carried the day,
instead of having the "Prayer Book as it is," we should still be
drearily debating the rival merits of Hereford and Sarum. The great
question to be settled is, Does an emergency exist serious enough
to warrant an attempt on our part to make better what we know
already to be good? Is the Republic expecting of us, and reasonably
expecting of us, greater things than with our present equipment we
are quite able to accomplish? There are eyes that think they see a
great future before this Church--are they right, or is it only
mirage? At any rate ours is no return trip--we are outward bound.
The ship is cutting new and untried waters with her keel at every
moment. There is no occasion to question the sufficiency of either
compass or helm, but in certain matters of a practical sort there
is a demand upon us to use judgment, we are bound to give a place
in our seamanship to present common-sense as well as to respect for
ancient usage, and along with it all to feel some confidence that
if the ship is what we think her to be, "the winds of God" may be
trusted to bring her safely into port.

THE BOOK ANNEXED: ITS CRITICS AND ITS PROSPECTS.

THE BOOK ANNEXED: ITS CRITICS AND ITS PROSPECTS.[36]

First, last, and always this is to be said with respect to
the revision of the American Common Prayer, that unless we can
accomplish it with hearty good feeling the attempt at improvement
ought to be abandoned altogether.

The day has gone by when new formularies of worship could be
imposed on an unwilling Church by edict, and although under our
carefully guarded system of ecclesiastical legislation there is
little danger of either haste or unfairness, we must bear it well
in mind that something more than "a constitutional majority of both
houses" is needful if we would see liturgical revision crowned with
real success. Of course, absolute unanimity is not to be expected.
Every improvement that the world has seen was greeted at its birth
by a chorus of select voices sounding the familiar anthem, "The old
is better"; and the generation of those, who, in the sturdy phrase
of King James's revisers, "give liking unto nothing but what is
framed by themselves, and hammered on their anvil," will be always
with us. But substantial unanimity may exist, even when absolute
unanimity is impossible, and if anything like as general a consent
can be secured for revision in 1886 as was given to it in 1883, the
friends of