290 LIFE AND CORRESPONDENCE OF THE [1789 



Oi'der of Confirmation. This House, too, prepared a Form of 

 1^'amily Prayer, the form and the manner of setting forth the 

 Psahns in metre, a Ratification of the Thirt}'-nine Articles, with 

 the exception of the 36th and 37th, and put other parts of the 

 Book into shape. 



The Prayer Book, as now used in the American Cliurch, was 

 thus very completely the joint work of the two Houses, each 

 House doing its full share; each acting freely upon the work of 

 the other, but each with perfect respect, good-will and good man- 

 ners toward that other, although we know that the House of 

 Bishops did not fully approve all that was finally agreed on; 

 it agreeing to all, however, as in nothing essentially wrong. Dr. 

 Smith's preface to the old Proposed Book, shortened and slightly 

 altered — but with its essential thoughts and much of its exact 

 language retained — made the preface to the new volume. 



I ought not here perhaps to omit a little anecdote, illustrative 

 of what I state just above, and which comes to me in a private 

 letter from that well-known and much-honored divine of our 

 Church, the Rev. Thomas W. Coit, D. D., derived by him from 

 the lips of the late Dr. Samuel Farmar Jarvis, and given to Dr. 

 Coit as Dr. Coit himself says, with that gentleman's characteristic 

 interest when relating anything of vital consequence pertaining to 

 the history of our American Prayer Book. "I presume," says Dr. 

 Coit, "that Dr. Jarvis had it from his father, who may have been on 

 the spot at the time of its occurrence." Dr. Coit continues: 



Bishops Seabury and White constituted the House of Bishops when 

 our present Communion Office was about to be proposed to the House 

 of Deputies for their adoption. The two Bishops preferred the Scotch 

 Communion Service to the English, and after they had sent // to the 

 House of Deputies felt anxious and timid about the result; and well 

 they might, when the Athanasian Creed had been ignored, the Nicene 

 treated with ominous neglect, and even the simple Creed of the Apostles 

 submitted to tinkering — a blemish inflicted on it which, even to this 

 late day, our Church has not had the courage to erase ! 



The Bishops sent for Dr. Smith, then President of the House of 

 Deputies, for a private conference. They frankly admitted that they 

 had gone to the Scotch Communion Office for a material portion of 

 tlieir labors. But as Dr. Smith was a born Scotchman, this was a com- 

 pliment to his country, which subdued his prejudices, if he had any. 

 He agreed to introduce the new office to the House of Deputies and 



