224 LfFE AND CORRESPONDENCE OF THE [1785 



for the press and to publish it, he gave his hearty effort to this 

 object, rendering an ahiiost exclusive work in what was done in 

 the alterations in Calendar and some assistance also in the adapta- 

 tion of the Psalter, in the way preferred by Dr. Smith and Dr. 

 Wharton, to popular reading in the churches, by rejecting psalms 

 or parts of psalms incomprehensible to any reader, clerical or lay, 

 except after he had sought information of the circumstances under 

 which the psalm was written — and dividing them so as to shorten 

 that part of the service. But he did not, as we know from his 

 " Memoirs," himself approve of this plan. His poaposal was to 

 take the whole psalms, select such as fall in with the general 

 subjects of divine worship, and leave the officiating minister his 

 choice among those which should be selected. The plan finally 

 adopted by the majority of the committee, and in executing which 

 Dr. White, after it was fixed against his view, co-operated cordially, 

 will hereafter appear. Dr. White's liking of all parts of the book, 

 or of it in the main, is not to be inferred from his endeavors to 

 make it throughout as effective as possible. He disliked, and 

 strongly disliked, the service for the 4th of July. Yet by select- 

 ing appropriate lessons, etc., he made it more effective than the 

 convention and Dr. Smith had left it.* It was enough for him 

 that the convention liked the book, and he carried out, with abso- 

 lute honesty, the purpose which the convention had in appointing 

 him, with Drs. Smith and Wharton, a committee to get it impres- 

 sively before the churches for adoption, if they liked it. With his 

 perfect candor and perfect integrity of nature, he could not have 

 done otherwise. But it is quite plain that he desired the book to 

 be considered at first only as a proposed book ; and that if it ever 

 should become the Liturgy of the Church in the United States, it 

 should become so only upon full consent of all the churches de- 

 liberately and authentically expressed. 



The key to what I suppose were Dr. Wliite's feelings and action 

 about the alterations, so far as they were now made, are to be 

 found in his desire to make what — adopting terms from our political 

 system — we may call a Federal Church as distinguished from a 

 variety of State chiirclics. He writes to the Rev. Mr. Parker, 

 August 6th, 1787 :t 



■"■ See supra, page 166. 



f Perry's "Hnlf Century of Le^i'^l.'^tion." Vol. I., pp. 35, 36. 



