296 LIFE AND CORRESPONDENCE OF THE \M^9 



of 1789; nor, taken as a whole, do I deny its superiority to the 

 "Proposed Book." The length of the Morning Service and some 

 few matters qiias incima fiidit,^ are the greatest objections that I 

 think of to it. I am certainly ready to admit that in so far as 

 in its weight and body, the new liturgy comes nearer to the Book 

 of Common Prayer of the Church of England, than did the Pro- 

 posed Book, a great point for the future is gained. The Church 

 in America and the Church in Great Britain and Ireland, and over 

 the vast colonial possessions of the latter nation are made by it 

 really one. United in doctrine it is most desirable that they be 

 united in that which largely with most people, and with many, 

 entirely, both explains and preserves doctrine. The present 

 "Common Prayers" of the Church of England and of our Church 

 — each having the same articles of religion — do, in the main, 

 unite the two churches. Perhaps each would do well never to 

 seek to make an union more complete. The subject assuredly 

 ought never to be thrown open to motions and debate in any large 

 bodies, nor to be agitated by newspaper or other form of popular 

 and prolonged discussions, nor in any form calculated to be a 

 dangerous one. The remarks of a well-known representative in 

 the Legislature of Pennsylvania, f A. d. 1834, when it was pro- 

 posed to review the then very good Constitution of the State, 

 apply with force to the subject which we are now considering. 



The right of the people to alter their government in such a manner 

 as they may think proper, is a right not to be questioned. But it is a 

 right which a people having a government under which theyenjov great 

 happiness and great prosperity, ought to call into exercise with extreme 

 caution. No system of government will be satisfactory to all ; and 



* I need not refer to that almost shocking one in the administration of the Lord's 

 Supper, by which, through the interposition of a word or two in the part of our " In- 

 vocation," imported from the " Prayer of Consecration," used by the Church of Scot- 

 land — the latter of which reads, "beseeching thee \\\'\\. 'whosoever shall be partakers 

 of this Holy Communion," while ours is, " beseeching thee that we and all others 

 who shall be partakers of this Holy Communion" — makes us, by adhering literally 

 to the rest of the prayer of the Church of Scotland, ^.rclude the parties ofiering the 

 prayer from the benefits meant to be invoked ! The omission in the Prayer Book of 

 1789 of the directions contained in the rubric of the English Book, how, in the Morning 

 Service, the First Lesson is to be read, — " distinctly, with an audible voice ; he that read- 

 eth so standing and turning himself as best to be heard by all present " — makes sense- 

 less the rubric in our book, that the Second Lesson is to be read "in like manner." 



f The late John Bradford Wallace, Esq., of Philadelphia, representing at the time 

 the county of Crawford, in the northwestern part of Pennsylvania. 



