Produced by Elaine Laizure
[Transcriber's Note: The footnotes have been numbered and moved tothe end of the document.]
This file was produced from images generously made available by
The Internet Archive/American Libraries.
Rector of Grace Church New York
2 and 3 Bible House
Copyright, 1893,
by
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
The opening paper of this collection was originally read as alecture before a liturgical class, and is now published for thefirst time. The others have appeared in print from time to timeduring the movement for revision. If they have any permanentvalue, it is because of their showing, so far as the writer's partin the matter is concerned, what things were attempted and whatthings failed of accomplishment. Should they serve as contributoryto some future narrative of the revision, the object of theirpublication will have been accomplished. So much has been said asto the poverty of our gains on the side of "enrichment," ascompared with what has been secured in the line of "flexibility,"that it has seemed proper to append to the volume a ComparativeTable detailing the additions of liturgical matter made to theCommon Prayer at the successive revisions.
W. R. H. New York, Christmas, 1892.
Liturgical worship, understood in the largest sense the phrase canbear, means divine service rendered in accordance with an establishedform. Of late years there has been an attempt made among purists toconfine the word "liturgy" to the office entitled in the PrayerBook, The Order for the Administration of the Lord's Supper orHoly Communion.
This restricted and specialized interpretation of a familiar wordmay serve the purposes of technical scholarship, for undoubtedlythere is much to be said in favor of the narrowed signification aswe shall see; but unless English literature can be rewritten, plainpeople who draw their vocabulary from standard authors will go oncalling service-books "liturgies" regardless of the fact that theycontain many things other than that one office which is entitledto