1785] REV. WILLIAM SMITH, D. D. l^\ 



pared the pointing of it with an Oxford edition of the Prayer Book 

 printed in 1775, and adjusted it accordingly. This I think you cannot 

 bill approve of, as the said edition appears to have been made on great 

 deliberation in that seat of letters. I observed that wherever you had 

 altered the pointing in the proof-sheet, you had done it conformably to 

 the same book. I intend to bestow the same pains on all I shall send 

 to the press. 



I expect to send by this opportunity a proof-sheet, containing the 

 greater part of the Communion Service, which will come to me the 

 second time from the press ; another is also in hand. I mentioned to 

 you in a letter which I sent with the Sermons by Thursday's stage (and 

 which do not appear to hare come to hand when you were setting out 

 for Annapolis) that some of our brethren, supported by remarks of the 

 people, thought the prayer for the civil rulers an unnecessary repetition 

 in the Communion Service ; and that the evil might be avoided by a 

 rubric dispensing with it, provided the Morning Service had been used 

 immediately before. I told them I doubted of our right to alter it, and 

 therefore merely mention it to you as information. 



Mr. Provost has enclosed to me a copy of a letter from the President 

 of Congress to the Minister at the Court of Great Britain. After stat- 

 ing our late proceedings and the political hindrances on a former occa- 

 sion, he says, that if our application to the bishops should come before 

 the King and Ministry, it is the wish of "the Church of England Mem- 

 bers of Congress," that Mr. Adams may assure them of our right to 

 take the said step and that the granting our petition would not be an 

 intermeddling in the affairs of these States. 



You give me leave to go on with the press alone, after the first sheet 



or two. But it is a liberty I shall never use, unless the press should be 



like to stop without it ; which is not a probable case. At any rate, I 



shall not venture on any alterations without consent. 



I am, 



Yours, etc., 



W. White. 

 Rev. Dr. Smith. 



I shall direct three thousand copies, 



Rev. Dr. White to Rev. Dr. Smith. 



Philadelphia, November 2, 1785. 



Dear Sir : I have received yours from Chester, and indeed all which 

 you mention to have written hitherto. 



I shall attend to the alterations you propose; all which I approve, 

 except the word Ministers for Pastors in the prayer for the clergy, which 

 you only seem to throw out for consideration. 



