as amply as it does the purposes of a population now swollen
from four millions to fifty, and covering the whole breadth of the
continent, is marvel enough; to assert for the book entire adequacy
to meet these altered circumstances is a mistake. "New time, new
favors, and new joys," so a familiar hymn affirms, "do a new song
require." We have conceded the principle so far as psalmody is
concerned, why not apply it to the service of prayer as well as
to that of praise, and in addition to our new hymns secure also such
new intercessions and new thanksgivings as the needs of to-day
suggest? The reference in the resolution to the approaching
completion of the century has since been playfully characterized
as a bit of "sentimentalism."[7] The criticism would be entirely
just if the mere recurrence of the centennial anniversary were the
point chiefly emphasized. But when a century closes as this one of
ours has done with a great social revolution whereby "all estates
of men" have been more or less affected, the proposal to signalize
entrance upon a fresh stretch of national life by making devotional
preparation for it is something better than a pretty conceit; there
is a serious reasonableness in it.[8]

Every revision of the Common Prayer of the Church of England, and
there have been four of them since Edward's First Book was put in
print, has taken place at some important era of transition in the
national life: and conversely it may be said that every civil
crisis, with a single exception, has left its mark upon the
formularies.

To one who argues that because we in this country are evidently
entering upon a new phase of the national life we ought similarly
to re-enforce and readjust our service-book, it is no sufficient
reply to urge the severance effected here between Church and State.
The fact that ours is a non-established Church does not make her
wholly unresponsive to the shocks of change that touch the civil
fabric. In so far as a political renewal alters the social grading
of society, bringing in education, for instance, where before it
was not, or suddenly developing new forms of industrial activity,
the Church, whether established or not, is in duty bound to take
cognizance of the fresh field of duty thus suddenly thrust upon her,
and to prepare herself accordingly.

In the Preface added to the English Prayer Book at the Restoration,
and commonly attributed to Sanderson, "that staid and well weighed
man," as