Part 11 (1/2)

Of a more serious character would be the omission, which some urge, of the words ”Protestant Episcopal” from the t.i.tle-page.

Should anything of this sort be done, which is most unlikely, Dr.

Egar's suggestion to drop the words, ”of the Protestant Episcopal Church,” leaving it to read, ”according to the use in the United States of America,” would carry the better note of catholicity.

But, after all, the remonstrants have only to turn the page to find the obnoxious ”Protestant Episcopal” so fast riveted into the _Ratification_ that nothing short of an act of violence done to history could accomplish the excision of it.[63]

RESOLUTION II.

_The Introductory Portion_.

(a) _Table of Contents_.--The suggestion[64] that all entries after ”The Psalter” should be printed in italics, is a good one.

(b) _Concerning the Service of the Church_.--This subst.i.tute for the present ”Order how the Psalter is appointed to be read” and ”Order how the rest of the Holy Scripture is appointed to be read”

is largely based on the provisions of the so-called ”Shortened Services Act” of 1872. The second paragraph relating to the use of the Litany appears to be superfluous.

The enlarged Table of Proper Psalms and the Table of Selections of Psalms, which come under this same general heading, would be a very great gain. Why the Maryland Committee should have p.r.o.nounced the latter Table ”practically useless, since the psalms are not to be printed,” it is hard, in the face of the existing usage with respect to ”Proper Psalms,” to understand; nor is there any special felicity in the proposal emanating from the same source that the number of the Selections be cut down to three, one for feasts and one for fasts and one for an extra service on Sunday nights.

On the other hand, the Maryland Committee does well in recommending that permission be given to the minister to shorten the Lessons at his discretion, though the hard and fast condition, ”provided he read not less than fifteen consecutive verses,” apart from the questionable English in which it is phrased, smacks more of the drill-room than of the sanctuary. Far better would it be (if the suggestion may be ventured) to allow no liberty of abridgment whatever in the case of Proper Lessons, while giving entire freedom of choice on all occasions for which no proper lessons have been appointed. So far as ”ferial” days are concerned, it would be much wiser to let the Table of Lessons be regarded as suggestive and not mandatory. The half-way recognition of this principle in the new Lectionary, in which such a freedom is allowed, _provided_ the Lesson taken be one of those appointed for ”some day in the same week,” seems open to a suspicion of childishness.

The rubrical direction ent.i.tled ”Hymns and Anthems” requires verbal correction, but embodies a wholesome principle.

Under this same general head of ”The Introductory Portion” come the new Lectionary and the new Tables for finding Easter. Of these, the former is law already, except so far as respects the Lessons appointed for the proposed Feast of the Transfiguration. The Easter Tables are a monument to the erudition and accuracy of the late Dr. Francis Harison. The Tables in our present Standard run to the year 1899. Perhaps a ”wholesome conservatism” ought to discover a tincture of impiety in any proposal to disturb them before the century has expired.

RESOLUTION III.

_The Morning Prayer_.

(a) _The First Rubric_.--The Maryland Committee is quite right in remarking that the language of this important rubric, as set forth by the Convention of 1883, is ”inelegant and inaccurate,”

but another diocese has called attention to the fact that the subst.i.tute which Maryland offers would, if adopted, enable any rector who might be so minded to withhold entirely from the non-communicating portion of his flock all opportunity for _public_ confession and absolution from year's end to year's end. It is not for a moment to be supposed that there was any covert intention here, but the incident ill.u.s.trates the value to rubric-makers of the Horatian warning--_Brevis esse labor o, obscurus fio_.

Pa.s.sing by the Proper Sentences for special Days and Seasons, against which no serious complaint has been entered,[65] we come to the proposed short alternative for the Declaration of Absolution.

As it stood in the Sarum Use this Absolution ran as follows:

”The Almighty and Merciful Lord grant you Absolution and Remission of all your sins, s.p.a.ce for true penitence, amendment of life, and the grace and consolation of the Holy Spirit. Amen.”[66]

With the single change of the word ”penitence” to ”repentance” this is the form in which the Absolution stood in the original _Book Annexed_. The Convention thought that it detected a ”Romanizing germ” in the place a.s.signed to ”penitence,” and an archaism in the temporal sense a.s.signed to ”s.p.a.ce,” and accordingly rearranged the whole sentence. But in their effort to mend the language, our legislators a.s.suredly marred the music.[67]

(e) _The Benedictus es, Domine_.--The insertion of this Canticle as an alternate to the _Te Deum_ was in the interest of shortened services for week-day use, as has been already explained. The same purpose could be served equally well, and the always objectionable expedient of a second alternate avoided, by s.p.a.cing off the last six verses of the _Benedicite_, which have an integrity of their own, and prefixing a rubric similar to those that stand before the _Venite_ and the _Benedictus_ in ”_The Book Annexed_”; e. g.:

_On week-days, it shall suffice if only the latter portion of this Canticle be said or sung_.

(n) _The Benedictus_.--With reference to the restoration of the last portion of this Hymn, it has been very properly remarked by one of the critics of _The Book Annexed_, that the line of division between the required and the optional portions would more properly come after the eighth than after the fourth verse. This would make the portion reserved for Advent begin with the reference to John the Baptist, as undoubtedly it ought to do: ”And thou, child, shalt be called the Prophet of the Highest.”