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
exa