1785] R^V. WILLIAAI SMITH, D. D. 211 



ascribed and I presume rightly those two grand verses first found 

 in the Proposed Book. 



The Lord is in his holy temple : let all the earth keep silence before 

 him. — Hab. ii. 20. 



From the rising of the sun even unto the going down of the same, 

 my name shall be great among the Gentiles ; and in every place incense 

 shall be offered unto my name, and a pure offering : for my name shall 

 be great among the heathen, saith the Lord of hosts. — Mai. i. 11. 



And this third one — meant to have been put there, though from 

 accident apparently omitted — very appropriate to a person coming 

 into God's house, but not a penitential sentence : 



Let the words of my mouth, and the meditation of my heart, be 

 alway acceptable in thy sight, O Lord, my strength and my Redeemer.* 

 — Psalm xix. 14, 15. 



I suppose too that to Dr. Smith's liking of an enriched ritual, 

 and to the fact that he habitually used the communion service as 

 one separate from the morning prayer, we owe that fine introduc- 

 tion from the communion into the daily service, as an anthem, of 

 the Glo7-ia in Excclsis Deo, instead of the Gloria Patri ; and some 

 other changes of a like kind. 



In addition to this rich and decorated style of taste which char- 

 acterized the subject of our memoir, we may observe that there 

 was nothing archaic in his literary tastes. Paying to them great 

 respect, and sometimes quoting them, he was never enamored of 

 the old divines of the Church of England, nor of any antique ex- 

 pressions in them. Indeed, he mentions what we can well under- 

 stand, that " in his situation " his reading had only been a dipping 

 into books as occasion required and time would permit, " and that 

 he did not remember " his ever having read any regularly through 

 without skipping from place to place, except, perhaps, Robinson 



* These sentences are so grand and impressive that they are retained in our present 

 Book of Common Prayer, notwithstanding the penitential character of all those that 

 succeed, and with the reference to them only, in the exhortation of the minister, which 

 follows. If Dr. Smith could have given perfection to his idea, I rather apprehend 

 that he would have considered his three verses as something apart from and precedinof 

 the order of daily morning service, and in the way in which the metre psalms and 

 hymns are now allowed to be suilg in (not by') all congregations before morning and 

 evening prayer. What a grand Processional the three verses would make ! What a 

 Ttapaffxfxj?;, or preparation for confession of sins and absolution of them in the holy 

 temple of the Lord ! The Prayer Book of the " Reformed Church of England " does, 

 indeed, somewhat thus use the first of these three verses. 



