1785] ^E^'- ^VILLIAM SMTilI, D. D. I41 



give the most of this correspondence. It will be seen that the Com- 

 mittee construed liberally the leave given them to make verbal and 

 grammatical alterations — more liberally than Dr. White himself 

 quite approved.* 



CHAPTER XLVII. 



Correspondence between Dr. Smith and Dr. White, with a Letter from 

 Dr. Wharton to the latter while the Copy of the " Proposed Book " 

 WAS going through the Press, including Dr. White's " Hints for a 

 Preface," and Dr. Smith's Preface— Dr. Smith to the Rev. Samuel 

 Parker. 



We proceed to give the correspondence referred to in our last 

 chapter relating to the publication of the Proposed Book. For 

 the preservation of it, we are indebted, in former years, to Bishop 

 White and Dr. Smith, in later ones to the excellent archseolocrist 

 of our church, Dr. Perry, now Bishop of Iowa, who first gave it 

 to the publicf 



The Rev. Dr. White to the Rev. Dr. Smith. 



Philadelphia, October 19, 1785. 

 Dear Sir : The first proof-sheet will accompany this and I expect 

 to send you another by Saturday's post to Baltimore. I think we have 

 fallen into an error, which Mr. Hall says we can easily correct, and our 

 brethren here join with me in wishing it corrected. It is the making 

 the Litany a necessary part of the Morning Service. The way I would 

 propose to correct it is thus: In the rubric let it be "The Litany, etc., 

 to be used on Sundays and other holidays, appointed to be observed by 

 this Church." After the prayer, " We humbly beseech thee, O Father, 

 etc.," let there be this rubric, "But when the Litany is not used, the 

 three following prayers shall be said instead thereof;" then insert the 



■"Bishop White, in his Memoirs (Second edition, p. 109), referring to the fact that 

 the Committee had been authorized to make verl:)al aherations, but were re-<trained 

 from departing in either form or substance from what had been agreed on by the 

 Convention, says that " the imperfections evidently remaining on some points by reason 

 of haste [in the Convention], and which could have been remedied had tliey been 

 attended to, and, added to this, the importunities of some of the clergy who pressed the 

 Committee to extend their powers pretty far, in full confidence that the liberty would 

 be acceptalile to all, were such that, in the end, ihey were drawn on to take a greater 

 latitude than ought to be allowed in such a work." 



•j- In presenting it, in ]irint, in this volume, I have avoided the contractions in or- 

 thography, which Bishop White, following a custom of his youth, continued through 

 his life. 



