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 for