n the work of revision jumped at one bound from a
scheme which provided a distinctive set of services for every day
in the year to a scheme that assigned one stereotyped form to all
days.

Now nothing could be more unwise than any attempt to restore the
methods of the Breviary, with its complicated and artificial forms
of devotion; but so far to imitate the Breviary as to provide within
limits for a recognition of man's innate love of change would be
wisdom. By having a distinctive service for week-days, and a
distinctive service for holydays, Ave might add just that little
increment to the Church's power of traction that in many instances
would avail to change "I cannot go to church this morning" into "I
cannot stay away."

It will be urged as a counter-argument to these considerations that
the thing is impossible, that such a measure of enrichment is
entirely in excess of anything the Church has expressed a wish
to have, and that for reviewers to propose a plan so sweeping would
be suicide. Doubtless this might be a sufficient answer to anybody
who imagined that by a bare majority vote of two successive General
Conventions new formularies of daily worship could be forced upon
the Church. But suppose such formularies were to be made _optional_;
suppose there were to be given to parishes the choice between these
three things, viz.: (_a_) the normal Morning Prayer; (_b_) a
shortened form of the normal Morning Prayer; and (_c_) such a
special order as has been sketched--what then? Would the Church's
liberty be impaired! On the contrary, would not the borders of that
liberty have been most wisely and safely widened by the steady hand
of law?

This is perhaps the right point at which to call attention to the
present state of the "shortened services" controversy, for wearisome
as the story has become by frequent repetition, the nexus between
it and the subject in hand is too important to be left out of sight.

In the General Convention of 1877, where the topic under its
American aspects was for the first time thoroughly discussed,
the two Houses came to a deadlock. The deputies on the one hand,
almost to a man, voted in favor of giving the desired relief by
rubric, thus postponing for three years' time the fruition of
their wish; while the bishops with a unanimity understood to have
been equally striking insisted that a simple canon, such as could
be passed at once, would suffice. And so the subject dropped.

At the