of our time; it may be found that the obstacles in the way are
+absolutely insuperable; but let us dream no dreams of seeing this
+thing handed over, "with power," to a "commission of experts," for
+that is something which will never come to pass.
+
+Whether "experts" in liturgies are any more likely to furnish us
+with good prayers than "experts" in prosody are likely to give us
+the best poetry is a tempting question, but one that must be left,
+for the present, on one side. Perhaps, if the inquiry were to be
+pushed, we might find ourselves shut up to the curious conclusion
+that the framers of the very earliest liturgies, the authors of
+the old sacramentaries, were either verbally inspired or else were
+lacking in the qualifications which alone could fit them to do
+worthily the work they worthily did, for clearly "experts" they
+were not.
+
+But the question that immediately concerns us is one of simple
+fact. Assuming the present laborious effort at betterment to have
+been proved a "fiasco," how is the General Convention to set in
+motion any more promising enginery of revision? "Summon in," say
+our English advisers, "competent scholars, and give them _carte
+blanche_ to do what they will." But the Convention, which is by
+law the final arbiter, has no power to invite to a share in its
+councils men who have no constitutional right to a seat upon its
+floor. How thankfully should we welcome as participants in our
+debates and as allies in our legislation the eminent liturgical
+scholars who give lustre to the clergy list of the Church of
+England; but we are as powerless to make them members of the
+General Convention as we should be to force them into the House
+of Commons. The same holds true at home. If the several dioceses
+fail to discover their own "inglorious Miltons," and will not send
+them up to General Convention, General Convention may, and doubtless
+does, lament the blindness of the constituencies, but it cannot
+correct their blunder. The dioceses in which the "experts"
+canonically reside had had full warning that important liturgical
+interests were to be discussed and acted upon in the General
+Convention of 1883; why were the "experts" left at home? And if
+they were not returned in 1883, is there sufficient reason to
+believe that they will ever be returned in any coming year of
+grace? It must be either that the American Church is bereft of
+"experts," or else that the constituencies, influenced possibly
+by the hard sense of the laity, have learned hopelessly to confound
+the "expert" with the doctrinaire.
+
+Of "expert testimony," in the shape of the liturgical material
+gathered, mainly by English writers, during the last fifty years,
+the Joint Committee had no lack. That this material was carefully
+sifted and conscientiously used, _The Book Annexed_ will itself one
+day be acknowledged to be the sufficient evidence.
+
+There is still another point that must be taken into account in
+this connection, to wit, the attitude which the Episcopate has a
+right to take with respect to any proposed work of liturgical
+revision. Bishops have probably become inured to the hard measure
+habitually dealt out to them in the columns of the _Church Times_,
+and are unlikely to allow charges of ignorance and incompetency so
+far to disturb their composure as to make them afraid to prosecute
+a work which, from time immemorial, has been held to lie peculiarly
+within their province. It may be affirmed, with some confidence,
+that no revision of the American Offices will ever be ratified, in
+the conduct of which the Bishops of the Church have not been allowed
+the leadership which belongs to them of right. Then it is for the
+General Convention carefully to consider whether any House of
+Bishops destined to be convened in our time is likely to have on
+its roll the names of any prelates more competent, whether on the
+score of learning or of practical experience, to deal with a work
+of liturgical revision than were the seven prelates elected by the
+free voice of their brethren to represent the Episcopal Order on
+the Joint Committee of Twenty-one.
+
+Coming to details the reviewer of the _Church Times_ regrets, first
+of all, the failure of the Convention to change the name of the
+Church. He goes on to express a disapproval, more or less qualified,
+of the discretionary power given to bishops to set forth forms of
+prayer for special occasions, and of the continued permission to
+use Selections of Psalms instead of the psalms for the day. It is
+not quite clear whether he approves the expansion of the Table of
+Proper Psalms or not, though he thinks it "abstractedly desirable"
+that provision be made in this connection for "Corpus Christi and
+All Souls."
+
+He condemns the latitude allowed in the choice of lessons under
+the rules of the new lectionary, fearing that a clergyman who
+happens to dislike any given chapter because of its contents may
+be tempted habitually to suppress it by substituting another, but
+in the very next paragraph he gravely questions the expediency of
+limiting congregations to such hymns as have been "duly set forth
+and allowed by authority." Yet most observers, at least on this
+side of the water, are of opinion that liberty of choice within
+the limits of the Bible is a far safer freedom, so far as the
+breeding of heresy goes, than liberty of choice beyond the limits
+of the Hymnal has proved itself to be. The reviewer is pleased with
+the addition of the Feast of the Transfiguration to the Calendar,
+but "desiderates more," and would gladly welcome the introduction
+into the Prayer Book of commemorations of eminent saints, from
+Ignatius 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 proper
+Sentences prefixed to Morning and Evening Prayer.
+
+The revisers seem to have a glimmering of what was the right
+thing to do . . . but they should have swept away the undevotional
+and unliturgical plan of beginning with certain detached texts,
+which has no fitness whatever, and has never even seemed to answer
+any useful end.
+
+This is stronger language than most of us are likely to approve. A
+Church that directly takes issue with Rome, as ours does, with
+respect to the true source of authority in religion has an excellent
+reason for letting the voice of Holy Scripture sound the key-note
+of her daily worship, whether there be ancient precedent for such
+a use or not. At the same time, the reviewer's averment that "the
+only proper opening is the Invocation of the Holy Trinity" is
+entitled to attention; and it is worth considering whether the
+latter portion of the nineteenth verse of the twenty-eighth chapter
+of St. Matthew's Gospel might not be advantageously added to the
+list 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 revive
+the form of mutual confession of priest and people found in the old
+service-books.[45] This proposal would probably not be entertained
+in connection with the regular Orders for Morning and Evening
+Prayer, but room for such a feature might perhaps be found in
+some optional office.
+
+After a grudging commendation of the steps taken in _The Book
+Annexed_ to restore the Gospel Canticles, the reviewer next puts
+in a strong plea for a larger allowance of versicles and responses
+after the Creed, contending that this is "just one of the places
+where enrichment, much beyond that of replacing the English versicles
+and responses now missing, is feasible and easy," to which the
+answer is that we, who love these missing versicles, shall think
+ourselves fortunate if we succeed in regaining only so much as we
+have lost. Even this will be accomplished with difficulty. It is
+most interesting, however, to notice that this stout defender of
+all that is English acknowledges the coupling together of the
+versicle, "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 correcting
+this palpable incongruity, the authors of _The Book Annexed_ have
+been sharply criticised here at home. What were they that they
+should have presumed to disturb ancient Anglican precedent in such
+a point? If we could not understand why the God of battles, as
+the God of battles, should be implored to "give peace in our time,"
+so much the worse for our intelligence. But here comes the most
+acrid of all our critics, and shows how the collocation of sentences
+in the English Book has, from the beginning, been due to a palpable
+blunder in condensing an office of the Sarum Breviary. Of the
+American substitute for this "unhappy response" the best he can
+say, 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 we
+agree with him, as will hereafter appear, though wholly unable
+to concur in his sweeping condemnation, in this connection, of
+one of the most beautiful of Canon Bright's liturgical compositions,
+the Collect beginning, "O God, by whom the meek are guided in
+judgment and light riseth up in darkness for the godly." Of this
+exquisite piece of idiomatic English, the reviewer allows himself
+to speak as being "a very poor composition, defective in rhythm."
+
+The criticism of the eucharistic portions of _The Book Annexed_ is
+mainly in the line of complaint that more has not been added in the
+way of new collects and proper prefaces, but upon this point it is
+unnecessary to dwell, the reasons having been already given why
+the Joint Committee and the Convention left the liturgy proper
+almost untouched. Neither is there anything that specially calls
+for notice or serious reply in what is said about the Occasional
+Offices.
+
+The Office for the Burial of Children is acknowledged to be a needed
+addition, but as it stands "is pitched in an entirely wrong key. The
+cognate offices in the _Rituale Romanun_ and the _Priest's Prayer
+Book_ ought to have shown the Committee, were it not for their
+peculiar unteachableness, a better way." To one who can read between
+the lines, this arraignment of the Americans for their lack of
+docility to the teachings of the Priest's Prayer Book is not devoid
+of drollery.
+
+It will happily illustrate the peculiar difficulties that beset
+liturgical revision to close this resume of the censures of
+_The Church Times_ by printing, side by side, the reviewer's
+estimate of the changes proposed in the Confirmation Office and
+the independent judgment of a learned evangelical divine of our
+own Church upon the same point.
+
+The Confirmation Service, as one of the very poorest in the Anglican
+rites, stood particularly in need of amendment and enrichment,
+especially by the removal of the ambiguous word "confirm" applied
+to the acts of the candidates, whereby the erroneous opinion that
+they came merely to confirm and ratify their baptismal promises,
+and not to be confirmed and strengthened in virtue of something
+bestowed upon them, has gained currency.
+
+Thus far the English Ritualist. Here follows the American
+Evangelical:
+
+I still hope you will see your way clear to modify the present
+draft of the proposed Confirmation Office, as it gives a much
+higher Sacramentarian idea of it than the present, a concession
+which will greatly please the Sacerdotalists, to which they are
+by no means entitled.
+
+The critic of _The Guardian_ is a writer of different make,
+and entitled every way to the most respectful attention. His
+fault-finding, which is invariably courteous, is mainly confined
+to the deficiencies of _The Book Annexed_.
+
+He would have had more done rather than less; but at the same
+time clearly points out that under the restrictions which controlled
+the Committee more could not fairly have been expected. He regrets
+that in restoring the lost portions of _Venite_ and _Benedictus_
+the Convention did not make the use of the complete form in every
+case obligatory; and of the eight concluding verses of the latter
+canticle, which under the rubric of _The Book Annexed_ are only
+obligatory during Advent, he says, "Imagine their omission on
+Christmas Day!"
+
+To this criticism there are several answers, any one of which may
+be held to be sufficient. In the first place, it should be remembered
+that into the Committee's plan of enrichment there entered the
+element 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 any
+congregations desire the whole of these two canticles throughout
+the year, there is nothing in the rubrics of _The Book Annexed_ to
+forbid 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, mast
+they be so sung. The revision Committee was informed, on what was
+considered the highest authority, that in the Church of England
+the _Benedictus_, on account of its length, had been very generally
+disused. But, however this may be, there can be little doubt that
+the effort after restoration would have failed completely in the
+late Convention had the use of these two canticles in full been
+insisted upon by the promoters of revision.
+
+There is less of verbal criticism in _The Guardian's_ review than
+could have been wished, for any suggestions with respect to
+inaccuracies of style or rhythmical shortcomings would have
+been most welcome from the pen of so competent a censor. Attention
+is called to the unmusical flow of language in the alternate
+Confession provided for the Evening Office; the figurative features
+of the proposed Collect for Maundy-Thursday are characterized as
+infelicitous; and the Collect provided for the Feast of the
+Transfiguration is declared to be inferior to the corresponding
+one in the Sarum Breviary.
+
+Of this sort of criticism, at the hands of men who know their
+craft, _The Book Annexed_ cannot have too much. In fact, of such
+immeasurable importance is good English in this connection, that
+it would be no hardship were every separate clause of whatever
+formulary it may be proposed to engraft upon the Prayer Book to
+be subjected to the most searching tests.
+
+Let an epoch be agreed upon, if necessary, that shall serve as
+the criterion of admissibility for words and phrases. Let it
+be decided, for instance, that no word that cannot prove an
+Elizabethan parentage, or, if this be too severe a standard,
+then no word of post-Caroline origin, shall be admitted within
+the sacred precincts. Probably there are words in _The Book
+Annexed_ which such a canon would eject; but let us have them
+pointed out, and their merits and demerits discussed. Such
+criticism would be of infinitely more value to the real interests
+of revision than those vague and general charges of "crudeness"
+and "want of finish" which it is always so easy to make and
+sometimes so difficult to illustrate.
+
+The writer in _The Guardian_ closes an only too brief commentary
+upon what the Convention has laid before the Church with the
+following words:
+
+Many of the proposals now in question are excellent; but others
+will be improved by reconsideration in the light of fuller ritual
+study, such as will be seen to produce a more exact and cultured
+ritual _aesthesis_, perhaps we may, without offence, add, a more
+delicate appreciation of rhythm. What _The Book Annexed_ presents
+to us in the way of emendation is, on the whole, good; but, if
+subjected to a deliberate recension, it would, we predict, become
+still better. If thus improved by the Convention of 1886, it might
+be finally adopted by the Convention of 1889.
+
+This conspectus of English critical opinion would be incomplete
+were no account to be made of the utterances of the various writers
+and speakers who dealt with the general subject of liturgical
+revision at the recent Church Congress at Portsmouth.
+
+_The Book Annexed_ could scarcely ask a more complete justification
+than is supplied by these testimonies of men who at least may be
+supposed 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 tone
+of the discussion. It will be worth anyone's while to collate it
+with the thirty Resolutions that make up the "Notification to the
+Dioceses."
+
+Can it be seriously doubted that there are requirements of this
+age which are not satisfied by the provision for public worship
+made in the sixteenth century? Can any really suppose that the
+compilers of that brief manual, the Prayer Book, however proud
+we may rightly be of their work, were so gifted with inspired
+foresight as to save the Church of future ages the responsibilities
+of considering and supplying the devotional wants of successive
+generations?
+
+Who has not felt the scantiness of holy association in our Sunday
+and week-day worship? . . . Much, I know, has been supplied by our
+hymnology, which has progressed nobly in proportion as the meagreness
+of our liturgical provision has been realized. But beyond hymns we
+need actual forms of service, which shall strike the ear and touch
+the heart by fresh and vivid adaptations of God's Word to the great
+mysteries of the Gospel faith . . . After-services on Sunday evenings
+have of late grown common; for them we need also the aid of regular
+and elastic forms.
+
+Most deplorably have we felt the need of intercessory services
+for Home and Foreign Missions; and, though there are beautiful
+metrical litanies which bear directly on these and other objects,
+yet these are not sufficient, and of course are limited to times
+when a good and strong choir can be secured; . . . and further we
+want very simple forms of prayer to accompany addresses given in
+homes and mission rooms.[47]
+
+I declare it as my conviction, after many years of (I hope) a not
+indolent ministry, and of many opportunities of observation and
+experiment, that the Church stands in pressing and immediate
+need of a few rearrangements and adaptations of some of her
+Offices; also of an enormous number of supplementary Offices or
+services--some for frequent use, others for occasional purposes
+within the consecrated buildings; and that besides these there is
+need of a supply of special Offices for the use of a recognized
+lay 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, instead
+of the _Venite_, throughout the Octave; or at least on Easter Monday
+and Tuesday? Would not spiritual life be deepened and intensified,
+and, best of all, be strengthened, by the use in the same manner of
+a suitable anthem instead of the _Venite_ on Advent Sundays, on
+Christmas-day, at Epiphany, on Ash-Wednesday, on Good Friday,
+during Rogation days, at Ascension-tide, and on harvest festivals
+and the special annual Church festival of the year?
+
+I submit that an enrichment of the Book of Common Prayer is also
+required. For although, as already suggested, this may be provided
+to some extent by a Collect for occasional use before the final
+prayer of Morning Prayer or Evensong, the needs of the Church will
+not 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 have
+talked for nearly twenty-five years--not vainly, I believe--but
+let us "go and do" not a little in the next five years . . . Prove
+yourself to be of the Church of God by doing all the work of the
+Church, and in the proper way. Proclaim before our God by your
+actions and your activities, and by providing all that is needed,
+not only for Churchmen, but for earnest Christians who are not
+Churchmen, and for the poor, weary sinners who are living as if
+there were neither Church nor Saviour, such services for the one,
+and such means for drawing the others to Christ, that they all may
+become 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 is
+no 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 of
+Morning Prayer, that on such days as Easter-day, Whitsunday, and
+Ascension-day we should begin in a little different fashion than
+we do now.
+
+Is it always needful to begin on such great days of rejoicing for
+Christians with the same sentences and the _same_ Exhortation and
+Confession, and have to wait, so to speak, to give vent to our
+feelings till we reach the special psalms for the day? Might we
+not on such days accept the glorious facts, and begin with some
+special and appropriate psalm or anthem? . . . Thus we should at
+once get the great doctrine of the day, and be let to rejoice in
+it at the very outset, and then go on to the Lord's Prayer and the
+rest as we have it now. Confession of sin and absolution are not
+left out in the services of the day, as, of course, they occur in
+the Holy Communion; but leaving them out in the ordinary services,
+and beginning in the way suggested, would at one and the same time
+mark the day more clearly, and give opportunity for Christian
+gladness to show itself . . . Only one other alteration would, I
+think, be needed, namely, that a good selection of psalms be made,
+and used, as in the American Church, at the discretion of the
+minister. I think all must feel that for one reason or another all
+the psalms are not adapted for the ordinary worship of a mixed
+congregation; and this plan would ease the minds of many clergy
+and laity. Also copying the American Church, it would be well to
+omit the Litany on Christmas-day, Easter-day, and Whitsunday.[49]
+
+In the light of this summary of Anglican desiderata, compiled by
+wholly friendly hands, it is plain that whatever we may do in this
+country in the line of liturgical revision, always supposing it
+to be gravely and carefully done, instead of harming, ought
+marvellously to help the real interests of the Church of England.
+Certain principles of polity adopted in our own Church a century
+ago, and notably among them those affecting the legislative rights
+of the laity in matters ecclesiastical, are beginning to find tardy
+recognition in the England of the present. Possibly a hundred years
+hence, or sooner, a like change of mind may bring English Churchmen
+to the approval of liturgical methods which, even if not wholly
+consonant to the temper of the Act of Uniformity, have nevertheless
+been found useful and effective in the work of bringing the truth
+and 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 chances
+of which she sees enough already to alarm and not yet enough to
+reassure her. The dimness of uncertainty covers what may yet turn
+out to be the Mount of her Transfiguration, and she fears as she
+enters into the cloud. How shall we best and most wisely show our
+sympathy? By passing resolutions of condolence? By childish
+commiseration, the utterance of feigned lips, upon the approaching
+sorrows of disestablishment? Not thus at all, but rather by a
+courageous and well-considered pioneering work, which shall have
+it for its purpose to feel the ground and blaze the path which
+presently she and we may find ourselves treading in company. Tied
+as she is, for her an undertaking of this sort is impossible. We
+can show her no greater kindness than by entering upon it of our
+own motion and alone.
+
+(_b_) American.
+
+Criticism at home has been abundant; much of it intelligent and
+helpful, and by no means so much of it as might have been expected
+captious. Of what may be called official reviews there have been
+three, one from the Diocese of Central New York, one from the
+Diocese of Wisconsin, and one from the Diocese of Easton. The
+subject has also been dealt with in carefully prepared essays
+published from time to time in _The Church Review_ and _The Church
+Eclectic_, while in the case of the weekly journals the treatment
+of the topic has been so frequent and so full that a mere catalogue
+of the editorial articles and contributed communications in Which,
+during the two years last past, liturgical revision has been
+discussed would overtax the limits of the present paper.
+
+The only practicable means of dealing with this mass of criticism
+is to adopt the inductive method, and to seek to draw out from the
+utterances of these many voices the four or five distinct concepts
+that severally lie behind them.
+
+_In limine_ however, let this be said, that the broadest generalization
+of all is one to which the very discordance of the critics bears
+the best possible witness. Of a scheme of re vision against which
+is pressed, in Virginia,[50] the charge of Mariolatry; in Ohio,[51]
+the charge of Latitudinarianism; and in Wisconsin[52] the charge of
+Puritanic pravity, this much may at least be said, that it possesses
+the note of fairness. From henceforth suggestions of partisan bias
+are clearly out of order.
+
+The Anglo-Catholic censures of _The Book Annexed_ are substantially
+summed up in the assertion that due regard is not had, in the
+changes proposed, to the structural principles of liturgical
+science. In the exceedingly well written, if somewhat one-sided
+document, already referred to as the Wisconsin Report, this is,
+throughout, the burden of the complaint. The accomplished author
+of the Report, than whom no one of the critics at home or abroad
+has shown a keener or a better cultivated liturgical instinct, is
+afraid that a free use of all the liberties permitted by the new
+rubrics of the daily offices would so revolutionize Morning and
+Evening Prayer as practically to obliterate the line of their
+descent from the old monastic forms. If there were valid ground
+for such an expectation the alarm might be justifiable; but
+is there? The practical effect of the rubrics that make for
+abbreviation will be to give us back, on weekdays almost exactly,
+and with measurable precision on Sundays also, the Matins and
+Evensong of the First Book of Edward VI. Surely this is not the
+destruction of continuity with the pre-Reformation Church.
+
+In his dislike of the provision for grafting the Beatitudes upon
+the Evening Prayer, the author of the Wisconsin Report will have
+many sympathizers, the present writer among them; but in his fear
+that in the introduction of the Proem to the Song of the Three
+Children, as a possible respond to the First Lesson,[53] there
+lurks a covert design to dethrone the _Te Deum_, he is likely to
+find few to agree with him.
+
+But after all, may not this scrupulous regard for the precedents
+set 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 who
+it was that made war for the sake of "a scientific frontier." Some
+of the scientific frontiers in the region of liturgies are as
+illusory as his was. For example, _The Book Annexed_ may be
+"unscientific" in drawing as largely as it does on the language
+of the Apocalypse for versicles and responses. There has certainly
+been a departure from Anglican precedent in this regard. And yet
+it would scarcely seem that we could go far astray in borrowing
+from the liturgy of heaven, whether there be earthly precedent or
+not.
+
+Cranmer and his associates made a far bolder break with the old
+office-books than _The Book Annexed_ makes with the Standard Common
+Prayer. The statement of the Wisconsin Report, that "The Reformers
+of the English Church did not venture to write new Offices of
+Prayer," must be taken with qualifications. They did not make
+offices absolutely _de novo_, but they did condense and combine
+old offices in a manner that practically made a new thing of them.
+They took the monastic services and courageously remoulded them
+into a form suitable for the new era in which monasteries were to
+exist no longer.
+
+Happily they were so thorough in their work that comparatively
+little change is called for in adapting what they fitted to the
+needs of the sixteenth century to the more varied requirements of
+the nineteenth. Still, when they are quoted as conservatives, and
+we are referred for evidence of their dislike of change to that
+particular paragraph of the Preface to the English Prayer Book
+entitled, _Concerning the Service of the Church_[54] it is worth
+our while to follow up the reference and see what is actually
+there said. The Wisconsin Committee use very soft words in
+speaking of the mediaeval perversions and corruptions of Divine
+Service. "It was in the monasteries chiefly," they tell us,
+"that these services received the embellishments and wonderful
+variety which we find in the later centuries." But the following
+is the cruel manner in which, in the English Preface cited as
+authority, the "embellishments" and "wonderful variety" are
+characterized:
+
+But these many years past, this godly and ancient order of the
+ancient fathers hath been so altered, broken, and neglected,
+by planting in uncertain stories and legends, with multitudes
+of responds, verses, vain repetitions, commemorations, and
+synodals, that commonly when any book of the Bible was begun,
+after three or four chapters were read out, all the rest were
+unread.
+
+. . . And furthermore, notwithstanding that the ancient fathers
+have divided the Psalms into seven portions, whereof every one was
+called a Nocturn, now of late time a few of them have been daily
+said and the rest utterly omitted . . . So that here you have an
+Order for Prayer and for the Reading of the Holy Scripture much
+agreeable to the mind and purposes of the old fathers, and a great
+deal more profitable and commodious than that which of late was
+used.
+
+This is conservatism in the very best sense, for the object aimed
+at is plainly the conservation of purity, simplicity, and truth,
+but surely it is not the conservatism of men with whom inaction is
+the only wisdom and immobility the sole beatitude.
+
+We change our sky completely in passing from Anglo-Catholic to
+Broad Church criticism of _The Book Annexed_. This last has, in
+the main, addressed itself to the rubrical features of the proposed
+revision. "You promised us 'flexibility,'" the accusation runs,
+"but what you are really giving us is simply rigidity under a new
+form. Let things stay as they are, and we will undertake to
+find all the 'flexibility' we care to have, without help from
+legislation."
+
+This criticism has at least the merit of intelligibility, for
+it directly antagonizes what was, without doubt, one main purpose
+with the revisers, namely, that of reviving respect for the
+rubrics by making compliance with their terms a more practicable
+thing.
+
+Evidently what Broad Churchmen, or at least a section of them,
+would prefer is the prevalence of a general consent under which
+it shall be taken for granted that rubrics are not literally binding
+on the minister, but are to be stretched and adapted, at the
+discretion of the officiant, as the exigencies of times and seasons
+may suggest. It is urged that such a common understanding already
+in great measure exists; and that to enact new rubrics now, or
+to remodel old ones, would look like an attempt to revivify a
+principle of compliance which we have tacitly agreed to consider
+dead.
+
+The answer to this argument is not far to seek. If the Church
+means to allow the Common Prayer, which hitherto has been regarded
+as a liturgy, to lapse into the status of a directory; if, in other
+words, she is content to see her manual of worship altered from a
+book of instructions as to how Divine Service _shall_ be performed
+into a book of suggestions as to how it _may_ be rendered, the
+change ought to be officially and definitely announced, and not
+left to individual inference or uncertain conjecture. We are
+rapidly slipping into a position scarcely consistent with either
+the dignity or the honor of a great Church--that of seeming
+to be what we are not. To give it out to the public that we
+are a law-respecting communion, and then to whisper it about
+among ourselves that our laws bind only those who choose to be
+bound by them, may serve as a convenient device for tiding over
+a present difficulty, but is, oh the whole, a course of procedure
+more likely to harden than to relieve tender consciences.
+
+Take, by way of illustration, the case of a city clergyman who
+would gladly introduce into his parish the usage of daily service,
+but who is convinced, whether rightly or wrongly, that to secure
+even a fair attendance of worshippers he ought to have the liberty
+of so far condensing the Morning or the Evening Office as to bring
+it within the limits of a quarter of an hour. He seeks relief
+through the lawful channel of rubrical revision, and is only
+laughed at for his pains. In this busy nineteenth century it is
+nonsense, he is assured, to spend a dozen years in besieging so
+obdurate 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 smoothly
+it 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 "reserved
+sacrament," order the carpenter to make a tabernacle and the
+locksmith to provide a bolt.[55] This is a far less troublesome
+method of securing the ends desired than the tedious and roundabout
+process of proposing a change at one meeting of the General
+Convention, having your proposal knocked about among some forty
+or fifty dioceses, and brought up for final action three years later.
+
+And yet, superior as the former method may be to the latter in
+point of celerity and directness, the latter has certain advantages
+over the former that ought to be evident to men who are not
+frightened by having their scrupulousness called scrupulosity.
+
+Moreover, why should this whole matter be discussed, as so commonly
+it is discussed, wholly from the clerical side? Have the laity no
+rights in the liturgy which the clergy are bound to respect? When
+and where did the Protestant Episcopal Church confer on its
+ministers a general dispensing power over the ordinances of
+worship which it withheld from the body of the faithful?
+
+Heretofore it has been held that when a layman went to church he
+had a right to expect certain things guaranteed him by the Church's
+law. If all this has been changed, then formal notice ought to be
+served 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--in
+the face of such manifold hostility and such persistent opposition,
+why press the movement for revision any further? Is it worth while
+to divide public sentiment in the Church upon a question that
+looks to many to be scarcely more than a literary one? Why not
+drop the whole thing, and let it fall into the limbo, where lie
+already the _Proposed Book_ and the _Memorial Papers_? For this
+reason, and it is sufficient: There has arisen in America a
+movement toward Christian unity, the like of which has not been
+seen since the country was settled. It is the confident belief
+of many that the key to the situation lies with that Church which
+more truly than any other may be said to represent the historical
+Christianity of the peoples of English stock. One of the elements
+in this larger movement is the question of the form of worship.
+The chief significance of _The Book Annexed_ lies in the claim made
+for it by its friends, that more adequately than the present
+Standard it supplies what may fairly be demanded as their manual
+of worship by a people circumstanced like ours. While, in one
+sense, more English than the present book in that it restores
+liturgical treasures lost at the Revolution, it is also more
+thoroughly American, in that it recognizes and allows for many
+needs which the newly enfranchised colonists of 1789 could not
+have been expected to foresee.
+
+The question is, Shall we turn a cold shoulder on the movement
+churchward 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 face
+of the decrees of 1870, there can be "no peace with Rome." The
+Greeks are a good way off. Our true "solidarity," if "solidarity"
+is to be achieved at all, is not with Celts, but with our own kith
+and kin, the children of the Reformation. Is it wise of us to say
+to these fellow Christians of ours, adherents of the Catholic Faith
+as well as we, "Nay, but the nearer you draw to us the farther we
+mean to draw away from you; the more closely you approximate to
+Anglican religion, the more closely shall we, for the sake of
+differencing ourselves from you, approximate to Vatican religion?"
+
+In better harmony with the apostolic temper, in truer continuity
+with the early churchmanship, should we be found, were we to join
+voices 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 standard
+Common Prayer of 1890 a relation not unlike that of a clay model
+to the statue which is to be. The material is still in condition
+to be moulded; the end is not yet. It was in anticipation of this
+state of things that the friends of revision in 1883 were anxious
+to carry through the preliminary stage of acceptance as many of
+their propositions as possible. To revert to our parable, the
+modeller, in treating the face of his provisional image, must
+be careful to lay on clay enough, or he may find himself barred
+at the last moment from giving the features just that finishing
+touch which is to make them ready for the marble. All the skill in
+the world will not enable him to secure for the face precisely the
+expression he would have it wear, if the _materia_ be insufficient.
+Looked at in this light, the suggestion made by the Joint Committee
+in 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 had
+been submitted, should be passed, and sent down to the dioceses
+for consideration, instead of being the arbitrary and unreasonable
+demand it was reckoned by those who lifted their eyebrows at the
+very mention of such a thing, was really a sensible proposition
+which the Convention would have done well to heed.
+
+Few, if any, critics of _The Book Annexed as Modified_ have
+pronounced it an improvement to _The Book Annexed_ as presented.
+The Book came out of the Convention less admirable than it went
+in. As a school of Liturgies, the long debate at Philadelphia was
+doubtless salutary and helpful, but whether the immediate results,
+as shown in the emendation of the Joint Committee's work, were
+equally deserving of praise is another question.
+
+Nevertheless, as was argued in the paper of which this one is the
+continuation, we must take things as we find them, not as we wish
+they were; and since there is no other method of liturgical revision
+known to our laws than revision by popular debate, to revision by
+popular debate we must reconcile ourselves as best we may.
+Regrets are idle. Let us be thankful that the amicable struggle
+at Philadelphia had for its outcome so large rather than so small
+a mass of workable material, and instead of accounting _The Book
+Annexed_ to be what one of the signers of the Joint Committee's
+Report has lately called it, "a melancholy production," recognize
+in it the germ of something exceedingly to be desired. From
+the first, there has never been any disposition on the part of
+sober-minded friends of Revision to carry through their scheme
+with a rush; the delay that is likely to better things they will
+welcome; the only delay they deprecate is the delay that kills.
+
+The changes enumerated in the "Notification to the Dioceses," and
+illustrated to the eye in _The Book Annexed_ as Modified, may be
+broadly classified under the following heads:
+
+(_a_) Clearly desirable alterations, with respect to which there
+is practically unanimous consent, and for which there is immediate
+demand, _e_. _g_., shortened offices of week-day prayer.
+
+(_b_) Alterations desirable in the main, but likely to be more
+cordially acquiesced in, could still further improvement be
+secured, _e_. _g_., the new versicles introduced into Evening
+Prayer after the Creed.
+
+(_c_) Alterations generally accounted undesirable on any terms,
+e. g., the permissive rubrics with respect to the reading of
+certain psalms during Lent, instead of the regular responds to
+the First and Second Lessons of the Evening Prayer.
+
+The question arises, Is any course of action possible that will
+give us without delay the changes which for some fifteen years the
+whole Church has been laboring to secure; that will give us, with
+a reasonable delay of three years longer, the confessed improvements
+a little more improved; while at the same time we are kept from
+becoming involved in the wretched confusion sure to result from
+putting into circulation, within a brief period, two authorized
+but diverse books of Common Prayer? This threefold question it is
+proposed 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 year
+1890, of a standard Book of Common Prayer, such as shall embody
+the ripe results of what will then have been a period of ten years
+of continuous labor in the work of liturgical revision. To this
+reckoning of ten years should properly be added the seventeen years
+that intervened between the presentation of "The Memorial" in 1853
+and the passing of the "Enrichment Resolutions" in 1880: so that
+really our Revision would look back for its historical beginnings,
+not across a decade merely, but over almost the lifetime of a
+generation. No single one of the various revisions of the English
+Book has observed anything like so leisurely a movement.
+
+But by what methods of legislative procedure could such a result
+as the one indicated be reached? The precedent of the last century
+does not help us very much. The American Book of Common Prayer was
+set forth on the sixteenth day of October in the year of our Lord
+1789; but with an express statutory provision that the "use" of
+the book, as so set forth, should not become obligatory till the
+first day of October, 1790. We cannot copy this line of procedure,
+for the simple reason that no such undertaking as that of 1789 is
+in hand. It is not now proposed to legislate into existence a new
+Liturgy. The task before us is the far humbler one of passing
+judgment upon certain propositions of change, almost every one
+of which admits of segregation, has an independent identity of its
+own, and may be accepted or rejected wholly without reference to
+what is likely to happen to the other propositions that accompany
+it.
+
+_The Book Annexed as Modified_ is in no proper sense a _Proposed
+Book_, nor can it without misrepresentation be called such; it is
+simply a sample publication[56] illustrative of what the Book of
+Common Prayer would be, were all the Resolutions of Revision that
+passed their first stage of approval in 1883 carried into final
+effect; a result most unlikely to occur.
+
+
+
+
+THE MEANS TO THE END.
+
+The most expeditious and every way satisfactory means to the end
+that has now been defined would be the appointment, at an early
+stage 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 of
+the "several recommendations therein contained," is it either
+practicable or desirable to approve at once?
+
+(_b_) The question: How may such of the Resolutions of 1883 as
+are too good to be lost, but not in their present form good enough
+to satisfy the Church, be so remoulded as to make their adoption
+probable in 1889?
+
+(_c_) All new propositions of improvement that may from time to
+time during the session be brought to the notice of the Convention,
+either by individual members or by memorials from Diocesan
+Conventions. Such a Committee of Conference, holding daily
+sessions of three or four hours each, would be able in due
+time to report a carefully digested scheme which could then be
+intelligently discussed. By this method a flood of frivolous and
+aimless talk would be cut off without in the slightest degree
+infringing or limiting the real liberty of debate.
+
+But even if the Convention were to show itself reluctant to give
+to a select committee so large a power as this of preparing an
+_agenda_ paper, it still would be possible to refer to such a
+committee the subject-matter of so many of the resolutions as
+might chance, when put upon their passage, to fail by a narrow vote.
+
+It is to be remembered that the various recommendations contained
+in the resolutions of 1883 are to be voted upon _in ipsissimis
+verbis_. There will be no opportunity for the familiar cry: "Mr.
+President, I rise to propose an amendment." The resolution, or the
+section of a resolution, as the case may be, will either be approved
+just as it stands or condemned just as it stands. In this respect
+there will be an immense saving of time. Most of the tediousness
+of debate grows out of the natural disposition of legislators to
+try each his own hand at bettering the thing proposed; hence
+"amendments," "amendments to amendments," and substitutes for the
+amendment to the amendment. Even the makers of parliamentary law
+(much enduring creatures) lose their patience at this point, and
+peremptorily lay it down that confusion shall no further go.
+
+But to return to the supposed case of a proposition lost because
+of some slight defect, which, if only our Medo-Persian law had
+permitted an amendment, could easily have been remedied. Surely
+the sensible course in such a case as that would be to refer the
+subject-matter of the lost resolution to the Committee of Conference,
+with instructions to report a new resolution to be finally acted
+upon three years hence. So then, whether there be given to the
+Committee of Conference either the large power to recommend a
+carefully thought out way of dealing with all the material _en
+bloc_, or the lesser function of sitting in judgment on new
+propositions, and of remoulding rejected ones, in either case
+there could scarcely fail to result from the appointment of such
+a committee large and substantial gains.
+
+
+
+
+IMPROVEMENTS.
+
+It follows, from what has been said, that if there are features
+that admit of improvement in the proposals which the Convention
+has laid before the Church for scrutiny, now is emphatically the
+time for suggesting the better thing that might be done. Even the
+bitterest opponents of _The Book Annexed_ can scarcely be so
+sanguine as to imagine that nothing at all is coming from this
+labored movement for revision. A measure which was so far forth
+acceptable to the accredited representatives of the Church, in
+council assembled, as to pass its first stage three years ago
+almost by acclamation, is not destined to experience total collapse.
+The law of probabilities forbids the supposition. The personal
+make-up of the next General Convention will be to a great extent
+identical with that of the last, and of the one before the last.
+Sober-minded men familiar with the work of legislation are not
+accustomed to reverse their own well considered decisions without
+weighty cause. The strong probability is that something in the
+line of emendation, precisely how much or how little no one can
+say, will, as a matter of fact, be done. In view of this likelihood,
+would not those who are dissatisfied with _The Book Annexed_ as
+it stands be taking the wiser course were they to substitute
+co-operative for vituperative criticism? So far as the present
+writer is in any sense authorized to speak for the friends of
+revision, he can assure the dissidents that such co-operation
+would be most welcome.
+
+A. B., a scholar thoroughly familiar, we will suppose, with the
+sources of liturgical material, is dissatisfied with the collects
+proposed for the successive days of Holy Week. Very well, he has
+a perfect right to his dissatisfaction and to the expression of
+it in the strongest terms at his command. He does only his plain
+duty in seeking to exclude from the Prayer Book anything that
+seems to him unworthy of a place in it. But seeing that he must
+needs, as a "liturgical expert," acknowledge that the deficiency
+which the Joint Committee sought to make good is a real and not
+a merely fancied deficiency, would not A. B. approve himself a
+more judicious counsellor if, instead of bending all his energy
+to the disparagement of the collects proposed, he should devote a
+portion of it to the discovery and suggestion of prayers more
+happily worded?
+
+And this remark holds good with reference to whatever new feature
+is to be found between the covers of The Book Annexed. If
+betterment be possible, these six months now lying before us
+afford the time of all times in which to show how, with the least
+of loss and most of gain, it may be brought about.
+
+The Diocese of Maryland is first in the field with an adequate
+contribution of this sort. A thoroughly competent committee,
+appointed in October, 1884, has recently printed its Report, and
+whether the Diocesan Convention adopt, amend, or reject what is
+presented to it, there can be little doubt that the mind of the
+Church at large will be perceptibly affected by what these
+representative men of Maryland have said.[57] Apart from a
+certain aroma of omniscience pervading it (with which, by the
+way, sundry infelicities of language in the text of the Report,
+only indifferently consort), the document, is a forcible one, and
+of great practical value.
+
+The Committee have gone over the entire field covered by the
+"Notification to the Dioceses," taking up the Resolutions one
+by one, and not only noting in connection with each whatever is
+in itself objectionable, but also (a far more difficult task)
+suggesting in what respect this or that proposition might be
+better put. The _apparatus criticus_ thus provided, while not
+infallible, is eminently helpful, sets a wholesome pattern, and
+if supplemented by others of like tenor and scope, will go far
+to lighten the labor of whatever committee may have the final
+recension of the whole work put into its hands.[58]
+
+It would be a poor self-conceit in the framers of _The Book
+Annexed_, that should prompt them to resent as intrusive any
+criticism whatsoever. What we all have at heart is the bringing
+of our manual of worship as nearly as possible to such a pitch
+of perfectness as the nature of things human will allow. The thing
+we seek is a Liturgy which shall draw to itself everything that
+is best and most devout within our national borders, a Common
+Prayer suited to the common wants of all Americans. Whatever
+truly makes for this end, it will be our wisdom to welcome, whether
+those who bring it forward are popularly labelled as belonging
+to this, that, or the other school of Churchmanship. To allow
+party jealousies to mar the symmetry and fulness of a work in which
+all Churchmen ought to have an equal inheritance would be the worst
+of blunders. By all means let the raiment of needlework and the
+clothing of wrought gold be what they should be for such sacred
+uses as hers who is the daughter of the great King, but let us not
+fall to wrangling about the vats in which the thread was dyed or
+the river bed from which the gold was gathered.
+
+In a later paper the present writer intends to venture upon a task
+similar to that undertaken by the Maryland Committee. He will do
+this largely in the hope of encouraging by example other and more
+competent critics to busy themselves in the same way. Meanwhile a
+few observations may not be amiss with respect to the sources of
+liturgical material, and the methods by which they can be drawn
+upon to the best advantage.
+
+There has been, first and last, a deal of ill considered talk
+about the boundlessness of the liturgical treasures lying unused
+in the pre-Reformation formularies of the English Church, as well
+as in the old sacramentaries and office-books of the East and the
+West. Wonder is expressed that with such limitless wealth at its
+command, an "Enrichment Committee" should have brought in so
+poverty-stricken a Report. Have we not Muratori and Mabillon? it
+is asked: Daniel and Assemani, Renaudot and Goar? Are there not
+Missals Roman, Ambrosian, and Mozarabic? Breviaries Anglican,
+Gallican, and Quignonian? Has Maskell delved and Neale translated
+and Littledale compiled in vain? To all of which there are two
+replies, namely: first, It is inexpedient to overload a Prayer
+Book, even if the material be of the best; and secondly, This best
+material is by no means so abundant as the volume of our resources
+would seem to suggest. It was for the very purpose of escaping
+redundancy and getting rid of surplusage that the Anglican Reformers
+condensed Missal, Breviary, and Rituale into the one small and
+handy volume known as the First Prayer Book of Edward VI. It was
+a bold stroke, doubtless denounced as perilously radical at the
+time; but experience has justified Cranmer and his friends. In the
+whole history of liturgies there is no record of a wiser step. It
+is scarcely possible so grievously to sin against a people's Prayer
+Book as by making it more complicated in arrangement and more bulky
+in volume than need actually requires. It was ground of justifiable
+ pride with the "Enrichment Committee" that the Book which they
+brought in, despite the many additions it contained, was no thicker
+by a single page than the Prayer Book as it is. To be sure, the
+General Convention spoiled all this by insisting on retaining
+certain duplicated formularies which the Committee had very properly
+dropped in order to find room for fresh material. But of the Book
+as first presented, it was possible to say that in no degree was
+it more cumbrous than that to which the people were already
+accustomed. Doubtless it would have been still more to the
+Committee's credit could they have brought in an enriched Book
+smaller by a third than the Book in use; but this their conservatism
+forbade.
+
+Of even greater moment is the other point, which concerns the
+quality of the available material. It is the greatest mistake in
+the world to suppose that simply because a given prayer exists,
+say in an Oriental liturgy, and has been translated into English
+by an eminent scholar, it is therefore proper material to be worked
+into our services. As a matter of fact, a great deal of devotional
+language of which the Oriental liturgies is made up is prolix and
+tedious to a degree simply insufferable. Moreover in the case of
+prayers in themselves admirable in the original tongue in which
+they were composed, all is often lost through lack of a verbal
+felicity in the translation. If anyone questions this judgment,
+let him toil through Neale's and Littledale's _Translations of
+the Primitive Liturgies_ and see whether he can find six, nay,
+three, consecutive lines which he would be willing to see introduced
+into our own Communion Office. Or, as respects translations
+from the Latin office-books of the Church of England, let him
+scrupulously search the pages of the "Sarum Hours," as done
+into the vernacular by the Recorder of Salisbury, and see how
+many of the Collects strike him as good enough to be transplanted
+into the Book of Common Prayer. The result of this latter voyage
+of discovery will be an increased wonder at the affluence of the
+mediaeval devotions, combined with amazement at the poverty and
+unsatisfactoriness of the existing translations. It is with a Latin
+collect as with a Greek ode or an Italian sonnet: no matter how
+wonderful the diction, the charm of it is as a locked secret until
+the thing has been Englished by genius akin to his who first made
+it out of his own heart. Of others besides the many brave men who
+lived 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 for
+a translator, and the shades of Gregory and Leo owe it to a living
+Anglican divine that we English-speaking Christians can think their
+thoughts after them, and pray their prayers.
+
+Such being the facts in the case, it is evident that the range of
+choice open to American revisers is far narrower than half-informed
+persons imagine it to be.
+
+The very best sources of liturgical material are the following:
+
+(_a_) King James's Bible, including the Apocrypha, and supplemented
+by 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 the
+English Reformation;[59]
+
+(_e_) The devotional writings of the great Anglican divines of the
+school of Andrews, Ken, and Taylor;[60] and last and least,
+
+(_f_) The various manuals of prayer, of which the past twenty years
+have shown themselves so prolific.[61]
+
+Of the Anglican writers, Jeremy Taylor would be by far the most
+helpful, 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 cull
+from them here and there a telling phrase or a musical cadence.
+The "General Intercession," for example, on page 50 of _The Book
+Annexed_, is a cento to which Taylor is the chief contributor.
+
+That the Enrichment Committee made the best possible use of the
+various quarries to which they had access is unlikely. Even if they
+credited themselves with having done so, it would be immodest of
+them to say it. Better material than any that their researches
+brought to light may still be lying near the surface, somewhere
+close at hand, waiting to be unearthed. Certainly this paper will
+not have been written in vain if it serves the purpose of provoking
+to the good work of discovery some of those who on the score both
+of quality and of quantity account what has been thus far done in
+the line of revision inadequate and meagre.
+
+
+
+
+III.
+
+
+It is next proposed to take up the Philadelphia Resolutions of
+Revision (1883) one by one, and to consider in what measure, if
+in any, the subject-matter of each of them lies open to improvement.
+
+Should the method of procedure recommended in the previous
+paper, or any method resembling it, find favor at the approaching
+Convention, and a Conference Committee of the two Houses be
+appointed to remould the work with reference to final action
+three 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 the
+words, "together with the Psalter or Psalms of David," be dropped
+from the title-page as superfluous, and (_b _) that a general title,
+"THE BOOK OF COMMON PRAYER," be printed on the first page of the
+leaf preceding the title-page.
+
+Neither of these suggestions is of any great importance, and the
+interest attaching to them is mainly bibliographical. Whenever any
+addition 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 was
+a volume by itself, and was cited as such. In fact, it was a sort
+of "Hymnal Companion to the Book of Common Prayer." In the revision
+of 1662 the Psalter was incorporated, and immediately there appeared
+upon the title-page of the Common Prayer, in addition to what had
+been there before, the words, "together with the Psalter or Psalms
+of David printed as they are to be sung or read in the churches."
+The present title-page of the English Book has a singularly crowded
+and awkward look, contrasting most unfavorably in this regard with
+those of 1559, 1552, and 1549.[62] But if the needless mention of
+the Psalter on our present title-page gives pleasure to any
+considerable number of people, it would be foolish to press the
+suggestion of a change. Let it pass.
+
+Of a more serious character would be the omission, which some
+urge, 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 Episcopal
+Church," leaving it to read, "according to the use in the United
+States of America," would carry the better note of catholicity.
+
+But, after all, the remonstrants have only to turn the page to
+find the obnoxious "Protestant Episcopal" so fast riveted into
+the _Ratification_ that nothing short of an act of violence done
+to history could accomplish the excision of it.[63]
+
+
+RESOLUTION II.
+
+
+_The Introductory Portion_.
+
+(a) _Table of Contents_.--The suggestion[64] that all entries
+after "The Psalter" should be printed in italics, is a good one.
+
+(b) _Concerning the Service of the Church_.--This substitute for
+the 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 "Shortened
+Services Act" of 1872. The second paragraph relating to the use
+of the Litany appears to be superfluous.
+
+The enlarged Table of Proper Psalms and the Table of Selections of
+Psalms, which come under this same general heading, would be a very
+great gain. Why the Maryland Committee should have pronounced the
+latter Table "practically useless, since the psalms are not to be
+printed," it is hard, in the face of the existing usage with
+respect to "Proper Psalms," to understand; nor is there any special
+felicity in the proposal emanating from the same source that the
+number of the Selections be cut down to three, one for feasts and
+one for fasts and one for an extra service on Sunday nights.
+
+On the other hand, the Maryland Committee does well in recommending
+that permission be given to the minister to shorten the Lessons at
+his discretion, though the hard and fast condition, "provided he
+read not less than fifteen consecutive verses," apart from the
+questionable English in which it is phrased, smacks more of the
+drill-room than of the sanctuary. Far better would it be (if the
+suggestion may be ventured) to allow no liberty of abridgment
+whatever in the case of Proper Lessons, while giving entire freedom
+of choice on all occasions for which no proper lessons have been
+appointed. So far as "ferial" days are concerned, it would be much
+wiser to let the Table of Lessons be regarded as suggestive and
+not mandatory. The half-way recognition of this principle in the
+new Lectionary, in which such a freedom is allowed, _provided_ the
+Lesson taken be one of those appointed for "some day in the same
+week," seems open to a suspicion of childishness.
+
+The rubrical direction entitled "Hymns and Anthems" requires
+verbal correction, but embodies a wholesome principle.
+
+Under this same general head of "The Introductory Portion" come the
+new Lectionary and the new Tables for finding Easter. Of these, the
+former is law already, except so far as respects the Lessons
+appointed for the proposed Feast of the Transfiguration. The Easter
+Tables are a monument to the erudition and accuracy of the late
+Dr. Francis Harison. The Tables in our present Standard run to the
+year 1899. Perhaps a "wholesome conservatism" ought to discover a
+tincture of impiety in any proposal to disturb them before the
+century has expired.
+
+
+
+
+RESOLUTION III.
+
+
+_The Morning Prayer_.
+
+(a) _The First Rubric_.--The Maryland Committee is quite right
+in remarking that the language of this important rubric, as set
+forth by the Convention of 1883, is "inelegant and inaccurate,"
+but another diocese has called attention to the fact that the
+substitute which Maryland offers would, if adopted, enable any
+rector who might be so minded to withhold entirely from the
+non-communicating portion of his flock all opportunity for _public_
+confession and absolution from year's end to year's end. It is not
+for a moment to be supposed that there was any covert intention
+here, but the incident illustrates the value to rubric-makers of
+the 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 come
+to 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 Remission
+of all your sins, space for true penitence, amendment of life, and
+the grace and consolation of the Holy Spirit. Amen."[66]
+
+With the single change of the word "penitence" to "repentance" this
+is the form in which the Absolution stood in the original _Book
+Annexed_. The Convention thought that it detected a "Romanizing
+germ" in the place assigned to "penitence," and an archaism in the
+temporal sense assigned to "space," and accordingly rearranged the
+whole sentence. But in their effort to mend the language, our
+legislators assuredly marred the music.[67]
+
+(e) _The Benedictus es, Domine_.--The insertion of this Canticle
+as an alternate to the _Te Deum_ was in the interest of shortened
+services for week-day use, as has been already explained. The same
+purpose could be served equally well, and the always objectionable
+expedient of a second alternate avoided, by spacing off the last
+six verses of the _Benedicite_, which have an integrity of their
+own, 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 of
+this Canticle be said or sung_.
+
+(n) _The Benedictus_.--With reference to the restoration of the
+last portion of this Hymn, it has been very properly remarked by
+one of the critics of _The Book Annexed_, that the line of division
+between the required and the optional portions would more properly
+come after the eighth than after the fourth verse. This would make
+the portion reserved for Advent begin with the reference to John
+the Baptist, as undoubtedly it ought to do: "And thou, child, shalt
+be called the Prophet of the Highest."
+
+(o) _De Profundis_.--There will probably be general consent to the
+omission 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 unto
+Almighty God," are justly thought by many to be inferior both
+in rhythm and in dignity to "Let us make humble confession to
+Almighty God."
+
+(i)-(l) There seems to be absolute unanimity in the judgment that
+_Magnificat_ and _Nunc Dimittis_ ought, as Gospel Hymns, to have
+the prior places after the Lessons which they follow. In the
+interest of simplicity of arrangement a like general consent to
+omit altogether _Bonum est confiteri_ and _Benedic anima mea_ would
+be most fortunate, but this point has been already enlarged upon
+in a previous paper.[69]
+
+The "Notes," permitting the use of Psalms xlii. and xliii. after
+the 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, as
+all who have learned to love them in the service of the Church of
+England must earnestly desire, some better substitute for "God save
+the queen," than "O Lord, save our rulers," ought surely to be
+found.[70] Moreover, the order of the versicles, as Prof. Gold
+has 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 the
+fire of hostile criticism has been the most persistently directed.
+Whether the strictures passed upon the Office have been in all
+cases as intelligent as they have been severe, may be open to
+question, but there can be no doubt whatever that, in its present
+form, Resolution V. would, if put to the vote, be rejected.
+
+Passing by the more violent utterances of those whose language
+almost suggests that they find something objectionable in the
+very BEATITUDES themselves,[72] it will suffice to consider
+and weigh what has been said in various quarters, first, about
+the unprecedented character of the Office, and secondly, concerning
+the infelicity of the appointed response, "Lord, have mercy upon
+us, and be it unto thy servants according to thy word."
+
+So far as concerns precedent, it ought to be enough to say that
+the words are our Lord's words, and that they were thrown by him
+into a form which readily lends itself to antiphonal use. The very
+same characteristics of parallelism and antithesis, that make the
+Psalms so amenable to the purposes of worship, are conspicuous in
+the BEATITUDES. If the Church of England, for three hundred years,
+has been willing to give place in her devotions to the Curses of
+the Old Testament,[73] we of America need not to be afraid,
+precedent or no precedent, to make room among our formularies for
+the Blessings of the New.
+
+Those who allow themselves to characterize the liturgical use of
+these memorable sayings of the Son of Man as "fancy ritual" and
+"sentimentalism" may well pause to ask themselves what manner of
+spirit they are of. The BEATITUDES are the charter of the kingdom
+of heaven. If they are "sentimental," the kingdom is "sentimental";
+but if, on the other hand, they constitute the organic law of the
+People of God, they have at least as fair a right as the Ten
+Commandments to be published from the altar, and answered by the
+great congregation.
+
+But is the complaint of "no precedent" a valid one, even supposing
+considerations of intrinsic fitness to have been ruled out?
+
+The Liturgy of St. Chrysostom provides that the Beatitudes shall
+be sung on Sundays in room of the third antiphon.[74]
+
+The learned Bishop of Haiti, in a paper warmly commending the
+liturgical use of the BEATITUDES,[75] calls attention to the
+further fact that the Eight Sayings have a place in some of the
+service-books of the Eastern Church in the Office for the Sixth and
+Ninth Hours, and notes the suggestive and touching circumstances
+that, as there used, they have for a response the words of the
+penitent 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_ in
+1545, a sort of stepping-stone to the later "Book of Common Prayer,"
+we find the BEATITUDES very ingeniously worked into the Office of
+The Hours, as anthems; beginning with Prime and ending with
+Evensong. Appropriate Collects are interwoven, some of them so
+beautiful as to be well worth preserving.[76]
+
+But the most interesting precedent of all remains still to be
+studied. In the first year of the reign of William and Mary, a
+Royal 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. To
+all outward appearance the movement came to naught; for the proposed
+revision was not even put into print, until in 1854, the House of
+Commons, in response to a motion of Mr. Heywood, ordered it to be
+published as a Blue-book. And yet in some way our American revisers
+of 1789 must have found access to the original volume as it lay
+hidden in the archbishop's library at Lambeth; for not only does
+their work show probable evidence of such consultation, but in their
+Preface they distinctly refer to the effort of King William's
+Commission as a "great and good work,"[77] a thing they would
+scarcely have done had they possessed no real knowledge of the
+facts. Macaulay's sneering reference to the work of the Commission
+is well known, but, strangely enough, the justice which a Whig
+reviewer withholds, a high Anglican divine concedes, for no less
+exacting a critic than Dr. Neale, while manifesting, as was to be
+expected, a general dislike of the Commissioners of 1689, and of
+their work, does yet find something to praise in what they
+recommended.[78]
+
+Among the real improvements suggested by the Commission was the
+liturgical use of the BEATITUDES, and this in two places, once in
+"The Order for the Administration of the Lord's Supper," as an
+alternate to the Ten Commandments; and again in the Commination
+Office as a proper balance to the Anathemas of the Law.
+
+But the Commission, like the late Joint Committee on the Book of
+Common Prayer, was unfortunate in its choice of a response; and no
+wonder, for the task of finding the proper one is difficult.[79]
+
+A Beatitude differs from a Commandment in that while the latter
+enjoins the former only declares. The one therefore simply calls
+for assent, or, at most, assent coupled with petition, while the
+other peremptorily demands a cry for mercy. The immemorial form of
+the cry for mercy in the devotions of Christendom is the "Kyrie
+eleison," _Lord, have mercy upon us_; the immemorial form of assent
+the word _Amen_. Can we do better, therefore, in adapting the
+BEATITUDES to liturgical use than to treat them precisely as the
+Curses are treated in the Commination Office of the Church of
+England, namely, by inserting after each one of them a plain
+_Amen_.
+
+This recommendation has the great merit of simplicity. Two or three
+strikingly ingenious schemes for supplying each of the Eight Sayings
+with a proper response of its own have been suggested;[80] but the
+objection to them is that, beautiful though they are, their
+complexity would embarrass and distress the kneeling worshipper.
+In these matters, practical drawbacks have to be taken into account
+as well as abstract excellencies, and no matter how felicitous the
+antiphonal responses, they would be worse than useless were a
+puzzled congregation to refuse to join in them.
+
+There will be found appended to this Paper a plan for recasting
+the Office of the BEATITUDES in such a way as to make it coincide
+structurally, as far as it goes, with the introductory portion
+of the Holy Communion.[81] Were the Office to be thus set forth,
+it would be possible on week-days, and with singular appropriateness
+on Saints' Days, to substitute the BEATITUDES for the Commandments,
+without encumbering the Communion Office with an alternate. Should
+this suggestion find acceptance, the two Collects in the present
+Office of BEATITUDES, which are far too good to be lost, one of
+them being the modified form of a Leonine original, and the other
+one of the very best of Canon Bright's own compositions, might be
+transferred to a place among the "Occasional Prayers."
+
+
+
+
+RESOLUTION VI.
+
+
+_The Litany_.
+
+The rubrics prefixed to the Litany are a gain, but except by the
+addition of the two new suffrages, the one for the President and
+the other for the increase of the ministry, it will probably be
+best to leave the text of this formulary untouched. Even in the
+case of the new petitions it would be well if they could be
+grafted upon suffrages already existing, a thing that might easily
+be done.[82]
+
+It would be a liturgical improvement if the Litany, in its shortened
+form, were to end at the _Christe_, _audi_, and the minister
+directed to return, at this point, to the General Thanksgiving
+in the Morning Prayer. This would divide the Litany symmetrically,
+instead of arbitrarily, as is now done, and would remove the General
+Thanksgiving from a place to which it has little claim either by
+historical precedent or natural congruity.
+
+The greatest improvement of all would be the restoration of the
+august and massive words of invocation which of old stood at the
+beginning of the Litany. The modern invocations have a dignity of
+their own, but they are not to be compared for devotional power and
+simple 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 this
+section, and offer many valuable suggestions, the best of them being
+a recommendation to print the Prayer entitled, "For Grace to speak
+the Truth in Love," in Canon Bright's own words. Some of their
+comments, on the other hand, suggest canons of criticism which,
+if applied to "The Prayer Book as it is," would make havoc of its
+choicest treasures.[84]
+
+The Committee of Central New York[85] go much further in the line
+of destructive criticism than their brethren of Maryland, and after
+excepting four of the proposed prayers, condemn all the rest to
+dismissal.
+
+Possibly this is just judgment, but those who have searched
+diligently the storehouses of devotional English, will think
+twice before they consent to it. No doubt the phraseology of some
+of the proposed prayers might be improved. In view of the searching
+criticism to which for three years it has been exposed, it would
+be strange indeed if such were not found to be the case. But the
+collection as a whole, instead of suffering loss, ought to receive
+increment. At least three or four more prayers for the work of
+missions in its various aspects ought to be added, also a Prayer
+for the furtherance of Christian Education in Schools and Colleges.
+As Br. Dowden shrewdly asks, in speaking of spiritual needs which
+we postpone expressing for lack of language sufficiently artistic
+in form, "What is the measure of our faith in the efficacy of united
+prayer, when we are content to go on, year after year, and never
+come together to ask God to supply those needs?"[86]
+
+There is one consideration connected with this supply of special
+prayers too frequently lost out of sight. While it is perfectly
+true that the Book of Common Prayer was never designed to be a
+_Treasury of Devotion_ for individuals, it is equally true that
+for thousands and hundreds of thousands of our fellow-countrymen
+who live remote from "Church book-stores," or lack the means of
+patronizing them, the Prayer Book is, as a matter of fact, their
+only devotional help. In countless households, moreover, many of
+them beyond "Protestant Episcopal" borders altogether, the Prayer
+Book is doing a work only less beneficent than it might do, were we
+to concede a very little more to that outwardly illogical but
+spiritually self-consistent policy which, breaking away, a century
+ago, 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 introductory
+portion omitted. It would add to the merit of the formulary,
+especially when used as a separate office, were it to be prefaced
+by the versicle and response, similarly employed in the Hereford
+Breviary:
+
+_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 Litany
+and the intermediate portion of this Office, the following emendation
+of the first Rubric is suggested, a change which would carry with
+it the omission of the Rubric after psalm li. a little further on.
+
+_On the_ First Day of Lent, _at_ Morning Prayer, _the Office
+ensuing shall be read immediately after the words_, Have mercy
+upon 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 the
+English Book, in the precatory form; otherwise we might have the
+anomaly 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 of
+the beautiful prayer for unity to its own proper wording as given
+in the so-called "Accession Service" appended to the English Prayer
+Book. As it stands in _The Book Annexed_ the language of the prayer
+is possibly ungrammatical and certainly redundant. A critic,
+already more than once quoted,[87] protests against the prominence
+given to this office in _The Book Annexed_, ascribing it to
+influences born of the associations of New England. But although
+the motive of the revisers might have had a worse origin than that
+of which the reviewer complains, the actual fact is that the
+formulary was placed where it is purely in consideration of the
+liturgical fitness of things; it having been held that the proper
+position for an Office of Thanksgiving must be in immediate sequence
+to an Office of Penitence.
+
+It is with sincere diffidence that the present writer differs
+with _The Seminarian_, on a point of historical precedent, but
+he ventures to suggest that to find the prototype of Harvest-home
+we must go back far beyond New England, and for that matter far
+beyond Old England, nay, beyond the Christian era itself, even
+to the day when it was said, "Thou shalt observe the Feast of
+Tabernacles, seven days, after that thou hast gathered in thy corn
+and thy wine." Doubtless there is a joy greater than the "joy of
+harvest," and to this we give expression in the Eucharist; but
+doubtless also the joy of harvest is in itself a proper joy and
+one which finds fitting utterance in such forms of prayer and
+praise as this.
+
+
+
+
+RESOLUTION XI.
+
+
+_Collects, Epistles, and Gospels_.
+
+No department of liturgical revision calls for a nicer touch than
+that which includes the Collects. That new collects for certain
+unsupplied feasts and fasts would be a genuine enrichment of The
+Book of Common Prayer, has long been generally acknowledged among
+Anglican scholars. The most weighty fault to be found with the
+collects added by the revisers is that in too large proportion
+they are addressed to the second and third Persons of the Holy
+Trinity. The Eucharist itself, as a whole, is properly conceived
+of as addressed to the Eternal Father. The Collects, as forming
+part of the Eucharistic Office, ought, strictly speaking, to be
+also so addressed. It is true that there are exceptions to this
+rule, and they are found, some of them, in the Prayer Book as it
+is. But the revisers ought not to have altered the proportion so
+markedly as they have done, for whereas in our present Book the
+collects addressed to the Father are as eighty-three to three
+compared with those not so addressed, the ratio in _The Book
+Annexed_ is that of eleven to three.
+
+Moreover, there would seem to be no good reason for reverting to
+the usage of the First Book of Edward VI., which provides a second
+Collect, Epistle, and Gospel for the two great feasts of Christmas
+and Easter. A better way would be to take these additional collects,
+which are among the most beautiful in the language, and assign them
+respectively to the Sunday after Christmas, and the Monday in
+Easter-week.
+
+
+
+
+RESOLUTION XII.
+
+
+_The Holy Communion_.
+
+To the few changes proposed in this Office, comparatively slight
+exception has been taken in any quarter. It will probably be
+wise to leave the language of the Prayer of Consecration wholly
+untouched, notwithstanding the alleged grammatical error near the
+end of it.
+
+The Rubric which it has been proposed to append to the Office,
+touching the number of communicants without which it shall not be
+lawful to administer the Sacrament, being of a disciplinary rather
+than of a liturgical character, ought not to be urged. The proposal
+to transfer the Prayer of Humble Access to a place immediately
+before the Communion appears to be very generally acceptable.
+
+It would relieve many worshippers who scruple as Christians at
+responding to the Fourth Commandment on the score of its Judaic
+character, if the language of the rubric prefixed to the Decalogue
+could contain, as did the corresponding rubric in Laud's Book for
+Scotland, a clause indicative of the mystical and spiritual sense
+in which the Law should be interpreted by those who live under the
+Gospel. But such a proposal would probably be accounted "of
+doctrine," and so be self-condemned.
+
+Of the desirability of allowing a week-day use of the BEATITUDES
+in the room of the COMMANDMENTS enough has been already said.
+
+
+
+
+RESOLUTION XVI.
+
+
+_Confirmation_.
+
+The permission to use a form of presentation instead of, or in
+addition to, the Preface is likely to be widely welcomed. The
+other _addenda_ to this office, being apparently distasteful (for
+unlike reasons) to all the "schools of thoughts" in the Church,
+are likely to fail of acceptance; and on the whole may easily be
+spared.
+
+
+
+
+RESOLUTION XVIII.
+
+_Visitation of the Sick_.
+
+The proposed Commendatory Prayer, though in some of its features
+strikingly felicitous, is open to formal improvement. The addition
+of a short _Litany of the Dying_ would be appreciated by those
+whose ministry is largely exercised among the sick.
+
+
+
+
+RESOLUTION XX.
+
+
+_Burial of the Dead_.
+
+By far the most important section of this Resolution is the one
+providing for the insertion of special features when the office
+is used at the burial of children. The provision, or at least the
+suggestion, of a more appropriate Lesson would be wise, but for
+the rest, the office is almost all that could be wished.
+
+A recent critic[88] raises the question, "Why single out infants
+alone for a special service? Why not forms for rich men and poor
+men--old men and maidens--widows and orphans?" And yet our Lord
+Jesus Christ did single out little children in a very striking and
+wonderful manner, and drew a distinction between them and us which
+may well justify our treating their obsequies with a peculiar
+tenderness. Even Rome, _Mater dura infantum_ as she has been
+sometimes thought, is studious to consult in this point the natural
+affections of the bereaved, and appoints a funeral mass distinct
+from that appointed for the dead in general.
+
+Bishop Seabury felt the need of a rite of this sort and prepared
+one, but whether it was ever in actual use among the clergy of
+Connecticut the writer is not informed. Many, very many, since
+Seabury's day, have felt the same need, and it is safe to say that
+no one feature of _The Book Annexed_ has enjoyed so universal a
+welcome as this rightful concession to the demands of the parental
+heart.
+
+
+
+
+CONCLUSION.
+
+
+The survey of corrigenda is now complete. The list looks like a
+long one, but really the points noted are few compared with those
+which have passed unchallenged. Here and there in the Resolutions
+that have not been considered are words or phrases that admit of
+improvement, and which in an actual and authorized re-review by
+a Committee of Conference would undoubtedly be improved.
+
+The bulk of the work has, for a period of three years, stood the
+incessant fire of a not always friendly criticism far better than
+could have been anticipated by those who in the first instance
+gave it shape. The difficulties of the task have been immense. That
+they have not all of them been successfully overcome is clear
+enough, but that they were faced with an honest purpose to be
+just and fair, and that this purpose was clung to persistently
+throughout, is a credit which Churchmen of the next generation
+will not withhold from those who sought to be of service to them.
+
+It remains to be seen whether the representatives of the Church
+will take up this work and perfect it; or _per contra_ in response
+to the demand for a "Commission of Experts," or the specious but
+utterly impracticable[89] proposal of concerted action with the
+Church of England, will decide to postpone the whole affair to the
+Greek Kalends. One thing is certain, to wit, that the death of this
+movement 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 fresh
+enterprise of the like purport while the shipwreck of this one is
+before their eyes. There are many who, out of a conscientious fear
+of disturbing what they like to think of as permanently settled,
+would view such a conclusion of the whole matter with profound
+gratitude to God. But there are many more to whom such a confession
+of the Church's inability to appreciate and unwillingness to meet
+the spiritual needs of a civilization wonderfully unlike anything
+that has preceded it would be most disheartening. Least of all is
+there valid ground for hope in the case of those who fancy that if
+they can only annihilate this project, the day will speedily
+come when they can revise the Prayer Book in a manner perfectly
+conformable to their own conception of the "Ideal Liturgy," and
+after a fashion which the most ardent Anglo-Catholic must fain
+approve.
+
+The American Book of Common Prayer bears the impress to-day of
+two controlling minds, the mind of Seabury and the mind of White.
+Doubtless it stood written in the councils of the Divine Providence
+that so it should be. The two men represented respectively the two
+modes of apprehending spiritual truth which have always been allowed
+counterplay and interaction in the history of English religion, and
+which always will be allowed such counterplay and interaction while
+English religion remains the comprehensive thing it is. No scheme
+of liturgical revision, no matter how scientifically constructed,
+will ever find acceptance with the people of this Church which does
+not do even-handed justice to both of the great historic growths
+which find their common root in Anglican soil.
+
+When the spirit of Seabury shall have completely exorcised the
+spirit of White, or the spirit of White shall have completely
+exorcised the spirit of Seabury from the Church and from the Prayer
+Book, logic will have triumphed, as sixteen years ago it triumphed
+under the dome of St. Peter's--logical consistency will have
+triumphed, but catholicity will have fled.
+
+
+
+
+NOTE.
+
+
+THE BEATITUDES OF THE GOSPEL.
+
+
+_On_ Christmas-day, Easter-day, _and_ Whitsunday, _and on any
+week-day save_ Ash-Wednesday _and_ Good Friday, _this Office may
+be used in lieu of so much of_ The Order for the Administration
+of the Lord's Supper _as precedeth the Epistle for the Day_.
+
+_This Office may also be used separately on occasions for which
+no proper Order hath been provided_.
+
+_The Minister standing up shall say the Lord's Prayer and the
+Collect following, the People kneeling, but the Lord's Prayer may
+be omitted if it hath been said immediately before_.
+
+Our Father, who art in heaven, Hallowed be thy Name. Thy kingdom
+come. Thy will be done on earth, As it is in heaven. Give us this
+day our daily bread. And forgive us our trespasses, As we forgive
+those who trespass against us. And lead us not into temptation; But
+deliver us from evil. _Amen_.
+
+_The Collect_.
+
+Almighty God, unto whom all hearts are open, all desires known, and
+from whom no secrets are hid; Cleanse the thoughts of our hearts by
+the 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 Eight
+Sayings of our Lord commonly called_ THE BEATITUDES; _and the
+People, still kneeling, shall after every one of them reverently
+say_ Amen.
+
+_Minister_.
+
+Jesus went up into a mountain; and his disciples came unto him. And
+he opened his mouth and taught them, saying: Blessed are the poor
+in 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 after
+righteousness; 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 called
+the 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 dead
+who 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 without
+hope of mercy; Bow thine ear, we beseech thee, to our supplications,
+and in the country of peace and rest cause us to be made partners
+with thy holy servants; through Jesus Christ our Lord. _Amen_.[90]
+
+_Then shall be said the Collect for the Day and, unless the Holy
+Communion 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 THE
+ANNIVERSARY 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, whatever
+there is in life that is stable stands out with a sharpness that
+compels notice. Just because the world is so full of variableness,
+our hearts' affections fasten with the tighter grip upon anything
+that seems to have the guarantees of permanence. The Book of Common
+Prayer appeals to us on this score, precisely as the Bible, in its
+larger measure, does: it is the book of many generations, not of
+one, and there is "the hiding of its power." We have received the
+Prayer Book from the generations that are gone; we purpose handing
+it on when "another generation cometh"; we hold it for the use and
+blessing of the generation which now is.
+
+Our thoughts about the book, therefore, if we would have the
+thinking rightly done, must take hold upon the past, the present,
+and the future, a breadth of topic covered well enough perhaps by
+this phrase, The Permanent and the Variable Characteristics of the
+Prayer Book.
+
+I make no apology for asking you to take up the subject in so grave
+a temper. Now, for more than three hundred years, the Common Prayer
+has been the manual of worship in use with the greater number of
+the people of that race which, meanwhile, in the providence of God,
+has been growing up to be the leading power on earth. Everywhere
+the English language seems to be going forth conquering and to
+conquer, and whithersoever it penetrates it carries with it the
+letters and the social traditions of a people whose character has
+been largely moulded by the influences of the Prayer Book. Africans,
+Indians, Hindoos are to-day, even in their heathenism, feeling the
+effects of waves of movement which throb from this centre. Men in
+authority, the world over, are living out, with more or less of
+consistency and thoroughness, those convictions about our duty
+toward God, and our duty toward our neighbor, which were early
+inwrought into their consciences through the instrumentality of
+these venerable forms. Surely no one can afford to think or speak
+otherwise than most seriously and carefully with regard to a book
+which has behind it a history so worthy, so rich, so pregnant with
+promise for the future.
+
+Look first, then, at the power which the Prayer Book draws from
+its affiliations with the past. It is a common remark, so common
+as to be commonplace, that our liturgy owes its excellence to the
+fact of its not having been the composition or compilation of any
+one man. So much is evident enough upon the face of it: for a form
+of worship devised off-hand by an individual, or even put together
+by a committee sitting around a table, could scarcely be wholly
+satisfactory to any save the maker or the makers of it. But it is
+more to the purpose to observe that not only is the Prayer Book
+not the result of any one man's or any one committee's labors; it
+is not the work even of any one generation, or of any one age.
+
+The men who gradually put the Prayer Book into what is substantially
+its present shape, in the days of Edward VI. and of Elizabeth, were
+no more the makers of the Prayer Book than were the men who, in a
+later reign, set forth what we call "the authorized version" of the
+Holy Scriptures, the first translators of the Bible. In both cases
+the work done was a work of review and revision. A much more severe
+review, a vastly more sweeping revision in the case of the Prayer
+Book than in the case of the Bible, I grant; but still, mainly
+a work of review and revision after all. "Continuity," that
+characteristic so precious in the eye of modern science, continuity
+marked the whole process.
+
+The first Prayer Book of the Reformed Church of England was a
+condensed, simplified, and purified combination of formularies
+of worship already in use in the National Church. A certain
+amount of new material, some of it home-made, some of it drawn
+from foreign sources, was added; but the great bulk of the
+new service-book had been contained in one or other of the
+older manuals. The Reformers did but clip and prune, with that
+exquisite taste and judgment which belong by tradition to English
+gardeners, the overgrowth and rank luxuriance of a too long
+neglected, "careless-ordered" garden. But whence came the earlier
+formularies themselves, from which Cranmer and the rest quarried
+the 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 best
+portions of which were merged in the English Common Prayer?
+From the far past; the Missal from those primitive liturgies or
+communion services, some of which we trace back with certainty
+to the later portion of the ante-Niceneage, and by not unreasonable
+conjecture to the edge of apostolic days; the Breviary or daily
+prayers from the times when Christians first took up community
+life; the Offices from periods of uncertain date all along the
+track of previous Church history. But what advantage, asks someone
+full of the modern spirit, what advantage has the Common Prayer
+in that it can trace a genealogy running up through ages of such
+uncertain reputation? Have we not been accustomed to regard those
+times as hopelessly corrupt, impenetrably dark, universally
+superstitious? Ought we not to be mortified, rather than gratified,
+to learn that from the pit of so mouldy a past our book of prayer
+was digged? Would not a brand-new liturgy, modernized expressly
+to meet the needs of nineteenth century culture, with all the old
+English idioms displaced, every rough corner smoothed and every
+crooked place made straight--would not that be something far
+worthier our respect, better entitled to our allegiance, than
+this book full of far-away echoes, and faint bell-notes from a
+half-forgotten past?
+
+Yes, if modern man were only modern man and nothing more, such
+reasoning would be extremely cogent. But what if modern man be
+really, not the mere creature of the century in which he lives,
+but the gathered sum and product of all that has preceded him in
+history? What if you and I, from the very fact that we are living
+now, have in the dim groundwork of our nature something that would
+not have been there had we lived one, three, twelve hundred years
+ago? What if there be such a thing as cumulative acquirement for
+the race of men, so that a new generation starts with an available
+capital of associations and ideas of which the generation last
+preceding it owned but a part? Take such words as "feudalism," "the
+Crusades," "the Renaissance," "the printing press," consider how
+much they mean to us, and then remember that to a man of the third
+century they would have been empty sounds conveying absolutely no
+meaning. What all this goes to show is that human nature is a map
+which is continually unrolling. To say that the entirety of it lies
+between the two meridians that bound the particular tract in which
+our own little life happens to be cast is stupid. The whole great
+past belongs to us--river and island, ocean, forest, continent, all
+are 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 life
+is now in the background or in the middle distance of yours. It has
+become a part of you.[92]
+
+So, then, if we would have a liturgy that shall speak to our whole
+nature, and not to a mere fraction of it, it must be a liturgy full
+of voices sounding out of the past. There must be reminders and
+suggestions in it of all the great epochs of the Church's story.
+Yes, echoes even from those very ages which we call dark (perhaps
+as much because we are in the dark about them as on account of any
+special blackness attaching to the times themselves), some echoes
+even from them may have a rightful place in the worship which is to
+call out responsively all that is in the heart of the most modern
+of modern men.
+
+As there were heroes before Agamemnon, so were there holy and humble
+men of heart before Cranmer and Luther, yes, and before Jerome and
+Augustine. If any cry that ever went up from any one of them out of
+the depths of that nature which they share with us and we with them,
+if any breath of supplication, any moan of penitence, any shout of
+victory that issued from their lips has made out to survive the
+noise and tumult of intervening times, it has earned by its very
+persistency of tone a _prima facie_ title to be put into the Prayer
+Book of to-day.[93] And this is why a prayer book may survive the
+wreck of many systems of theology. A prayer book holds the utterance
+of our needs; a theological system is the embodiment of our thoughts.
+
+Now our thoughts about things divine are painfully fallible and
+liable to change with change of times; but a want which is genuinely
+and entirely human is a permanent fact; the great needs of the soul
+never grow obsolete, and though the language in which the lips shall
+clothe the heart's desire may alter, as tastes alter, yet the
+substance of the prayer abides, and in some happy instances the
+form also abides.
+
+To an eye that looks wisely and lovingly on such sights, there is
+the same keen sense of enjoyment in finding here and there in the
+Prayer Book suggestions of forgotten customs, reminders of famous
+persons and events, that there is in detecting in the masonry of
+an old castle or minster tell-tale stones which betray the different
+ages, the "sundry times and divers manners" which the fabric
+represents. Who, for instance, that has traced the history of
+that apostolic ordinance, "the kiss of peace," down through the
+liturgical changes and revolutions of eighteen hundred years, can
+fail to be interested in finding in a single clause of one of the
+exhortations of our communion service that which corresponds to
+the literal kiss of primitive times, as well as to the petrified
+symbol 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 an
+impatient gesture can we imagine a spruce reviser brushing these
+away as so much trash! They are not trash, they are way marks that
+tell of times when devout men loved those catchwords, as we love
+the first lines of our favorite hymns. A few of the headings,
+such as "_De Profundis_" and "_Miserere_," still possess such
+associations for ourselves. There was a time when very many more
+of 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 or
+me.[95]
+
+Then, too, the monuments of specially revered heroes of the faith
+that dot the paths of the Common Prayer, how precious they are! We
+like to think of Ambrose as speaking to us in the lofty sentences
+of the _Te Deum_. It is pleasant to associate Chrysostom with the
+prayer that bears his name, and to know that he who swayed the
+city's multitude still prized the Master's promise to the "two or
+three gathered together" in his name. So also, in our American Book,
+Jeremy Taylor, the modern Chrysostom, meets us in the Office for
+the 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 friend
+whom we revere because he is kindly in his tone, generous in his
+judgments, quick to understand us at every point.
+
+So much for the past of the Prayer Book. We have touched it in no
+image-breaking mood, but with reverence. "One generation passeth
+away, another generation cometh," and it has been the peculiar
+felicity 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 Book
+and the possibility of extending that usefulness in the future.
+And now I shall speak wholly as an American to Americans, not
+because the destinies of the Prayer Book in the New World are
+the more important, though such may in the end turn out to be
+the fact, but simply because we are at home here and know our own
+wants and wishes, our own liabilities and opportunities, far better
+than we can possibly know those of other people. As a Church we
+have always tied ourselves too slavishly to English precedent. Our
+vine is greatly in danger of continuing merely a potted ivy, an
+indoor exotic. The past of the Common Prayer we cannot disconnect
+from England, but its present and its future belong in part at
+least to us, and it is in this light that we are bound as American
+Churchmen to study them. Let us agree, then, that the usefulness
+of the book here and now lies largely in the moulding and formative
+influence which it is quietly exerting, not only on the religion
+of those who use it, but also largely on the religion of the far
+greater number who publicly use it not. It has interested me, as
+it would interest almost anyone, to learn how many prayer books
+our 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. They
+keep it on the devotional shelf midway between Thomas a Kempis and
+the Pilgrim's Progress, finding it a sort of interpreter of the
+one to the other, and possessed of a certain flavor differencing
+it from both. This is a happy augury for the future. Much latent
+heat is generating which shall yet warm up the dullness of the land.
+The seed-grain of the Common Prayer will not lie unproductive in
+those forgotten furrows. The fitness of such a system of worship
+as this to counteract some of the flagrant evils of our popular
+religion can scarcely fail to commend it to the minds of those who
+thus unobserved and, "as it were in secret," read and ponder.
+Much of our American piety, fervid as it is, shows confessedly
+a feverish, intermittent character which needs just such a tonic
+as the Prayer Book provides in what Keble happily called its "sober
+standard of feeling in matters of practical religion."
+
+Then, too, there is the constantly increasing interest which it
+is such a pleasure to observe among Christians of all names in
+the order of the ritual year, in Christmas and Easter, Lent and
+Good-Friday--who can tell how much of this may not be due to the
+leavening influence of the Prayer Book, over and above what is
+effected by the public services of the Church? "I wonder," said
+a famous revivalist to a friend, a clergyman of our Church, "I
+wonder if you Episcopalians know what a good thing you have in
+that 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 a
+wish very near to the heart of that holy and true man who, if
+anyone, deserves the title of the saint among our priests, the
+late Dr. Muhlenberg, the man who twenty-five years ago headed the
+not wholly abortive movement known as the "Memorial."[96] One
+fruit of that movement is perhaps to be seen in the earnest desire
+now prevalent throughout the Church to see the scope of the Prayer
+Book's influence enlarged. In General Conventions and Church
+Congresses nowadays no topic excites greater interest than the
+question how better to adapt the services of the Church to
+the present needs and special conditions of all classes of the
+population. To be sure, the apparent impotence of the governing
+body to find or furnish any lawful way of relief is a little
+discouraging, but it is something to see an almost universal
+assent given in terms, to the proposition that relief ought to
+be had. What we have to fear is that during the long delay
+which puts off the only proper and regular method of giving more
+elasticity to the services, there may spring up a generation of
+Churchmen from whose minds the idea of obligation to law in matters
+of ritual observance will have faded out altogether.
+
+There is a conservatism so conservative that it will stand by and
+see a building tumble down rather than lay a sacrilegious hand on
+a single stone, will see dam and mill and village all swept away
+sooner than lift the flash-boards that keep the superabundant water
+from coming safely down. It is among the things possible, that for
+lack of readjustment and timely adaptation of the laws regulating
+worship, just such a fate may befall our whole liturgical fabric.
+
+The plausible theory of "the rubric of common sense," about which
+we have heard so much, a theory good within limitations, is
+threatening, by the wholesale application it receives, presently
+to 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 of
+a Sunday whether he is going to mass, or to meeting, or to church,
+the inquiry will be in order, What has conservatism of this sort
+really conserved?
+
+"The personal liberty of the officiating clergyman," I fear
+will be the only answer; certainly not, "The liberty of the
+worshipping congregation." The straight and only honest way out
+of our embarrassment will, some day or other, be found, I dare not
+believe very soon, in a careful, loving, fair-minded revision of
+the formularies; a revision undertaken, not for the purpose of
+giving victory to one theological party rather than to another, or
+of changing in any degree the doctrinal teaching of the Church,
+but solely and wholly with a view to enriching, amplifying, and
+making more available the liturgical treasures of the book.
+
+"One generation passeth away, another generation cometh." As we
+have seen in these words an argument in favor of not breaking with
+the past, so let them also speak to us of our plain duty to the
+present. True, the great needs are, as I have said, common alike
+to all the generations, to those that pass and those that come; but
+the lesser needs are variable, and unless we are prepared to take
+the ground that because "lesser" they maybe disregarded altogether,
+we are bound, with the changed times, to provide for the new wants
+new satisfactions. Take, simply by way of illustration, the need we
+stand in of an appropriate form of third service for use on Sundays
+in city churches, when Morning and Evening Prayer have been already
+said according to the prescribed order.
+
+Why have we no such service?
+
+Simply because no such need existed in our American cities when the
+Prayer Book, as we have it now, was taking shape, at the close of
+the last century. Just as no form for the administration of Adult
+Baptism was put into Queen Elizabeth's Prayer Book, simply because
+the usage of Infant Baptism was universal in that day, and there
+were no unbaptized adults; but such service was inserted at the
+Restoration to meet the need that had sprung up under the Puritan
+regime; so was it unnecessary in Bishop White's day to provide for
+a form of service which has only become practicable and desirable
+since modern discovery has enabled us to make the public streets
+almost as safe at night as in the daytime, and church-going as easy
+by gaslight as by sunlight.
+
+Now it is perfectly possible, of course, under the present order of
+things, and with no change in rubric or canon law, for any clergyman
+to provide an additional service, to provide it in the form of a
+mosaic made up of bits of the liturgy wrenched out of their proper
+places, and so irregularly put together that no stranger among the
+worshippers can possibly, with the book in hand, thread his way
+among its intricacies.
+
+But when we consider how many exquisite gems of devotional speech
+there are still left outside the covers of the Prayer Book; when we
+consider how delightful it would be to have back again the
+_Magnificat _, and the _Nunc Dimittis _, and some of the sweet
+versicles of the Evensong of the Church of England; when we consider
+the lamentable mistake already made in our existing formularies of
+introducing into Morning and Evening Prayer identically the same
+opening sentences, the same General Exhortation, the same General
+Confession, the same Declaration of Absolution, the same Prayer for
+the President, and the same General Thanksgiving--is it not evident
+that an additional, or, if you please, an alternative service,
+composed of material not elsewhere employed, would be for the
+worshippers a very great gain? The repetition which wearies is
+only the repetition which we feel need not have been. We never
+tire 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 liturgy
+no form of words, except the Creed, the Doxology, and the Lord's
+Prayer, would at any time reappear, but as in arabesque work every
+square inch of space differs from every other square, so each clause
+and sentence of the manual of worship would have a distinctive
+beauty of its own, to be looked for precisely there and nowhere
+else.
+
+This is but one illustration of what may be called a possible
+enrichment of our Book of Common Prayer. Impoverishment under
+the name of revision may very justly be deprecated, but who shall
+find any just fault with an enrichment that is really such?
+
+We must remember that the men who gave us what we now have were, in
+their day and generation, the innovators, advocates of what the
+more timid spirits accounted dangerous change. We cannot, I think,
+sufficiently admire the courageous foresight of those Reformers
+who, at a time when public worship was mainly associated in men's
+minds with what went on among a number of ecclesiastics gathered
+together at one end of a church, dared to plant themselves firmly
+on the principle of "common" prayer, and to say, Henceforth the
+worship of the National Church shall be the worship not of priests
+alone, but of priests and people too. What a bold act it was! The
+printing-press, remember, although it had given the impulse to the
+Reformation, was far from being at that time the omnipresent thing
+it is now; books were scarce; popular education, as we understand
+it, was unknown; there were no means of supplying service-books to
+the poorer classes (no Prayer Book Societies, like this of yours),
+nor could the books have been used had they been furnished. And yet
+in the face of these seemingly insuperable obstacles, the leaders
+of religious thought in the England of that day had the sagacity
+to plan a system of worship which should involve participation by
+the people in all the acts of divine service, including the
+administration of the sacraments.
+
+Here was genuine statesmanship applied to the administration of
+religion. Those men discerned wisely the signs of their own times.
+They saw what the right principle was, they foresaw what the art
+of printing was destined in time to accomplish, and they did a
+piece of work which has bravely stood the wear and tear of full
+three hundred years.
+
+No Churchman questions the wisdom of their innovations now. Is it
+hopeless to expect a like quickness of discernment in the leaders
+of to-day? Surely they have eyes to see that a new world has been
+born, and that a thousand unexampled demands are pressing us on
+every side. If the Prayer Book is not enriched with a view to
+meeting those demands, it is not for lack of materials. A Saturday
+reviewer has tried to fasten on the Church of England the stigma
+of being the Church which for the space of two centuries has not
+been able to evolve a fresh prayer.
+
+If the reproach were just it would be stinging indeed; but it is
+most cruelly unjust. In the devotional literature of the Anglicanism
+of the last fifty years, to go no further back, there may be found
+prayers fully equal in compass of thought and depth of feeling to
+any of those that are already in public use. Not to single out
+too many instances, it may suffice to mention the prayers appended
+to the book of Ancient Collects edited a few years since by a
+distinguished Oxford scholar. The clergy are acquainted with them,
+and know how beautiful they are. Why should not the whole Church
+enjoy the happiness of using them?[97] Why is there not the same
+propriety in our garnering the devotional harvest of the three
+hundred years last past that there was in the Reformers garnering
+the harvest of five times three hundred years?
+
+"One generation passeth away, another generation cometh." I have
+spoken of the present and the past, what now of the future? We
+know that all things come to an end. What destiny awaits the book
+to which our evening thoughts have been given? That is a path not
+open to our tread. The cloudy curtain screens the threshold of it.
+Still we may listen and imagine that we hear sounds. What if such
+a voice as this were to come to us from the distance of a hundred
+years hence--a voice tinged with sadness, and carrying just the
+least suggestion of reproach? "Our fathers," the voice says,
+"in the last quarter of the last century, forfeited a golden
+opportunity. It was a time of reconstruction in the State, social
+life was taking on the form it was destined long to retain, a great
+war had come to an end and its results were being registered, all
+things were fluent. Moreover, there happened, just then, to be an
+almost unparalleled lull in the strife of religious parties; men
+were more disposed than usual to agree; the interest in liturgical
+research was at its greatest, and scholars knew and cared more
+than they have ever done since about the history and the structure
+of forms of prayer. Nevertheless, timid councils prevailed; nothing
+was done with a view to better adapting the system to the needs of
+society, and the hope that the Church might cease to wear the
+dimensions of a sect, and might become the chosen home of a great
+people, died unrealized. We struggle on, a half-hearted company,
+and try to live upon the high traditions, the sweet memories of our
+past."
+
+God forbid, my friends, that the dismal prophecy come true! We will
+not believe it. But what, you ask, is the pathway to any such
+betterment as I have ventured roughly to sketch to-night? I will
+not attempt to map it, but I feel very confident which way it
+does not run. I am sure it does not run through the region of
+disaffection, complaint, threatening, restlessness, petulance,
+or secession. Mere fretfulness never carries its points. No, the
+true way to better things is always to begin by holding on manfully
+to that which we already are convinced is good. The best restorers
+of old fabrics are those who work with affectionate loyalty as
+nearly as possible on the lines of the first builders, averse to
+any change which is made merely for change's sake, not so anxious
+to modernize as to restore, and yet always awake to the fact that
+what they have been set to do is to make the building once more what
+it 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, and
+build the house that was builded these many years ago."--Ezra v.11.
+
+This was the reply of the rebuilders of Jerusalem to certain
+critical lookers-on who would fain be informed by what authority
+a picturesque ruin was disturbed. It is a serviceable answer still.
+There are always those to whom the activity of the Christian Church
+is a standing puzzle. Religion, or at any rate revealed religion,
+having, as they think, received its death-blow, the unmistakable
+signs of life which, from time to time, it manifests take on almost
+the character of a personal affront. They resent them. What right
+have these Christians to be showing such a lively interest in their
+vanquished faith? they ask. What business have they to be holding
+councils, and laying plans, and acting as if they had some high and
+splendid effort in hand? Are they such fools as to imagine that
+they can reconstruct what has so evidently tumbled into ruin?
+
+But the wonderful thing about this great building enterprise known
+as the kingdom of God is that, from the day when the corner-stone
+was laid to this day, the workmen on the walls have never seemed to
+know what it meant to be discouraged. In the face of taunt and
+rebuff and disappointment, they have kept on saying to their
+critics: "We are the servants of the God of heaven and earth, and
+build the house that was builded these many years ago." This is
+just what the Church Council which has been holding its sessions
+in 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 give
+you, 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 ecclesiastical
+annals for having closed one question of grave moment only to open
+a kindred one of still larger reach. The question closed was the
+question of liturgical revision; the question opened is the question
+of constitutional revision. I should like to speak to you this
+morning retrospectively of the one, and prospectively of the other.
+
+It is now about twenty years since the question of modifying, to
+some extent, the methods of our public worship began to be mooted.
+
+While it was acknowledged that the need was greater in the mother
+country than here, many of the repetitions and superfluities of the
+English Church service having been set aside by Bishop White and
+his compeers in the American Revision of 1789, it was felt that
+further improvements were still possible, and that the time had
+fully come for making them. Since the beginning of the so-called
+"tractarian movement" in the Church of England a great deal of
+valuable liturgical material had been accumulating, and it was
+discerned that if ever the fruits of the scholarship of such men
+as Palmer and Neale and Maskell and Bright were to be garnered
+the harvest-day had arrived. To the question often asked why
+it would not have been wiser to wait until the Church of England
+had led the way and set the pattern, the answer is that the
+hands of the Church of England were tied, as they have been
+tied these many years past, and as they may continue to be tied,
+for aught we know to the contrary, for many years to come. The
+Church of England cannot touch her own Prayer Book, whether to
+mend or to mar it, except with the consent of that very mixed
+body, the House of Commons--a consent she is naturally and properly
+most loth to ask. Immersed in a veritable ocean of accumulated
+liturgical material, she is as helpless as Tantalus to moisten
+her lips with so much as a single drop. It was seen that this
+fact laid upon us American Churchmen a responsibility as urgent
+as it was unique, viz., the responsibility of doing what we could
+to meet the devotional needs of present-day Christendom, not only
+for our own advantage, but with a view to being ultimately of
+service to our Anglican brethren across the sea. An experiment
+of the greatest interest, which for them was a sheer impossibility,
+it lay open to us to try. After various abortive attempts had
+come to nought, a beginning was at length made in the General
+Convention of 1880, a joint committee of bishops and deputies
+being then appointed to consider whether, in view of the fact
+that this Church was soon to enter upon the second century of
+its organized existence in America, the changed condition of
+the national life did not demand certain alterations in the Book
+of Common Prayer in the direction of liturgical enrichment and
+increased flexibility of use.
+
+Few were of the opinion at the time that anything definite would
+come of the deliberations of this committee, and the fact, never
+before publicly stated till this moment, that of the deputies
+appointed to serve upon it the greater number were men who had
+not voted in favor of the measure, makes it all the more interesting
+to remember that the report, when brought in at Philadelphia
+three years later, was signed by every member of the committee
+then living. This Philadelphia report recommended very numerous
+changes in the direction both of "flexibility" and "enrichment,"
+and by far the greater number of the recommendations met with the
+approval of the convention. There is, however, a very wise provision
+of our Church constitution, a provision strikingly characteristic
+of the Anglo-Saxon mind, which, by way of making allowance for
+second thought, requires that liturgical changes, before being
+finally adopted, shall run the gauntlet of two successive conventions.
+Much was accepted at Philadelphia; it remained to be seen how much
+would pass the ordeal of its second reading at Chicago three years
+later.
+
+Into the war of words waged over the subject during that interval
+period, I have neither the time nor the disposition to carry you.
+The three years, while they gave opportunity for reaction, also
+allowed space for counter-reaction; so that when, at last, the
+question came once more before the Church in council assembled
+whether the work done at Philadelphia should be approved or
+disallowed, men's minds had sufficiently recovered balance to
+permit of their exercising discrimination. Accordingly in 1886
+some things were rejected, some adopted, and some remanded for
+further revision. But why should I confuse your minds by an attempt
+to tell in detail the whole story of the movement? No matter how
+clear I might make the narrative it would be difficult to follow
+it, for in the progress of the work there have been surprises many,
+successes and reverses not a few; enough that, at last, the long
+labor is ended and in this Columbian year the ship comes into port.
+
+As to results, their number and their quality, opinions will of
+course differ. In connection with this, as with all similar
+undertakings, there are many to cry: "Who will show us any good?"
+Certainly nothing that could be called a radical change has been
+brought to pass; but then, is there any reason to suppose that
+radical changes were either sought or desired by those who have
+been active in the movement? Certain distinct and indisputable
+gains may be counted up. The recovery of the great Gospel hymns
+come under this head. There are some of us who think that only to
+have succeeded in replacing the _Magnificat_ and the _Nunc Dimittis_
+in the Evening Prayer is of itself a sufficient reward for years
+of effort, but this is only a small part of our harvest. The new
+opening sentences for Morning and Evening Prayer, which have so
+"adorned and beautified" our observance of great festivals, the
+remodelling of the Ash-Wednesday service, the recovered Feast of
+the Transfiguration, the various provisions for adapting the
+Church's worship to the exigencies of times and seasons, the
+increased freedom in the use of the Psalter, all these go to make
+up an aggregate of betterment the measure of which will be more
+fully understood as time goes on. "_Parturiunt montes_" is an easy
+verdict to pronounce; it remains to be proved whether in this case
+it is a just one to render. If there are some (as doubtless some
+there are) who hold that the sample book presented at Philadelphia
+in 1883, faulty as it confessedly was, is still, all things
+considered, a better book for American needs than the standard
+finally adopted at Baltimore, week before last, if there are some
+who deeply regret the failure to include among our special offices
+one for the burial of little children, and among our prayers
+intercessions for the country, for the families of the land, for
+schools of good learning, for employers and those whom they employ,
+together with many other forms of supplication gathered from the
+wide field of English liturgiology--if, I say, there arc some who
+are of this mind they must comfort themselves with the reflection
+that, after all, they are a minority, that the greater number of
+those upon whom rested the responsibility of decision did not wish
+for these additions, and that the things which finally found
+acceptance were the things unanimously desired. For, when we think
+of it, this is perhaps the very best feature of the whole thing,
+looked at in its length and breadth, that there is no defeated
+party, no body of people who feel that they have a right to fret
+and sulk because unpalatable changes have been forced upon them by
+narrow majorities. It is a remarkable fact, that of the many scores
+of alterations effected, it can be truly said that, with rare, very
+rare exceptions, they found, when it came to the decisive vote,
+what was practically a unanimous consent. They were things that
+everybody wanted.
+
+As to the annoyance and vexation experienced by worshippers
+during the years the revision has been in progress, perhaps the
+very best thing that can be done, now that the end is so near at
+hand, will be to forget all about it. In a few months, at the
+furthest, the Prayer Book, in its complete form, will be available
+for purchase and use, and the hybrid copies which have been so
+long in circulation, to the scandal of people of fastidious taste,
+will quickly vanish away. Meanwhile, it is interesting to know
+that all through this stretch of years while the Prayer Book has
+been "in solution," as some have been fond of phrasing it, the
+Episcopal Church has exhibited a rate of growth quite unparalleled
+in its history.
+
+Of course nobody can say with certainty what has caused the
+increase. But it is at least conceivable that among the accelerating
+forces has been this very work of liturgical revision. People at
+large have been made aware that this Church was honestly endeavoring
+to 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 to
+allay prejudice and to foster a spirit of inquiry. Finding us
+disposed to relax something of our rigidity, they, on their part,
+have been first attracted, then conciliated, and finally completely
+won.
+
+I cannot leave this subject without paying a personal tribute
+to a prelate but for whose aid in the House of which he is a
+distinguished ornament, liturgical revision would, humanly speaking,
+have long ago come to nought. To the fearlessness, the patience, the
+kindly temper, and the resolute purpose of William Croswell Doane,
+Bishop of Albany, this Church for these results stands deeply and
+lastingly indebted. When others' courage failed them, he stood firm;
+when friends and colleagues were counselling retreat, and under
+their breath were whispering "Fiasco!" and "Collapse!" his spirit
+never faltered. He has been true to a great purpose, at the cost of
+obloquy sometimes, and to the detriment even of old friendships.
+Separated from him by a dozen shades of theological opinion and by
+as many degrees of ecclesiastical bias, I render him here and now
+that homage of grateful appreciation which every Churchman owes him.
+
+So much for the ship that has dropped anchor. I have left my self
+but a few moments in which to say God-speed to the other craft which
+is even now sliding down the ways, ready for the great deep. Put
+perhaps it is just as well. History is always a safer line to enter
+upon than prophecy; and were I to say all that is in my mind and
+heart as to the possibilities of this new venture of faith on the
+Church's part, constitutional revision, I might be betrayed into
+expressions of hopefulness which would strike most of you as
+overwrought.
+
+Suffice it to say, that never since the Reformation of Religion
+in the sixteenth century has a fairer prospect been opened to
+the Church of our affections than is opened to her to-day. No
+interpretation of the divine purpose with respect to this broad
+land we name America has one-half so much of likelihood as that
+which makes our country the predestined building plot for the
+Church 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 historical
+association, the opportunity of leadership.
+
+It is possible for us, at this crisis of our destiny, so to mould
+our organic law that we shall be brought into sympathetic contact
+with hundreds of thousands of our fellow-countrymen who worship the
+same God, hold the same faith, love the same Christ. On the other
+hand, it is possible for us so to fence ourselves off from this
+huge family of our fellow-believers as to secure for our lasting
+heritage 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 comprehensive
+Church. We have the opportunity of dwindling into a self-conscious,
+self-conceited, and unsympathetic sect. Which shall it be? With
+those to whom, under God, the remoulding of our organic law has
+been intrusted it largely rests to say.
+
+
+COMPARATIVE TABLE OF ADDITIONS MADE TO THE BOOK OF COMMON PRAYER AT
+THE SEVERAL REVISIONS SINCE 1549.
+
+
+                        1552   1559   1604   1662   1789   1892
+Scripture Sentences       11                           8     31
+Collects                                        3      1      3
+Epistles                                        2      1      3
+Gospels                                         1      1      3
+Offices                   13                    8      1      1
+Prayers                   15       2     7     18     13      9
+Proper Psalms (days)                            2            10
+Selections of Psalms                                  10     10
+Canticles                                              8      2
+Versicles                  4                    3            11
+Litany Suffrages                   1                          1
+Catechetical Questions                  12
+Exhortations               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 our
+ecclesiastical legislation grows out of not keeping in mind the
+fact that here in America the organic genetic law of the Church,
+as well as of the State, is in writing, and compacted into definite
+propositions. We draw, that is to say, a far sharper distinction
+than it is possible to do in England between what is constitutional
+and what is simply statutory. There is no function of our General
+Convention that answers to the "omnipotence of Parliament." This
+creative faculty was vacated once for all at the adoption of the
+Constitution.
+
+[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 as
+follows: "Of the Clergy there were 43 Dioceses represented--Ayes,
+33; nays, 9; divided, 1. Of the Laity there were 35 Dioceses
+represented--Ayes, 20; nays, 11; divided, 4."--_Journal of
+Convention of_ 1880, p. 152.
+
+[7] _Church Eclectic_ for November, 1880.
+
+[8] Remembering the deluge of "centennial" rhetoric let loose
+upon the country five years ago, another critic may well feel
+justified in finding in the language of the resolution what he
+considers "an unnecessary _raison d'etre_." But it is just possible
+that centennial changes rest on a basis of genuine cause and effect
+quite independent of the decimal system. A century covers the range
+of three generations, and the generation is a natural, not an
+arbitrary division of time. What the grandfather practises the son
+criticises and the grandson amends. This at least ought to commend
+itself to the consideration of the lovers of mystical numbers and
+"periodic laws."
+
+[9] The real argument against the "driblet method" (by which is
+meant the concession of improvement only as it is actually conquered
+inch by inch) lies in what has been already said about the
+undesirability of frequent changes in widely used formularies of
+worship.
+
+It may be true, as some allege, that a revision of the Prayer Book
+would shake the Church, but it is more likely that half a dozen
+patchings at triennial intervals would shatter it. After twenty
+years of this sort of piecemeal revision, a _variorum_ edition of
+the Prayer Book would be a requisite of every well furnished pew.
+
+The late Convention has been twitted with inconsistency on the
+score of having negatived outright the proposal for a Commission
+to overhaul the Constitution of the Church while consenting to
+send the Prayer Book to a committee for review. Discernment would
+be a better word than inconsistency, for although on grounds of
+pure theory the Constitution and the Prayer Book seem to stand in
+corresponding attitudes as respects methods of amendment, in
+practice the difference between the two is very wide. Triennial
+changes in the letter of the Constitution (and these have often
+been made) involve no inconvenience to anybody, for the simple
+reason that that document must of necessity be reprinted with every
+fresh issue of the Journal. Old copies do not continue in use,
+except as books of reference, but old Prayer Books do hold their
+place in parish churches, and the spectacle of congregations trying
+to worship in unison with books some of which contained the reading
+of 1880, others that of 1883, and still others that of 1886 would
+scarcely edify. Theoretically, let it be freely granted, the
+"driblet method" of amendment is the proper one for both Prayer
+Book and Constitution, but the fact that the Convention had eyes
+to see that this was a case to which the maxims of pure mathematics
+did not apply should be set down to its credit, rather than its
+discredit.
+
+[10] Reprinted together with a supplementary Letter in the Journal
+of the Convention of 1868.
+
+[11] Dr. Coit's Letter of 1868, also reprinted in Journal of that
+year.
+
+[12] See _Book of Common Prayer according to the use of King's
+Chapel, Boston_. Among the rhetorical crudities of this emasculated
+Prayer Book (from the title-page of which, by the way, the definite
+article has been with praiseworthy truthfulness omitted) few things
+are worse than the following from the form for the Burial of
+Children, a piece of writing which in point of style would seem
+to savor more of the Lodge than of the Church: "My brethren, what
+is our life? It is as the early dew of morning that glittereth for
+a short time, and then is exhaled to heaven. Where is the beauty
+of childhood? Where is [sic] the light of those eyes and the bloom
+of that countenance?" . . . "Who is young and who is old? Whither
+are we going and what shall we become?" And yet the author of
+this mawkish verbiage probably fancied that he was improving upon
+the stately English of the Common Prayer. It is a warning to all
+would-be enrichers.
+
+[13] A list of the more noticeable Anglican works on Liturgies
+published during the period named, arranged in the order of their
+appearance, will serve to illustrate the accuracy of the statement
+made above, and may also be of value to the general reader for
+purposes of reference.
+
+1832. Origines Liturgicae, William Palmer. 1833-41. Tracts for
+the Times. 1840. Conferences on the Book of Common Prayer, Edward
+Cardwell. 1843. The Choral Service of the Churches of England and
+Ireland, John Jebb. 1844. The Ancient Liturgy of the Church of
+England, William Maskell. 1845. Pickering's Reprints of the Prayer
+Books of 1549, 1552, 1559, 1603, and 1662. 1846. Monumenta
+Ritualia, William Maskell. 1847. Reliquiae Liturgicae, Peter
+Hall. 1848. Fragmenta Liturgica, Peter Hall. 1849. Book of Common
+Prayer with Notes legal and historical, A. J. Stephens. Manuscript
+Book of Common Prayer for Ireland, A. J. Stephens. Tetralogia
+Liturgica, John Mason Neale. 1853. Two Liturgies of Edward VI.,
+Edward Cardwell. 1855. Principles of Divine Service, Philip
+Freeman. 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 Common
+Prayer, R. P. Blakeney. 1866. The Prayer Book Interleaved, Campion
+and 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. with
+the Ordinal, Walton and Medd. 1872. Psalms and Litanies, Rowland
+Williams. 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 successive
+Revisions, James Parker. 1877. Introduction to the History of the
+successive Revisions of the Book of Common Prayer, James Parker.
+1878. Liturgies--Eastern and Western, C. E. Hammond. 1880. The
+Convocation Prayer Book.
+
+[14] Tract No. 3. _Thoughts respectfully addressed to the Clergy on
+alterations in the Liturgy_.
+
+[15] One of the most curious illustrations of the spread of
+Anglican ideas about worship now in progress is to be found in
+the upspringing in the very bosom of Scottish Presbyterianism of
+a CHURCH SERVICE SOCIETY. Two of the publications of this Society
+have lately fallen in the present writer's way. They bear the
+imprint of Wm. Blackwood & Sons, Edinburgh, and are entitled
+respectively, _A Book of Common Order_, and _Home Prayer_. With
+questionable good taste the compilers have given to the former
+work 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 ludicrous
+side to this attempt to commend English viands to Northern palates
+under a thin garniture of Scottish herbs which probably has not
+wholly 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," be
+reckoned an exception.
+
+[18] _Lectures on Justification_, p 380.
+
+[19] The rationale of this curious lapse is simple. The American
+revisers, instead of transferring the Commination Office _in toto_
+to the new book, wisely decided to engraft certain features of
+it upon the Morning Prayer for Ash-Wednesday. In the process, the
+fifty-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 Protestant
+Episcopal mind to anything that can be supposed even remotely to
+endanger our doctrinal settlement was afforded at the late General
+Convention, when the House of Deputies was thrown into something
+very like a panic by a most harmless suggestion with reference to
+the opening sentences of the Litany. A venerable and thoroughly
+conservative deputy from South Carolina had ventured to say that
+it would be doctrinally an improvement if the tenet of the double
+procession of the Holy Ghost were to be removed from the third of
+the invocations, and a devotional improvement if the language of
+the fourth were to be phrased in words more literally Scriptural
+and less markedly theological than those at present in use. Eager
+defenders of the faith instantly leaped to their feet in various
+parts of the House, persuaded that a deadly thrust had been aimed
+at the doctrine of the Trinity. Never was there a more gratuitous
+misconception. The real intrenchment of the doctrine of the
+Trinity, so far as the Litany is concerned, lies in the four
+opening words of the second and the five opening words of the
+third of the invocations, and these it had not been proposed to
+touch. In confirmation of this view of the matter, it is pertinent
+to instance the _Book of Family Prayers_ lately put forth by a
+Committee of the Upper House of the Convocation of Canterbury.
+This manual provides no fewer than six different Litanies, all of
+them opening with addresses to the three Persons of the adorable
+Trinity, and yet in no one instance is the principle advocated by
+the deputy from South Carolina unrecognized. Every one of the six
+Litanies begins with language similar to that which he recommended.
+[See also in witness of the mediaeval use, which partially bears
+out Mr. McCrady's thought, the ancient Litany reprinted by Maskell
+from _The Prymer in English_. Mon. Hit. ii. p. 95.] If the Upper
+House of the Convocation of Canterbury, fondly supposed by us
+Anglicans to be the very citadel of sound doctrine, be thus tainted
+with heresy, upon what can we depend?
+
+Polemical considerations aside, probably even the most orthodox
+would allow that the invocations of the Litany might gain in
+devotional power, while losing nothing in august majesty, were
+the third to run--_O God the Holy Ghost, Sanctifier of the
+faithful, have mercy upon us miserable sinners_. And the fourth
+as in Bishop Heber's glorious hymn, _Holy, Holy, Holy, Lord God
+Almighty, have mercy upon us miserable sinners_. But all this is
+doctrinal and plainly _ultra vires_.
+
+[23] A very natural explanation, by the way, of the fact, often
+noticed, that there is no petition in the Litany for an increase
+of the ministry.
+
+[24] Here, _i_. _e._, in connection with Saints' Day services,
+would be an admirable opportunity for the introduction into
+liturgical use of the Beatitudes. What could possibly be more
+appropriate? And yet these much loved words of Christ have seldom
+been 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 of
+liturgies with the name of this Father of the Church and with his
+name only, would be to pay him better honor than we now show by
+three times inserting in our Prayer Book the collect conjecturally
+his--a thing the Golden-mouthed himself, when in the flesh, would
+not 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 animated
+and interesting debate in the House of Deputies as to the wisdom
+of thus seeming to cut off every opportunity for extemporary prayer
+in our public services. Up to this time, it was alleged, a liberty
+had existed of using _after_ sermon, if the preacher were disposed to
+do so, the "free prayer" which _before_ sermon it was confessedly
+not permitted him to have--why thus cut off peremptorily an
+ancient privilege? why thus sharply annul a traditional if not a
+chartered right?
+
+At first sight this distinction between before and after sermon
+looks both arbitrary and artificial, but when examined there is
+found to be a reason in it. The sermon, especially in the case of
+emotional preachers, is a sort of bridge of transition from what
+we may call the liturgical to the spontaneous mood of mind, and if
+the speaker has carried his listeners with him they are across
+the bridge at the same moment with himself. The thing that would
+have been incongruous before, becomes natural after the minister
+has been for some time speaking less in his priestly than in his
+personal character.
+
+The notion that the points at issue between the advocates of
+liturgical and the advocates of extemporaneous worship can be
+settled by a promiscuous jumbling together of the two modes, is
+a fond conceit, as the Reformed Episcopalians will doubtless confess
+when they shall have had time enough to make full trial of the
+following rubrics in their Prayer-book:
+
+_Then shall the Minister say the Collects and Prayers following in
+whole or in part, or others at his discretion_.
+
+_Here may be used any of the occasional Prayers, or extemporaneous
+Prayer_.
+
+This is bad philosophy. It need not be said that such directions
+are undevotional--for doubtless they were piously meant; but it
+must be said that they are inartistic (if the word may be allowed),
+at variance with the fitness of things and counter to the instinct
+of purity. Formality and informality are two things that cannot
+be mingled to advantage. There is place and time for each. The
+secret of the power of liturgical worship is wrapped up with the
+principle of order. A certain majesty lies in the movement which
+is without break. On the other hand the charm of extemporaneous
+devotion, and it is sometimes a very real charm, is traceable to our
+natural interest in whatever is irregular, fresh, and spontaneous.
+
+To suppose that we can secure at any given time the good effects of
+both methods by some trick of combination is an error--as well
+attempt to arrange on the same plot of ground a French and an
+English garden. If indeed Christian people could bring themselves
+to acknowledge frankly the legitimacy of both methods and provide
+amicably for their separate use, a great step forward in the
+direction of Church unity would have been achieved; but for a
+catholicity so catholic as this, public opinion is not yet ripe,
+and perhaps may not be ripe for centuries to come. Those who
+believe in the excellency of liturgies, while not believing in
+them as _jure divino_, would be well content in such a case to
+wait the working of the principle of the survival of the fittest.
+
+[27] The able and fair-minded jurist who first hit upon this
+ingenious scheme for patching the Ratification has lately, with
+characteristic frankness, said substantially this under his own
+signature.
+
+"The proper place for the amendment," he writes, "is at the end
+of the first rubric preceding the sentences of Scripture for both
+Morning and Evening Prayer, after the word Scripture, as everyone
+can see by looking." He adds: "This, however, is only a question
+of form, and ought not to interfere with the adoption of the
+amendment at the next Convention. It is to be hoped that the
+resolution for enrichment, so called, will present a variety of
+additions out of which an acceptable selection can be made; and
+when they are finally carried that the Book of Common Prayer will
+be not only the standard book, but a sealed book, so to speak, for
+as many generations as have passed since the present book was
+adopted."--Letter of the Hon. J. B. Howe of Indiana in _The
+Churchman_ for January 29, 1881.
+
+[28] See page 578 of _Evangelical Catholic Papers_. A collection
+of 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 sundry
+much desired liturgical improvements (although it yet remains to
+be seen whether the failure has been total) was perhaps due to a
+certain vagueness inherent in his plans of reform. A clear vision
+of the very thing desired seems to have been lacking, or at least
+the gift of imparting it to others. But even as no man has deserved
+better of the American Episcopal Church than he, so it is no more
+than right that his deeply cherished wishes should be had in
+careful 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 better
+way of providing relief for our Widows and Orphans than that of
+the 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 our
+American 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 the
+manifold changings of the Service, was the cause, that to turn
+the Book only was so hard and intricate a matter, that many times
+there was more business to find out what should be read than to
+read it when it was found out."
+
+[35] It may be wise to buttress the position taken with a
+quotation out of Dr. Coit.
+
+"We really, however, do not see any necessity for either of
+these Services in American Books, as with us the Ordinal always,
+now, makes a part of the Prayer Book in all editions. It would
+be a saving to expunge them and no change would be necessary,
+except the introduction of such a litanical petition and suffrage
+with the Services for Deacons and Priests, as already exists in
+the Service for Bishops. The Church of England retains the Litany
+in her Ordinal, for that, until latterly, was printed in a separate
+book, and was not to be had unless ordered expressly. And yet with
+even such a practice she has but one Communion Service. We study
+cheapness and expedition in our day. They can both be consulted
+here, _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 the
+only formulary actually dropped.
+
+[40] _The Church Quarterly Review_ for April, 1884, and July,
+1884. _The Church Times_ for August 29, 1884; also July 31, August
+7, 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 innocent
+mirth that, in justice to the maker of it, attention should be
+called 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 judgment
+of the four specified men of letters, he means, not, as he has been
+understood to mean, the whole subject-matter of _The Book Annexed_,
+but only the abstract question whether verbal variations from the
+English original of the Common Prayer be or be not, on grounds of
+purity of style, desirable. Even if this be all that he means there
+is perhaps still room for a smile, but, at all events, he ought to
+have the benefit of the doubt.
+
+[43] _Discussions and Arguments_, p. 341.
+
+[44] "The list might be brought down as late as the authorities
+pleased to bring it, even to include, if they chose, such names
+as John Keble, James De Koven, and Ferdinand Ewer."--_The Church
+Times_ for August 14, 1885.
+
+[45] This form of absolution suggested as an alternate in _The
+Book Annexed_ is taken from the source mentioned.
+
+[46] The paper read by the Dean of Worcester dealt exclusively
+with the legal aspects of the question as it concerns the Church
+of England.
+
+[47] The Rev. Edgar Morris Dumbleton (Rector of St. James's,
+Exeter).
+
+[48] The Rev. George Venables (Hon. Canon of Norwich and Vicar
+of Great Yarmouth).
+
+[49] The Rev. Arthur James Robinson (Rector of Whitechapel).
+
+[50] See letter of "J. L. W." in _The Southern Churchman_ for
+August 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 the
+Diocese of Wisconsin," _passim_.
+
+[53] The evident intention of the Joint Committee in the
+introduction of this Canticle was to make it possible to shorten
+the Morning Prayer on week-days, without spoiling the structure
+of the office, as is now often done, by leaving out one of the
+Lessons. It is certainly open to question whether a better
+alternate might not have been provided, but it is surprising to
+find so well furnished a scholar as the Wisconsin critic speaking
+of the _Benedictus es Domine_ as a liturgical novelty, "derived
+neither from the Anglican or the more ancient service-hooks." As
+a matter of fact the _Benedictus es Domine_ was sung daily in the
+Ambrosian Rite at Matins, and is found also in the Mozarabic
+Breviary.
+
+[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 _The
+Convocation Prayer Book_ published by Murray in 1880, for the
+purpose of showing what the English Book would be like if "amended
+in conformity with the recommendations of the Convocations of
+Canterbury and York, contained in reports presented to her Majesty
+the Queen in the year 1879."
+
+[57] The Report was adopted.
+
+[58] In addition to the Maryland Report we have now a still more
+admirable one from Central New York.
+
+[59] Strangely enough the Elizabethan period, so rich in genius
+of every other type, seems to have been almost wholly barren of
+liturgical power. Men had not ceased to write prayers, as a stout
+volume in the Parker Society's Library abundantly evidences; but
+they had ceased to write them with the terseness and melody that
+give to the style of the great Churchmen of the earlier reigns so
+singular a charm.
+
+[60] The liturgical manuscripts of Sanderson and Wren, made
+public only recently by the late Bishop of Chester, ought to be
+included under this head.
+
+[61] Many of these "Treasuries," "Golden Gates," and the like,
+have here and there something good, but for the most part they
+are disfigured by sins against that "sober standard of feeling,"
+than which, as a high authority assures us, nothing except "a sound
+rule of faith" is more important "in matters of practical
+religion." 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 a
+constitutional, and in no sense a liturgical question. Let it be
+considered at the proper time, and in a proper way, but why thrust
+it precipitately into a discussion to which it is thoroughly
+foreign?
+
+[64] By the Maryland Committee.
+
+[65] This paragraph was written before the author had been
+privileged to read Prof. Gold's interesting paper in _The
+Seminarian_. It is only proper to say that this accomplished
+writer and very competent critic does object emphatically to
+the theory that the opening Sentences are designed to give the
+key-note of the Service. But here he differs with Blunt, as
+elsewhere in the same paper he dissents from Freeman and from
+Littledale, admirably illustrating by his proper assertion of
+an independent judgment, the difficulty of applying the Vicentian
+rule 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 that
+the doctrinal and philological objections to the formulary as
+it originally stood were sound and sufficient. On the lips of
+a 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 was
+made, it should be noticed that King James's Bible gives us
+nineteen precedents for it; and the Prayer Book itself one.
+
+[68] In _The Book Annexed_, as originally presented, there
+stood in this place the beautiful and appropriate psalm, _Levavi
+oculos_. But the experts declared that this would never do, since
+from time immemorial _Levavi oculos_ had been a Vesper Psalm, and
+it would be little less than sacrilege to insert it in a morning
+service, 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 larger
+measure of good sense, as well as a better exegesis, than the
+Convention 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 to
+morning 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 metrical
+equivalent of "O Lord, save the queen," and it is directly
+antiphonal to the versicle which follows.
+
+There being no Established Church in the United States, it is
+doubtful whether any prayers for "rulers" are desirable, over and
+above those we already have. And if this point be conceded, the
+other considerations mentioned may be allowed to have weight in
+favor 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 illustration
+of what might otherwise be thought an extravagant statement. The
+Rev. W. C. Bishop, writing in _The Church Eclectic_ for February,
+1884, says:
+
+"The service of the Beatitudes proposed by the Committee is just
+one of 'fancy-liturgy making,' which ought to be summarily rejected.
+We have more than enough of this sort of thing already; the
+commandments, comfortable words, _et hoc genus omne_, are anything
+but 'unique glories' of our Liturgy. Anything of which we have
+exclusive possession is nearly certain to be a 'unique _blunder_,'
+instead of anything better, because the chances are a thousand to
+one that anything really beautiful or edifying would have been
+discovered by, and have commended itself to, some other Christians
+in the last two thousand years." If such is to be the nomenclature
+of our new "science," Devotion may well stand aghast in the face
+of Liturgies.
+
+[73] See the Commination Office in the Prayer Book of the Church
+of England.
+
+[74] Daniel's _Codex Liturgicus_, vol. iv. p. 343. Quoted in
+_Dictionary of Christian Antiquities_. The translation of makapismoi
+has been doubted; but Dr. Neale and Prof. Cheetham agree that the
+reference 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 the
+clean 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 alway
+pure and clean without spot of sin; Grant us the grace to follow
+thee in mercifulness toward our neighbors, and always to bear a
+pure heart and a clean conscience toward thee, that we may after
+this life see thee in thy everlasting glory, which livest and
+reignest God, world without end. _Amen_.
+
+[77] It is interesting and suggestive to observe with how much
+less frequency our attention is called to this paragraph of the
+Preface than to the later one which asserts historical continuity
+with the Church of England.
+
+[78] _Essays on Liturgiology_, p. 226.
+
+[79] The response proposed by the Commissioners ran, "Lord have
+mercy upon us, and make us partakers of this blessing," a prayer
+unobjectionable 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 laborers
+into 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 committee
+on hymnody, many years ago, as he and his colleagues were sitting
+in 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 that
+lives, not the green." Happily the suggestion failed to find a
+seconder. 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"; Lindley
+Murray, were he consulted, would have no mercy on it: and yet a
+more beautiful and touching combination of words is not to be
+found anywhere in the Psalter. It is the utter lack of this
+idiomatic characteristic that makes "Lambeth prayers" proverbially
+so 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 of
+England is inestimably precious; impracticable, because there is
+no representative body of the English Church authorized to treat
+with us.
+
+[90] This Prayer has been gathered from the _Dirige_ in _The
+Primer set forth by the King's Majesty and his Clergy_, 1545; the
+same source (it is interesting to note) to which we trace the
+English form of the _Collect for Purity_ at the beginning of the
+office.
+
+[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 forms
+of prayer. They may get speeches to be spoken upward by people on
+their knees. They may obtain a juxtaposition in space of curiously
+tessellated pieces of Bible and Prayer Book. But when I speak of
+the rareness and preciousness of prayers, I mean such prayers as
+contain three conditions--permanence, capability jot being really
+prayed, and universality. Such prayers primates and senates can no
+more command than they can order a new Cologne Cathedral or another
+epic 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 of
+God 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 men
+the men, and the women the women, and let the children stand by
+the Bema. _"--_The Divine Liturgy of St. Clement_ (Bretts's
+Translation, corrected by Neale).
+
+"_At Solemn High Mass, the deacon kisses the altar at the same
+time with the celebrating priest, by whom he is saluted with the
+kiss of peace, accompanied by these words_, PAX TECUM."--Rubric of
+the 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 Agnus
+Dei in the Mass, to communicate the kiss of peace."--_Pugin's
+Glossary_.
+
+_St. George's Chapel, Windsor_. "Item, a fine PAX, silver and gilt
+enamelled, with an image of the crucifixion, Mary and John, and
+having on the top three crosses, with two shields hanging on either
+side. Item, a ferial PAX, of plate of silver gilt, with the image
+of the Blessed Virgin."--_Dugdale's Monasticon_ quoted in above
+Glossary.
+
+"Ye who do truly and earnestly repent you of your sins, _and are
+in love and charity with your neighbors_, and intend to lead a new
+life . . . Draw near with faith, and take this holy sacrament to your
+comfort."--Shorter Exhortation in the Communion Office of the Prayer
+Book.
+
+[95] A friend who heard the sermon preached has kindly sent me the
+following apt illustrations. They do not, indeed, come from history
+technically so-called, but they report the mind of one to whose eye
+the whole life of the Middle Ages was as an open book.
+
+"There was now a pause, of which the abbot availed himself by
+commanding the brotherhood to raise the solemn chant, _De profundis
+clamavi_"--_The Monastery_, chap, xxxvii.
+
+"'To be a guest in the house where I should command?' said the
+Templar; 'Never! Chaplains, raise the psalm, _Quare fremuerunt
+Gentes_? Knights, squires, and followers of the Holy Temple, prepare
+to follow the banner of _Beau-seant_!'"--_Ivanhoe_, chap. xliv.
+
+[96] So many good things are washed oat of men's memory by the lapse
+of even a quarter of a century that possibly some even of those who
+knew all about the "Memorial" in 1852 may be willing to be reminded
+what its scope and purpose were.
+
+The petition was addressed to the bishops "in council," and
+prayed for the appointment of a commission to report upon the
+practicability of making this Church a central bond of union
+among the Christian people of America, by providing for as much
+freedom in opinion, discipline, and worship as might be held to
+be 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. Their
+Report, subsequently edited in book form by Bishop Potter, is one
+of the most valuable documents of American Church history. The
+following extract from Bishop Burgess' portion of the Report will
+be read with interest by all who ever learned to revere that
+theologian for the largeness of his learning, the calmness of his
+judgment, and the goodness of his heart. He has been speaking of
+liturgical changes as contemplated and allowed for by the framers
+of 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 the
+liturgy or its application may be rendered more perfect. To hazard
+for this result the safety or unity of the Church may be inexcusable,
+and the utmost certainty may be demanded before a change of
+this kind shall be practically ventured. But should it be once
+established, beyond the smallest doubt, that any addition or
+alteration would increase the excellence or the excellent influence
+of the liturgy in any degree sufficient to compensate or more than
+compensate for the inconveniences incident to all change, it seems
+as difficult to say that it should not be adopted by the Church,
+as to excuse any Christian from adding to his virtues or his
+usefulness.
+
+"The other 'contingencies' recognized are briefly these:
+
+"(2) When in process of time words or regulations have become
+obsolete or unsuitable.
+
+"(3) When civil or social changes require ecclesiastical changes.
+
+"(4) When the earnest desire of any respectable number of the
+members of the Church, or of persons who are without its communion,
+is urged in behalf of some not wholly unreasonable proposal of
+alteration.
+
+"(5) When error or superstition has been introduced; when that
+which was at first good and healthful has been perverted to the
+nourishment of falsehood or wickedness; or when that which was
+always evil has found utterance, and is now revealed in its true
+character."
+
+The Memorial failed for the reason that the promoters of it had not
+a clearly defined notion in their own minds of what they wanted--the
+secret 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 Devotional
+Use from Various Rituals_. By William Bright, M. A. J. H. & Jas.
+Parker, Oxford and London.
+
+From the Appendix I take the following illustrations of the
+statement 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 our
+doubts and uncertainties the grace to ask what thou wouldest have
+us to do; that the Spirit of wisdom may save us from all false
+choices, and that in thy light we may see light, and in thy straight
+path 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; vouchsafe
+them grace to come to themselves, the will and power to return to
+thee, and the loving welcome of thy forgiveness through Jesus Christ
+our Lord.
+
+"_For all who do the work of the Church_.--O Lord, without whom
+our labor is but lost, and with whom thy little ones go forth as the
+mighty, be present to all works in thy Church which are undertaken
+according to thy will, and grant to thy laborers a pure intention,
+patient faith, sufficient success upon earth, and the bliss of
+serving thee in heaven, through Jesus Christ our Lord.
+
+"_For grace to speak the Truth in love_.--O Lord and Saviour Jesus
+Christ, who earnest not to strive nor cry, but to let thy words
+fall as the drops that water the earth: grant all who contend
+for the faith once delivered, never to injure it by clamor and
+impatience, but speaking thy precious truth in love, so to present
+it that it may be loved, and that men may see in it thy goodness
+and thy beauty: who livest and reignest with the Father and the
+Holy Ghost, one God, world without end."
+
+Both as regards devotional flavor and literary beauty these prayers
+will, I feel sure, be judged worthy, by such as will read them more
+than once, to stand by the side certainly of many of the collects
+already in the Prayer Book.
+
+[98] Preached in Grace Church, N. Y., on the Twentieth Sunday after
+Trinity, that being the Sunday next following the adjournment of the
+General Convention of 1892.
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of A Short History of the Book of Common
+Prayer, by William Reed Huntington
+
+*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK SHORT HISTORY--BOOK COMMON PRAYER ***
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