1789] REV. WILLIAM SMITH, D. D. 293 



be more beautiful than the eight verses in the Proposed Book in 

 sequence to the four in our present book from which they are cut 

 off? What more beautiful especially than these concluding ones: 



And thou, Child, shalt be called the Prophet of the Highest: for 

 thou shalt go before the face of the Lord to prepare liis ways; 



To give knowledge of salvation unto his people : for the remission 

 of their sins. 



Through the tender mercy of our God: whereby the Day-spring from 

 on high hath visited us; 



To give light to them that sit in darkness, and in the shadow of 

 death : and to guide our feet into the way of peace. 



I think that the Convention of 1789 made as bad mistakes or 

 worse in supplying the Magnificat and the Nunc Dc mitt is of the 

 early Church and retained in the Proposed Book, by anything 

 whatsoever: I think that the same Convention made an equal 

 mistake in making as part of the Litany or penitential supplication^ 

 a general Thanksgiving with the prayer of St. Chrysostom and 

 the minor Benediction, accompanied by a right to the minister 

 officiating to introduce one, two, or any number of special prayers 

 and special Thanksgivings, and leaving it discretionary with him 

 to omit some of the grandest and most affecting parts of the 

 true and real Litany; down, I mean, to the prayer, "IVc Jinmbly 

 beseech thee!' I think that in taking away the exhortations to the 

 Communion from the place where, acting by Dr. Smith's sugges- 

 tion, the committee in charge of the Proposed Book put them — 

 that is to say, at the very beginning of "The Communion" — and 

 restoring them to the place where they now are, after the prayer 

 for Christ Church militant — and so dividing the service (one ser- 

 vice rightly viewed) into the "ante-Communion" and "the Com- 

 munion," — the term "ante-Communion," a term not found, I think, 

 in the Prayer Book — thus encouraging the departure of the parish- 

 ioners from the great service of the Church — they have lowered 

 that office to such a degree that in a measure it loses its proper 

 influence.* 



* Led on by this error — I speak it reverently — of the Convention of 1789, some of 

 our low-Church clergy — after having got, from those who do not communicate, their 

 money, which, if there is a coviinuuion, the Church contemplates should be the offer- 

 ing of those who do — that is to say of all adults present — persons whom the Church 

 supposes are baptized and confirmed— pronounce, with no authority whatsoever, the 

 minor Benediction in the midst of the Communion ; so, in fact, dismissing the whole 



