n no degree was
it more cumbrous than that to which the people were already
accustomed. Doubtless it would have been still more to the
Committee's credit could they have brought in an enriched Book
smaller by a third than the Book in use; but this their conservatism
forbade.

Of even greater moment is the other point, which concerns the
quality of the available material. It is the greatest mistake in
the world to suppose that simply because a given prayer exists,
say in an Oriental liturgy, and has been translated into English
by an eminent scholar, it is therefore proper material to be worked
into our services. As a matter of fact, a great deal of devotional
language of which the Oriental liturgies is made up is prolix and
tedious to a degree simply insufferable. Moreover in the case of
prayers in themselves admirable in the original tongue in which
they were composed, all is often lost through lack of a verbal
felicity in the translation. If anyone questions this judgment,
let him toil through Neale's and Littledale's _Translations of
the Primitive Liturgies_ and see whether he can find six, nay,
three, consecutive lines which he would be willing to see introduced
into our own Communion Office. Or, as respects translations
from the Latin office-books of the Church of England, let him
scrupulously search the pages of the "Sarum Hours," as done
into the vernacular by the Recorder of Salisbury, and see how
many of the Collects strike him as good enough to be transplanted
into the Book of Common Prayer. The result of this latter voyage
of discovery will be an increased wonder at the affluence of the
mediaeval devotions, combined with amazement at the poverty and
unsatisfactoriness of the existing translations. It is with a Latin
collect as with a Greek ode or an Italian sonnet: no matter how
wonderful the diction, the charm of it is as a locked secret until
the thing has been Englished by genius akin to his who first made
it out of his own heart. Of others besides the many brave men who
lived before Agamemnon might it be written:

sed omnes illacrumabiles
Urgentur, ignotique larga
Nocte, carent quia vate sacro.

It was the peculiar felicity of Schiller that he had Coleridge for
a translator, and the shades of Gregory and Leo owe it to a living
Anglican divine that we English-speaking Christians can think their
thoughts after them, and pray their prayers.

Such being the facts in the case, it is evident tha