ad been aimed
at the doctrine of the Trinity. Never was there a more gratuitous
misconception. The real intrenchment of the doctrine of the
Trinity, so far as the Litany is concerned, lies in the four
opening words of the second and the five opening words of the
third of the invocations, and these it had not been proposed to
touch. In confirmation of this view of the matter, it is pertinent
to instance the _Book of Family Prayers_ lately put forth by a
Committee of the Upper House of the Convocation of Canterbury.
This manual provides no fewer than six different Litanies, all of
them opening with addresses to the three Persons of the adorable
Trinity, and yet in no one instance is the principle advocated by
the deputy from South Carolina unrecognized. Every one of the six
Litanies begins with language similar to that which he recommended.
[See also in witness of the mediaeval use, which partially bears
out Mr. McCrady's thought, the ancient Litany reprinted by Maskell
from _The Prymer in English_. Mon. Hit. ii. p. 95.] If the Upper
House of the Convocation of Canterbury, fondly supposed by us
Anglicans to be the very citadel of sound doctrine, be thus tainted
with heresy, upon what can we depend?

Polemical considerations aside, probably even the most orthodox
would allow that the invocations of the Litany might gain in
devotional power, while losing nothing in august majesty, were
the third to run--_O God the Holy Ghost, Sanctifier of the
faithful, have mercy upon us miserable sinners_. And the fourth
as in Bishop Heber's glorious hymn, _Holy, Holy, Holy, Lord God
Almighty, have mercy upon us miserable sinners_. But all this is
doctrinal and plainly _ultra vires_.

[23] A very natural explanation, by the way, of the fact, often
noticed, that there is no petition in the Litany for an increase
of the ministry.

[24] Here, _i_. _e._, in connection with Saints' Day services,
would be an admirable opportunity for the introduction into
liturgical use of the Beatitudes. What could possibly be more
appropriate? And yet these much loved words of Christ have seldom
been given the place in worship they deserve.

They do find recognition as an antiphon in the _Liturgy of St.
Chrysostom_. To reassert a usage associated in the history of
liturgies with the name of this Father of the Church and with his
name only, would be to pay him better honor than we now show by
three times inserting in our Prayer Book the collect conjectu