rm 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