ublication by authority in the early spring of 1548, of an Order
of the Communion, as it was called, a formulary prepared by Cranmer
to enable the priest, after having consecrated the elements in
the usual manner, to distribute them to the people with the
sentences of delivery spoken in English. The priest, that is to
say, was to proceed with the service of the Mass as usual in the
Latin tongue, but after he had himself received the bread and
the wine, he was to proceed to a service of Communion for the
people in a speech they could understand.

Almost everything in this tentative document, as we may call it,
was subsequently incorporated in the Office of the Holy Communion
as we are using it to-day.

We have, then, as an abiding result of the liturgical experiments
made in anticipation of the actual setting forth of an authoritative
Prayer Book, the Litany and this Order of the Communion.

The time was now ripe for something better and more complete; a
new king was upon the throne, and one whose counsellors were
better disposed toward change than ever Henry had been. The great
movement we know under the name of the Reformation touched the
life of the Christian Church in every one of its three great
departments--doctrine, discipline, and worship. In Henry's mind,
however, the question appears to have been almost exclusively one
of discipline or polity. His quarrel was not with the accepted
theological errors of his day, for as Defender of the Faith he
covered some of the worst of them with his shield. Neither was
he ill-disposed toward the methods and usages of public worship
so far as we can judge. His quarrel first, last, and always was
with a certain rival claimant of power, whose pretended authority
he was determined to drive out of the realm, to wit, the Pope.
But while it was thus with Henry, it was far otherwise with many
of the more thoughtful and devout among his theologians, and
when the restraint that had been laid on them was removed by
the king's death, they welcomed the opportunity to apply to
doctrine and worship the same reforming touch that had already
remoulded polity.

An enlarged Committee of Convocation sat at Windsor in the summer
of 1548, and as a result there was finally set forth, and ordered
to be put into use on Whitsunday, 1549, what has become known in
history as the "First Prayer Book of Edward VI."

To dwell on those features of the First Book that have remained
unaltered to the pr