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,