h to show how, with the least
of loss and most of gain, it may be brought about.

The Diocese of Maryland is first in the field with an adequate
contribution of this sort. A thoroughly competent committee,
appointed in October, 1884, has recently printed its Report, and
whether the Diocesan Convention adopt, amend, or reject what is
presented to it, there can be little doubt that the mind of the
Church at large will be perceptibly affected by what these
representative men of Maryland have said.[57] Apart from a
certain aroma of omniscience pervading it (with which, by the
way, sundry infelicities of language in the text of the Report,
only indifferently consort), the document, is a forcible one, and
of great practical value.

The Committee have gone over the entire field covered by the
"Notification to the Dioceses," taking up the Resolutions one
by one, and not only noting in connection with each whatever is
in itself objectionable, but also (a far more difficult task)
suggesting in what respect this or that proposition might be
better put. The _apparatus criticus_ thus provided, while not
infallible, is eminently helpful, sets a wholesome pattern, and
if supplemented by others of like tenor and scope, will go far
to lighten the labor of whatever committee may have the final
recension of the whole work put into its hands.[58]

It would be a poor self-conceit in the framers of _The Book
Annexed_, that should prompt them to resent as intrusive any
criticism whatsoever. What we all have at heart is the bringing
of our manual of worship as nearly as possible to such a pitch
of perfectness as the nature of things human will allow. The thing
we seek is a Liturgy which shall draw to itself everything that
is best and most devout within our national borders, a Common
Prayer suited to the common wants of all Americans. Whatever
truly makes for this end, it will be our wisdom to welcome, whether
those who bring it forward are popularly labelled as belonging
to this, that, or the other school of Churchmanship. To allow
party jealousies to mar the symmetry and fulness of a work in which
all Churchmen ought to have an equal inheritance would be the worst
of blunders. By all means let the raiment of needlework and the
clothing of wrought gold be what they should be for such sacred
uses as hers who is the daughter of the great King, but let us not
fall to wrangling about the vats in which the thread was dyed or
the river bed fr